Nozoe Kuniaki (野副州旦) ousted former President of Fujitsu

Over the weekend it has emerged that Nozoe Kuniaki (野副州旦), the financially savvy president of Fujitsu, who “resigned due to health reasons” (病気療養 byoki ryoyo) back in Sep ‘09 was actually blackmailed into resigning by Akikusa Naoyuki (秋草直之), another former president of the company.  note: Akikusa is famous for destroying 91% of shareholder value during his five year reign at the top of Fujitsu and blaming it on his employees who “don’t work hard enough”.

Perhaps it is more fitting to use the word “coup.”  At 8:30AM on Sep 25, 2009, Thirty minutes before their regular directors meeting was scheduled to start, Nozoe was summoned into a small room by Akikusa and Mazuka Michiyoshi (間塚道義), the man to be elected as his replacement ninety minutes later.  Nozoe was told that they had dirt on a company that he had close dealings with and so he must retire immediately.  In the press conference later that day, the new president told the press that Nozoe had asked permission to focus on his health (取締役会の前に直接、治療に専念したいため社長の職をまっとうできない) but that he couldn’t discuss the details as they were private.  The financial world watched as Fujitsu’s share price lost over 12% in the following two weeks as they waited for a better explanation.  None came.  Nozoe wasn’t seen again at the company again (despite remaining an “advisor to the board”) nor did ever hold a press conference.  All a bit of a surprise for a man who promised to deliver Fujitsu’s highest historical profit only three months earlier and was deemed to have a perfect bill of health at his regular check-up at St. Luke’s Hospital.

The stock plummeted for good reason.  For the first time in over a decade, the market had liked what it was hearing from Fujitsu’s president.   Even though Nozoe was only at the helm of Fujitsu for 15 months, the stock outperformed NEC, their closest competitor by 25% because he was willing to make courageous decisions to make Fujitsu a viable company in the 21st Century.  But as is quite often the case, what is loved by the share-market is not always popular amongst staff. His smarter (but internally despised) moves include:

• Selling Fujitsu’s perpetually loss making HDD business to Toshiba and it’s HD media business to Showa Denko (Feb 17, 2009).
• Trying to merge Fujitsu’s semi-conductor business with NEC Electronics.  (NEC Electronics shunned them to chose Renesas to partner with instead).  Instead Nozoe chose to outsource production to Taiwan’s TSMC (April 30, 2009).  This made over 2,000 Fujitsu jobs redundant.

Both of these businesses have been a drag on the bottom line for almost a decade that neither Akikusa (president 1998-2003) nor Hiroaki Kurokawa (黒川博昭, his direct predecessor: president 2003-2008) had the courage to pull the plug on.  In fact both former presidents were famous for being soft on the management in these two divisions who knew that if they bowed their heads deeply and asked politely for one more chance that they would never be turned down.  By contrast, Nozoe was economically rational, quick to move and wasn’t shy about it.  Apparently on the day of the sale of the HDD business he was walking around saying that the head of the division had “gracefully committed suicide” (潔く腹をかっさばいたな) by refusing to focus on profit.

While the sale of these two huge divisions were the most controversial, during his short time he also managed to merge several other problematic subsidiaries (which had become popular havens for “retired” Fujitsu managers) and came close to selling Nifty (their internet provider subsidiary).   While he’d be praised for his decisiveness in the States, this doesn’t win you any friends in Japan.  Low and behold, it turns out that Nozoe spent a significant time in America when he personally took charge of a significant patent case that the company was fighting against IBM.

Unfortunately, the concept that a company is solely owned by its shareholders just does not fly in Japan.  Corporate law states that a company is to be run for all of its stakeholders (including employees, customers, etc etc) and that is often interpreted to mean everyone but shareholders.  Clearly this guy has been stabbed in the back by unhappy employees after he made some difficult decisions in the interest of the company that jeopardised a few fat pay checks.  If that had happened at the mid-management level then it would be slightly more understandable, but the fact that such crass politics can be allowed to impact the choice of CEO of a listed company is worrying.  Surely the board has fiduciary duties to protect the long-term interests of the company (for both share holders and employees) and not the short term interests of a few disgruntled senior citizens?

The questions that this drama has brought up do not stop there.  What sort of corporate governance exists in a company where a failed former CEO can remain on the board for seven years after he supposedly retired?  It wouldn’t surprise me if this was a family run company and the Don of the family was lingering behind the scenes but Akikusa certainly is not that.  In fact Akikusa – who has been sitting on the Fujitsu board for an amazing 22 years! – only owns 15,000 shares in Fujitsu (not even US$100,000 worth!).  Surely that in itself states pretty clearly that Fujitsu doesn’t believe in aligning senior management’s incentives with shareholders.  While there isn’t a huge difference between 21 and 22 years, it is probably also worth mentioning here that when Akikusa “stood down” as Chairman in 2008 he did so claiming that he would only remain on the board for a year to assist the “transition”.  Not only has he assisted in firing a talented CEO, he has also somehow managed to continue to control the company for seven years after he stepped down as President.  (Please refer to second paragraph for reference to Akikusa’s management ability).  Apparently it was Akikusa who “suggested” who the new CEO should be to replace Nozoe in the board meeting that followed the negotiated dismissal.

Of course, this has been all over the news in Japan. While not telling the full story, this news clip gives a brief overview of what happened:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Feel free to add your comments below, but other particular questions that cross my mind regarding the incident are:

• Don’t shareholders have the right to understand the real reasons behind changes in senior management? Shouldn’t the new CEO be punished for blatantly lying to the public post the Coup?  (The TSE in fact does have a rule requiring listed companies to explain the reasons behind changes in company representatives (代表権のある役員の移動に関する適切な公表の義務))
• Shouldn’t the entire board be involved in decisions regarding the appointment of the CEO/President of a company?  Why wasn’t the issue discussed thirty minutes later in the board room?  Fujitsu has four “independent” directors but what monitoring role did they play in this situation?  Surely this just supports the theory that “independent” directors in Japan are merely there as a favour to the senior management and have no intention to actually act on behalf of shareholders.  (It is even more depressing when you realise that one of Fujitsu’s independent directors is a representative of Fuji Electric who owns a 10% stake in Fujitsu).
• The allegations were that Nozoe had direct links with a company that was a front for the Yakuza.  Nozoe claims that there are no links between the company that he had dealings with and the Yakuza and that he was never shown any proof suggesting so of the links.  Better yet, it appears that the assumption of guilt was based on a rumour heard from a stock broker.  As anyone who has read Tokyo Vice will realise, it is extremely difficult to find reliable information in Japan about which companies really are fronts for the Yakuza but that still doesn’t suggest that acting on hearsay is a way to manage a multi-billion dollar company.  Nozoe (through his lawyer) has since requested (Feb 26) that the company give him the opportunity to state his case to the board and also conduct a detailed investigation into the corporate governance standards in the firm.  Regardless of the truth, it sounds like a great idea.  Surely if the current management was confident in their decision then they should not be afraid of such an inquiry.  He also requested that they reinstate him as President of the company.  Good luck to him.
• Let us for a moment assume that Nozoe really was connected to the Yakuza.  Wow.  TSE listing rules clearly state clearly that companies with links to the underworld will be de-listed.  That should be an even bigger headline.  Could we even go as far as to say that current Fujitsu management was aiding and abetting the links to the Yakuza by not exposing the association?

While Fujitsu has been careful not to go into too much detail in its official announcement regarding the decision (link to English statement here) it seems as though the allegations went something like this:

• Nozoe was pushing the company to sell its stake in Nifty (www.nifty.com – their internet provider subsidiary).
• The favored buyer, was a company run by a close acquaintance of Nozoe (this itself is a huge conflict of interest if you ask me but perhaps that is a little more acceptable in Japan Inc.)
• A broker that Fujitsu had dealings with suggested that there may be some “reputational risk” involved with a fund that may have invested money in the potential buyer.  (Reading between the lines this means that the buyer was a front for the Yakuza and was channelling black market cash into the acquisition via an investment fund.
• The first time this situation was explained to Nozoe he agreed to cease negotiations with that party, but for some reason allowed the same close acquaintance to continue to be involved in the transaction.
• The board members who staged the coup felt that this was not in the spirit of the “Fujitsu Way” and hence demanded his resignation at the same time as insinuating that if he did not resign immediately, Fujitsu would definitely be de-listed.
• Five senior managers who were staffed on the Nifty case were immediately fired or demoted following the coup.

To be clear, even the company’s official explanation (the new one) states that Nozoe did not do anything illegal.  So far the stock price has failed to react very much to this news (-3% the day after the announcement).  What does this mean for Fujitsu shareholders?  If the company is really only -3% worse off then does that mean that investors never really did expect that corporate governance standards were being met even at such a large company?

