The Shinkansen Test

Well I am sure that some of you may have noticed that the output on the Japanese Blog has been somewhat Saharan. This has been due to both myself and the honourable Takayama absolutely scythed down by a viscious virus picked up on the plane out here. The problem has been that as we were more or less completely out of action for the first two weeks of this particular trip all of our normal workload turned into a bit of a mountain.

This having been said, I did manage to further my research into the effects of volcanic spa water on cold tins of lager with a trip into the mountains last week. Further research into this pressing subject will urgently be conducted before we leave in ten days time but that is not what I want to write about today.

Before leaving England I was asked by a person I had met if I saw Japan through rose tinted glasses. I believe not and whilst this blog generally takes a humourous but respectful look at the land of the rising sun as seen through the eyes of a stranger, in truth I haven't found that much to be hyper-critical of. This is about to change but before I unleash my critical voice I would like to clarify a position first.

There is absolutely nothing worse than arriving in another culture and giving it the "high hat". Looking down your nose at the workings of other peoples' way of life and criticising the country in which you are a guest. This is a particular problem seen in ex-patriot communities. I saw it in Spain in the early nineties when my very late father and his group of friends, British settlers, would sit and discuss all that was wrong with Spain and the lazy Spaniard. After many a brandy this group of retired "business-men" would inevitably conclude that "What Spain needs is another Franco." Not really a surprising outcome from men who had pictures of Margaret Thatcher on their white villa walls and amongst whom some of which had made their fortunes from her prison building programme.

The point I am making is that it is simply bad manners to arrive in another country and then start to pick holes in the way things are done. I notice that in English language newspapers published in Japan there are often letters from Americans critical of how the Japanese do things and I wouldn't want to be seen in such a dim light. As all who know me I hope will tell, I love Japan, I love the people, I respect their culture and am constantly amazed by its resilience and ability to marry progress with tradition.

A national icon: The first Shinkansen

Japan is a land known all over the world for producing innovation. The latest Shinkansen which travels north from Tokyo to Aomori is a fine example. Recent news on this amazing technical innovation told how the post war steam engines took 26 hours to make this journey. By the late sixties and the advent of the first generation of Shinkansen the journey time was down to 10 hours. As the world famous bullet train design improved the time came down and down and by the end of the nineties it was only a 5 hour trip time to this northern outpost. The new Shinkansen which commenced its timetable this year now does the trip in about 3 hours.

Shinkansen Innovation and Progress

One could comment on how we have yet to build a Shinkansen service in the UK and the much politically promoted "West Coast" line, our first attempt, will no doubt take four times as long to build as the project planners tell us, cost six times over budget and then come in with a great fanfare of political trumpets and an immediate speed restriction due to adverse weather conditions! Perhaps that is why Hitachi, Shinkansen train specialists, pulled out of the bidding for the contract!!!

This train technology is iconic in Japan and represents the Japanese nation at its best speaking volumes about Japanese culture. Any delay in the service whatsoever results in an item on the headline news of the state broadcaster, NHK, accompanied by a Shinkansen official bowing low and apologising publicly to the Japanese people. As previously reported on this blog, the worst snow in 70 years in 2009 saw a delay in the service of 25 minutes which was deemed to be only just acceptable through circumstance but questions were asked in the Japanese parliament about the issue. The Shinkansen carries the pride of the nation, it is fast, it is reliable, it provides a service to a need and it is throughout its construction a statement of quality. The Shinkansen serves the Japanese people and serves them well.

I make all of these points because I am going to propose that we use the Shinkansen as the ideal benchmark of how things should work in Japan. I would even propose that it provides strong evidence of how things can work in Japan. Let's call it the Shinkansen Test; is it speedy, is it efficient, is it reliable and does it serve the people?

This is the test which I am now going to apply to the Japanese legal system, specifically the management of criminal investigations. Unfortunately I am going to have to be critical as the evidence I have uncovered this past two weeks is quite frightening. Before I explain let us have a sense of balance rather than just fall into the ex-pat trap of prejudice. Japan has 120 million people, it is the third largest global economy and it is, in my opinion, a wonderful place and culture to visit and live amongst. In a human organisation of such numbers and complexity it is unimaginable that everything works perfectly, human beings are not perfect. So the fact that 120 million of them appear to get so many things right has to be weighed in the balance of this critique.

However in the administration of criminal justice Japan would appear to have a severe problem which does not sit well with its proud record of being progressive whilst holding dear tradition. In the U.K. I have been involved in recent years with the issue of miscarriage of justice. On HumanRightsTV you will find the Innocence Network UK channel and testimonies from Paul Blackburn and Susan May together with material on the current cases of Sam Hallam and Simon Hall. Our own justice system has much to be concerned about when viewed through the lens of these cases. All of this work has led me to become involved with a project to bring together exonorees from all around the world at a conference in Cincinatti in April 2011. And that involvement led me to the case of Mr Sugaya, a man released from prison in 2009 after having spent 17.5 years in police cells and prison as a result of a dreadful miscarriage of justice.

Yesterday we visited this quite, small and seemingly gentle man to video his testimony and that of Mrs Nishimaki, an equally seemingly unremarkable woman who appears to have single handedly been the catalyst which saved Sugaya-san from an unjust destiny. We will be posting this dramatic and challenging material on a new HumanRightsTV Japan channel within the next month together with an interview with one of the lawyers instrumental in the case. I will leave a lot of the incredible story we have heard until this work is complete and for now just concentrate on the bare facts of the case as it has been told to us.

