My opinion of this week(398):

The word of the minute 

The best word of the minute or word in fashion have been announced 
a few days ago.

How there are so many meaningless and empty words included in them! 
The best word of the year is "Cyo kimochi ii." This was the phrase 
cried by Kitajima when he won gold medal at 100 meter breast swiming 
race at Athens Olympic Games held in this August. I understood it 
alright. He shouted this word with a huge excitement when he finally 
got gold medal after such a severe competition. 

But it is not normal and decent Japanese expression at all. Why is this
the best word of the minute of the year? Will people shout this word
at year-end party to cheer up when they drink alcohol? 

"Kiai da!" is another word of the year shout by Hamaguchi wrestling coach
for Kyoko Hamaguchi, bonze medallist at Olympic. "Kiai da" means fighting
spirit or high sprit. Well, again I understand the fighting spirit is one
of the most important factor to win in any sport games. But this coach
shout this word anywhere anytime whenever he appears in TV. He never 
looks normal in the way he just keep shouting this word over and over
again.

In order to win the game, fighting spirit is very important, of course.
But players need more factors such as constant training and judging power
in any situation in the game. 

"Sapuraizu" is another word which was spoken by lawmaker Takebe. "Sapuraize"
is "surprise" in English which is very clear itself. He was surprised to face
the fact that he had been selected to General Secretary of Liberal Democratic
Party by Prime Minister Koizumi in September. He said it's a big surprise
and unbelievable that Prime Minister Koizumi appointed him to the
position. Yes, it was really surprising news indeed when this selection 
had been announced. 

But as a matter of fact, people were not surprised so much any more with 
the news because they have got accustomed to see many of such improper and
inadequate appointment to very key positions for cabinet or for party 
executives done by Prime Minister Koizumi in the past.  

There were many more word of minutes which won prizes in this year but I
really don't know about what they really mean. May be, I need a lot more
study about them.

But I was a kind of glad to find two words that I believe very meaningful.
The one is "shinki sannyu", new entry. The other is "jiko sekinin", self
responsibility.  

Those two are only the words the content of which became social issues and
the subjects for discussion in many ways.

2004/12/4
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(399)

Scandals expected

There was another scandal revealed last week. One of a producer of NHK
who handles such very big programs as Kohaku Utagassen, all star song
events at the year end, was getting some illegal money from various 
performing arts production by kickback. It is surprised to hear that
the illegal money counts so far almost 40 million yen.

Various scandals at NHK were reported since some time earlier. NHK
is managed by pay-per-view revenue. Since such scandals were revealed,
total eleven thousands people have refused to pay monthly fee which 
has become a big social issue. The scandal at this time will become
another big blow for NHK.

The news was a surprising one, of course. What is really hard to understand
is the stance of NHK for what happened. While the other mass media 
including private broadcasting corporations reported the news in large 
scale, NHK did not report the news so much. They reported the news only
a little. President Ebisawa appeared just about five minutes after seven
o'clock evening news and expressed rather briefly his regret for what 
happened. There were no more reports from NHK on this issue as far as
I know.

Asked by the fact, one of a top executives of NHK answered. "We can't say
so much about this, because NHK is injured party by itself." 

What a amazing word it is!

Another concern about the news is the fact that there were almost no
words from  supervisory agents of government. This is not the first time
about it. We have never heard any close check have been made so far
against management of NHK by those supervisory agents. 

Annual budget of NHK is checked at diet every years. They have been
approved unanimously by all political parties from Liberal Democratic
Party and Communist Party.

I had some serious doubt about it from time to time in my opinion
of this week. NHK is such a big and monopolistic public corporation
funded by monthly fees paid by people of Japan. All of their financial
and managerial issues should be checked thoroughly by auditing 
professionals.

I think it very strange about the fact that no voice or word have been
heard from any lawmakers or government supervisory agents about
responsibility of top executives for the series of scandals so far.

Why is this?

2004/12/11
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(400):

Why does detention last for 75 days?

I have known this news first time when I read it by Asahi Newspaper on 
Thursday this week. Three young men went into a Self Defense Forces 
complex to distribute fliers opposing the SDF mission in Iraq. They were
arrested by police after strict research and were sent to prosecutors 
office for a criminal punishment. 