Vaccinations in Japan are different than in the West - there are important points that you should know, because your Japanese doctor may not.

There are two very important things to know about new born vaccinations in Japan:

1. Japan doesn’t immunise for as many diseases as is standard in the West.
2. Japan has developed its own domestic vaccines for most diseases which means that they are not compatible with vaccinations taken for the same disease in other countries.

At the time of writing, the recommended injections for newborns in Japan (i.e. those that are provided free of charge to residents) are as follows:

The yobosesshu brand - Japanese babies will wear this mark with them until adulthood and beyond

• BCG (結核予防法) → at birth
• Diphtheria(ジフテリア) → 2, 4 and 6 months
• Pertussis(百日咳) → 2, 4 and 6 months
• Tetanus (破傷風) → 2, 4 and 6 months
• Polio (ポリオ) → 2, 4 and 6 months

In addition to these diseases, Hong Kong, for example, also recommends (and provides free of charge) vaccinations for the following diseases:

• Hepatitis B (Ｂ型肝炎) → 2, 4 and 6 months
• HiB (ヘモフィラス・インフルエンザ菌タイプB) → 2, 4 and 6 months
• Pneumococcal conjugate (PCV) (肺炎球菌結合ワクチン) → 2, 4 and 6 months
• Rota Virus (ロタウィルス) → 2, 4 and sometimes also 6 months

According to our paediatrician who was educated in London and Australia, both Australia and most of Europe vaccinate for the same diseases as Hong Kong. I’m assuming that they are all copy cats of the UK standard. Furthermore, each of these countries uses the same brand of vaccinations so your child isn’t going to have any problems if you travel between those countries. On the other hand, when we found ourselves in Japan 4 months after my son’s birth we realised that we’d created two problems for ourselves: (1) we were half way through vaccinations for diseases that Japanese paediatricians hadn’t even heard about (e.g. rota virus) and (2) we couldn’t even complete the four diseases that Japan also immunises for, as Japanese hospitals use domestically developed brands that aren’t compatible with the first two rounds that we’d taken overseas. Don’t let a Japanese doctor fool you on this point. They are not compatible.

This is an interesting chart (source) that makes a comparison of the standard Japanese vaccination schedule with that of the United States. Could be a good one to take with you when you visit your Japanese GP, to spur discussion about how he/she needs to help you:

It is actually possible to receive a hepatitis B vaccination in Japan if you pay for it yourself so I guess it is unfair to include it in the second list although it is not standard and most children don’t receive it. I’ve also heard that the HiB vaccine is very close to approval in Japan as well. Even if it is improved, it is unlikely that it will be included on the free list of vaccinations for several years so will probably be in the same basket as the hepatitis B vaccination.

It might seem like a lot of injections for your baby to receive but in actual fact almost all of these injections are administered at the same time. If you find a friendly paediatrician in Japan then you will probably get diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus together in one injection called a DPT (三種混合, sanshu kongo) which reduces some of the shock to the poor little kid. If you’re unlucky, your paediatrician might

Some clinics in Japan will give vaccinations the Western way - at 2 months the baby receives all of them at the same time with simultaneous jabs in both legs

It only took a few phone calls to leading hospitals in Osaka and Tokyo to realise that no public hospitals were able to administer any vaccinations other than those officially recommended by the Japanese government. They recommended me to try and find a small private hospital that might be importing the drugs on a proprietary basis. After smiling and dialling every international sounding private hospital I could think of in Osaka, Kobe and Tokyo, I was proudly offered various combinations of DPT and a bunch of branded vaccines that I’d never heard of. I thought I’d almost struck gold with a small practice in Hiro (広尾), until the senior doctor (院長先生, inchosensei) – who will remain unnamed – started trying to convince me that both brands of the rota virus vaccination were interchangeable. It scares me to think how many unsuspecting parents take their children to that guy and get the wrong vaccination!

Anyway to cut a long story short, I was only able to find one hospital that was able to administer each of the injections for us. Here are their details:

Tokyo Medical and Surgical Clinic
Address: 32 Shiba koen Building 2F,
3-4-30 Shiba-koen, Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-0011
Telephone: 03-3436-3028 (24 hours)
Fax: 03-3436-5024

Unfortunately for families coming from Australia, they only had Rotarix (and not Rotateq which is standard in Australia) for the rota virus at that time but that might change in the future. I highly recommend them for the other vaccinations and their professionalism. At the time of writing these vaccinations cost a hefty 80,000 yen for one round of all 8. For obvious reasons, it is nice to have an insurance policy that covers these payments – but it will have to be private as the clinic is not recognised by the Japanese health insurance system. While my focus has been on newborns, parents of children who are either 12 months or 4 years old will probably want to know what the story is with chicken pox, mumps, measles and rubella. All of these injections are available in Japan, but only measles and rubella are provided free to residents. Whereas the west generally administers measles, mumps and rubella together in a 3-in-one injection called MMR, for some reason Japan doesn’t include mumps and just gives an “MR”. It’s worth confirming the brand that you used for the first round at 12 months if you are giving the 4 year booster to your child for the same reason as mentioned above.

Lets us know about your yobosesshu experiences in Japan, or for that matter, anywhere else. It’s a fascinating topic, but sometimes a scary one, especially when it involves your own little one.

Where does the money come from? Everywhere you travel in regional Japan there seem to always be new highways under construction

So after all of that rhetoric about abolishing road tolls (高速道路無料化法案), Hatoyama has decided to rethink his plan and only allocate 1/6 of the original budget detailed in their manifesto.  Until last week, I, like 65% of Japanese voters, actually wanted him to scrap the entire plan altogether.  I happened across some insightful interviews with the academics who originally proposed the policy and have since gained some insight into where the concept came from.  How does Hatoyama look at himself in the mirror after promising that Japan will cut green-house gas reductions by 25%?   It turns out that there are significant structural problems with the current toll system and even a few environmental arguments behind scrapping them. Would you believe it?

While I would have structured the policy quite differently myself, I was quite disappointed with myself for being so completely fooled by the LDP propaganda and related rhetoric from the media surrounding the issue.  As Hatoyama said when he scrapped the policy, they were thoroughly defeated by opposition propaganda in selling the concept.  Since I haven’t seen any balanced pieces in the English media either, I thought I would share “the other side” of the argument with you.

The real issues surrounding Japan’s highway tolls are surprisingly similar to those that became the catalyst for the privatisation of the post office.  Especially in the countryside, LDP cronies have bought votes from the construction industry by supporting unnecessary public works projects.  The post office is guilty as 80% of the money deposited in the Post Office bank (195 trillion yen!) is used to buy JGBs (Japanese Government Bonds).  The government then uses the cash obtained from selling the JGBs to fund this endless construction work.  If the buyers of JGBs were normal investors (i.e. economically rational) then they would require the government to spend the cash on economically viable projects and hence force the government into contemplating ROI.  Lucky for the Japanese Government, they have never had to justify the use of its cash (read: irrelevant Keynesian public works projects) to JDB investors as they have always had a “buyer of last resort” in the post office.  Privatizing the post office meant that the government/LDP could no longer manipulate the cash in the Post Office Bank for political purposes.

It cost 50 yen to use the Tokyo Shutoko Expressway back when it was opened in 1962.

So what has this got to do with road tolls?  Let’s go back about 40 years to the end of the 60s, when Japan was starting to catch up with the West.  The government was desperate to improve the efficiency of domestic logistics and began to build a highway connecting Tokyo and Kobe.  Welcome the first ever toll road in Japan.  In order to convince the populous, the government promised that they would remove the toll within 30 years as they would have repaid the entire loan necessary for the construction of the road.  Thirty years equates to 1992 for Nagoya-Kobe (名神高速, meishin kosoku) and 1999 for Tokyo-Nagoya (東名高速, toumei kosoku).

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work out that we are still paying tolls today despite passing those deadlines over ten years ago. Because Kakuei Tanaka (田中角栄), the Prime Minister in 1972, realized that he could use the cash generated from these two profitable highways to subsidize uneconomic road construction in the countryside (read: LDP stronghold).  He hired Dentsu (電通) to come up with the catch phrase “Revamp the Archipelago” (nihon retto kaizo ron, 日本列島改造論) in order to hide what was actually referred to as the “Sharing Around The Cash” system (ryokin puru sei, 料金プール制).  Now, thanks to Tanaka, the government has a whopping 2.5 trillion yen of cash every year to build bridges to nowhere in their regional sandpits.