Our first meeting was with the lawyer and he revealed an interesting insight into the Japanese management of criminal cases. He expressed the view that once a suspect is arrested a conviction is more than 98% guaranteed. He also questioned the procedure which allows the police 27 days custody from arrest for questioning without any legal representation for the suspect. In this matter of unrepresented custody he was of the strong opinion that Japan lagged behind the world in its administration of criminal justice. The lawyer also noted that this long period of questioning was not the subject of any video recording or audio recording and the methods employed by the police in interrogation remain unscrutinised.

In our interviews yesterday we first met Mrs Nishimaki who diligently took us to the scene of crime and walked us through the terrain of events. She explained how the case involved a 4 year old child who had been abducted, sexually abused, murdered and dumped by a river. She told how the police investigation appeared to take a long time and that initial enquiries focused on known offenders, people who watched child pornography and those around the area at the time.

As the investigation faltered the police began to ask about "suspicious people" requesting that the public report anyone of concern. This is Japan of the early 1990's, this is provincial Japan, this is a place where neighbours know each other and family bonds are strong in a way we probably haven't seen in the UK for a few of generations. Within this social framework Mr Sugaya was suspicious. He seemingly lived alone, he didn't speak to his neighbours and he was only at home at weekends in his small flat where he watched videos.

This reported behaviour was enough to place Sugaya-san on the list of suspects. The suspicion of the police was apparently intensified because a recent child sex offender prosecution had been successful and in that case the accused also had a large video collection. Please note that there was no indication made that any of the material in such a collection was of a criminal nature, the connection is simply that the video collection was large.

As the investigation progressed the police collected human fluid samples from Mr Sugaya's rubbish outside his flat and from that were able to show that he had the same blood group, B positive, as the murderer. This was enough to propel matters to an arrest.

Sugaya-san disclosed the moment of his arrest in the interviews yesterday. He told how police burst into his flat, violently pushed him into the corner and began shouting at him. He said that they had a photograph of the victim which they waved in his face and shouted, "This is the face of the young girl you killed, you killed her so now we are arresting you."

That is some statement to make based on a large video collection and membership of a blood group. The other evidence was that he didn't talk to his neighbours, he lived as a single man alone and he appeared to only be at home at weekends. In addition, police investigations had revealed that his occupation was as a school bus driver for kindergarten children.

Not exactly what anyone would rationally call overwhelming evidence and perhaps that accounts for what happened next. Mr Sugaya was taken to a police station and interrogated for 14 hours non-stop. During this interrogation, according to his testimony, he was screamed at, beaten and dragged around the room by his hair. After those 14 hours he confessed to the crime and provided a detailed script of "what happened".

For an historian context is the grail and if we now look at who Mr Sugaya was before the police arrived maybe we can see why he confessed. Sugaya-san was a middle aged man who was single. He came from a family of no particular wealth who lived in quite a cramped space. He was not a character filled with either education or self-assurance, a rather ordinary little man who was quite and a gentle character. Shy is how he and other people described him. He worked conscientiously at his job in a very Japanese way, following the rules, being punctual, being polite and doing as he was told at all times. His one small luxury was that he was able to maintain a very small flat so at weekends he could escape from the cramped family home and watch videos in peace. Being a shy man, outside of his home and alone he did not have the confidence to speak with his neighbours.

Yesterday he claimed that the police interrogation terrified him to the state where he felt it was only possible to stop the intimidation by confessing. The police had got the man they needed to fit the crime.

At this point I would express the opinion that in the two years I have been working on miscarriage of justice cases I have been shocked to find that in all the cases I know of the police have made the evidence fit a vulnerable accused rather than use evidence to prove a crime. That this appears to be the case in Japan maybe illustrates something about a universality of the psychology of some of those who become police officers. What it certainly does show, and I also understand this from cases I know of in the U.S.A., is that this critique of the Japanese justice system is not their problem alone.

In Mr Sugaya's case even his defence lawyer told him on first meeting that he was guilty! According to Mr Suguaya's testimony the defence lawyer said, "You are now under investigation for three similar crimes so you must have committed one of them at least." When your defence lawyer effectively is working for the prosecution what hope can you possibly entertain. Publicly Sugaya stuck to his confession but privately from day one he was writing to his brother maintaining his innocence.

In this case the role of DNA evidence was pivotal both at trial and ultimately in proving innocence. At the time of his arrest the use of DNA evidence was something only big city forces had started using. The local police force were very keen on this new progressive tool to catch criminals and saw in the Sugaya investigation the possibility of validating the new methodology and thus attaining the funding so they could have such equipment and facilities. Therefore they pressed to substantiate the case with DNA evidence.

The DNA samples were taken from the unfortunate girl's clothing. These items of clothing had been in the river for at least 12 hours before they were recovered. The items, including a blouse and a skirt, had been kept in a police locker for months and had even started to grow mould. At first the regional police applications to a laboratory were turned down, it was the early days of DNA testing and the samples were initially believed to be unsuitable for the procedure. However the eager police persisted and persisted and eventually they talked a laboratory into providing a DNA test and used that to help establish Mr Sugaya's guilt.

Absolutely Innocent
Source: Japan Times

There is much more to this story but I am sure that you can all see how this case illustrates major concerns about the Japanese criminal justice system. If we add to the tale that in the lengthy and time consuming appeal process judge after judge refused to re-examine the DNA samples or physically look at the scene of crime preferring to find the confession to be compelling evidence, then we realise a problem which is deep rooted. Fortunately for Sugaya-san, Mrs Nishimaki stepped in where highly paid legal professionals failed so dramatically.

Nishimaki-san's only connection with the prisoner was that she too was a bus driver for kindergarten children. In a very Japanese way of thinking she found it impossible to reconcile how a person charged with the task of delivering children safely to school could possibly be a child murderer. She wrote to Sugaya and told him that if he did the crime he should apologise to the family of the victim and serve his sentence but if he was actually not guilty he should never give up proclaiming his innocence. Sugaya yesterday revealed how this letter saved his life. When he received it he was at the stage of complete mental collapse and surrender to his fate but the words of this woman breathed a spirit of resistance into him which gave him new found strength.

