Summer is well and truly here in Okinawa, with the temperatures rising and the sun shining. Checked the weather report at 9am this morning and was told that it was 31°C but that it felt “like 36°C”. Thankfully the humidity was only 70% and a sea breeze coming through my apartment managed to keep me [...]
I hate being right all the time! OK, so those who know me well know that you should read “all the time” as “once every blue moon”, but in this case my scepticism was pretty well founded. Some of you might recall that in my previous post about the anti-US “Sexual Terrorists” protest at the end of April, I stated that it really didn’t look like there were 100,000 which was the figure thrown about by the media. No coincidence that this was also the figure that was said before the protest at how many they thought would attend. Not wanting to admit far fewer shown up, it was always going to be a number of news outlets, including the BBC, who ran the story with the headline “Mass rally in Japan against US base on Okinawa“. When the BBC initially put this story on their website, they asked if people were in the area and if they would send their comments. Having seen footage from the air on TV of the people at the protest, I sent them a comment saying that it was clear the number of people attending was far lower than the figure being put out on the official press releases. I questioned whether they had a reporter in Okinawa who was covering this story, or whether they were just relaying information they’d read, second or third-hand. No surprises but my comment wasn’t chosen to get published on the site!
Anyway, it seems like I may not have been far off the truth. Last weekend an interesting story was published by the Daily Yomiuri newspaper, a Japanese national newspaper based in mainland Japan. I’ll let the article do most of the talking:
Doubt cast on number at antibase protest rally
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Doubts have been raised about the number of participants at a recent antibase protest in Okinawa Prefecture, with suspicions the figure of 90,000 announced by the organizer might have been considerably inflated.
The April 25 rally was held to protest a reported plan by the national government to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station within the prefecture.
The rally venue in Yomitanson can accommodate up to 50,000 people. The organizing committee estimated 90,000 participants because it also counted people who gathered outside the venue or could not arrive because of traffic jams.
However, immediately after the protest, some government officials suggested the actual number of participants might have been much smaller than 90,000.
A Tokyo security firm counted 11,569 participants based on aerial pictures. While the firm did not include people under trees or tents, it said the number would be “far fewer than 90,000″ even if they were counted.
The Okinawa prefectural police did not count the rally participants.
(May. 15, 2010)
While Yukio Hatoyama isn’t really doing much in the way of changing Japanese politics (despite his declarations of change in the run up to last year’s Japanese election), he is certainly making waves in other ways. Shockingly, he’s being criticised for some of his fashion choices in recent times. Looking at one of the latest examples, I’m sure you’ll be wondering as I do why he is getting slated for it.
Now I don’t profess to be anything like a style expert, being that my usual casual wear consists of a Wigan RLFC shirt and a pair of ageing and most likely oil-stained jeans. But with that being said, wow. Who knew that plaid was making a comeback, and with such ferocity? Nope, me neither! But apparently the Prime Minister did and is at the ripple on what is surely going to be a huge wave in Japanese fashion. When it does he will be able to say “I was there first”.
Maybe it was his wife that got him into this uber-fashion. This would be the same wife that said the following:
“While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus. It was a very beautiful place and it was really green.”
And the same woman who said this about the sun in an interview:
“I also eat the sun,” Hatoyama said on the program, looking up with her eyes closed, raising her arms high as if she was tearing pieces off an imaginary sun. “Like this, hum, hum, hum. It gives me enormous energy.”
Whatever, it certainly adds some colour (pun intended) to the Japanese political scene!
Some of you might have seen on the news or read that there was a mass protest here in Okinawa last weekend about the continued US military presence, and the lack of any action being taken by the present government despite election pledges stating they would. Although you would think that after 50 years of not living up to election pledges by political parties here in Japan they would have got used to it by now. The protest was on the national Japanese news, and even made international headlines, being reported on the BBC website. The attendance figures seemingly created by the same people who make up the St Helens RLFC crowd attendances (i.e. vastly overstated!), with much fewer than the 100,000 people being quoted by the media.
But for once I’m not going to provide commentary on the protest itself, but an image I saw of one of the protesters. I’ve become accustomed to rather strange English over the years, but this one certainly had me laughing.