Japan's annual budget for road construction runs rings around other countries in this international comparison

The debt that Japan borrowed from the World Bank to build these toll roads was fully repaid in 1990 – ten years faster than they had predicted!  However, for some reason (read: the LDP policy to “buy a vote with a road”) the public corporation managing Japan’s roads (高速道路機構, kosoku doro kiko) still has a whopping 30 trillion yen of debt.  Better yet, they also have plans (implemented by the LDP) to shoulder a further 20 trillion yen of debt between now and 2050 to build more roads in remote places.  Oh my Buddha!  Will someone please tell them that Japan has enough roads already (see chart showing Japan’s disproportionately large annual spend on roads). Think how many roads you could build with 20 trillion yen!

Getting rid of highway tolls means that making the plans to borrow another 20 trillion yen to build meaningless roads infeasible.  More to the point, it means getting rid of another 2.5 trillion yen that the LDP wants to use to line the pockets of regional construction companies should they ever get back into power.  That is why Ichiro Ozawa (小沢一郎, the real brains behind the Hatoyama government) was so keen to push through this legislation.  (Ironically, the same rationale should argue that it doesn’t make sense for the DPJ to halt the privatisation process of the Post Office but that is another story).  Even if the DPJ does back pedal on the size of the discounts it is vital that they abolish this system.

Perhaps a smarter solution to the problem would have been to merely change the name of the tax and dedicate the same 2.5 trillion yen to environmental issues.  I think you could make a similar argument for their recently rethought attempts to cut the current 0.6 trillion yen “temporary” tax on gasoline (ガソリン税の暫定税率の廃止, gasorin zei no zantei zeiritu no haishi) that has been in place since 1974.  Let’s not forget that a socialist party should be all about high taxes and high public spending.  The DPJ seem to think that they can achieve high public spending with reduced taxes.  I’m not so sure how sustainable that is.

The vast majority of Japan's huge network of express-ways aren't being used

The other problem with both the gasoline tax and toll roads is how it impacts greenhouse gas emissions.  Interestingly, Yasuyo Yamazaki (山崎養世), ex-Goldman Sachs Asset Management CEO and the man who first proposed cutting Japan’s road tolls, claims that it could actually cut green house emissions!?  Honmakaina I hear you shout!  Here are the skin and bones of his theory:

• Currently 65% of Japan’s highways are severely underutilised and only 5% are subject to congestion.  The primary reason for this is that they are so expensive.  (At an average of 25 yen per km, a car traveling at 100km/hr would be paying 2,500 yen per hour!)  Free highways will mean that this infrastructure doesn’t go to waste.
• Engine idling at traffic lights is the biggest culprit when it comes to auto CO2 emissions.  A shift of traffic from the highly congested local roads (with lots of traffic lights) to the existing highways (without traffic lights) should reduce CO2 emissions by as much as 3 million tonnes.
• The underutilised land in service areas and parking areas across the nation is said to be worth about 10 trillion yen.  With more traffic, the value of the real-estate should be substantially higher and hence create significant opportunities for profit through redevelopment.
• Economic projections by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (国土交通省, kokudokotsusho ß why is the name so much simpler in Japanese?) suggest that the economic impact of cutting tolls could be as high as 7.8 trillion yen.  The biggest beneficiaries would be trucking companies that use the nationwide infrastructure daily and ideally their clients should too as the trucking companies subsequently lower their prices.  (Note from the editor: Given that the annual revenue from tolls is only 2.5 trillion yen I guess they are assuming a Keynesian multiplier of 3! Hmmm…)
• Many people who don’t have cars and live in big cities argue for a user-pays approach to funding Japan’s highways.  The irony is that we are all paying these tolls indirectly every time we buy meat, fruit and vegetables that were produced in other parts of the country.  Free tolls should mean lower grocery bills, especially for people living in big cities.  (This is included in the 7.8 trillion yen figure mentioned above and one of the key reasons why the Keynsian multiplier is assumed to be quite large)

The biggest flaw in this argument is that auto traffic has an uncanny ability to grow indefinitely until it meets the capacity of roads available.  Just read Ben Elton’s “Grid Lock.”    Removing the tolls will just see an increase in auto traffic greater than Japan has ever seen before.  This of course would be a huge boon to Toyota and the other Japanese auto-makers.  Maybe that is another hidden motivation for the government as they try to turn around the floundering economy.

Their current proposal for changing the policy would be to only scrap the tolls on rural highways and even then to introduce pricing ceilings for daily use: 5,000 yen for trucks and 1,000 yen for cars.  If they really believed in the Keynesian multiplier effect of the cost saved in cutting infrastructure costs then surely they would be charging cars 2,000 yen and making trucks free?  This would be hard to push by voters, yes, but true to the original thesis behind the policy.  You do remember why you proposed the policy, right Yukio?

At the end of the day Japan just cannot afford to scrap existing tax revenues – especially less controversial ones.  With a whopping 200% of its GDP in gross government debt (the highest amongst G20 by a factor of almost 2x), Japan needs all of the extra income it can earn to pad its coffers.  Despite being a left-wing party, there are plenty of ex-bankers within the DPJ.  They get it and they realise the huge sacrifice they are making in scrapping road tolls.  The fact that they refuse to scrap it completely shows you just how powerful that cash was in buying votes for the LDP.  Even if they redirected the money earned from tolls to welfare, they must assume that the LDP will reverse any changes as soon as they take power again.  Abolishing tolls seems to be all about abolishing any chance for the LDP to ever reinstate another “sharing around the cash” system.

Has this article changed your view?  If so, let us know in the comments section below.

E-Commerce in Japan is a growing trend - and becoming accessible in English too

This increase in attention of online retail is happening for a number of reasons. Firstly, it (actually the internet in general) is a growth industry. People are moving online to shop at a rapid rate, and in the midst of the global recession, traditional concerns regarding security and privacy are taking a back-seat to convenience and price. In addition to this, the turmoil that has been brought about by the recession has brought strong attention to old and antiquated business models that are no longer going to work. Online retail offers cheaper overheads, cheaper marketing costs, and a growing global customer base, and therefore is emerging as one of the new beacons of hope in an otherwise fairly depressing global economy.

Online shopping has been firmly established in Japan thanks to the likes of early adopters such as Yahoo Japan and Rakuten, and also equally in part to the development of Japan’s lightning fast internet and amazingly reliable logistics industry (think Sagawa and Kuroneko Takkubin etc). It always amazes me how quickly these guys can get things to your door, even in the pouring rain! In fact, this infrastructure has allowed Amazon Japan to offer same-day delivery for some items ordered online over the Christmas season. Considering the actual time it takes to take an item from a shelf, throw it in a truck, and actually drive it to your door, there must be almost zero down-time, especially if you live in the sticks! Again, pretty amazing. Walmart in the US is offered a new drive-through service during Christmas, where shoppers could buy products online, and they were ready at the next drive-through window for shoppers to pick up. Close, but no cigar compared to Amazon Japan. Another area which has contributed to establishing online retail in Japan is Japanese companies’ focus on creating a reliable site and credibility with their customers, making the experience as safe and anshin (安心) as possible.

As global online retail sales increase, there are a growing number of small and innovative companies to carve out a piece for themselves and take on the likes of Amazon, Ebay, and Yahoo Japan. However, while the barriers of entry are low, the costs of running an online retail business relatively low, and marketing costs (email and viral etc) can also be very low, the profit margins can also be low and therefore require a high turnover to stay in the game. It’s a typical snowball pattern, where it’s very difficult at the beginning, but if you can start gathering some pace, then the company can grow fast and it can be difficult to take down. First-mover advantage is also vital, especially in Japan. Due to these factors, it is hard to imagine anyone replacing Yahoo Japan or Rakuten in Japan in the near future.

However, giving the potential prize for the biggest snowball, and the global nature of the business, there are some fascinating innovations in the industry at the moment, providing ways to market more items to more people.

Recently many English Language sites are emerging - they offer the latest in Japanese fashion to the world, a market that more traditional Japanese language sites have so far failed to exploit

We also think that the market for supplying Japanese products to the rest of the world is increasing, and there are a bunch of new sites doing so in both English and Chinese.

Over 6 years old, Rinkya.com is possibly the oldest (and largest) company in this market, and has built a nice niche for itself. Rinkya is an English language online auction and shopping site based in Tokyo, which allows foreigners to bid for and buy items in English from Japan’s e-commerce sites such as Yahoo Japan and Rakuten. Rinkya layers a translation engine on top of the sites, so users can browse and buy in English. As this can be used on any online retail site in Japan, it gives users access to a huge selection of Japan’s products sold online. While those naysayers in the translation industry or those who have been in Japan for a while will say that machine translations are still too primitive and will never be perfect, Rinkya has proved that they are in fact sufficient for an effective level of interaction, and that form indeed follows function. Interestingly, Rakuten, Nissen (through jshoppers.com) and others are now trying to do the same thing with limited success. We put this down to their lack of understanding of how to market to and how to handle a foreign client base.