From that point Mrs Nishimaki set about building a campaign to save Sugaya. She mapped out the scene of the crime in such a way to demonstrate that the original confession was simply an impossible tale. In terms of the location and the terrain the sequence of events in the confession are simply not credible at any number of points and the proposed timeline of the confession was shown to be physically impossible to achieve. Most importantly, through the attention and support she gathered, the DNA tests were repeated and showed clearly that the DNA on the victim's clothes was not that of Mr Sugaya. The campaign pressed home and in 2009 Sugaya was released.

For him, the suffering he has endured has been immense. His father died not long after his arrest due to the shock of the situation. In provincial Japan, even today, to be the father of a child murderer would make it all but impossible to step outside the door of your house just to go shopping. Add to that a media which besieged his family from the onset and crucified their lives in the name of circulation figures and the physical and emotional stress could kill anyone. Sugaya's mother also died whilst he was in prison and besides the life time he lost we have yet to mention the experience of interrogation and imprisonment on a shy vulnerable man.

Hashimoto, a senior police officer in the case, allegedly refuses to accept that Sugaya is innocent even today. If this is true then it has to alarm the Japanese tax payer. If a senior police officer refuses to believe conclusive DNA testing and a pardon in favour of a large video collection and a forced confession then surely questions have to be asked. How can the intellectual capacity such a position represents be suitable for the precious and well paid role of public guardian?

That all of the senior appeal judges who refused to re-examine the evidence or look at the scene of crime claim now they cannot comment on the case as they have now retired also must stretch the patience of the Japanese tax payer. Those retirements rest comfortably on large pensions supplied by the Japanese citizen. Surely that citizen has the right to demand accountability of judges, retired or active, rather than be arrogantly denied due to an erroneous idea that retirement relieves responsibility for duties performed in public office.

Sugaya has asked all of these people for an apology and they have all failed to meet their moral responsibility. If those who created a miscarriage of justice are not prepared to face the consequence of their actions, if they are not going to accept the failings of the system, how then can any Japanese citizen hope for change? Those who do not possess the moral strength for high office should perhaps be considered as unworthy of a lucrative tax payer sponsored pension.

Today Sugaya asks for the simple respect of an apology, in times gone by some of those officials might have been told to wash their necks (non-Japanese readers I am sure will get the import of this euphemism). If the law wishes to preserve a rigid conservative methodology of the past then perhaps its officials should have old traditions applied to their failings!

Certainly there has to be great shame when a very ordinary woman can clearly see a miscarriage of justice but highly paid police, lawyers, judges and courts, supposed experts, refuse to see anything wrong. However, when the citizen in the unassuming shape of Mrs Nishimaki can mount a successful challenge to these proud and supposedly erudite figures of authority then the spirit of Japanese justice will always ultimately be safe.

This is where we can leave this story, more will follow on HumanRightsTV and the forthcoming Japanese channel but before we go I would make two points.

Firstly, I apologise to all good Japanese people if any rudeness on my part is perceived here in my writing. I am a guest in your country and as I have stated see much more right in your culture than I see in error. I would also say that this problem is not exclusively a Japanese issue and whilst the details differ, miscarriage of justice is a cause we should all fight for in this new Age of Transparency.

Secondly, the Shinkansen test! For a nation which is so well known for its innovation and ability to hold onto tradition why should it be impossible to reform the criminal justice system? Legal representation from the moment of arrest and tape recording of all admissible interviews has to be a simple step that would immediately go a long way to protect Japanese justice from the shame of a miscarriage. The rule of law is the basis of all progressive human cultures but transparent justice is the hallmark of civilisation. If we pose the Shinkansen test on the Japanese criminal justice system as exposed by the Sugaya case then does it answer the questions:

1. Is Japanese Criminal Justice speedy?
2. Is Japanese Criminal Justice efficient?
3. Is Japanese Criminal Justice reliable?
4. Does Japanese Criminal Justice serve the people?

If and when Japanese Criminal Justice fails this Shinkansen test then the pride of the Japanese people should lead them to innovate without fear. They should be assured that they can lead the world with justice in just the same way as they lead the world with the Shinkansen.

Iconic Innovation Japanese Style

Tokyo 2011: No Sacred Cows

Additional Features! I am going to add to my postings a "heads up" notification regarding the content of each article. This, hopefully, will allow some selectivity for the audience. The following examples how this will work and in future each article with begin with such a "heads up header".

PDW

Medical * Administrative Detail * Mono-culturalism * David Cameron

This introduction might suffer from my usual attempts to break back into stride when I return here but once you churn your way through the opening I think I can promise a few gems for your enjoyment.

As many of you will know the last four months have presented some very obstinate challenges to both the Honourable Takayama-sama and myself. I wont bore you, for a change, with all of the details but suffice to say that seeing the back end of 2010 off nearly killed us both!

Oh how we both yearned to be back home in the comfort and security of Meguro-ku and enjoy working at a much more civilised pace. We arrived at Heathrow filled with expectation and a certain amount of relief that we were flying with ANA on the evening flight; just that bit more civilised.

How were we to know that we were about to face 11 hours of hell? And my dear friends, do you know what made that hell so exquisite? Throughout the most painful journey either of us have ever endured going East all around us was the most professional of customer service....why hadn't we flown B.A., at least we could have vented our frustration on the poor service from the cabin staff. But no, we had top quality service, good food, total respect as we both suffered tremendously.

