Mutual Images of the Japanese and the Chinese

An NPO in Japan and an English newspaper in China recently conducted a joint opinion poll on the mutual images of the Japanese and the Chinese peoples.  The results were out on 20 June.
Here are some of their characteristics.
In the eyes of the Japanese, the most difficult problem on the Chinese side that is blocking the way toward better relations between the two is the territorial question.  True, China has got a territorial issue with other countries also.  But in the Sino-Japanese context it must be, in our pronunciation, the Senkaku islands, which China started claiming about 40 years ago.  This is really a thorn in our relations with China.
Moreover, it is not over a piece of territory alone.  Most of the people of Japan know that behind the claim by China is a vast natural resources at stake which is still untouched by either country.  It is therefore  a resource issue as well.
This would explain why an overwhelming majority of the Japanese, 84.3%,  have got a bad image of China, the highest ever, and more than half of them think that the Chinese are too self-centred on the resources and energy. Recently China, who exports 97% of the total world figure of "rare earth", has put a restriction on its export for reasons of resource conservation.  It may hit Japan sooner or later.  When the ordinary Japanese think of the resources and energy problem between the two they are bound to input this also into their consideration.  In my view, however, this 'resources and energy' is more closely connected with the above territorial issue.
What is the Chinese figure for the above 84.3?  It is 64.5, still quite high but considerably lower than the former.  It is remarkable for a country which is under an all-powerful dictatorial government.
Another related figure is that 21.3% on the Chinese side are of the opinion that the nationalism and anti-Japanese behaviour of the Chinese are a blockade toward better relations.
Would it be correct to say that those are an indication that a civil society is growing in China, and at least a considerable portion of the people are critically responding to the official jargon?                 If so it would mean a great deal to all the people concerned, not simply the Japanese.  Of course we have our own responsibility.

I support Istanbul for the 2020 Olympic Games

Rio de Janeiro is scheduled to host the 2016 Olympics, after the next month's London Games for 2012.  It will be for the first time in Latin America and the Caribbean.  And after that?  For 2020?  At the moment three cities have passed the preliminary IOC (International Olympic Committee) standard.  They are Istanbul, Tokyo and Madrid.
Being a Japanese I know Tokyo fairly well.  This is a city where the Prefectural Government has scarcely taken care of housing for the low-income groups.  After the so-called economic bubble exploded two decades ago, the socio-economic gaps are widening.  The less well-to-do are neglected not in housing alone.  In education, care of the aged/handicapped people, especially in terms of the nursing facilities to look after them, or protecting the working mothers, Tokyo is very much backward.
Is not the urban infrastructure well-laid?  The suburban trains are running on time, which may or may not be a great thing.  But the roads are not up to the standard.  They have buried many beautiful small waterways to turn them to tiny parks(in the absence of real ones) and parking places for cycles.  This has robbed us of the scenery, and also the channels for water when it rains hard.
The support to the proposed Olympics by the residents, the IOC says, is the lowest in Tokyo.  Compared to 73% in Istanbul and 78% in Madrid, it is only 47%.
The above-mentioned degrading living conditions are certainly not conducive to creating the atmosphere welcoming the Olympics.  What is more significant may be the fact that the number of parks and sports facilities per unit of population in Tokyo, or in Japan in general, is very small.  Therefore the sports activities of the residents are generally discouraged.
Both the national and the Prefectural governments have no positive policies for providing the general public with sports facilities, and enhancing their health standard.  Prevention is definitely better than cure.
Under the circumstances, it is difficult to find a spontaneous support coming up, to create an atmosphere to welcome it.  The above 47% is, if at all, exaggerated.  People may enjoy watching the games on the TV.  But they do not feel that they are respected as lovers of sports.  The initiative has come only from above.
It would be the height of folly to appeal to the IOC on one hand, but neglect sports and sports facilities domestically.  Tokyo is thus not qualified to host Olympics.  The earlier it withdraws the better.
That would leave Madrid and Istanbul.  I like them both.  There is a great apprehension about the Spanish currency right now, but if lots of tourists bring money with them, it will be a great help.  They have many great treasures such as Picasso's "Guernica", Museo Nacional Centro De Arte, Reina Sofia, Madrid.
But if Istanbul hosts it, it would be the first Olympics in the Islamic country.  It would certainly help reestablish the principle of multi-culturalism.  I am heartily in support of Istanbul Olympics.           