Following Rinkya’s lead, the number of companies trying to bridge the gap between Japan and overseas, is growing. Netprice (again), began last year providing a Japanese language service Tenso.com to post items from Japan overseas for Japanese who had bought things online from Yahoo or Rakuten, who didn’t post directly at that time. Based on this success, they then took the next step and early in 2009, launched into China, through cooperation with Alibaba, to sell their wealth of Japanese goods into China in Chinese through Alibaba’s online retail site Taobao.com.

In addition, sites such as HanbuyJapan.com, Flutterscape.com, and Japantrendshop.com care of trend consultants CScout, are trying various approaches to promote Japanese good overseas. Despite the state of the economy, the mind-set of Japanese is likely to remain the same in terms of a focus on making quality products. And with the growth rates of global online retail and the further expansion of the internet itself, we expect to see more innovative sites and ideas in the near future. Take a look at a few of the sites above, they offer an excellent range of quality Japanese goods, at competitive prices, and best of all – in English!

Locomoco Burger at Pocke Farm in Okinawa - Not as nice looking as the one on the menu but the wholemeal buns made up for it

Unfortunately, it is a long drive up to Churaumi and there isn’t a lot to do along the way. When I was visiting there last we decided to stop by the “American Village” in Chatan (北谷) to break up the trip. It’s just to the south of Camp Foster (キャンプ瑞慶覧) and Camp Lester (キャンプ桑江).

Although I didn’t see too many Village People (or Americans for that fact) there, “American Village” is a low rise shopping mall that was developed on the site of an old American air-force base runway. I suppose it is Okinawa’s answer to Odaiba (お台場) only a little more compact. While my ladies were walking around the fashion outlets there, I decided what better way could there be to kill the time than by munching down on a hamburger. Low and behold, within the section of the village called “American Depot” there was a quaint looking little hamburger joint called Pocke Farm so I decided to pay them a visit. (This is the 4th in our “Japan’s best burger series – here are the 1st, 2nd and 3rd in case you missed them).

Shop front of Pocke Farm in Okinawa

Pocke Farm is like one of those little huts run by Filipinos that you’d expect to find in a Hawaiian parking lot. The shop itself is just a small box adjacent to American Depot but it does have quite a spacious deck “out the back” for customers to sit down and enjoy their hamburgers so it actually pulls off a high score when it comes to atmosphere (especially on one of those rare Okinawa sunny days).

Open deck seating at Pocke Farm scores high on atmosphere points

The menu is a bit of a mix of American, TexMex and Hawaiian fast food. I’m not sure why that doesn’t really strike me as strange but I guess it is a bit of a common theme across Okinawa. Apparently they recommend the Spam Thick’n Chunky Egg Sandwich (スパムチャンキーエッグサンド 580 yen or $5.75)

Pocke Farm - Thick 'n' Chunky Spam Sandwich

I decided to try their “locomoco burger sandwich” (photo at top of article – 680 yen or $6.75). Why not? Okinawa was the closest I was going to get to Hawaii for a while. In addition to the standard lettuce and tomato, the locomoco burger has a fried egg, sunny side up, and home made demi-glace sauce (if you dont know what locomoco means click here). I’m a sucker for words like “original recipe” and “home-made” when it comes to my burgers and having demi-glace sauce on my burger sounded a whole lot better than some runny gravy. While it might seem like a strange thing to say, the buns were pretty good on the burger. The buns are the same on all of their hamburger sandwiches and are baked freshly every day using a secret recipe that contains cereal. They have quite a whole-meal flavour to them so you almost feel as though you’re eating a health food.

You can see the photo of my actual “locomoco burger sandwich” at the top of this article. It was nowhere near as pretty as the photo at the cash register but it tasted fine. The salad was fresh and the pattie was a normal size. At the time I was very tempted to give them two Stippies for the home-made bread and demi-glace sauce but in retrospect I think it is probably only worth one. Perhaps if the weather was better and they sold beer from the Kona brewery instead of just corona and Budweiser, I might have been fooled into giving it the extra stippy. To put it in context, this was the first hamburger that I ate in Okinawa after being pretty disappointed at Jef and AW so I was pretty easily pleased. That said, the place was very popular and I would definitely recommend grabbing a quick bite there if you’re visiting American Village around afternoon tea time.

Pocke Farm - All prices in JPY and USD (spelling?)

As with nearly every hamburger joint I’ve visited so far in Japan, for some reason they can’t spell English that well. Albeit it was only one letter but you would think that a hamburger restaurant in a shopping centre called “American Village” that was built on an old American air-force runway right next to two existing American bases would be able to spell HAMBURGER! (My Engrish photo of hamburger spelt “hanburger” at a hamburger shop didn’t turn out so well.. so you’ll have look for it when you visit!).

Pocke Farm [ポッケファーム]
Address: 9-4 Mihama, Chatan, Nakagami, Okinawa (沖縄県中頭郡北谷町字美浜9-4)
Telephone: 098-982-7790

Hours: 11AM-10PM

Website (Japanese only): http://www.depot-abc.com/pockefarm/index.html

The New Keisei Skyliner Express - Tokyo to Narita Airport in just 36 minutes - but what's the catch?

Seems too good to be true.

So what’s catch? Well the first, and rather predictable, piece of fine print is how they measure the travel time. 36 minutes is the time needed to travel from Nippori （日暮里駅）to Narita’s Terminal 2 Station (空港第2ビル駅). Presumably if you get on at Ueno （上野駅）and have to use Terminal 1 （成田空港）then it will take closer to 40 minutes. That itself is not a deal breaker. Perhaps the bigger problem for most of us is the location of Keisei’s existing stations in Nippori and Ueno. Unless you live on the Yamanote Line (山手線) or in one of the many cardboard boxes in Ueno Park, neither are really that benri (便利, convenient.) It doesn’t help that JR’s Nippori Station is one of the only JR stations in the capital to have neither an escalator nor an elevator. Even if the new Keisei Nippori Station will be completely barrier free like they are promising, it is of little consolation to those of us who have to lug our family’s heavy suitcases up the stairs on the JR side in order to get there.

Here is the detailed PR video (in Japanese) that will give you a run-down of more details:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Narita Sky Access – 36 minutes/2400 yen/62.0km Between Nippori and Narita:
The new train will be known officially as: “Narita Sky Access” (成田スカイアクセス), and the fare from Nippori to Narita Airport will be consistent with the current Keisei offering of 2400 yen. This makes it not only faster than JRs N’EX (Narita Express) offering, but also cheaper.

The next best news – apart from cutting off 15 minutes from the existing travel time – is that trains will be really frequent. In addition to the 3 express trains (特急) that will continue to run the existing (51 minute) route to the airport from Ueno, there will be 3 Sky Liners and 3 express trains running every hour on the new route. That’s 9 trains an hour to Narita from Ueno. That’s even better than Hong Kong’s Airport Express (機場快綫, 5 trains per hour) which anyone who has used will agree is a very efficient system. How will the Narita Express (N’EX) be able to compete with its frustrating 2 trains per hour timetable? (Currently Keisei has 55% of the market for train passengers to Narita but this is bound to increase post 2010.)

Inside the new Keisei Skyliner

Apparently the government isn’t too happy about this as the Transport Ministry (国道交通省, kokudokotsusho) want to cut the travel time between Narita and Haneda dramatically before the runway expansions planned at each airport are completed in 2012. Fat chance of that. Keisei’s management have made it clear that it would be impossible without more tunnel space at some key stations on the subway line that would enable an express train to overtake the normal slower trains. But hold on a second, the government is talking about shaving off over 40 minutes from the current travel time (106 min à 65 min). That’s going to take more than just a bit of improvising underground near Asakusabashi (浅草橋駅).

So I can hear you thinking it over. What if they did get their act together and link Narita and Haneda with a high-speed express train? Would I use it? Is the Asakusa Line really that much more helpful compared to say catching a bus from Narita to a more convenient location? This is the icing on the cake for those of you who plan to be in Tokyo long term. Unless Hatoyama scraps it, the government will start including funds in their budget from this year enough to build a new station on the Asakusa Line that links it directly to Tokyo Station (東京駅) by 2015. Nice. I’m not quite sure how it would work exactly. It’s supposed to be somewhere between Takaramachi (宝町駅 ) and Nihonbashi (日本橋駅) but that smells to me of another long, sweaty underground walk like they have at the existing Nihonbashi station for the Asakusa Line. It all sounds a little too aggressive to me. I don’t think I would bank on it being completed on time especially since Ishihara wasn’t successful with his bid for the 2016 Olympics. Fat chance.