The cause of the suffering was in the case of the most honourable of wives, a viscious onset of travel sickness where every tumble of turbulence exacerbated the problem. In my own case, the arm injury suffered before Christmas and then compounded by repetitive strain injury as a result of video editing over the holiday period, allowed me not one single position in my seat where comfort could be obtained. Add to this my own personal sloppiness in not putting the high strength pain killers prescribed by the quack in my hand luggage and what you have is a recipe for increasing levels of pain as connected muscle systems try to compensate for the stress in my right arm.

By the time we got off the plane, exactly 8 days ago, we were utterly exhausted and more than a little tetchy with each other. And that sore throat which had started to develop four hours into the flight had now become a sensation somewhat similar, I would imagine, to swallowing razor blades. That we made it home without contacting divorce lawyers was an absolute miracle but we got here and then we both collapsed onto our futon in the "Japanese Room".

My sore throat developed into a fever and has kept me housebound until yesterday when I managed to go to the local shops. Takayama has battled the same virus and today we were off to the doctors, which will now provide the substance of this article.

Let me pose you all a question first, imagine that you are new to an area and you need a doctor (I am talking about in the U.K. here). Let us further suppose that you are actually feeling unwell at the time, not bad enough for hospital but not slight enough to avoid the need for medical advice. Now I ask you all to picture what happens when you turn up at the local doctors surgery, which you have found through a Google search, and say, "I am new in the area and would like to see a doctor."

Please, conjure up the image in your mind, take your time, savour every detail your imagination can provide; the surly aggressive receptionist, the claims that you may not qualify to be at that particular surgery, the need to fill in forms and provide various forms of identity proof which you may or may not have on you. as I have said, take your time and let your creativity explore every conceivable response and then ask yourself if you stand a hope in hell of seeing a G.P. that day.

We arrived at the G.P. surgery at 12.07 hrs. The new readers to this blog will not be aware of the fact that when engaged in any form of administrative process in Japan, medical, social, corporate or otherwise, it is my unerring habit to check the time from the moment I am first served. Takayama-sama spoke to the receptionist who looked directly at her as she talked and smiled re-assuringly. The receptionist then looked at me and smiled, she took out a clipboard with a form attached and passed it over to my honourable wife.

As Takayama sat and completed the form I took my usual stock check of the surroundings. A gently beautiful tropical fish tank sat immediately besides the glass entry doors. This was filled with blue and green fish, sparkling coral and produced the most relaxing sound of gurgling water I had ever heard. I suspected that a specialist fish tank engineer had come in and somehow fine tuned the gurgle to the "medical establishment" setting. You may laugh!!!

Music was piped into the waiting room space and I took a few moments to assess this contrived ambiance. Orchestral renditions, pre-dominantly strings absolutely no horns, of gentle Japanese classic tones and melodies. I would describe the overall effect as being one of comfortable certainty.

The seating was of the usual high quality in the comfort department, powder blue, bench arrangement with very, very ample padding and all spotlessly clean. There were eight people already in the waiting room. Six of them were elderly and the two others wore very similar suits, I assumed them to be drug company reps waiting to see the GP once the surgery closed for lunchtime.

I was about to instigate an in-depth study of the available reading material and ancillary amenities but this was strangled at birth due to the fact that I was called through to the GP.

In his room he sat, at a smallish desk and had what was clearly a standard form for consultancy. He wrote a few notes and then asked me a couple of introductory questions in English before moving onto the more complicated stuff in Japanese with Takayama translating.

I took the use of English to be for two prime reasons, firstly to impress me and secondly as an act of really good manners.

In very quick time the consultation was complete and we were back at the front desk. As Takayama attended to the business of completing the paperwork and paying the bill, I took time to give as thorough an examination of the operational nature of the surgery as the short window of opportunity allowed.

My first observation was that all of the female reception staff were dressed in a very soft pastel pink which included a rather tasteful light knitted cardigan of the same tone. There was an absence of noise, by that I mean that the telephone didn't screech, the receptionists never raised their voices above the gentleness threshold and all sounds appeared to have been set to whisper mode.

I also noticed that beyond the glass screen one of the reception staff received my notes and began to enter them into a computer data base. The notes were in a transparent plastic sleeve and already numbered and colour coded.

I expect that the most respected Dr Swift and Jonathon Deets just experienced pupil dilation!

Yes, colour coding and at first it completely stumped me as to the purpose. The first clue was in the cabinet behind the front counter. This was of the wooden pigeon hole variety and beneath each "box" there were numbers from 1 to 100. What was immediately interesting about the numbers on the wooden frame beneath each box was that they were matched to a colour: 1 was on a red sticker, 2 was on a yellow sticker, 3 was on a purple sticker and so on to 9 which was on a blue sticker. Each number associated with a distinct colour.

At first this system puzzled me and I struggled to work out why anyone would do such a thing. After all it is as easy to recognise number 32 as it is to recognise purple/yellow! Then I looked down the rows of files which, unlike the solitary cabinet behind the front desk, were on a hanging frame system all along the wall of the back office. The front edge of each folder numbered.

Then I realised, I could see where the files in the 7000's were. I could even see where the files between 4500 and 4800 were. Then the true moment of realisation, I could see file number blue-dot, yellow-dot, purple-dot, purple-dot (9233) from at least twelve feet away and looking through a glass window. Absolute Genius! With thousands of files you can spot the one you want in seconds. You can even see immediately if it is in the wrong section!!!!!!

Everyone has known misfiling, especially if you have had any dealings with the NHS, but misfile in this system and it stands out vividly in colour! Very important, I would suggest, when dealing with medical notes.

My sense of awe was disturbed by Takayama telling me we were done. I looked at the clock, 12.21 hrs, we had been precisely 14 minutes from first service to completion of visit. A visit by a new patient, who was a foreigner, admittedly with a fluent translator, all paperwork completed and medical examination delivered with opinion and advice.