The Hachioji branch of the Tokyo District Court judged that criminal
punishment was not warranted as far as this case is concerned. Although
the court admits some illegality about their entry to such public complex
without permission to distribute such leaflet, the chief judge said 
such act is not quite critical to warrant criminal punishment. The court
said the level of invasion of privacy was ``slight'' and not enough to 
warrant punishment. The court further said that distribution of such
leaflet itself is very basic right of freedom to express political 
conviction guaranteed by constitution. 

I personally agreed with what the court said about this case. I just thought 
that how this kind of case would be judged if that happened in other 
countries where entry to restricted public or private area are more severely 
restricted. But I really did not understand the background of this case
until I read the whole article to the end.

While I continued to read the article, I was quite surprised with the fact.
The three were arrested in late February by the Metropolitan Police Department
and subsequently detained for more than two months. Neither the defense team
nor prosecutors disputed the facts of the case. 

Why, then  did prosecutors put them under detention for such long period of time?  
Why is it necessary? 

However, prosecutors insisted the activists deserved to be punished severely
because notices had been posted outside the complex that warned away hawkers
and said trespassers would be prosecuted. Prosecutors also insisted that the
anti-SDF messages caused discomfort to the residents, especially in light of
controversy raging over the SDF's humanitarian mission in Iraq. Based on
this circumstance, they called six months imprisonment for three men.

A central question in this contentious case concerned the right to freedom of
expression. What did those three young men infringe in this context?

According to the paper, the case also drew the attention of Amnesty 
International, which issued a statement in March calling for their release.
Amnesty called them Japan's first prisoners of conscience. It said the arrests
and long detention clearly violated their basic right to freedom of expression.

I just wonder why this issue did not draw more attention by people of this
country. 

2004/12/18
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion of this week(401):

On Christmas Day

In our recent ML(Mailing List), we have discussed about the decrease of 
fundamental academic achievement of Japanese children in these days and
discussed how schools could improve this situation. Many people wrote 
what schools should teach during the time of compulsory education. 
Every people agreed with the point that "Yomi,Kaki,Soroban(Reading, Writing,
Counting)" are very basic criteria in compulsory education at any rate.

When it comes to the present compulsory education, I said it lacks one
more very important theme to teach to children in addition to "Yomi, Kaki,
Soroban". That is moral and ethics. Ueda san and Kubo san expressed their
agreement on it.

I wrote in ML. "What do schools should teach moral and ethics as compulsory
education? I would like to suggest curriculum rather concretely. Reviving
"Imperial Rescript on Education" is one example, although some amendment
is very necessary on the content. Teaching of Analects of Confucius as in
the past is another example. 

Thirdly, I think that teaching of religious principle and doctrine of 
various religions such as Christianity, Islamism, Buddhism and so forth 
may share very important part of such moral education. There may exist 
many fundamental and common principles  true with many of those different
religions. 

This is my very basic idea and belief. Their principle are the one that
teach very basic theme how man should live in their life time. How can 
they differ each other in principles? We may be able to extract some 
common principles as "Ten Commandment" in the Old Testament. We should 
learn them ourselves before teaching them to children.

To enjoy Christmas at home giving dream to children with beautiful 
Christmas trees,  Santa Clause and gifts is fine. But in Japan, parents 
may have only little chance to talk about what Christianity is. 

I am not suggesting to make any of theological argument. I suggest that
there should be many more opportunity to teach children meaning of
such religious events including Christmas. 

In Japan, there virtually exists no religion today. Parents and children
may go together to shrines and temples to bow to play something on New 
Year days or some other occasions. But nothing more. Parents never talk 
about meaning of doing such visits.
  
For long time since the end of the World War II, talking about moral 
and ethics related  with religion was a kind of taboo. "Imperial Rescript
on Education" was the one of typical example. It was a taboo and still is.
Why is it? 

All religious principles and doctrines including some traditional Japanese
ones are to be taught to children as a part of basic moral and ethic 
education.

I just wonder why this kind of very important need for compulsory education
is not discussed in this country.

2004/12/25
Tadashi Hayase