To start with, it looks like the “r” in “military” was at one point another l, until someone pointed out the mistake in her spelling! But it was obviously too much effort to make a new sign so she decided to go with it and just try to change it. After all, it’s not as if she’s going to be photographed and her image and banner shown worldwide now, is it? Next, I just can’t work out what is meant by “sexual terrorist”. Is it a criticism or a compliment?! To be honest if I was told I was a sexual terrorist I think I’d be somewhat flattered! I am eagerly awaiting the Japanese media to report that the US Marines on Futenma base in Okinawa have declared a sexual Jihad against the locals!
Another world news story involving Japan hit the streets in the past 24 hours and made me smile. As soon as I read the headline “Japan confirms secret pact on US nuclear transit“, I knew that somewhere in the story would be the word “regrettable”, in quotation marks and offered by a Japanese government member. The only surprise was that I ad to get halfway through the article before I saw it.
Now the fact that there have been nukes in the air & oceans around Japan is no secret at all, and possibly some have touched Japanese soil, despite what their “non-nuclear principles” declare. These nukes have always been linked to the US military presence here in Japan, which many anti-US protesters will use as ammunition. But the fact is that the Japanese government has agreed to these things, and have just kept it hidden from public view until now. The protesters may use this to attack the incumbent Democratic Party of Japan, as most of them have alliances to the Liberal Democratic Party, which held power almost constantly for half a century.
I’ve said it before, but the use of “regrettable” is a favourite of Japanese government officials. It is used to say something is bad but without actually apologising for anything. For example, I could say “It is extremely regrettable that I was caught speeding” (which I haven’t been, by the way!). So the incident is a bad one, but I’m not actually sorry I did it. And that latter part is the key with the common Japanese way of using it. It could be a little different here as the DPJ actually started this nuclear investigation, but is also saying that they as the current ruling party have no intentions at all of apologising for this.
Encouraging to see a little more transparency in Japan, although I feel it’s more to do with the fact that the previous political party was involved in it, rather than some national movement.
This morning at 5:31am there was a huge earthquake which struck 80km east of Naha, and around 29km underground. It was classified as a magnitude 7 quake and was easily the strongest I’ve experienced in my 5 and a half years here in Okinawa. Put it this way: I have never before considered hightailing out of my apartment and getting to somewhere open. Given my position in Okinawa on the southeast coast, I was probably one of the closest to the epicentre of it, too.
Woke up with my phone going off making a strange noise (which I later found out to be the earthquake alert). Seconds later the apartment started shaking violently. This was accompanied by a roaring noise which sounded like a bulldozer was passing by or something of that nature, but the shaking that came with it was too strong for that. I sat up immediately and for a few seconds was ready to grab my dressing gown and getting out. Things fell of my shelves as the seconds ticked by, and it seemed to go on for an age. In fact, the violent shaking lasted around 40 seconds with the earthquake continuing for over a minute I would guess. Eventually it died down and all became quiet again. I checked out the apartment to look for damage to the apartment and to do a little cleaning up.
There was a tsunami warning issued for coastline areas, but nothing on the village PA system was broadcast so I just stayed up watching the NHK reports for a little while. There are only a few reports of minor injuries I think and only a little damage has been sustained (mainly ruptured water pipes). Need to check in with people today to make sure everyone’s ok, but I wanted to check in on here first.
Take care folks, and let me know if you were in Okinawa and what your experiences of it were. Personally, I don’t want another one of those in a hurry.
The 2010 Superleague season is now officially underway as the Leeds Rhinos ran out 34-6 winners against the Crusaders in a snowy Wrexham. Snowy rugby league in January – so tell me again about this summer rugby! Ah well, hopefully the grounds will harden up in a few months and we can start to see some skillful rugby this year. Have to say I was never hugely impressed by any of the rugby league I managed to see in the ’09 season. Sure, quite a few of the games were close matches which made them exciting, but I don’t think the skill levels were where they were 3 or 4 years ago. The most skillful rugby league performance in England I think I saw was by Manly in the World Club Challenge as they brushed aside the Superleague champions, Leeds Rhinos.
