I heard about this a couple of weeks ago but only found the story recently. It not something I wanted to comment on without seeing myself but now it’s here for all and sundry to take a look at. Those in the diving community know that multiple dives per day are allowed by all major [...]
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Nukes in Japan… they’re “Regrettable”
Posted By Dave on March 10th, 2010
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.
Magnitude 7 Earthquake Strikes Okinawan Coast
Posted By Dave on February 27th, 2010
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.
Top 10 Rugby League Bit Hits
Posted By Dave on January 30th, 2010
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.
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My Alto Works Problems Solved (for now!)
Posted By Dave on December 14th, 2009
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.
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Lindsay Ann Hawker murderer arrested in Osaka
Posted By Dave on November 10th, 2009
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.
Farcical Crimes Making the Headlines in Okinawa
Posted By Dave on October 1st, 2009
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.
Hold the Phones, it’s Happened Again!
Posted By Dave on July 17th, 2009
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.
Let’s Enjoying Solar Eclipse Together!
Posted By Dave on July 15th, 2009
Seven days to go now until the longest solar eclipse that will take place this century, and I’m not too far from the ideal spot to view it. This event was just brought back to my attention today by much excitement in the staffroom when a long cardboard box was proudly placed onto the table just behind me. My first thought was that it was the first periscope the school had made so that teachers can catch students smoking even when stood behind a corner. But there seemed far too much excitement for that. Soon dawned on me with other small variants of this bigger design that I was mistaken.
A little research on this eclipse brought me to the Nasa July 22nd solar eclipse website at http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEmono/TSE2009/TSE2009.html. Lots of good information although I have to say the “Detailed Maps of the Path of Totality” does sound a little final! Sounds like we’re reparing for the sun not to reappear again once it’s gone behind the moon. While the Okinawan mainland is going to be just south of the area experiencing a total solar eclipse, we should still get a good 85-90% of it according to the maps. This is providing that it’s not cloudy, which could rain on everyone’s eclipse parade (pun intended).
I’ll be making some sort of sun viewing device using a complex system of mirrors and pulleys (or more realistically, a couple of pieces of cardboard with a hole in the middle). Will also give a report next Tuesday once the eclipse has passed over, hopefully with a few pictures and comments from other people too.
Posted in News
LDP Loses Tokyo Election, Lower House to be Dissolved
Posted By Dave on July 13th, 2009
Election fever is starting to grip Japan with a bunch of recent local and gubernatorial elections. The general election is no more than a couple of months away but nobody still knows the exact date as Prime Minister Taro Aso is holding off, maybe hoping for more hostile moves or rhetoric by DPRK to give him ammunition for him and his party. Just editing my post as I type though as one news report has just dropped into my inbox saying the lower house could be dissolved by Tuesday, according to rumours coming out of the Diet. This could mean an election as soon as August 8th. I was just thinking that what everyone really needs now is 3 weeks of even louder campaign buses and people in white gloves waving at me from every intersection, as well as getting asked by numerous students if I know “Japan erection” (those “l” and “r” sounds are killers). On the odd occasions I feel hospitable to wave back (usually when there is a decent song playing in my car drowning out the megaphones) there is frequently ecstasy that someone is responding to their waving, and then confusion as to why the foreigner is waving. Got to do something to get through the day.
But I have digressed, as this report was supposed to be about big political news from Tokyo, where the LDP has achieved its worst result in history in the Tokyo assembly. Out of 127 seats, the LDP won only 38, with the power moving to the DPJ who have won 54 seats. New Komeito (can someone fill me in on who they actually are?) won 23 seats. That represents a loss of 14 seats for the LDP and a gain of 20 for the DPJ, and acts as a further blow to Aso. Can’t really be shedding too many tears at the loss for Aso and Nobuteru Ishihara, leader of the LDP’s Tokyo chapter and son of Tokyo governor & noted anti-foreigner Shintaro Ishihara.
The big question is whether or not this result will be matched in the big general election, whenever it is. And I suppose you have to ask whether the DPJ, if brought to power, will deliver the stimulus that Japan desperately needs to get it moving forward again, both economically and socially. Or will it be more of the same policies but just under a different name? Only time will tell.
EDIT: NHK is reporting that a general election has been called for August 30th. The clock is ticking…
Posted in News
Foreign Teacher Arrest Update
Posted By Dave on June 20th, 2009
Well the story I wrote about last night has made the national headlines, with the Daily Yomiuri carrying the story, as well as the 47 News website. As Jay commented on the original article, it looks like these “party pills” which contain benzylpiperazine were the ones imported, although 47 News is reporting that it is methamphetamine. That latter report does appear to be the only one stating that though. It’s also alleged that 44 pills were imported, which you would think is a little above what they could class as personal consumption.
It is this benzylpiperazine which is a banned substance in a number of countries, including Japan, New Zealand, USA and the UK. The stories are also reporting the pills were purchased from a British company online in mid-April and were seized on arrival in Tokyo. If these pills do contain this substance then the defence that they didn’t know it was illegal looks very shaky considering the same pills are illegal in their home country.
All education staff at my school are now fully aware of what has happened if they weren’t already, following it getting a hefty mention in this morning’s staff meeting. The superintendant of education in Okinawa has already made a statement on the matter, saying it has damaged the trust placed in the education system, and, as expected, the incident was described as “regrettable”.
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