Japan - Recent Events

An execrable ignorance - a glimpse at Japan's neo-nationalists and their War crime denial

People in Seoul asking the Japanese embassy for an official apology for the "comfort women"

Perusing through a list of the most popular Japanese blogs, I recently came across one under the category of politics whose title caught my attention: "The man who knew too much about China and Korea" (中韓を知りすぎた男) ranked at number four, with 289,250 monthly hits. I was startled to learn that its author, Tsujimoto Kiichi, is also a relatively famous writer in Japan. More startling, however, are some of the fallacies and absurdities he promotes and that many of his readers buy into.

One of his famous works, published October 2009, is called "Hey! China, enough already!" More recently, in February 2012, he published a blog entry with the original title, "Korea! Enough already!" which is a rant against "shameless" Koreans, whom he does not seem to like very much.

Tsujimoto explains that in December last year, a monument to the so-called Korean "comfort women" was built on the road leading to the Japanese Embassy in Seoul.

This anti-Japanese sentiment, as he refers to it, was propagated into the Korean community in the U.S., where a street in New York's Flushing district in Queens will be renamed in order to commemorate the comfort women. Also, the year before this event, a monument was built in New Jersey for the same reason. He explains that 20 such monuments are planned throughout the United States for Americans to view.

Comfort women ("wianbu" in Korean and "ianfu" in Japanese) were some 200,000 Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Filipino, Dutch, Indonesian, Vietnamese and Malaysian women who were coerced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Empire's military during the first half of the 20th century.

Tsujimoto, however, is strongly against the construction of memorial statues and the renaming of streets to commemorate these war victims. He writes.

Don't these people [Koreans] have any shame? Comfort women were not forcibly made to sell their bodies. They applied to do so for money. Documents confirming comfort women's "coercion" do not exist. No matter how many times this argument is made, Koreans just don't want to hear it. Long ago, in order to accumulate foreign money, the Korean government encouraged "Gisaeng Parties"*. In other words, the Korean government encouraged prostitution using its country's young women's bodies to earn wealth. Have they forgotten?

(*Gisaeng are the Korean version of Japanese Geisha; officially sanctioned Korean female entertainers or sometimes prostitutes)

Tisujimoto’s perspective is troubling for several reasons, most notably, because it suggests that the Japanese educational system has utterly failed him and the readers who concord with his perspective. Downplaying this historical tragedy has been a long and well-known issue in Japan. In 2007, the minister of education, Nariaki Nakayama declared, "victimized women in Asia should be proud of being comfort women". The perversity of this comment is hardly worth elaborating upon as it speaks for itself. What is worth pointing out is the brainwashing that began after World War II, when a defeated Japan was able to switch its position from that of aggressor to that of a victim. It is in part this attitude of victimization that has allowed Japan to downplay its atrocities throughout Asia, and which has inevitably led to the formation of individuals such as Mr. Tsujimoto, who are as unaware of their history as a patient afflicted by amnesia.

Despite there being crushing evidence that the government organized and gathered comfort women stations for the foul pleasure of its army, a gargantuan amount of conservative Japanese are either unaware or in denial that such a thing ever happened.

Kim Bok-dong and Lee Mak-dal, two survivors of Japanese sexual slavery recently released a YouTube video that concisely explains their treatment. For the past twenty years, these brave women have staged 1,000 protests in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul demanding proper recompense for the atrocities committed against comfort women. Although some Japanese prime ministers have apologized, many Koreans think it is not enough. In an article on CNN, the director of the NGO called "Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan", Yoon Mee-hyang, stated: "This is a crime that was institutionalized by a country, they forced women into sexual slavery over a long period of time. They need to adopt a resolution at the official level and we need to see legal reparations". The matter is urgent and needs to be resolved before the last survivors pass away in order for justice to be done. In fact, the number of extant comfort women is dwindling: in a report released on 14 March by Yonhap News, two survivors of this historical happening recently died. At present, there are supposedly around 60 victims still alive.

In January 1992, the New York Times published an article stating, "army documents found in the library of Japan's Self-Defense Agency indicated that the military had played a large role in operating what were euphemistically called 'comfort stations.'" This news had been previously propagated to Japanese citizens via Asahi Shinbun's newspapers. Prior to this, Japanese scholars had already written on the topic: Yoshimi Yoshiaki and Tanaka Toshiyuki, to name a few, wrote extensively about forced prostitution under the Japanese Empire. Nevertheless, Mr. Tsujimoto (the author of the blog post) continues his rant with statements such as, "Anti-Japanese Koreans have quite some nerve to teach falsehoods regarding history, having a statue of a prostitute built in a foreign country."

In a less than intelligible argument, Tsujimoto explains, "whereas Koreans often praise their country, the number of Koreans who have been fleeing their country in recent years has surged. According to a survey, 67.8% of interviewees answered 'if I could be reborn, I wouldn't want to be born in Korea'. It is said that Korean emigration has breached the 2 million mark in the United States only."

Tsujimoto forgets to mention that Japan's case is similar: there are 1.5 million Japanese emigrates living in Brazil and 1.2 million living in the United States. He also forgets to mention that Japan consistently ranks as one of the worst OECD countries for life satisfaction, with one of the highest suicide rates in the world. Although some data may differ, ranking South Korea as being slightly higher or lower, this point is certainly not something the blogger can boast about or wave in the face of others.

Evidence of social dissatisfaction in Japan exists but is often swept under the carpet. An interesting book regarding the way social dissatisfaction affects its citizens is Michael Zielenziger's Shutting Out the Sun: how Japan created its own lost generation. In it, the author explicates the Japanese disorder known as hikikomori, which is not found within other cultures and which the Japanese government only very recently has reluctantly acknowledged. "Sixty years after the end of World War Two," Zielenziger writes, "contemporary Japan is at peace, but everyone who lives there knows something is wrong."

It entails seclusion from the outside world for months, if not years or even decades. "Despite repeated investigations by Japanese and other Asian psychiatrists, this withdrawal syndrome has been found in no other culture, not even in neighboring South Korea, which shares so much of Japan's Buddhist and Confucian past, as well as its state-guided model of economic development." It is primarily the result of extreme dissatisfaction with socio-economic conditions. Spilling out his painful saga, former hikikomori Kaz Ueyama says, “to survive in Japan, you have to kill off your own original voice.” Feeling powerless and not wanting to take to the streets and protest (as is often the case in Europe and North America,) many hikikomori prefer manifesting their unhappiness internally rather than externally.

The powerful sentiment of not being “normal” like everyone else is one of the prime moving causes for hikikomori, and is likely one of the reasons that stimulates ultra-nationalists such as Tsujimoto to pen up a book or a blog entry.