Now recently someone asked me if my view of Japan was through rose tinted glasses? Obviously this person doesn't know me too well whereas my closer friends, I would hope, would know that rose tinting clashes with my eye colour.

So yes, I did have to pay for my visit and the critical may say, "Aha, you are not comparing like with like, the NHS is free!" And I would respond, "Correct, and even in some cases to foreigners who arrive in the country just to obtain treatment." I realise this last comment is a contentious one but just keep your powder dry because I haven't finished yet and if you found that contentious then you may need to get some heart attack pills in for later.

The Japanese health care system works on a part payment method. As a Japanese national or a bona fide member of the Japanese tax system you pay between 10 to 30% of the cost of any medical service. Takayama, oh yes, I forgot to mention, in those 14 minutes she was also examined, paid Yen300, about 12% of the cost and amounting to approximately £2.50. I had to pay the full amount of Yen3000, amounting to, obviously, about £25.00.

You see in Japan the idea of getting something for nothing is an absolute non-starter, it just isn't something Japanese people would understand. As the honourable HMil (Honourable Mother-in-Law) would say, "There is no more expensive word than Free!". That is why the whole idea of "social security" in Japan is radically different to the U.K. concept. If you asked about social security in Japan your most probable explanation of what that term meant would be "Keeping everything Japanese!" As for benefits, well yes, there are benefits but Japanese culture would also ask what the responsibilities were that are required in order to gain the benefits.

Let's put this into a slightly different perspective. If you told Japanese people that in Britain a young girl can get pregnant without a husband or supporting father and then get a free apartment paid for at the tax payers expense they would think that you were telling a joke of some sort. Please don't tell me that doesn't happen or it is a Daily Mail scaremongering tactic because I have worked on estates with gangs, worked with "deprived families" and sat and listened to many more than one young girl tell me her plans for the future: to get pregnant and get a council flat.

The point I am trying to make is the connection between benefits and responsibilities. In Japan the distinction is very clear; you don't get something for nothing. You certainly don't get anything if you are not a Japanese taxpayer and as Japan is a mono-cultural society then in 97% of the cases that means you are not just a Japanese taxpayer but also ethnically Japanese.

As a Japanese you buy into the one great idea of being Japanese, in the Japanese way as the Japanese identity. That is what a mono-culture is. And because everyone buys into this idea, admittedly to a greater or lessor extent, then social deviance is much more strongly resisted, both actively and passively, in families, in communities and in society. This produces that which the Japanese cultural psyche craves most, certainty.

Certainty in management, certainty in customer service, certainty in social order, certainty in social behaviour, all of which certainty provides the bedrock of social security, or as previously stated, keeping everything Japanese.

David Cameron's recent speech on the effects of multiculturalism was, in my opinion, absolutely spot on. People often make a dreadful mistake when they consider who I am. They look at my work as the Project Director of HumanRightsTV , they look at my appearance (which admittedly doesn't help) and they think I am placed somewhere in amongst the left wing do gooder brigade of airheads. Actually not! But that doesn't mean I support fascism or racism, I just believe that rights can only be sustained when responsibilities are met. If you have a community with different cultural values how do you sustain rights when responsibilities are interpreted without uniformity?

Let's be clear, no-one in their right mind wants to see the U.K. turned into moronic flag wavers who know an oath of allegiance but are crippled in the cognitive department (no names, no pack drill), but unless we consider the way forward carefully we are heading towards social catastrophe. I am not suggesting that the Japanese model is what we need but I am suggesting that as a comparative model it dramatically highlights what it is we have lost.

Coming Next: Economies of Scale, is bigger better?

The Smallest London Pub in the World

I am sorry that I haven't been able to supply the ongoing work on the harvest festival and Japanese identity but matters of a more urgent need pressed themselves upon my schedule.


Unfortunately I was called on to drive HMiL and the honourable Takayama to a Ryokan near Shiga Kogen in the mountains by Nagano. The photograph above shows me in a quality control experiment regarding the hot volcanic spring waters, a large wooden tub placed on a timbered balcony overlooking a forested mountain slope and a tin of Asahi. The purpose of this scientific research was to establish just what effect a cold Japanese lager had on the consciousness of an individual who had been soaking in the purifying waters of the mountain.

I can report that this study required an intense devotion to detail and forms part of a thesis I have been working on for the past five years. Such is the pressure of this work and the complexity of the empirical research that repeated experiments have had to take place in order to establish a credible sample. Sadly after this, my fifth visit to this particular wooden tub, I find that I am no closer to any answers therefore I have had to steel myself for a return visit sometime in 2011.


Unfortunately the area is quite remote and the intrusions of the modern world are mostly ignored in favour of the simple grace that is serenity. However, I am aware of my duty to report on matters of great import whilst here in Japan and so am pleased to announce that I have discovered the smallest London Pub in the world. This claim has to be verified but I think that the London Pub in Fuji Sawa Station has to be the top contender.


At first I was bemused as it was packed solid for two hours whilst I was researching Chinese Medicinal Practices in Fuji Sawa. So after a first glance I was unable to get inside the door and probe any further. The delights of a pint of Bass so loudly proclaimed on the sign outside would have to wait.

Fortunately I had to return to Fuji Sawa and as fate would have it this time there was room inside. On entering I quickly counted the bar stools, a staggering eight in total around an "L" shaped short bar. The five that covered the length as you entered were the "smoking stools" whilst the three at the dog leg were for "non-smokers". This facility, as the most reasonable of hosts Masahito Nagasu explained, was the only place in the whole station where you were allowed to smoke. Consequently, with about 5000 people present in the station either working or travelling at any one time, the London Pub tends to be packed with a queue outside.