Ueto Aya at the kick-off press conference of the New Skyliner

But doesn’t that just strike you as poor planning? Why on earth wouldn’t JR have extended the shinkansen to reach Narita? They could have at least built their existing line on a wider gauge size so that they could potentially upgrade it one day. Funny you should ask. I’d always blamed this gross inefficiency on the ex-bureaucrats at JR but it turns out we have the selfless Japanese people to blame for that hour of pain we experience every time we travel out to Narita. Yep, the bureaucrats had it right. The national government actually approved the construction of a Narita Shinkansen (成田新幹線) and even purchased acres of land in Tokyo and Chiba before the idea was scrapped. At the time, the politically powerful residents of East Tokyo, Chiba and also the left-wing were up in arms at the idea of building a noisy train through their backyards that wouldn’t even stop near their houses. Sounds like that old lady who refused to sell her house to the Narita Airport and now lives right under the flight path of the second runway. Edogawa Ward (江戸川区) actually took the Minister for Transport (運輸大臣) to the Supreme Court in order to stop the construction!!

If you’ve ever gone to Disneyland then I’m sure you’ve wondered why the underground station for the Keiyo line (京葉線) at Tokyo Station is in such an inconvenient place? Well that “hole in the ground” was originally planed for the shinkansen station (as they were going to continue it through to Shinjuku). After canceling the shinkansen the government had to come up with an excuse to “use” the hole and hence we have the Keiyo Line. They also spent 90 billion yen building a meaningless piece of track from Narita to Tsuchiya (土屋) called the Narita Airport High Speed Rail. Oh, and you guessed it. It was completed 15 years behind schedule AND wasn’t even high speed! Because they built it on small 1067mm tracks, Keisei has had to build another wider line right next to it in order to complete their real “High Speed” railway! Gotta love JR.

I wonder how much the new train will cost passengers to use. The Hokuso Line that it will be an extension of is pretty expensive at the moment (It currently costs 1070 yen just to get from Nippori to Imba Nippon Medical School (印旛日本医大駅, Imbanipponidai) which is about the price you pay to get all the way to Narita on the existing Keisei line if you don’t use the Sky Liner. But hey, even if it costs 3,000 yen like the Narita Express it is still probably worth it for returning that extra 15 minutes of your life that JR robs from us each time. And I’m sure that the regular express will be cheaper for the day before pay day.

Here is the plan, for where the new track will run. It really seems to cut a beeline for the airport:

So back to my original worry: Where should I live? Well, if I could bare living out in the boondocks, I guess the obvious places where land prices are likely to rise are where the new express (特急) is scheduled to stop: Takasago (高砂駅), Shin-Kamagaya (新鎌ヶ谷駅), Chiba New Town Central (千葉ニュータウン中央駅), Imba Nippn Medical School and Narita New Town North (成田ニュータウン北駅). Hmmm. That’s a tough call. Nothing against those of you living in Chiba but it just feels soooo far away from it all!

I feel like I’m back at square one. What’s it like living in Takasgo? Where do you think I should live? I look forward to your comments below.

Official site for more information: www.new-skyliner.jp

screen shot of the eco-oto iPhone app (30 second flush selected)

Now, thanks to the “eco-oto” (“エコ音”, which is short for “ecological sound”) iPhone app, you no longer have to feel embarrassed that someone is hearing you take a whiz in a public toilet. Do I hear you saying “Why on earth would I be embarrassed fulfilling a call of nature?” Well there are a few things that you need to know about Japan.

Japanese women are very self-concious about the noise that they make in the bathroom. Maybe it is because there are so many other women hanging out in front of the mirrors doing other things that it is no longer deemed appropriate to have a whiz (or whatever..) in a public toilet anymore. Whatever reason it may be, many toilets in Japan come equipped with a “sound” button on their control panel (if you don’t know why Japanese toilets have a control panel then you have a little catching up to do but unfortunately that it out of scope of this article!). When you press the “sound button” these toilets will play a recording either of some music, or more likely, they replicate the sound of a flushing toilet. The idea is that this sound will drown out the noise of you “fulfilling your duty” on the commode, and hence quash the embarrassment factor of taking a slash.

close up of a real Japanese toilet with a button for making a fake flushing sound

But, there is a problem. Not all public toilets have these cool futuristic control panels. While some people scope out public toilets in advance to make sure that they always know where a safe and noisy toilet is nearby, how embarrassing would it be if you got stuck in a public toilet without such a button!? Well that is what this iPhone app is all about. At the touch of your screen, your iPhone will replicate the sound of… well, a flushing toilet.

The app, which has been on sale in the Apple iPhone app store since last Thursday 5th Nov (link to iTunes Appstore), is designed to be cute and pink and the buttons are large and easy to press so you can even press them if you have long nails. For people who tend to be louder than average, or perhaps for those days after a great curry you can even increase the volume of your simulated flushing sound (think Niagra falls). Better still, you can choose between “flushing water” for 30, 60, 90 and 120 seconds depending on your mood. I personally have no idea how people would ever know which to choose. More to the point, shouldn’t there be a 5 minutes option?

the button to make a flushing sound is big enough to be pressed using the palm side of your finger in case you have long, fancy nails.

The app costs 115 yen or 99 cents and is semi-bilingual (it comes with hilarious Jinglish translations). You can download the app by using this direct link to the iTunes Appstore. Flushed with pride, the company responsible for this app – polygonmagic.com – also made this press release:
http://www.polygonmagic.com/business/ip-ecooto.html.

It’s quite funny, and apart from some of the features mentioned above, Eco-Oto also has the following selling points:

• Very easy for girls to carry around, with a cute & stylish design (its an app for Christ’s sake, how can it not be easy to carry around if you already have the iPhone!)
• Sound level that you use is automatically saved for next time (where would be be without that?)
• The pink dotted indicators slowly flush in towards the middle, to indicate how much more flush time you have (theoretically, this should be longer than your own “steady stream time”)
• The flush button flashes 10 seconds before the sound finishes (to warn you to put the squeeze on the flow – and here I was thinking that this would be delayed until version 2.0!)
• Easy for beginners (well, there is a first time for everything I guess)

Maybe it’s just me but I see this as being the first of a plentitude of similar apps. Just think of the power of the iPhone functionality. You could have one app which created a map of all of the people flushing toilets throughout Japan. Perhaps people could have another button that you press when you didn’t need to use the app so apple could create a nationwide map pointing out user-friendly toilets from embarrassing ones!

Better yet they could create an SNS which alerts you when your friends and other people are flushing nearby… or perhaps it alerts you when they enter a toilet and haven’t started flushing so that you can assist them remotely!? The possibilities are endless.

Do you think you’d ever use an app like this? Is the saving that embarrassment really worth 99 cents? Who on earth are you embarrassed about being heard by anyway? Better yet, share with us in the comments section your ideas for new toilet apps and maybe we can convince the developers to release a stippy toilet app!?

Cabin Attendant with Baby - Travelling with bubs is not as much of a hassle as everyone makes it out to be - especially in Japan. You just have to know the tricks!

I figured that this is particularly relevant to other gaijin daddies out there who either want to take their child “home” to see their half of the family, or, if the child was born and lives outside of Japan, probably have a wife hoping to do the same. When is “too soon” to take your baby on a plane? It seems as though the current consensus is about six weeks but it’s not obvious that there is a lot of medical proof behind this. The six week period also happens to be a defining period in the recuperation of the maternal body and so it seems to me (as a total ignoramus when it comes to medicine) that perhaps the six week start-line is just as much for the mother as it is for the baby. At any rate we jumped on a plane (and a boat!) about two days after my son reached six weeks. No problemo.

The main thing that parents of little children (and other passengers) complain about on planes is crying due to ear pain. While you probably shouldn’t fly when your child has a middle ear infection, if your child is healthy then all you need to do is think of a practical way to encourage him to swallow continuously at the time of decent (contrary to popular belief the change in pressure in your middle ear at take-off isn’t a cause of discomfort, it’s the increase in pressure on descent that can hurt). Feeding is the easiest method. You probably want to start about half an hour before landing as the descent often begins before the fasten-your-seatbelt sign lights up. If you’re breast feeding this is pretty simple. If it’s a short-haul flight you might want to get a window seat for your wife so her oppai (breasts) aren’t seen by too many ero-oyajis. If you’re on the bottle then just make sure you don’t run out at the wrong time. Other things we’ve tried (and succeeded with) include thumbs (both his and mine), stuffed toys with mouth size feet, or some gauze. When they are over six months (not four or five like most Japanese books tell you) and are onto solids we’ve tried rusks and dried apple as well. Not having to think at all about food is the biggest advantage of travelling with a baby under six months, especially a breastfed one. If you’re child is asleep, for some reason unknown to me, there is no need to wake him up on decent. What other things do you need to consider when taking your baby on a plane?

Babies crying in planes annoy everyone - most of all the parents!