A very similar, controversial figure is Kō Bunyū. Kō was born in 1938 in Taiwan, but currently resides in Japan. He has written more than 100 books regarding Taiwan’s, mainland China’s and Korea’s debt to Japan, who he argues, owe much of their culture and success to the land of the rising sun. He played down Japan’s war crimes and prompts his readers to ponder questions such as, “where else in the world can you find a country that was unable to recover for 300 years after being invaded?” He refers to the Japanese Invasions by feudal lord Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the late 1500s, alluding to the fact that the Japanese colonization of Korea (1910-1945) was quintessential in the peninsula’s rapid development and economic surge following World War II. This point is certainly debatable and there are many arguments for or against it. What should be noted is this neo-nationalist rhetoric that emerged in Japan and its former colonies to which many subscribe. It is the same current of thought which underpins Tsujimoto Kiichi’s and his acolytes.

One question arises: why was Korea unable to obtain justice for this crime following Japan's humiliating defeat in the war? One answer is, during the Tokyo trials which lasted from 1946 to 1948, many Asian countries that were colonized by Japan had no representatives of their own. In his book, Embracing Defeat, Pulitzer Prize winner J. W. Dower writes,

It was especially perverse that no Korean served as a judge or prosecutor, although hundreds of thousands of colonized Korean men and women had been brutalized by the Japanese war machine - as "comfort women," as laborers forced to work in the most onerous sectors of mining and heavy industry in Japan, or as lowly conscripts in the military. Korea was not a bona fide sovereign nation at the time, nor was it clear when it would be. For the duration of the Tokyo trial, Japan's former colonial subjects remained under alien occupation in a land divided between the United States and the Soviet Union. They were not allowed to judge their former overlords and oppressors or to participate in preparing the case against them.

It is sad that in this day and age, when information is freely available and countless official records are at the world's fingertips, there should be neo-nationalist individuals such as Tsujimoto Kiichi and their avid followers. But alas, this should not be surprising either. Following-the-leader is a game in which an overwhelming majority of Japanese have participated for millennia: as Zielenziger explains in his book, Japan is still largely a "group-oriented authoritarianism - where basic civil liberties are ostensibly guaranteed, but real choice is absent." He quotes the historian Sheldon Garon as noting, "the U.S. occupation could never eliminate the prewar household membership and constrained individual choice, not unlike the gonin-gumi of the feudal period in which members of every five family groups were obliged to monitor the behavior of the other four." It is almost as if the spite and vexation that individuals such as Tsujimoto feel for Korea derives not from a true hatred, but from the fear of being judged by their peers for not conforming to the general conservative attitude that, as Tsujimoto Kiichi and Kō Bunyū argue, Korea was and is “the lowest of the lowly.”

Apocalyptic earthquake shakes Japan

Emergency Numbers Update:

Local Japan Emergency dials:
171 + 1 + line phone number to leave a message
171 + 2 + line phone number to listen to the message

Australia - Consular Emergency Centre: 1300 555 135 (within Australia) or +61 2 6261 3305 (overseas)
Ireland - Irish Department of Foreign Affairs: 01-418 0233
Italy - +81 (0)3-3453-5274 or +81 (0)3-3453-5142
Republic of Korea - 001-010-800-2100-0404
New Zealand - New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade: 0800 432 111 (within NZ) or +64 439 8000 (overseas)
Philippines - Embassy’s emergency landline +81-3-5562-1570, +81-3-5562-1577, and +81-3-5562-1590 (emergency@philembassy.net)
United Kingdom - FCO helpline: +44 (0)207 008 0000
United States of America - 1-888-407-4747 or 1-202-501-4444 (JapanEmergencyUSC@state.gov)

The Sendai shore has been laid to waste. Hakodate has become a ghost port. Much of Sukagawa has been swept away after the collapse of the Fujinuma dam. The nightmare that struck the Tōhoku region in Japan on 11 March, at 05:46 UTC (14:46 local time) is unprecedented in Japan’s seismic history. For two, excruciatingly long minutes, an 8.9 Richter scale megathrust earthquake made the islands tremble, devastating cities, ports, and putting a country to its knees. Experts say this tremor was one of the top five most powerful earthquakes the world has ever seen. This was followed by more than 70 smaller aftershocks, one of which was as strong as 7.1 on the Richter scale, Al Jazeera reports.

Located between three tectonic plates – the Eurasian, Filipino and North American plates - and frequently influenced by a fourth – the Pacific plate – Japan is a land that is accustomed to numerous earthquakes every year: in the last ten years, 29 violent tremors were recorded and in the three days preceding this massive earthquake, three smaller shocks occurred.

The March 11, 2011 tragedy was far more powerful than the September 1, 1923 Great Kantō earthquake (7.9 on the Richter scale) which obliterated Tokyo, causing widespread damage to the entire Kantō region and claiming 140,000 lives. It was also much more intense than the January 17, 1995 Great Hanshin earthquake, which caused 6,434 people to lose their lives, costing a total of $100 billion – the most expensive natural disaster in history according to Reuters News.

The capital of Japan’s Miyagi Prefecture, Sendai was the hardest hit. Although the epicenter was reportedly 130 kilometers (80.7 miles) off the east coast of Oshika Peninsula, at a depth of 24.4 km (15.16 mi) under the seabed, the quake rapidly reached Tokyo 380 km away (236 mi) and was reportedly also felt in Beijing.

However, the tsunami triggered by the earthquake had equally devastating consequences: 10 meter (33ft) waves poured over the Japanese coast, inundating towns, causing damage to railways and roads, swallowing up everything in its path including cars, boats and trains. The hardest hit areas were the coasts of Fukushima, Miyagi, Tōhoku, Ibanaki, Sendai and Iwate. Four trains that operate between the Miyagi and Iwate prefectures have disappeared; one ship was found after several hours of searching.

The combined catastrophe of these two natural disasters has left a reported 4.4 million households without electricity according to Tohoku Electric, and more than a million without water. Although it is difficult to assess exact figures at this moment, there are an estimated 1,000 deaths in Miyagi prefecture.

Convenience store emptied out in Tokyo People throughout the country have been stocking up on water and food provisions in the event of more earthquakes. The image to the right shows an emptied out convenience store and was posted on Facebook by a netizen.

At 09:30 UTC, Google released the Google Person Finder in an effort to collect information regarding survivors and their locations.