But anyway, onto business. Following up from the famous Radlinski try for Wigan against Bradford in 2000, I thought this video would be a nice one to show. They say defence wins matches and once of the best parts to watch when your team is defending is a huge tackle on an opposition player; one that shakes them and leaves them hurt (although not injured – never want to see that) and wondering what happened). Found this video showing some of the top tackles in recent years from the NRL (Australia’s top rugby league competition). If you like your sport physical then it doesn’t get much better than this. Enjoy.
When I last left you I had arrived at my tuning shop with my car engine being held together by some red RTV, and me a nervous wreck after making the longest 20-minute drive ever from my house to the garage. The guy stopped working on a car that was infinitely more powerful than mine could ever hope to be, and took a look.
Now the non-car people might not know this, but when engine heads are made/cast they will have some holes in them that were made in the moulding process. These holes are about 2-3cm in diameter usually, and are then capped off with something called “freeze plugs” which are basically a disc of thing metal which just presses into the hole and blocks it off. There are usually a few of these around the engine in various places. This I did not know, and was soon to be left feeling very stupid about.
“It’s just a cracked freeze plug” the guy said, telling me I had nothing at all to worry about! It had cracked possibly because it was weakened when my car temperature went up during the drive home from installing my turbo after the fan wiring mishap. I just needed to buy a new plug from Suzuki, knock the other one out with a screwdriver and a hammer, and then press this one in, in its place. So off I drove to Suzuki, and it turned out this repair that at one point was looking like it might cost me over Y100,000 cost me Y110. Just a small difference! But I felt so lucky I’d missed out on a couple of auctions for engines when all I needed was a 2cm disc of metal to fix it. In 2 days my freeze plug was here and I hammered it into place, with a fair bit of RTV around the edge to make sure it sealed, and that was that! I was on the road and fully mobile again!
Had a couple of little issues since, but they have mostly been ironed out. One pipe was leaking a little coolant. Some RTV fixed it for a while, but I managed to pull the right pipe off an Alto that was in the junkyard to replace it so fingers crossed that’s sorted now. A radiator cap leak was also causing some of the coolant in my expansion tank to be leaking out, but a replacement cap has fixed that too.
The next issue to come up… well who knows! But I’m sure it won’t be long until it does. Until then I’ll just have to get myself ready for whatever it is going to throw at me.
Over 2 years after the body of English teacher Lindsay Ann Hawker was found in a bathtub of sand in Chiba, the main suspect was arrested this evening. Tatsuyo Ichihashi was captured by 
police early this evening at the Nanko ferry terminal waiting to board a ferry to Okinawa. After recent leads in the Osaka area and a new photo being published of him following cosmetic surgery he had done, a passenger in the ferry terminal reported a person bearing Ichihashi’s description to authorities at the ferry terminal. Police then approached and arrested him.
Currently, the charge is only the complete joke of “abandoning a body”, although Chiba police are hopeful of upgrading that charge to murder. I’m usually very critical of the Japanese police but it seems like after 2 and a half years they have finally got their man. Since initial posters were released, he has undergone a number of plastic surgery operations on his eyes, nose and mouth (no doubt funded by his wealthy family) and was attempting to undergo another round of surgery at a Fukuoka clinic in the near future. It has also emerged that he has been working undetected in Osaka for over a year while managing to remain under the radar.
But he is finally in custody and now the job moves from the police to the criminal courts to ensure that justice is done. I’m trying to be hopeful but just get the feeling he may only be found guilty in the eyes of the law in Japan of abandoning a body. I certainly hope not and hope that the Hawker family can finally get some closure on this.
I just knew that if I kept quiet for a little while something like this story would come up. And lo & behold it has. Haven’t had so much motivation to do writing on here for a while, but this story I saw on Japan Update I just had to report on. The headline read “American GI’s arrested in two separate incidents” which drew me in for 2 reasons. Firstly I’m sure the apostrophe shouldn’t be in there, and secondly to see what horrific crimes they had been arrested for. Assault? Rape of a minor? Murder? Not quite…
One American is in Japanese custody on charges of stealing game dices from a snack bar, while a second has been charged with being drunk and crossing onto private property.
A 22-year-old stationed at Camp Schwab was caught shortly after he stole game dices at an Okinawa City Chuo area snack. Police say Calvin Edward Chandler took the dices, then fled. Staff saw Chandler take the dices and chased him, while others called police. He was caught and charged with stealing two dices, valued at ¥3,000.