• Sleep: babies under three months or so sleep so much of the day there is a good chance they’ll sleep most of the plane trip. This is even more likely if your child goes to sleep easily in your car because he’ll also find the vibration of the plane’s engines very soothing.
• Movement: once your child starts to walk, catching a plane will take on a whole new meaning and you’ll spend your entire flight either entertaining your child or trying to restrain him. Conversely, in their first year of life, babies won’t be moving an inch so that makes them very obedient travellers. In fact, contrary to popular wives tale, a very young baby on a plane is much easier than a baby between one and three years old for exactly this reason.
• Cost: babies under two years of age are free on most airlines although sometimes you might be forced into paying a fuel surcharge for your child regardless of how young they are (with ANA you can avoid paying the fuel surcharge as well – at least for your baby – by using mileage to book your ticket). In order to get your child’s ticket for free, they have to travel on your lap. On long-haul flights you’ll be able to put them in a bassinet if they weigh less than 12kg (i.e. Up until about twelve months) or so and you’re lucky enough to get one (so book it early with the airline). Otherwise they’ll be sitting on your lap.
• Safety: If you’re very safety conscious, you won’t be over the moon to hear that the Japanese carriers don’t provide infant seatbelts (that attach to the one on your lap) on domestic routes. When you consider that the vast majority of in-flight injuries are due to sudden turbulence, I think this is pretty poor and am very close to writing an official complaint to both JAL and ANA. If this worries you too, or you don’t like the idea of your 12kg+ baby sitting on your lap for the whole flight, then it might just be easier to get a separate seat. Unfortunately the discount for children on a seat is minimal so assume you’re paying close to full fare. The other advantage to getting a seat is that it does guarantee your child a pop-down air mask in the case of an accident. Maybe the extra money is worth it for the peace of mind.

Travelling on a plane is nowhere near as bad as people will lead you to think and neither is travelling by boat, bus, or most other forms of transport. Just remember – don’t be discouraged to travel just because you have a small baby – especially in Japan. Travelling in this country revolves around eating tasty (and healthy) food, being treated like a King and relaxing in a hot tub. Especially if you’re wife is having trouble breast feeding, you might be pleasantly surprised: The warm, therapeutic waters of an onsen (温泉、hot springs) , and even your own bath at home to be honest, are known to stimulate milk production. My wife claims that her best milk producing days ever (in terms of quantity) were in the few days we stayed at Beppu Onsen (別府温泉) six weeks after our son was born. Although I’ve searched quite a bit on the web, I’m not quite sure of the minimum age for putting a child in an onsen itself but unless it is a tanjunsen (単純泉, spring containing less than 1000 ppm of dissolved minerals), I wouldn’t try it for at least 12 months (especially if your child has bladder/bowel control problems). It’s worth asking about the yushitsu (湯質, qualities of the spring water) directly with the ryokan as often the shower/bath uses the same gensen (源泉, source) as the onsen itself which could mean you’re inadvertently bathing your child in sulphuric water even if you use the bath in your private room.

Japanese ryokan and hotels are also pretty well set up for a family with a little baby, although it’s often worth checking with the manager first to make sure they don’t mind you bringing a little child. It’s also worth confirming that they have a kettle in each room as you can use that to sterilise things or boil water for formula etc. A typical mahobin (魔法瓶, flask) is fine as you don’t want to use very hot boiling water in your baby’s bottles anyway (for fear of BPA poisoning) I personally recommend finding a ryokan that offers heyashoku (部屋食, the option of eating your dinner in your room). Even if you have to go to the restaurant for breakfast, you’ll find your dinner much less stressful if your crying baby is rolling around the tatami next to you in the privacy of your own room.

What about when Nature calls? If you need to change nappies while you’re touring go to a shopping centre. While there aren’t that many in central Tokyo/Osaka, American style malls are all over the countryside. Most of them have a babies’ corner with plenty of space to breast feed, change nappies, and some even have a baby food “snack” （スナック, a colloquial term for a tiny bar where a mama-san usually serves sake to lonely salary-men but in this case sell food and drink that are suitable for a baby – together with it’s biological “mama” of course). If you’re wife is breastfeeding but still wants a coffee, go to Starbucks as they are the only coffee store that I’ve found in Japan to offer decaf coffee. Once again, you’re likely to find them in any major shopping centre.

If you’re breast feeding but want to take a small amount of formula with you while you’re travelling “just in case” then I recommend “Hohoemi rakuraku cubes”. They sell boxes of their milk subdivided into handy travel packs so you don’t have to worry about using more than you need at any one time. Within each travel packs there are five hard blocks of formula (each the equivalent of 50ml of formula if my memory serves me correctly) to save you having to measure out messy formula as well.

Finally a word on train travel. If you don’t have a car then you and your partner are going to be battling the railway system on a pretty regular basis with your baby. Good news is that you don’t have to pay for your child until they reach primary school age and as long as they are sitting in a buggy then you will probably never be questioned. That said, my best advice for short trips is “to do as the locals do” and hang your baby in a sling across your chest. While many stations in the large cities have elevators and escalators, you’ll be surprised how many don’t (and never will due to architectural restrictions!). My local station infamously has two flights of escalators, followed by one flight of stairs to get out of the station! When I do take my son on the train in our buggy, I always use “rakuraku odekake net” which tells you what norikae train route to take you to your location while avoiding stations that don’t have elevators and escalators. It’s great. Unfortunately there isn’t an English page at the moment so I’ve been pestering the owner of trains.jp to create one. He is a gaijin in Tokyo, and is using trains.jp make the best norikae annai experience for foreigners. Fingers crossed.

If you’ve got any other Japan specific tips on travelling with babies, please share them with us in the comments section below. Better yet, I’d love to hear some of the horror stories of taking infants travelling to prepare me for what is yet to come!

Mieko Tanaka (right) was handpicked by Ichiro Ozawa to take on Yoshiro Mori, the former PM and LDP big wig in Ishikawa 2

I don’t know about you but in my family it is a tradition to gather together with lots of friends on election night and follow the opening of votes.  That’s right: “Election Party Night” and it is on again this Sunday.  So just in case you are only a “social watcher” of politics, I decided to put together a few of my notes on the election so that a few more people can enjoy following what could be a historic election for Japan.  If you know your Japanese politics pretty well then feel free to skip the first 2~3 paragraphs and get into the meat.

The LDP won the last lower house election (2005) after Koizumi dissolved parliament to win support for his key policy of privatizing the post office.  Voter turnout was huge (for Japan) and the LDP won 296 out of the 480 seats in the lower house.  (327 including Komeito)  The Democrats didn’t even win a quarter of the seats (113/480).

This time around the tide has changed and the Democrats will be focusing on two magic numbers.  The first is 241 seats, enough for a simple majority of the lower house.  The second is 373 seats.  373 seats would mean that combined with their 109 current seats in the upper house, the Democrats would have 2/3 of all votes in a combined sitting of parliament.  In otherwords, they no longer need to worry about cooperating with any of the quacky minority parties who hold the casting vote in the upper house at the moment.  If the upper house knocks back any of their legislation they can just have a combined sitting of the two houses and force any legislation that they like through.  (The LDP+Komeito coalition have 103/242 seats in the Upper house.  The Commies have 7/242, The Socialists have 5/242 and The People’s New Party have 4/242.)

The first place to look on election night is to see how the leaders of each party are faring.  It is always a bad sign if the leader of any party looks likely to lose their seat.  And you never know what might happen in a year like this.

• LDP (http://www.jimin.jp/index.html) 自民党 Taro Aso (麻生太郎)　⇒ Fukuoka 8 福岡8. Aso won with 55.4% of the votes last time.  Yamamoto, the 37 year old new face that the Democrats are fielding is probably fighting an uphill battle even if Aso’s kanji reading skills are worse than mine.
• Democrats (http://www.dpj.or.jp/english/) 民主党 Yukio Hatoyama (鳩山由紀夫)⇒  Hokkaido 9 北海道９区.  Last time Hatoyama won 48.6% of the vote.  The LDP are fielding a 38 year old called Kawabata who used to work for Nintendo.  Nice try but it’s time for seiken kotai!
• Komeito (http://www.komei.or.jp/) 公明党 Akihiro Ota (太田 昭宏) ⇒ Tokyo 12東京12区 This is Kita-ku and parts of Adachi-ku.  Ota has got his work set out for him.  Even last time he only won 41.9% of the vote.  Originally there were rumours of the Democrats sending Ozawa Ichiro down here this year but instead they went for Ai Suzuki (鈴木愛) (http://www.aoki-ai.com/).  Opinion polls suggest that Suzuki could win a handsome scalp on behalf of the Democrats.
• Communists (http://www.jcp.or.jp/) 日本共産党 Kazuo Shii (志位和夫) ⇒ South Kanto (南関東). Last time the commies got 6.85% (down from 7.39% the election before) of the vote in this block which was enough to get one of their candidates through with a seat.  They’ll be at least hoping for this much again!
• SDP 社民党 (http://www5.sdp.or.jp/) Yasumasa Shigeno (重野安正) Unfortunately their party leader is safe in the upper house so this guy is the next best thing (party secretary general) ⇒　Oita 2　（大分2区）This will be an interesting one to watch.  The sitting candidate, Seishiro Eto, is from the LDP and looking for his 9^th straight victory.  Last time he won 50.3% of the vote.  The Democrats have chosen not to field a candidate and let the Socialists fight their battle.  Bimyo.  My money is on the LDP here (although last time Shigeno snuck in by votes in the hirei (proportional-representation constituency) system)

People’s New Party (http://www.kokumin.or.jp/) 国民新党 Tamisuke Watanuki (gotta love pronouncing his first name with a thick American accent!) 綿貫民輔 ⇒ Hokuriku Shinetsu Block (北陸信越ブロック) .  The party won 6.9% of the vote in this block last time which was just enough to get in 1/3 candidate.  Besides Watanuki there is another post office crony with a weird name called Sorime (反り目) next in line on their hirei list.  How does being an ex post-office manager make him a pollie?  I will be interested to see how much voting power the post office can still muster.