Yonhap News sounded the alarm for 130 South Koreans that are unaccounted for due to power outages, and reports that the Korean consulate in Sendai is trying to establish contact with some 4,500 Korean nationals living in the region. For Korean nationals who do not speak Japanese, the South Korean government has provided a toll-free emergency number (지진 피해를 받은 한국인, 재일 동포 여러분에게 외교통상부 영사 콜센터 무료전화: 001-010-800-2100-0404 연결 불가시 유료전화: 001-82-2-3210-0404). China’s National Tourism Administration (NTA) said that the 4,578 Chinese nationals who were part of 215 tour groups in Japan had all contacted domestic travel agencies, reporting no death or injury. The international community has expressed its deepest condolences for the victims of the disaster and has prepared rescue teams to help the Japanese situation: China and South Korea, as well as the U.S. and the UN have all promised to send an avalanche of aid to alleviate the country with the world’s third biggest economy. As a result of the earthquake, the Yen has devalued and the Tokyo Stock Exchange also underwent a selling panic that left Nikkei down by 1.7 percent, The Washington Post wrote. Government spending for the country’s reconstruction is said to only add to Japan’s fiscal troubles and soaring national debt.

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant Explosion

Although an enormous conflagration caused havoc in the petrochemical plant in Miyagi and in the Ichihara refinery, the bigger tragedy within the tragedy was the explosion of one of the nuclear reactors in Fukushima prefecture on 12 March at 15:36 local time. The Japanese government has declared a state of emergency as the cooling systems at Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants I and II have suffered severe failure, causing meltdowns and radiation levels above the allowable limits. Other nuclear reactors throughout the country are said to have been automatically shut down upon seismic oscillations.

Reuters has reported danger of a severe radiation leaks after an explosion has blown off the roof of Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant I, which released a large white cloud (see the footage here). However, Al Jazeera’s Live Blog has announced that the explosion might have been caused by hydrogen ignition: this may not necessarily have caused radiation leakage.

An operator working for Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) who was frantically trying to reduce the reactor’s pressure levels was inevitably affected by the explosion. He and another coworker have been transported to a hospital. Japan’s Jiji News reports a total of 4 injuries with one bone fracture, and radiation leaks in a 20 km radius from the plant. All efforts are being made to evacuate the residents of the area: more than 45,000 people have already been brought to safety.

Jiji News has also released an article saying that one hour exposure to this radiation is equivalent to the limit of radiation an ordinary person can be exposed to in an entire year (1000 Microsievert – a unit of radiation dose).

Experts warned of underestimation as nuclear crisis unfolds

Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant after the second explosion on 14 March. Image by DigitalGlobe.

Two new explosions rocked the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant yesterday, after being damaged by last Friday's traumatic earthquake and the subsequent tsunami. Experts are worried that the crisis is more severe than the estimation given by Japanese authorities.

Although Japanese authorities maintained the rating of the Fukushima nuclear disaster on level 4 (out of seven) of the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES). This level refers to an "accident with local consequences." US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday (EDT) that early reports indicated that the incident in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant could be "very significant, perhaps beyond Three Mile Island meltdown" (level 5 in INES) in 1979.

Goto Masashi, former Toshiba engineer who specialized in designing containment vessels of reactors, had warned of the risk posed by Mixed oxide fuel rods, which contain plutonium and uranium, in reactor No. 3. The radiation data of Tokyo Metropolitan government only covered Iodine 131 and Caesium 137, according to a NHK report on 16 March.

French Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) said the accident at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant could be classed as level six in INES, one level lower than that of Chernobyl disaster in 1986, according to Reuters. ASN Chairman Andre-Claude Lacoste said the concrete vessel around the No. 2 reactor, designed to contain radioactive debris, is “no longer sealed."

At 06:14 on 15 March (Japan local time), an explosion occured at reactor No. 2 of Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant, Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) confirmed. It is thought that the suppression pool container is damaged. Prime Minister Kan Naoto urged people within a 20-30 km radius from the Plant to stay indoors.

At the same time, an explosion occurred at the building which housed reactor No. 4. It is believed to be a hydrogen blast. No. 4 reactor went into regular maintenance mode when the earthquake occurred on 11 March and is not operational.

Subsequently, at 09:38, a blast occurred on the fourth floor of the building which housed reactor No. 4, TEPCO reported. It is believed that the blast started at the recycling pump which supplied water to the reactor. TEPCO said at 13:00 that the fire is extinguished.

In the English version of the press release by TEPCO, people were informed that "a loud explosion was heard from within the power station (Unit 4 Nuclear Reactor Building)" yet in the Japanese version, the explosion was underplayed as being "a loud noise" (大きな音).

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano Yukio said in a press briefing that according to monitoring data of Daiichi Power Plant, radiation near reactor No. 3 increased to 400 Millisievert (400000 Microsievert) per hour at 10:22, and radiation near reactor No. 4 and area between No. 3 and No. 2 reached 100 Millisievert per hour and 30 Millisievert per hour respectively. It was confirmed that this level of radioaction is harmful to human beings.

Later, radiation at the front gate of Daiichi Power Plant dropped to 596.4 Microsievert per hour at 15:30, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano Yukio said in a press briefing. Meanwhile, the temperature of reactors No. 5 and 6 "somewhat increased," Edano said.

Radiation in Russian port city of Vladivostok, about 800 km northwest of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, were 1 microroentgen per hour higher at 13:00, compared to the previous six hours. However, it stayed within normal levels, Reuters reported, citing Russia's regional interior ministry.

In a seperate development, at 22:35, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.1 occurred in Shizuoka Prefecture, according to U.S. Geology Surveys. Japan Meteorological Agency later said it is not clear whether the earthquake is related to the 9.0 earthquake that hit Japan on 11 March. Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant, which is located about 90 km southwest of epicenter and situated on a fault line, is in normal operation, IAEA said.

The international community is preparing for the worst. U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday night that it was prepared to take action, including the rerouting of Japan-bound flights should the nuclear crisis worsen, Reuters reported.

Deutsche Lufthansa AG rerouted its Tokyo flights to the southern-Japanese cities of Nagoya and Osaka, citing risk of nuclear fallout, according to Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, Austria is moving its embassy from Tokyo to Osaka, citing uncertainty in Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant, Associated Press reported.

China is organizing a large-scale evacuation of its citizens from northeastern Japan, citing severity and uncertainty in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, according to an emergency notice by the Chinese Embassy in Japan.

The Chinese Embasy in Japan and the Chinese Consulate General in Niigata are arranging coaches to Miyagi, Fukushima, Ibaraki and Iwate Prefectures to gather their citizens and send them to Niigata and Narita airports, before securing flights to China, the notice said. No charter flight is arranged for the moment.