I had a pint of Bass as I sat on one of the non-smoking stools. Such a pleasure to be able to sup your pint at the bar and then lean back against the wall with complete ease and safety!

This place my friends is the stuff of legends and Masahito is ever so congenial as he explains that he lived in America as a child but later his parents moved to Purley in Surrey. His own pride, and one I am sure a lot of the readers of this blog would concur with, is the fact that he lost his American accent and now places great store in speaking "English not American". A gentleman defines himself by his actions and there can be no doubt that Masahito Nagasu is a gentleman.

He serves draught Bass in pint glasses and speaks English, what greater definition is required? I give the you all a toast, "To the smallest London Pub in the world."

The Harvest Festival work will appear shortly.

Understanding Japan: The Bodhisattva's Business

I love coming to stay at HMiL's in Meguro and one of my greatest pleasures is in keeping and maintaining the pot garden I have built for her. For some time she did have objections to this activity because she felt that I shouldn't have to work so hard whilst I was supposed to be on holiday.

She also expressed a concern that I should not be doing tasks which, in her opinion, were beneath my station in life (She thinks I am a lot more Russel Square and not so much Hackney Wick). I managed to talk her around to my way of thinking over time and she has accepted the fundamental truth of the situation and that is my love for the task of doing her garden.


We began by putting in a solar powered irrigation system so that as the garden grew it didn't place the burden of watering the pots on HMiL. This has allowed the veranda and stairwell to now host about 70 pots or containers.

Such a resource allows us to provide fruit; strawberries, blueberries, grapes, apricots, oranges and we have now successfully started growing custard apples. There are also a small selection of seasonal vegetables but the mainstay of the whole operation are the flowers and an aim to bring colour and joy into her visual experience of home.

My wife obviously loves her mother and I have come to treasure her as well. She is quite remarkable. In polite society a gentleman never mentions a lady's age and let's keep that convention here. Besides there is no point in mentioning the numbers because you simply would not be able to relate them to people who hold similar numerical seniority in the U.K.

HMiL loves to dance, she goes social dancing at least three times a week (we would know that as ballroom dancing) and takes lessons once a week. Her favourite dance is the tango. Obviously she cycles to her dance class and this is her main form of transportation about the neighborhood. We joined her this week to take some photos.


After her dance class she changed, got on her bike and went out to do one of her community work jobs (I believe she has three). Off she went to look after a disabled boy whom she takes care of between the hours when he finishes school and his mum arrives home from work. Of an evening she likes to gather with her friends, play cards (small stakes just gives it that edge), have a few beers (pints naturally) and catch up on the news.

HMiL is an independent woman and in Japan that means that she runs her own small business, which of course is not any of our concern, and is a member of several local business clubs. These bring local business people together so they can discuss matters of mutual benefit and then, of course, have lunch together.

You may well feel that I have drifted into personal matters here but there is a very clear agenda in this, my last series of articles for this trip. The story of HMiL is not an exceptional case, there are many Japanese people like her. The streets in the local area are full of octogenarians, considered mere striplings here, riding around on bicycles.

"The estimated number of elderly aged 80 or older has topped the 8 million mark for the first time in Japan, the internal affairs ministry said in a report released Sunday."

source: The Japan Times 20 09 2010

This report also goes on to say that 5.5 million people over 65 are working. 3.19 million of these were employees, a figure which includes 1.58 million part-timers which means, if my maths serve, that means 4.01 million people over the age of 65 are in full time employment of one sort or another. Indeed I have seen a report last January of a doctor still working as a G.P. at the age of 100. His patients expressed confidence in him on the grounds that he was not only still alive but working as well!

The Japan Times report also notes that where the head of the household was over 65 family savings were approximately double those of families with a younger head of household. We have to bear in mind that one of the reasons Japan has stayed economically strong not just over the recent economic collapse but also over the last ten years of their own particular economic downturn is because as a nation Japan has more savings per head than any other nation. The Japanese have never really bought into the boom of the credit card in the same way we did in the west; they never saw the provision of credit as a reason either to borrow excessively or to stop saving!

All of this news from the ministry was released on Sunday as Monday was the Respect-for-the Aged Day national holiday. This is added onto the weekend which covers the harvest festival as part of the Happy Monday holiday system.

The lives these elders live are essential to Japanese society and to the identity of being Japanese and this is the subject I am going to look at with this set of articles. I want to try and show you how Japanese society as a mono-culture reinforces its own sense of itself and its standards through its social rituals. In order to do this I am going to start by following HMiL last Friday as she goes out on that most essential of all Japanese pursuits, hunting for a bargain.


HMiL wanted to buy a new clock for her living room and there is an area in Tokyo famed for its wholesale discount shops, Asakusa, which also just happens to have one of the most famous Buddhist Shrines in Japan, Sensō-ji. These two facts are clearly related as HMiL later explained.

On arriving in Asakusa HMiL could not find the wholesale discount shop she was looking for. She phoned friends, she searched hither and thither, but to no avail so she did the ovious thing, well obvious in Japan; she asked a policeman.

The local police station, a koban, can be seen in the photo above. These are dotted all over the communities of Tokyo and look more or less the identical. The kind policeman was able to help and guide the bargain hunter to her shopping serengeti.


As she passed the gateway to the shrine she mentioned to the honourable Akane that it was thanks to the Bodhisattva that the shops did so well and business was so good. All around the shrine specialist shops and trading outlets, a sort of cash and carry super park, thrive and prosper.


Whatever your requirement, from a sharp knife (a Japanese classic) to a living room clock, you will find it in the streets and alleyways around the temple. This is not strange or unique to Japan. Our own cathedrals functioned in the same way in building economies and indeed, in the middle ages sales of goods actually went on inside the great churches which were not used as they are today but separated off internally into different areas for different uses social and spiritual.