• New Party Nippon (http://www.love-nippon.com/english.htm) 新党日本 Yasuo Tanaka 田中康夫　⇒ Hyogo 8 兵庫8区.  As a backup he’s also standing in the hirei against our happy friend Okawa (see below).  This will be a ripper in a strange way.  No LDP and no Democrats.  Hatoyama came to Tanaka’s press conference when he announced that he was shifting from Nagano to Hyogo.  Tanaka is very charismatic and so should put up a good fight against the Tetsuzo Shibazaki, the Komeito candidate.  Shibazaki is a former secretary general and still is a big wig within the Komeito.  Shibazaki has held the seat for the last 7 elections (winning it with 45% of the vote last time).  It’s a shame that the DSP and the Communists are running candidates as they could cannibalize Tanaka’s votes.  Too close to be called.
• Your Party (http://www.your-party.jp/) みんなの党 Yoshimi Watanabe (渡辺喜美) 　⇒ Tochigi 3 栃木3区.  I really like this guy.  He has flare and charisma (in a funny sort of way) and says what he thinks.  Even though the LDP rumoured to stand someone against him as an act of revenge for his well publicized split from the party in January they didn’t.  Neither did the Democrats… or anyone infact, except for the Happiness Realization Party.  Watanabe won a stomping 63% of the vote last time (with real opposition) but he will truly romp home this year.  Good on him!
• Happiness Realization Party (http://www.hr-party.info/) 幸福実現党 　Ryuho Okawa (大川隆法) 　⇒ Kinki Block　近畿ブロック.  Smart strategy from Okawa to not only target the hirei but to choose a constituency like Kinki with lots of seats up for grabs.  More room for a marginal political cult party to sneak in across the line here I think.

While most people’s gut reaction will be to count the number of purple hearts on the LDP campaign list, I’m going to be focusing more on how the People’s New Party perform.  While the Democrats are likely to win power I really don’t want to see a situation where they have to exchange wedding vows with the People’s New Party in order to form government.  The other key members for the People’s New Party and their electorates are:

• Hiroshima 6広島6区 (Remember the seat that Horiemon stood in last time) Shizuka Kamei (亀井静香) – deputy representative.  This will be one seat that I would be more than happy to see in LDP hands.  They are serious and their candidate, Toshifumi Kojima, has strong local roots being a former prefectural government member.  Last time around Kamei beat Horie pretty easily 50% to 31%.  The Democrats won 25% of the vote that year.  If the Democrat votes flow straight to Kamei then he should be safe but we can only hope.
• Shimane 2島根2区 Hisaoki Kamei (亀井久興)– party secretary general.  Last time Kamei had to sneak in with hirei votes and it should be the case again this time.  His opponent is Wataru Takeshita, the younger brother of former PM, Noboru Takeshita.  It will be hard to do worse than last time (29%) against Takeshita (51%).  Even in a wave of anti-LDP voting you would have to think that the power of the Takeshita name is one of the few pillars in the LDP.  (After all it is Shimane – have you ever been there?  Shimane is probably the only prefecture in Japan this year with a high chance of only returning LDP members to parliament.)

For a bit of fun, let’s say you want to follow how the Happiness Realization party are going.  After all they are one of the few parties with an English homepage! (Even the LDP hasn’t got one)  Some of their bigger names are:z

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  memo to self: if i was trying to add credibility to the campaign, I don't think I would have chosen Dr. Nakamatsu

  Tokyo Block 東京ブロック.  80 candidates standing for the 17 seats available in this hirei block.  A lot of competition but maybe enough famous faces to pull at least one through.

  • Zuisho Motochikawa (本地川瑞祥) – Deputy party leader
  • Doctor Nakamatsu (ドクター中松) –  Honorary Party Leader
  • Jun’nosuke Kawaguchi (河口純之助) – former base player for the Blue Hearts
  • Fumiya Sato (さとうふみや) – famous manga writer (漫画家) (There were originally rumors that she would go up against Aso in his own electorate as he is known as a manga otaku but I guess they decided that she was too valuable to waste on a safe seat.)
• Tokyo 7 東京7区 Kazuya Daimon (大門一也) – Songwriter who wrote music for Hiromi Go and Hikaru Genji (oh and apparently he wrote the Happy Science “theme song”).  Tokyo 7 is Shibuya and Nakano. Unfortunately for Daimon, the focus here is going to be between Akira Nagazuma (Democrats) and Fumiaki Matsumoto (LDP).  This has historically been a very tight battle between the two of them.  Matsumoto was able to sneak back into power last election with the help of Koizumi winning 48% of the vote (up from 35%). Nagazuma has made a real name for himself in the past year or so by highlighting the government’s disaster at managing the pension system so should sneak home comfortably.
• Kanagawa 14 神奈川14区 Masashi Ishikawa 石川雅士 – The head of the New York branch of Happy Science.  Just amazed that there is a New York branch… and also that he is allowed to stand for parliament if he doesn’t live in Japan.  So he chose a seat with an LDP sitting member called Akama and a Communist candidate called Akama.  I assume they aren’t husband and wife.  If it were anywhere else in the country then the LDP Akama would probably have been safe but with the degree of support for the Democrats in Kanto at the moment, it could mean a victory Motomura Kentaro (Democrats).

You might have noticed that on August 15 they announced that they would withdraw a handful of candidates in order not to take votes away from the LDP in marginal seats.  Their rationale was that “anything is better than the Democrats” and that “they have many believers who are active politicians”.  I have spent a lot of time studying these electorates for two good reasons.  (1) The party clearly sat down directly with the LDP and given a list of the most marginal seats and told to stay away.  What better insight could we hope for on the fears of the LDP? NB. Indeed recent polling states that nearly every one of them is too close to call (2) If number one isn’t correct then the names are more than likely to be a short list of a bunch of closet cool-aid drinkers who probably can’t “come out” until after the election is over.

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  It's like playing old maid (ババ抜き) in Hokkaido 11.

  Hokkaido 11北海道１１区 Shoichi Nakagawa 中川昭一 (LDP) – our favorite drugged up former minister who tried to sit on the statue of Laoco ö n in the Vatican after the 2009 G7 meeting.  Nakagawa won 50% of the vote last time to beat his Democrat country-party, Tomohiro Ishikawa.  You would normally think that after Nakagawa’s “show” at the G7 that Ishikawa would be feeling pretty comfortable… except Ishikawa is a former secretary of Ozawa Ichiro’s.  Remember the scandal involving illegal campaign donations from Nishimatsu Construction.  Well, I wouldn’t want to be a former secretary of Ozawa’s standing for parliament… unless of course my opponent was Nakagawa.  This is clearly the Obihiro circus. Too close to call.