Japan asks for help as nuclear threat impends

Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Japan is on the verge of a severe nuclear crisis after a second explosion occurred in Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant yesterday. Japan's government officials admitted that it is possible that the fuel rods in Daiichi Power Plant may have melted down, while IAEA, the UN's atomic watchdog, prepared to offer help.

Director General of the IAEA, Amano Yukiya, said in a statement at around 3:00 (Japan local time is used unless specified) on 15 March that the Japanese government asked the Agency to provide help with expert missions "today." He asserted that they are currently working out the details. IAEA plans to hold a daily Technical Briefing for Member States and the media at 15:00, Central European Time, Amano said.

On 11 March, the IAEA pledged to be ready to provide any kind of technical assistance to Japan, should the government request it.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said in a news briefing at 21:00 on 14 March that it is "highly possible" that meltdown occurred at the fuel rods of reactors No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 in Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant. However, he stressed that it is unlikely the current crisis will lead to another Chernobyl disaster.

The cooling system stoppage occurred at No. 2 reactor of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano Yukio said at 16:20 14 March. The fuel rods of No. 2 reactor left completely exposed above water at around 21:00 today, according to NHK and Kyodo News reports. The water level once increased but the fuel rods are again completely exposed at 23:20 on March 14, according to NHK.

Radiation level at the front gate of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant once reached 3,130 microsieverts per hour at 21:37 on 14 March, NHK reported. TEPCO (the fourth biggest electric power company in the world) revealed that the radiation level at the monitoring post of Fukushima Daini Nuclear Plant, 10 km south of Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant, reached 9.4 microsieverts per hour at 22:07 today, according to an Asahi News report. This is equivalent to 260 times the permissible level of radiation, Asahi said.

After the explosion of reactor No. 3 on the morning of March 14, the U.S. Seventh Fleet has ordered to move its ships and aircrafts away from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant. This directive was given after their ships reportedly found low-level radioactive contamination while passing through the white cloud discharged by the plant. The maximum potential radiation dose received by the ship’s personnel was less than that received from one month of exposure to natural radiation, according to a statement from the U.S. Seventh Fleet.

Japan awaits Akatsuki probe

Akatsuki probe in space. Original rendition by Akihiro Ikeshita

The Japanese satellite Akatsuki, launched May 21^st 2010, was intended to go into Venus' orbit on Monday to study the planet's atmosphere and surface. However, as it traveled around the sister planet, it lost contact with earth.

It is still not clear whether the probe can be recovered or not at this point. It is currently in "Safe-Hold Mode," which allows the apparatus to transmit information regarding its location at low speed. Akatsuki automatically activates this emergency mode to restore its stability, and uses its solar panel to independently generate energy.

Although coming back in contact with the satellite here on earth will take some time, Akatsuki will use its low-gain antenna to communicate new information regarding its present location. The space probe, Hayabusa, returned to earth earlier this year also in "Safe-Hold Mode," bringing back grains of dust from a small near-Earth asteroid.

Data analysis thus far suggests that Akatsuki is not broken. It will be confirmed whether the satellite successfully entered Venus' orbit or not on the morning of December 8^th, Yomiuri News reported.

Akatsuki is Japan's first satellite to orbit Venus. Although Russian and American satellites have also reached Venus, their atmospheric data of the planet is limited.

The satellite's development and launch cost approximately $300 million.

Japan's Minister of Foreign Affairs resigns

Japan’s Foreign Minister, Seiji Maehara (前原誠司) resigned this Sunday upon allegations of accepting a ¥50,000 ($607) political donation from a South Korean national resident in Japan, Reuters has reported.

Mr. Maehara, potential successor to Prime Minister Naoto Kan, argued it had been accepted unknowingly from a childhood friend he knew long before entering politics, Asahi News quotes him as saying. If done intentionally, accepting these donations violates Japan’s law. This measure is intended to prevent foreign powers from influencing Japanese domestic affairs.

I apologize to the Japanese people for stepping down after only six months and provoking distrust over a problem with my political funding, although I have sought to pursue a clean style of politics - Mr. Seiji Maehara

Just two days earlier, Mr. Maehara said his ministry was reviewing the ODA (Official Development Assistance) to cut Japan’s aid to China, Mainichi News reported. The ODA’s goal is to assist developing nations with socioeconomic infrastructure. However, China has recently overtaken Japan as the world’s second largest economy, thus making the assistance moot. Mr. Maehara– also known as a “China hawk” – has recently criticized China’s increasing investment in military build-up. Prime Minister Naoto Kan of the Democratic Party (DPJ) was quick to back Maehara in this decision.

This resignation is a blow to Mr. Kan’s already vacillating government. According to Reuters News Agency, Kan is struggling to prevent the DPJ from collapsing, thus calling the nation to anticipated elections. He is also facing antagonism from the opposition, which is reluctant to implement his fiscal reform that aims at increasing sales taxes to 5% in order to cover Japan’s enormous public debt.

Natsuo Yamaguchi, of Japan’s center-right opposition party, the New Komeito (NKP) said:

The Kan government has lost the confidence of the people. There can only be a resignation of the entire cabinet or a dissolution of the lower house.

This is not the first call for a general election that Mr. Kan’s government has faced. Opposition to the party is not surprising: the DPJ became the ruling party in 2009, defeating the rightist Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) which had been in power for nearly 54 consecutive years since 1955.

Apart from a soaring public debt, Japan is currently struggling to hoist itself from an economic slump and is battling the high costs of its super-aging-society.

Most used kanji on Asahi news

Kanji for 'nothingness' - by Kanko* (CC license)

Out of sheer curiosity, I recently wrote a short program in PHP that computes a list of the most used kanji (logographic Chinese characters used in Japanese) on the Japanese daily, Asahi news. The program scans the page where the latest articles are listed, takes those entries, stores them in an array and enters each link. It then looks at the article, strips out all unnecessary characters leaving only the kanji and outputs the results in reverse order by most used.

This is useful in several ways. First, if one would like to hone his Japanese newspaper reading skills, by knowing which kanji appear most often in the daily, one can focus on learning those kanji combinations first and work his way down to the more obscure combinations afterwards. Second, if this program is executed over time (ex. once a day for a year), it will return a fairly comprehensive list of kanji that one should focus on learning for the sake of newspaper comprehension. Lastly, some may find it interesting from a technical perspective.