But for HMiL there is no separation between the worldly and the spiritual, it is all the same thing seen from different angles depending on your need at any one time. I have mentioned before the quality of pragmatism which I perceive to be the fundamental characteristic of the Japanese people, and it is only pragmatic that where there is a massively popular temple so too should there be crowds and so too should there be business opportunity.

Spot the American: the clue is the jeans!

Yet it is still the will and presence of the Bodhisattva which generates the business and it is a sign of his blessings that people prosper. You cannot divide this spiritual Japan from secular Japan and in many ways the word secular is culturally inappropriate to use in connection with Japan.


Everyone buys into the whole and indivisible way of being Japanese, even the rebellious rebel in the Japanese style; fashionably! The presence of plastic toys alongside sacred statues is nothing but the way of the world and spirituality can be found in crafted old wood or moulded modern synthetics, the only sin is an inability to make a profit, the only grace is to be able to pay your way in life. Social security is a safety net of very thin strands meant only as a temporary support.

Of course I am providing a very wide sweeping generalisation here but I believe at the heart of what I am saying there is a fundamental truth. The temples and the shrines of Japan are at the heart of what it is to be Japanese. But for that to function and provide a stable identity then you need to ensure absolute inclusivity from birth in this special social model.



The journey around the religious sites as a tourist doesn't open the individual traveller to the wider social experience. This can only be seen when you are fortunate enough to live within a Japanese home as part of a Japanese family. The obligations, duties and celebrations are then shared with you as a matter of course. Naturally, as a foreigner you are not expected to either understand much or take up the duties too seriously, you are always involved as a courtesy not as an obligation.

Over the next few articles I will hope to show you what I have seen recently and support my opinions with pictures taken on a journey around the harvest festival. But it all really began with HMiL and her certainty of the Bodhisattva's role in enriching the Asakusa area of Tokyo.


When HMiL stands before the large donations chest (large in size and able to take any amount of hard cash) she makes her prayer and casts her coins into the box. There is no doubt that she asks the Bodhisattva to keep her and her family healthy, she certainly asks for blessings on the family finances and the rest is her own personal business. All year around people pour money into the temples and shrines and the temples and shrines guard the Japanese nation and its wealth by reminding the Japanese who they are.

That is the Bodhisattva's Business.

In the next article I will look at how this is all actually achieved with the presence of a powerful mythic form driving a clearly identified mono-culture. I may even consider this in the light of our own powerful mythic disassociation within a widely fragmented multi-culture. Hmmm, maybe!

Understanding Japan: The Business of Festival.


The image above is of Izanami-no-Mikoto and Izanagi-no-Mikoto who are on the bridge across the sea of all being from whence, with the aid of a spear, they stir forth the sacred islands of Japan. This is the Shinto creation myth which accounts for the existence of Japan and all its people. So now you know who the Japanese believe themselves to be!

Asking the right question.

I am not sure what you will be doing with your Saturday night (it is 17.42hrs at your end as I write this) but the image above gives you a clue as to what we have done with ours (it is 03.20 a.m. here now).

This image was taken at about 9 this evening and the whole story will be forthcoming, very soon.

A Mixed Economy Japanese Style: Commerce (Part Two)

Contents so far

A Mixed Economy Japanese Style: Housing

A Mixed Economy Japanese Style: Commerce (Part One)

So far we have seen a brief look at housing and a glimpse at commerce with a focus on the cement factory and environmental matters. All of this has been within a very specific geographic area defined by my own short walk from the HMiL residence to Daia Department Store, a timeline of not more than twenty minutes.





The maps above mark my walk in the blue line. The top map is the beginning of my journey and where the blue line ends in the third map is Daia Department Store. Lets put this all in context with the satellite shot of Tokyo Prefecture as a whole:

What you are looking at in the satellite shot, in the context of this article, is the world's largest metropolitan economy with a GDP of US$1.479 trillion (as of 2008). The photograph is also showing you the world's most populous metropolitan area with a population measuring up to 39 million people (the UK in total has 56 million people). In order to keep all of this going in a polite and civilised manner with the traffic flowing, pollution under control, crime very low and the streets extremely clean there has to be proper management of the system both as a built environment structure and as a social organism.


The Tokyo Metropolitan government administers the twenty-three special wards of Tokyo, each governed as a city, that cover the area that was the city of Tokyo as well as 39 municipalities in the western part of the prefecture and the two outlying island chains.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo

All waste disposal is recycled, the pragmatic Japanese would consider anything else as a reckless waste of resources. There are regular domestic and commercial collections with days designated for the collection of metals, plastics, combustable general rubbish, paper and anything that does not fit those categories. Every home and business is issued with a chart which provides the cycle of collection and everyone knows the designated collection point for your waste. A net is provided at the collection point to keep the crows (Tokyo's version of the London fox problem) from spreading the rubbish about.

People, generally, simply wouldn't think of not sorting their rubbish and putting it out in the right order on the right day. That would be to deny the efficiency of the recycling system and be a negative influence on the economy, besides, polite Japanese families don't behave like that anyway.


Does it all work? Well the picture above is of a main arterial road, a rough equivalent of the notorious Holloway Road, and can you see the difference?


Here is a junction on the same arterial road and do click on either of these pictures, look at them in the larger format and then imagine what a metropolitan area with up to 39 million people would look like in the U.K. under our sort of management!

This is some of the structural background which lies behind all I have been showing you in this small series of articles on the Japanese mixed economy. The walk and all it contains is possible because the macro management is in place and that management is delivered to a community which sees both the sense and the benefit in following the "plan". Why would a Japanese father or a Japanese mother want to bring their children up in filth and squalor?