The Idea of "Nuclear-free Japan" Attacked

On 7 May I wrote under the title "And Then There Was None",  to congratulate ourselves on the emerging possibility of having no nuclear reactors any more in the country.  This was, and is a hope that a great many of my countrymen and women do share.
The government, however, does not look at it in the same way.  On the contrary they have decided to reactivate two reactors, Nos.3 and 4 at the Ooi nuclear plant, Fukui Prefecture, which are under periodical checking at present.  The decision was taken on 16 June.
Anticipating this, as many as 11,000 people gathered at the Prime Minister's Office to protest in the previous evening.  They said that nothing has changed after Fukushima to make it possible to reactivate them, many people are still unable to come home there, no authentic report has been out to establish the cause of the disaster, and it is not at all clear how the residents at Ooi and nearby can escape once a similar earthquake with or without an accompanying tsunami assault the area.
A Buddhist monk was saying that, after 16,000 dead and 3,000 missing by the earthquake, tsunami and the nuclear disaster last year,  we are still mourning, and it is too early to take any action of this sort.
Interestingly the local residents are not necessarily in sympathy with the protest.  At a poll 64% say they support the government decision.  This is apparently because they are in the pay of the power company running the reactors, or beneficiaries of the municipal revenue from the increased company tax.  But even then 52% of the 64% have expressed anxiety.
The government says that in our hot and humid summer, which is just round the corner, there will be a shortage of 15% as we have to depend heavily on the air-conditioning.  But they do not disclose how many hours a day on the average this maximum shortage continues.  Moreover the reactivation is for an indefinite period, not just for the summer.
And this is when a large number of us are trying to find ways and means of how to live with a limited supply of energy, and to find an alternative way for an industrial society to exist.  The government is apparently taking the side of the monopolistic power industry.
As most of the other reactors in the country, Fukushima included, the Ooi reactors are also facing the sea, not on the Pacific, but the other side.  We call it the Japan Sea, but the Koreans have named it the East Sea.  The photographs show the reactors standing quite defenselessly and right on the coast.
The German and the Swiss peoples have sufficiently learned from the Fukushima and have decided to close down all their nuclear plants in due course.  Are we not destined to do so?        

Film Director Shindo Kaneto Passed Away

Mr.Shindo Kaneto, a great Japanese film director, passed away a few days ago.  He was born in 1912, and was just 100 years old.  Having been born in Hiroshima, and gone through military experiences, many of the films he has directed give us a strong anti-war message.
Here I would like to tell about his last film, named "A Postcard"(2011).  In his long working life, he has said on several occasions that this time it is going to be his last film.  It has gone wrong on every previous occasion.  But this time it has unfortunately come true.
I saw it only two days before his death.  Until then I had misunderstood the meaning of the title.  In Japan up to August 1945 there was military duty.  When an eligible person gets a call either from the Army or the Navy he has immediately to report at the stated place at the stated time.  The call usually came by a postcard in red colour, which was known as the red piece of paper.  I was under the impression that this was what the title meant.
It was not.  Shortly after the film begins, you will find yourselves watching a group of 100 soldiers.  They are mostly middle-aged, and are not considered fit for fighting.  Still 94 of them are sent to three different battle grounds, only to be killed, all of them.  Only six of them have survived, as Japan surrendered while they were waiting to be sent somewhere.
One evening while the original 100 were still together, an elderly one hands over a postcard to Keita, his younger comrade, with a request.  It was a postcard he had received on that day from his wife, saying that it is the night of the festivals but since you are away there is no joy, signed  Tomoko.  The request was that since he has no hope of coming back alive, he would like his comrade to visit her and and tell her that he has certainly got this card.
Surprisingly, the story thus far is based on Shindo's own experience, Keita being himself.  Shindo preserved this story for his very last film.  So he survived the war, one of the lucky six.  He has to find the widow to fulfill the promise.
When Keita met Tomoko at her house in a hilly village, he came to know that she had been going through one tragedy after another.  After the death of her husband, she married his younger brother according to the local customs.  He was also called, and though he told her that he would come home alive, as he had loved her by this time, Tomoko became a widow for the second time.  Her father-in-law died of a heart attack, and the mother-in-law hanged herself.  The family had sold out the only piece of rice field when Tomoko came to them, for the first time, and now had depended on a piece of rented field.
Keita by this time had decided to go over to Brazil to make a living, but the meeting with Tomoko and staying in her house for a day or two changed his mind.  Finally they two have started working together on that piece of field.  The solution was there itself.