The 50 most used Japanese kanji on the 2/22/2012 edition of Asahi online are:

108) 日
80)  人
61)  月
51)  年
50)  約
42)  分
35)  出
31)  取
31)  万
30)  昨年
26)  受
26)  時
23)  続
19)  示
19)  発表
18)  求
17)  日本
17)  男性
16)  入
16)  込
15)  高
15)  調
15)  上
14)  見
14)  増

13)  後
13)  大
13)  認
12)  伝
12)  国
12)  可能性
12)  参加
12)  検討
12)  持
12)  始
12)  原発
11)  億
11)  立
11)  同
11)  政府
10)  米国
10)  影響
10)  使
10)  作
10)  状態
10)  引
10)  決
9)  対
9)  狙
9)  向

The 20 less frequent are:

1) 地下
1) 与野党
1) 統一
1) 動向
1) 社会
1) 国民
1) 信任投票
1) 副大統領
1) 事実上
1) 詐欺容疑

1) 暫定大統領
1) 任期
1) 権限
1) 再統合
1) 平和的
1) 退陣
1) 暫定大統領選挙
1) 採取
1) 巣穴
1) 最古

This is also an excellent tool for improving one's reading of long strings of concatenated kanji, such as 無職小野沢昌智容疑者 or even longer, 地域経済産業活性化対策費補助金.

You can see the code here. The script execution time takes several minutes so if you decide to run it, please be patient. Also, please use it with care as it does put some strain on Asahi's servers.

Self-restraint set to affect post-quake Japanese economy

Tokyo Tower and the Rainbow Bridge, both famous landmarks of Tokyo, switched off illuminations in a move to save energy after earthquake hit Japan on 11 March.

Spring has historically been the festive season in Japan, highlighted by delightful gatherings for cherry blossom viewing, graduation parties from schools and colleges as well as farewell and welcome parties for employees in companies nationwide. However, the dire atmosphere triggered by recent natural disasters, accentuated by the Japanese custom of self-restraint, has also started to severely affect the country’s economy.

Two peculiar characteristics of Japanese culture are the pursuit of solidarity and an obsessive regard of other’s feelings, thoughts and opinions. Said behaviors have gained an international reputation and been praised worldwide following the events of March 11.

The concept of “jishuku,” or self-restraint, is deeply entwined within the aforementioned characteristics. The effect: every individual becomes a check to himself so to not be a nuisance to his or her peers. Recently this trait has intensified, as signs of jishuku start to drub the Japanese economy.

Consumer spending makes up about 60% of the Japanese Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and its impending contraction will further mar the post-tsunami Japanese economy, since the government’s capability in fixed capital formation might be constricted by its astronomical debt-to-GDP ratio.

Within the Japanese video-game industry, one of the nation’s cultural and economic “soft powers,” several game publishers decided against the release of products following the devastating earthquake.

The manufacturer Irem (Airemu in Japanese) will cease development of its PlayStation 3 game “Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 4 Summer Memories” (“Zettai Zetsumei Toshi” roughly means “a city in desperate circumstances”), according to an official statement from Irem. The three prequels of the game face de-facto elimination, as they will no longer be produced once the current copies are sold out. In these adventure games, the protagonist must escape a city amidst natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and tornadoes. “Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 4 Summer Memories” was originally to be released March 10, but technical development issues had once forced Irem to delay its release date to spring this year.

According to official website of Nintendo, several video-game developers also officially delayed the release of eight titles since the March 11 earthquake struck northeastern Japan. Three of them are designed for the Wii home video-game console and five of them are for the 3DS, Nintendo’s new hand-held console.

However, the video-game industry is not alone in performing adjournments to its releases.

In the film industry, Japanese distributors have delayed the opening of a number of movies to the public in local cinemas. Hereafter, Unthinkable (starring Samuel Jackson), Jackass 3D, Sanctum (produced by James Cameron), and Aftershock (or "Tangshan Great Earthquake" in Chinese) are among the deferred titles, according to Japanese blogger Takamori Ikuya. Several other titles have temporarily halted production.

Self-restraint has also started to severely affect the catering industry.

In Tokyo, the orders of one appetizer provider fell more than 90% from previous years, according to a report by Jiji Press. In Happo-en, a popular wedding venue in Tokyo, over 60 reservations have been postponed and at least three have been canceled. “Self-restraint” was cited as the primary reason for all cancellations and deferments, Jiji Press reported.

In the most southwestern and thus least-affected Kyushu region, lighting in several famous cherry blossom viewing spots has been turned off and promotional events have been downscaled or even canceled, according to reports by daily newspapers, Nishinippon Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun.

Given that this “jishuku” mentality results in a considerable deceleration in consumptions and expenditures, Michelin has decided to delay the publication of its Bonnes Petites Tables Tokyo. The Japanese restaurant rating guide is to be published on 21 April, according to the daily Asahi Shimbun. The release of new products and related marketing campaigns have also been affected: Panasonic has canceled two promotional campaigns for its new rice-cooker and microwave oven, Asahi Shimbun reported.

Suzuki Kensuke, an associate professor of sociology at Kwansei Gakuin University, is quoted by New York Times as saying that,

with the extensive coverage of the disaster zone, jishuku has become a way for people in Tokyo to express solidarity at a time of crisis [...] Jishuku is the easiest way to feel like you’re doing something, though perhaps there isn’t much thought put into how much these actions make a difference overall.

Izumi Masatoshi, an associate professor of social psychology at Dohto University, pointed out that another reason why people display jishuku is to prevent themselves from being considered indiscreet by their peers. He argued that the prolongation of such self-refrain will most likely result in social stagnation and stress accumulation – two problems that Japan can do without at the moment.

In the meanwhile, the operator of the damaged Fukushima plant, TEPCO, continues to battle the radioactive leaks. The company has profusely apologized for the disasters at their plants, and they are destined to undergo much self-refrain in coming years, as public concerns mount. The company’s share price has nosedived by almost 80% since the incident, and reached 461 JPY (5.4 USD), the all-time low in nearly half a century on 31 March. Meanwhile, the Credit Rating Agency, Moody’s, cut its long time rating of TEPCO from A1 to Baa1, thus labeling the electric service provider as a “medium grade” company with a “moderate credit risk.”

The actual economic impact of this incredible national display of jishuku is unclear. Whether it will be beneficial in the long-run or backfire, crippling the country, is yet to be ascertained.

The world fears a nuclear catastrophe after earthquake in Japan

From right to left: Reactor No.1 to No. 4 of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

After the catastrophic earthquake (Japan's Meteorological Agency revised the magnitude to 9.0 on the Richter Scale) on March 11, the condition of the nuclear plants near the quake-struck area has become the focus of the international community.

On March 14, at 11:01 am, a hydrogen explosion occurred at Unit 3 of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the control room of Unit 3 remains operational. However, there is now fear that reactor N. 3 may also burst.