A 20-year-old Marine stationed at Camp Foster was arrested after he knocked on the door of a residence in Chatan Town’s Miyagi area. Sean Patric Slein approached the residence and knocked on the door, frightening the woman occupant. She called the police who arrived shortly and found Slein still outside the door. The police asked him “Who are you? Why are you knocking on this door? This is not your area. This is somebody’s private yard.” The police then arrested Slein who was reportedly drunk at the time.
I mean, really… where should I start? I think bad English is as good a place as any! In a week where I’ve seen an exhaust manufacturer inexplicably called Drug Bomber, and a car horn with the manufacturer tagline “We produced with spartan air” around the edge of it, this completes a Triple Crown of Engrish! One of my English pet hates is people using “dice” as a singular word, when they should be using “die”. But this article takes it one further, and introduces a new word into the Engrish language called “dices”.
Right – that’s that out of the way and now onto the story itself. Is this even a story? Well, according to Okinawan news agencies it is. So this first guy stole a pair of dice from a snack bar. Those dice, unless made from platinum or some special Louis Vuitton dice, would cost around 100 yen (70p) from the local cheap product store. Although given that in these places a beer can 
cost over 1,500 yen (£10) then maybe it’s plausible. But can you imagine the police’s reaction when they got the emergency call?
Bar owner: “Hello. We have an emergency here at bar Papa Rich (not the name of the club in question but a similar snack bar). Someone has just fled the scene stealing property from the bar. Please come quickly!”
Police: “Calm down, ma’am. Take a deep breath. What has been taken”
Bar owner: “A pair of dice. He’s getting away!”
Police: “…”
Bar owner: “It’s a foreigner!”
Police: “We’ll be there right away, ma’am!”
The last bit is a little tongue-in-cheek, but it’s not a big stretch of the imagination. You think there must have been something else that would cause the police to take action, but maybe not given the stories that make the Okinawan headlines regarding members of the US military here.
And then the second story is another bizarre one. The guy was arrested for being asleep on her doorstep, or did he try to break into her place? By the sounds of it he knocked on the door and there is no mention at all as to whether she even answered it (although answering the door late at night is usually a no-no unless, like me, you are woken at about 5am by a dozen police officers as your neighbour has been murdered, but that’s beside the point). It seems very unlikely that someone should normally be arrested for knocking on a door when it’s late at night, otherwise I’m sure the vast majority of salarymen throughout Japan would have been arrested at some point in their lives!
Maybe the police were just under their “US military personnel arrest” quote for September, and needed to get a few final arrests in before today. Either way, it does look pretty pathetic and that they are really scraping the barrel for stories to put the old “round-eyes” in a bad light.
In the NBA they have March Madness, but it definitely appears to be a case of summer silliness here in Okinawa, with foreign teachers seemingly trying to rival Marines as foreign scapegoats. Incidentally, the Marines have very surprisingly been out of the news in recent weeks, which is odd as any stepping out of line or drunk & disorderly behaviour gets pounced on. Maybe they’re just working on something big! As long as there’s not a repeat of Lockdown ’08 then I think everyone will be happy!
But back on topic. Was kind of hoping I wouldn’t have to post the red pill thumbnail next to a story for a while, but alas it wasn’t to be. Was told by a colleague today that they’d heard yet another JET Programme participant, American Martin S (should note American is not his first name, although that would be impressively Patriotic if it was), has been fired in Okinawa, in addition to the two girls involved in the previous “mind candy” incident (for which public prosecutors dropped a case most widely thought to be on the condition that a job termination was on the cards and so they would most likely be leaving the country anyway). From what’s been said it was related to this initial incident and has been reported on Okinawan TV today.
At the same time, a letter has been sent through from CLAIR (the organization administering the JET Programme) reminding ALTs of their duty and responsibility while they are in Japan. My reaction to this is probably best summed up by the picture you see to the left. There really isn’t much to say beyond what has been said before. Hopefully this will be the last incident we hear about for some time here in Okinawa. It has been relatively quiet down here for about 4 years and then the past 12 months have just been a little crazy.
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