• Kanagawa 1 神奈川１区 Jun Matsumoto松本純 (LDP).  Matsumoto romped home last time around with 57% of the vote.  It will be interesting to see how much the electorate associates him with his close friend, Aso. Like so many of the first time Democrats, Mieko Nakabayashi doesn’t have much political experience but is an associate professor in management at a women’s college.  I’d probably vote for Ryoko Kozai of the Communists for her background in supporting families with small children but I’m guessing the locals might not do the same.  Too close to call.
• Kanagawa 2 神奈川２区 Yoshihide Suga菅義偉 (LDP) – one of the most powerful men in the LDP at the moment.  Also won strongly with 57% of the vote last time.  Said to have been the Rasputin behind both Abe and Aso and infamously responsible for many of Aso’s policy failures but maybe the locals don’t read between the lines and just love the fact that he is up there pulling the strings.  I certainly wouldn’t reelect him.  Kazuya Mimura (ex-METI worker and cousin of Ryoko Hirosue’s広末涼子) of the Democrats might struggle with Suga.  Too close to call.
• Tokyo 3 東京３区 Hirotaka Ishihara 石原宏高 (LDP).  Shinagawa and parts of Ota.  I knew of Shintaro (Tokyo Governor) and Nobuteru (LDP) but I didn’t know that there was a third Ishihara in the family.  Hirotaka is the little brother of Nobuteru and the son of Shintaro.  If he takes after Nobuteru then he might stand a fighting chance but if the recent Tokyo elections are a guide then he should be signing up with Hello-Work (ハローワーク).  Jin Matsubara looking slightly stronger from the Democrats at the moment.
• Tokyo 10 東京10区 Yuriko Koike 小池百合子 (LDP).  Toshima and parts of Nerima.  I was quite surprised to see Koike on this list of potential dangerous seats.  She shoed it in as one of Koizumi’s Children last time (49.5% of the vote) and is seen to be a potential leader of the LDP.  Her key opponent is Takako Ebata (Democrats) who is a former associate professor from the University of Tokyo.  Three candidates standing for this seat and all are female.  Will be interesting to follow.  Too close to call.
• Osaka 17 大阪17区 Shingo Nishimura西村真悟 (Kaikaku Club http://www.kaikakuclub.jp/) – I note he is a member of the “let’s all go together and visit Yasukuni Shrine club” (みんなで靖国神社に参拝する国会議員の会) which is probably the only reason why Happiness are supporting him.  Nishimura is the only member of the lower house amongst the 5 sitting members in Kaikaku Club so he should have chosen a more conservative seat than Sakai City.  I doubt that the Happiness vote will be enough to push him through.  Polling is suggesting that Megumu Tsuji (Democrats) will win, followed by Nobuko Okashita (LDP) and Nishimura trailing a long way behind.
• Fukui 1 福井１区 Tomomi Inada 稲田朋美  (LDP) – In case you were looking for more controversy, Inada is the politician who tried to stop the screening of the movie Yasukuni and has been recorded on tape as stating that the rape of Nanking never really happened.  She only won this seat by 0.2% last time (33.0%) against Ryuzo Sasaki (32.8%) of the Democrats.  If Sasaki doesn’t get in this time then I won’t be visiting Fukui again.  (Although I’m starting to get an idea of the kind of politician that the Happiness Realization Party support!!!)
• Gifu 5 岐阜５区 Keiji Furuya 古屋圭司  (LDP).  Furuya is still looking like a strong contender for his seat.  Furuya won his seat last time (41% of vote) as an independent after Koizumi expelled him over his stand against the privatization of the post office.  It will be an uphill battle for Yoshinobu Achiha but interestingly they are the only two candidates so it should at least be a clear distribution of voter preferences.
• Yamaguchi 4 山口４区 Shinzo Abe 安倍晋三  (LDP).  In some ways I’m surprised that this guy is still in politics.  I guess it is easier to be a backbencher than the PM.  The Democrats don’t seem to serious with Takako Tokura so I’m not sure what motivated this name to be on the list over other ex-PMs.  Maybe that hints at a certain religious “belief” that can’t be made public until he retires.  Abe won 72.5% of the vote last time!
• Fukuoka 7福岡７区 Makoto Koga 古賀誠 (LDP) – You’ve got to love the irony.  Ozawa Ichiro hand picked Kuniyoshi Noda, a former secretary of Koga’s, to stand against him for the Democrats.  Better yet, Noda is looking like a decent chance of pulling it off.  Koga is actually rumoured to be a member of Mahikari (真光), yet another weird Japanese cult!  I guess this proves that Okawa does have the ability to hear the word of all religious leaders in his dreams…

I realize this is getting long so in the interest of being brief let me end with another list of “too close to call” electorates for your watchlist on Sunday night:

• Gunma 4 Fukuda (LDP) vs. Goto (Democrats)
• Shizuoka 1 Kamikawa (LDP) vs Makino (Democrats)
• Gifu 4 Kaneko (LDP) vs. Imai (Democrats)
• Wakayama 3  Nikai (LDP) vs. Tamaki (Democrats)
• Tottori 1 Ishiba (LDP) vs. Okuda (Democrats)
• Yamanashi 2 Horiuchi (LDP) vs Sakaguchi (Democrats)
• Miyazaki 1 Could be anyone’s game (5 way battle)

We’d love to hear any new rumours on voting trends in the comments section below.  If you don’t have any, why not tell us about how you plan to spend this Sunday night?

Semblance of our resident crazy Japanese neighbour.. Do you have one of these?

The perpetrator – my neighbour of five years – completely freaked me out a few years back by coming to my door and letting rip on me about my toddlers (they were 3 and 1 at the time) and the incessant noise they made. I was in the doorway and it was a very very intense moment as the guys mother (with whom he lives) came to the door to calm him down. The guy is in his mid-late 30’s and clearly something was not right – especially as on this occasion the kids had only been home a few minutes before he was dinging on the intercom. To my recollection we came in (after shopping for dinner), they washed their hands and went to the lounge to play. I was making dinner not far away and the noise was fine. The neighbour complained to the Kanrinin-san (caretaker) and he passed it on to the landlord (or at least to the agency that looks after the property). They came to us and dealt with the situation. The flooring was regulation thickness, we even had a thick carpet on top of most of it. We are not a loud family, and the whole situation did not make much sense. They went down to see the neighbour and came back to report that he suffers from some ailment of some kind. We were not sure but it started to sound like schizophrenia or something kind of “scary” to the uninformed (like us).

We agreed that should there be problems in the future we and he would go through the agent to communicate the issue. Of course we would try our best to keep our children quiet. This failed when on the next occasion the neighbour complained that it was me who was at fault for stomping around the house. As the father of two and wife of one, I had been at particular pains to keep quiet yet somehow my walking around in socks was noisy? Again, it did not make sense.

This type of thing carried on for years, with the occasional outburst from the man downstairs. We would get the call, “byonin ga imasu” (there is a sick person down here) every few months and we would be on high alert for a while to keep the noise down. It was not as if we were even all that noisy but with two small kids playing I can not guarantee that there were not at least some “bangs” and “thuds”. We have the same noise issues with the folks upstairs but we tend to understand, and get over it pretty easily. We have foot steps, knife on cutting boards and early morning alarm clocks but we don’t make any fuss. The noise is so slight that it really would be lame (or weird) to make a fuss.

Cue July 2009 – I was at the office and my wife was at home with our youngest son and three of his girlfriends (and their mummies) from kindergarten. Lucky little tyke, you may think but on this occasion – a warm, humid day – the window was opened and whatever noise those naughty little kids were making travelled south to the byonin downstairs. With no warning the ladies in the living room – three in all – heard an extremely loud and scary “Korosuzou! Kono Osutoraria-jin yarou!” (Going to kill you! F*ckin Aussie!). Needless to say the other ladies and their kids all left in a rush, probably thinking WTF is it with this wacko woman and her Aussie husband? What do they do to make their neighbours so angry? Well, as a matter of fact, ah… nothing, as far as we can tell. A week or so before this particular incident the byounin called the O-ya-son (landlord) and they sent a team around to investigate. They got to the door to find a very quiet household – the kids were playing Wii after all. Generally they are just glued to the TV when doing that. But it was clear that the byonin underneath us was reaching a peak.

He went nuts again just last week during the typhoon. For some reason he was paranoid that my home office (corner room) windows being open would cause major damage to his apartment. He asked the kanrinin-san to visit us, and make us close the windows. My wife explained (as I was on a call) that I had no air-conditioning in the room and there was no water coming in, other than the odd droplet that landed on my desk (with a newspaper strategically placed). The kanrinin understood and didn’t really see the issue.

Next thing – as I had not closed the windows – we had more of the yelling from downstairs. One of the neighbours and friends from upstairs called us to see if everything was okay (as this guy was now legendary in his own right). Being on the council (or whatever you call it) for our mansion they suggested that we call the cops. My wife was quite freaked out at this stage and duly did so.

Within minutes we had a copper asking about the trouble and also the real estate agent. We got some handy advice from the young policeman who was concerned about the potential for this issue to worsen and he went down stairs to talk with our byonin neighbour. He came back later to say that he gave the guy a warning to keep the noise down. Surely the man downstairs felt the irony in this, but we are already looking to move and buy our own place! The guy’s a psycho.

So. What would you do in this situation? We are thinking that after having “I will kill you Aussie!” yelled at our family, our chances at an amicable resolution are pretty low. Especially when you consider that I am not a bloody Australian but a Kiwi. (What an arsehole!) But we think that we need to vacate the premises and make the landlord pay for our new key money and gift money, seeing as we have paid that up so cheerily every 2 years.

Feel free to share your advice, or even better, your “crazy Japanese neighbour” story below in the coments.