Two days ago, an explosion occurred at reactor N.1 of the same plant. Four workers were injured while attempting to fix the situation at the facility; three more reported subsequent injuries from other on-site incidents. In addition, one worker was exposed to higher-than-normal radiation levels. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) posted on its website:

The Japanese authorities have classified the event at Fukushima Daiichi Unit 1 as a level 4 "Accident with Local Consequences" on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES). The INES scale is used to promptly and consistently communicate to the public the safety significance of events associated with sources of radiation. The scale runs from 0 (deviation) to 7 (major accident). - IAEA Japan Earthquake Update (12 March 2011, 21:10 CET)

At least 190 people have been exposed to the radiation released from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant explosion, according to Asahi News.

An article in the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, quotes French experts who confirmed that the white cloud that was released from the explosion at Fukushima Daiichi, charged with iodine-131 and caesium-137, released a dangerous quantity of radioactive material in the air.

On 13 March, the French embassy in Tokyo warned its nationals to leave the Tokyo area "for a few days," due to the threat posed by the Fukushima nuclear plant and potential risks of more earthquakes throughout the archipelago. A day before, the Hong Kong government issued a Black Outbound Travel Alert (OTA), urging people to avoid traveling to Fukushima prefecture. The U.S. embassy has also called for its citizens to evacuate Tokyo, and according to Yonhap News, South Korea has issued a Level 2 advisory for areas around the plant and a Level 1 advisory for Tokyo and Chiba.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano Yukio said there was a "low possibility" of a dangerous radiation leak, adding that water was still being pumped into the reactor to cool it down. TEPCO, the operator of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant, stressed that although the nuclear plant framework and the reactors had burst, the core was still intact.

However, the situation is still precarious. A Yomiuri News report said that after the 9.0 earthquake struck Japan, 11 nuclear reactors of two operators, TEPCO and Tohoku Electric Power, performed automatic shut down due to strong shakes. And according to Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) and both operators, only No. 3 reactor of Fukushima Daini (i.e. "the second”) Nuclear Power and No. 1 and No. 3 reactors of Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant achieved stable “cold shutdown” state, which implies that the remaining eight reactors require continuous cooling. This will require careful handling.

Some Japanese experts are not optimistic about the current situation. Aritomi Masanori, director of the Research Laboratory for Nuclear Reactors in Tokyo Institute of Technology, believed that the No. 3 reactor is in a more threatening state than that of No. 1 reactor. He said that the water level inside the pressure vessel has not increased after the operator started pumping seawater as a coolant. This could signify that the steel reactor container might have been damaged, and the black smoke during explosion could potentially contain radioactive material.

As per the explosion of No.1 reactor on 11 March, before the first explosion occurred (15:36 Japan time), as much as 170 cm of the fuel rods were reportedly exposed above the water from 10:04 to 15:28, according to information from the Office of Japan’s Prime Minister.

In view of the scarce information available, Goto Masashi, a former Toshiba engineer who specialized in designing containment vessels of reactors, warned that the cooling system was the core of the problem. He repeatedly urged Japanese government officials to disclose more information regarding the reactors, such as temperature inside the vessel.

Goto pointed out in a press conference on March 13 that using seawater as coolant is not appropriate given the design of the reactors; rather, a high power pump is required. The sudden increase in pressure in addition to the high temperature within the vessel could lead to severely adverse consequences.

Goto said that the out-datedness of these facilities was one of the several causes of the explosion, and admitted that the magnitude of this earthquake had exceeded all precautionary assumptions that had been postulated during their design. The pressure in the containment vessel rose to about 1.5 to 2 times the level it could sustain, he added. Toshiba supplied reactor units 3 and 5 of Fukushima Daiichi Reactor, while General Motors furnished reactor unit 1.

The Fukushima disaster has prompted many European countries to scrutinize domestic nuclear safety. German Chancellor Angela Merkel staged a crisis meeting with key ministers on Saturday, before the second explosion occurred, wherein she emphasized the importance of nuclear safety within Germany and within the EU at large, AFP reported.

As if mother nature had not punished the Land of the Rising Sun enough, after 52 years of inactivity, the Shinmoedake vulcano erupted in the southern island of Kyushu on March 13, covering the sky with a blanket of soot.

Thoughts about the Fukushima incident

Japan, with aid from US, is struggling to cool down those quake-hit reactors in Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant. Image by United States Navy.

Contributing writer: Andreas Rosendahl Hansen

The catastrophic quake and following tsunami that hit Japan the 11th of March has received extensive media coverage all around the globe. The scope of the catastrophe is enormous and thousands of Japanese along the Northeastern coast and even the inland have lost their homes and have limited access to water, food and shelter due to broken down infrastructure; aid agencies from all around the world are struggling to to reach those in need and assess the scope of the situation.

One incident in particular has captured the attention of worldwide media: the situation at the Japanese Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. While the media coverage has been intensive with numerous pictures of collapsing structures and interviews with nervous Japanese officials, the information flow as to what has really happened and to what extent Japan is experiencing a nuclear hazard has been very nontransparent and fraught with exaggerations and hyperbole.

To explicate my point, I will firstly compare the situation at Fukushima with the biggest nuclear disaster in human history – Chernobyl – and in doing so, I will evince whether or not a disaster of the same magnitude could occur in Japan. Second, I will look into the media coverage of the situation and assess whether or not the media has a bias in cases such as this.

Technicalities

If one wants to compare Chernobyl and Fukushima, the overall construction and layout of the plants is a good place to start. Dr. Josef Oehman, Ph.D and research assistant at MIT writes the following about the construction of the Fukushima plant:

    The plants at Fukushima are Boiling Water Reactors (BWR for short). A BWR produces electricity by boiling water, and spinning a turbine with that steam. The nuclear fuel heats water, the water boils and creates steam, the steam then drives turbines that create the electricity, and the steam is then cooled and condensed back to water, and the water returns to be heated by the nuclear fuel. The reactor operates at about 285 °C. (…)

    The core is then placed in the pressure vessel. The pressure vessel is a thick steel vessel that operates at a pressure of about 7 MPa (~1000 psi), and is designed to withstand the high pressures that may occur during an accident. The pressure vessel is the third barrier to radioactive material release.

    The entire primary loop of the nuclear reactor – the pressure vessel, pipes, and pumps that contain the coolant (water) – are housed in the containment structure. This structure is the fourth barrier to radioactive material release. The containment structure is a hermetically (air tight) sealed, very thick structure made of steel and concrete. This structure is designed, built and tested for one single purpose: To contain, indefinitely, a complete core meltdown. To aid in this purpose, a large, thick concrete structure is poured around the containment structure and is referred to as the secondary containment.

Source

In other words, the containment structure is built to withstand and contain a meltdown indefinitely. The nuclear power plant of Chernobyl had no such containment, as all Soviet nuclear power plants were built with the development of plutonium in mind. The plutonium was from the uranium fuel rods of the power plant, but in order to avoid contamination of the plutonium, the rods had to be changed relatively often, which made a hermetically sealed containment inconvenient. This meant that when disaster struck, radiation was leaked directly into the atmosphere.

Another difference is the system of moderation in the two reactors. All nuclear power plants today operate using nuclear fission, wherein a neutron is absorbed into the nucleus of a uranium isotope causing it to split, releasing heat in the process. This heat is then used to boil water, which drives turbines producing power. In order to control the reaction, control rods that absorb neutrons are inserted between the fuel rods (this is what moderation means). That is not all: in water-based reactors like Fukushima, the coolant itself helps absorbing neutrons. However, in Chernobyl, the reactor was moderated with flammable graphite. That meant that when an explosion shattered the outer casing, graphite fell into the reactor and fueled the fire causing radioactive smoke to spread. This fire lasted for thirteen days and all the while radioactive material was released into the atmosphere.

Also, it is important to stress that all the reactors at the Fukushima plant have been shut down and this happened as soon as warnings about the earthquake started to come in. The reason why the reactors still need cooling is the residual heat generated by the fission products.

Essentially, the chance that the Fukushima incident will evolve into something as bad as Chernobyl is virtually null. The containment is built for the sole purpose of keeping radiation and heat from a meltdown inside. Also, the whole construction of the Fukushima reactor is such that a meltdown (a situation, where all the fuel melts together and start generating huge amounts of heat and radiation) cannot happen. I encourage anybody interested in the matter to read Dr. Josef Oehmans assessment of the situation, which also explains the explosions that has happened in all three reactors. Even if the containment should fail, the release of radiation will be greatly retarded by the fact that the Fukushima reactors are moderated by water and not flammable graphite.

Media coverage

Anyone following the situation in Japan closely will undoubtedly have noticed the strong one-sidedness and anti-nuclear bias in the media coverage. While some critique, such as Iouli Andeevs critique of the spent fuel deposit, and former member of the Japanese Nuclear Safety Committee, Dr. Katsuhiko Ishibashi's critique of building plants near fault zones are undoubtedly justified, reactions to the situation have been verging on the hysterical. Even before the damage and hazard level of Fukushima had been properly determined, German chancellor Angela Merkel announced that she plans to shut down all German nuclear power plants built before 1980 and Japanese are migrating south from Tokyo in the thousands due to a marginal rise in radiation levels. The Fukushima plant has endured the fifth largest earthquake in the history of man and a following 10 meter tsunami and while the situation remain uncertain and Japanese authorities are struggling to keep the situation under control, the IAEA is, at the time of writing, yet to disclose any information that there has been any radiation leakage that poses any major health hazard to even the local area. In any case, even if the Fukushima incident should turn out to be a major health hazard, there is virtually zero chance that any German plant, or any European plant for that matter, would ever be subject to a natural disaster of such magnitude. Furthermore, use of terminology in the press such as ‘nuclear explosion’ when referring to the explosions due to hydrogen buildups in the vented steam and the frequent mentioning of radiation danger without assessing its hazard level has contributed with nothing other than undue panic and taken the focus away from the thousands of Japanese who are in real danger and immediate need of shelter, medical attention and aid.

There is no doubt that the situation at Fukushima remains extremely serious. Workers are still struggling to keep water levels sufficiently high and unconfirmed rumors hints at a leakage from the containment shell of one of the reactors and cooling by helicopters were canceled due to rising radiation levels above reactor three. However, no matter what the situation in Fukushima will evolve into, the population of Japan has the right to unbiased and accurate radiation hazard assessments and information related to the incident, so they do not have to endure unnecessary worries in an already excruciatingly difficult situation.

Yearning for death – the state of suicides in Japan

Ukiyo-e woodblock of a Japanese warrior performing seppuku or ritual suicide. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Japan – the land of the rising sun, an ancient country foiled by a thin stratum of modernity. Though the neon lights of the Shinjuku district and the rapid trains that slither to and fro create an ostensible futuristic atmosphere, Japan has maintained much of its century-old culture of sacrifice and honor: on June 2nd, 2010, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama resigned his post before members of the Japanese Democratic Party, citing broken promises as the primary reason for his decision. Soon after, Ichirō Ozawa also resigned upon allegations of a fund scandal. Needless to say, this chivalrous code of conduct is the envy of many countries.

However, it appears as though this spectacular sense of duty, of obligation and sacrifice is a double-edged sword: in the attempt to show respect for others, or to save face, by not permitting self-forgiveness, such an auto destructive and castigating mentality results in an enormous human and psychological cost.

Suicides in Japan have breached the 30,000 people-per-year mark for 13 consecutive years.

Ever since the end of World War II, the archipelago has consistently ranked as one of the top OECD countries as well as one of the top countries worldwide for suicides. There have been three noticeable peaks in suicide rates: one was from 1953 to 1959, when for every 10,000 people, about 31.5 committed the act. Though the figures went down, the second peak was from 1983 to 1986, when on average 28.9 people chose to end their lives. Now, the number has incremented: from 1998 to 2010, for every 10,000 people, approximately 38 yearn for death.

The statistics provided by the World Health Organization are 36.5 males and 14.1 females for every 10,000 in Japan (1999), compared to 18.8 males and 8.3 females in South Korea (2000) and 13.0 males and 14.8 females (1999) in China. However, even in the latter two countries, suicides are on the rise.

The highest number of suicides recorded was in 2003, when the National Police Agency calculated a whopping total of 34,427 deaths. In 2009, Japan saw 32,845 suicides, and whereas 2010 was initially looking slightly better, the 30,000 mark was once again surpassed with a total of 31,560 deaths.

The impact of mass media

In her 1946 ethnography, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture, anthropologist Ruth Benedict wrote,

[The Japanese] play up suicide as Americans play up crime and they have the same vicarious enjoyment of it. They choose to dwell on events of self-destruction instead of on the destruction of others … [Suicide] meets some need that cannot be filled by dwelling on other acts.

Indeed, suicide has been much played up in the Japanese culture: from the romanticized story of the 47 masterless samurai, Chūshingura, who all commit seppuku (ritual suicide), to the final deeds of some of Japan’s finest writers.

In 1837, Ōshio Heihachirō, a Neo-Confucian scholar and low-ranking samurai committed suicide after inciting vehement opposition to the Tokugawa shogunate. In 1912, Count Nogi Maresuke, a prominent figure during the 1905 Russo-Japanese War committed suicide upon the death of the Meiji Emperor. Soon after, his wife followed suit. Profoundly moved by these incidents, novelist and poet Mori Ōgai turned to historical fiction to depict this samurai code of conduct. In 1927, one of Japan’s most prominent writers, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke took his life by overdosing on sleeping pills. In 1948, the stately author Osamu Dazai committed suicide, which, as the erudite Hisaaki Yamanouchi wrote, “[trailed] behind him a cloud of immorality and disgrace.” Profoundly influenced by the works of Ōshio Heihachirō, at the age of forty-five, Mishima Yukio also killed himself in the traditional Japanese manner on 25 November 1970, after unsuccessfully trying to incite a unit of the Self-Defence Forces to a coup d’état.

A question arises: what role do the media play in incentivizing suicides in Japan? The brief answer is, a lot. As David Chan observed in Hong Kong, even small increases in suicide attempts can raise “widespread public concern” if reported by the media.

The literary allure of a slew of suicidal authors and their fictitious heroes is also a factor. Dr. Yamanouchi observed that in Mishima’s Confessions of a Mask (1949), "the charm of the soldiers derives from the fact that they are destined to die."

He remarks:

the hero’s obsession with death, furthermore, is placed in a historical setting. He feels his future to be a burden. Accordingly the prospect of death on the battlefield and even in an air-raid is attractive to him.

These themes of nihilism, of alienation from society, and the general sense of the futility of life are also evident in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, where the handicapped protagonist who cannot master his own life wishes for an apocalyptic end to all that is beautiful. This morbid attitude is therefore dually present in the mind of Japanese readers: both the fictitious characters in the novels as well as their authors engender this final, powerful statement, which is both an admonition of society and of life itself.

Books are not the only form of media hype. As Prof. Jennifer Robertson points out, by the 1930s, Japan’s population of 64 million had purchased 10 million copies of daily newspapers and more than 11,000 magazines and journals, wherein the heroics of love-suicide were romanticized.

In 1932, the suicide of a Keio University couple was sensationalized as the media immortalized the exquisiteness of their candid love. On February 17, 1935, the daily Asashi Shinbun published the story of an attempted lesbian double suicide between Saijō Eriko and Masuda Yasumare in the humor column of the paper.

The Japanese distinguish between seppuku (also known as hara-kiri), the ritual disembowelment used by the samurai class, and other types of suicide: shinjū denotes a double suicide by lovers or any suicide involving the death of more than one person, such as oyako shinjū (parent-child suicide), fufu shinjū (married couple suicide), shimai jōshi (sisters suicide), muri shinjū (coerced suicide), dōseiai shinjū and dōseiai jōshi (homosexual suicide).

The array of nomenclature that is used to distinguish “suicides” may cause problems when releasing information regarding the actual numbers of suicides in Japan. In the 1964 edition of "Revue française de sociologie", René Duchac stated that it would be “reasonable to admit” that the National Police Agency often categorized a number of incidents as mere cases of dementia, whereas on a closer look, they were obvious cases of suicide.

In other words, given the complex taxonomy that exists in Japan, the actual numbers of suicides may effectively be underestimated. Duchac remarked, “a certain margin of uncertainty is inevitable in calculating suicides.” As Prof. John W. Traphagan, former Director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin writes, some suicides may also not be calculated “in order to prevent embarrassment to the family.”

Causes of suicide – debunked

It is virtually impossible to point out the exact reason for suicides in any country.

The argument has been made that the lack of sunshine in a country negatively impacts an individual’s mood. In 2002, a study came out called “The Role of Sunshine in the Triggering of Suicide” that disproves this claim. The conclusion was that in countries in the northern hemisphere, the months of peak suicide are from April to June, whereas in the southern hemisphere, they are from October to January. Some researchers have posited that high frequency of suicides during the summer in Japan may be attributed to the fiscal year ending in March, thus relating it to a family’s socioeconomic fortunes.

Others have argued that the isolation caused by technology and the anxiety resulting from a fast-paced society is a major cause of suicide. A 2004 study by John W. Traphagan debunks this myth: he points out that Japan is “one of the few industrialized areas (others are Greece and California) in which suicide rates tend to be lower in urban than in rural areas.”

Probably one of the most debated points is whether academic competition in Japan is a primary cause of suicides. The research conducted by scholars Kangmin Zeng and Gerald Le Tendre in 1998 explicated the lack of relation between adolescent suicides and Japan’s educational system.

They argue,

if there were a link between increased educational participation and lower suicide rates, then young adolescent suicide rates should have dropped after the war. … In short, suicide rates for this group do not seem to be affected even by dramatic changes in the overall educational system.

Their conclusion is that there is little evidence to support a direct link between academic competition in Japan and adolescent suicide.

Shrinking from annihilation

The suicide rate as well as the rate of attempted suicides in Japan is staggeringly high. The country has only very recently recognized suicides as a social problem rather than an individual’s mere mental weakness. It is hard to pinpoint specific causes for this alarming social dilemma, and the techniques used by social science to decipher this cultural attitude are often too trivial in providing a solution.

The Japanese government has already implemented several countermeasures and suicide prevention initiatives such as conducting more research in the field, helping suicidal patients get through their depressions and installing lights and barriers at train stations. There are also advertisements within Japanese trains that prompt viewers to call a number if they feel suicidal symptoms such as depression.

A website called Ikiru was launched in June 2006 specifically to address this problem and to seek a solution. Their mission is to "prevent suicide and provide support for the survivors, thus helping to create a stable society where people can lead healthy, meaningful lives."

Nevertheless, as the results of the National Police Agency show, the number of suicides in the land of the rising sun remains alarming and does not yet seem to be dwindling.

At the time of this article’s writing, a series of featured stories have been released on the online Asahi Shinbun called “The Country of Lone Families” (Kozoku no kuni) that grapples with Japan’s many dilemmas: solitary life, an aging society and numerous suicides. The Twitter page has already attracted hundreds of viewer responses. Perhaps involving the public to discuss these problems openly will shatter the extremely complex interpersonal barriers that exist in Japan and someday evolve into a solution for the current dire social atmosphere.

One thing is certain. In the Myth of Sysyphus, Albert Camus wrote

in a man’s attachment to life there is something stronger than all the ills in the world. The body’s judgment is as good as the mind’s, and the body shrinks from annihilation.

Society at large cannot afford to ignore even a single individual's yearning for death.