Perhaps now you know why when I sit on a train in my own country and look at the discarded fast food containers, dirty floors and ripped seats whilst hearing people shouting down their phones, I feel utterly ashamed on seeing a Japanese person sitting quietly opposite me. They are far too polite to comment and besides, they are in a foreign country where the people simply are not Japanese! What do you expect?


So as I walk back from Daia I find in amongst the housing all sorts of commercial activities taking place. The photo above is of a small textile design factory I think. Now that I have really laboured the point about rubbish and cleanliness you should immediately see this photograph in that context.


A quick peek through the entrance of the factory shows the worker's shoes lined up neatly where they have taken them off and put on their working shoes. This is such a simple picture but when you begin to consider the implications of the image you can see the detail that is being followed through at every level.


At the side of the factory is what is probably a storage area. the entrance to this is made from three old doors hinged together; a pragmatic and cost efficient recycling of materials. This is where recycling, commerce and art meet, this could well be an installation in the Tate! Diagonally across the road from this textile factory is an older style operation, something to do with carpentry I think.


This is just a large warehouse structure and you can see a block of flats off to the left of the image. Indeed, there are residential homes all the way up this short street in between the businesses, or, there are businesses in between the residential homes! This mixed economy is seamless.


The photographs I have been showing you in this small series on the mixed economy are all in sequence of my actual journey. I didn't see the need to alter the order (hey, perhaps I am becoming Japanese!!!) and so in reality the "distance" between each photo ranges between a few seconds to a couple of minutes at most. The image above shows a sign writer, perhaps a less industrial and more artisan element in the make up but once more I am trying to illustrate how the "mix" is actually borderless at all levels.

You will immediately observe that the frontage is in English. This is because the use of English in signs and slogans is seen to be very cosmopolitan and reflects a cultural value. Obviously therefore, you need a sign-writer who has mastery of script and font in this form.


Almost opposite this artisan trade we have the entrance lobby of a rather plush set of appartments. You will note that the tree carries a notice informing people of various important bits of information including where along the road it is appropriate to smoke!

Obviously, in such places there is good provision for the smoker. You do not get a hopelessly inadequate tin tacked onto a wall for cigarette buts, no, you have a proper stand, usually with an awing of some sort and a large sized purpose designed bin, regularly cleaned, for the smoker.

Yes it is better to organise smoking in specific places but that doesn't mean that you treat the smoker disrespectfully as some sort of 21st century leper.


Just a little further I found a house, a very traditional house with an immaculate traditional garden. Once again the image tells us a lot more than would appear on first glance. A connoisseur of detail would pick this up but he would have to be good, very good, to read it from a photograph. However the point is really important in terms of understanding something about the Japanese psyche that is radically different to our own. As ever, pragmatism is the key!


As you can see the garden takes the traditional use of stone and plant, it is open and spacious, this is not the home of a working class family. This is the place where the aesthetic plays a part in Japanese life. This Japanese sense of the aesthetic is extremely powerful as I hope to illustrate in my forthcoming article on the Japanese department store and why it is possible to pay up to £300 for a melon. However that will come later!

If you go back to the first picture then the lesson in spotting detail is always to look for either what is an anomaly or to look for what is not there. The second skill is obviously the harder but our challenge in the first picture is spotting what is present and that means correctly identifying it.

The first give away is the colour differential. This is anomalous. What we have is a yellow fence and closer inspection by the skilled eye will conclude that it is in fact a plastic sheet replicating bamboo fencing. This is important because it demonstrates that the Japanese aesthetic is much more flexible in respect of materials, there is not a prejudice against plastic or the 'modern'. What we are considering here is the different construction of mix which allows for a different understanding of what works in context.

In terms of our look at the mixed economy we can see that the placing of commercial, industrial and residential in the same space does not effect the understanding of the aesthetic or conflict in terms of context. This is a very Japanese quality of psyche.


As we continue down the road a bit we come to a junction and there on the corner is the aesthetic of the traditional Japanese cake shop. Look at the space, consider the design, we are five minutes walk from the cement factory and in between is all that I have been describing.


A side view into the cake shop reveals this aesthetic in all of its glory. This is a commercial space in a city where space is at a premium. Imagine for a moment that this was an American sales oriented selling space. An American entrepreneur would look at this and think the shop was just being fitted out:

"My god there is hardly any product on view, no point of sales materials, no promotional or marketing going on, there are empty spaces everywhere. This is a commercial disaster zone!"

What we clearly have here is the minimalism Japanese art has been famous for; the zen appreciation of the moment, the grace and beauty of the small movement. This is a Japanese high quality cake shop and I can assure you that what you are looking at is the complete lack of willingness or ability to compromise on those Japanese standards. When the American style business entrepreneur looks at this selling space they see lost opportunity, when the Japanese look at this selling space they see traditional quality.


In the photo above we see the view down the street taken from next to the side view of the cake shop. As you can see, there are residential houses and appartments all along. If we just glance to the right from this position we see the Jeweler.

This small high quality jeweler is almost opposite the side window view of the cake shop. The building he is in is mostly residential appartments. In this image we can see the minimialism of the cake shop design reflected in this shop front, the surface of the building and the street furniture. But just down the way from this very high quality jeweler and high quality cake shop, in fact just after the point where I am standing in the street view above, wait for it, yes, we have the meat packing factory!


Not more than forty yards down from the cake shop, just past a few houses there is a meat packing factory which takes truck loads of animal flesh and turns it into all sorts of packaged and processed products.


Everything is clean, neat and very, very tidy. The dust cart with the broom probably comes twice a day to deal with the rubbish. And inconvenience to local people is kept to an absolute minimum if any at all.



Amazingly considering the occupation, the staff unloading the lorries are resplendent in a full array of white protective clothing that seems impervious to blood stains (when I first saw this place I thought it might be a secret biological weapon research plant!). Once more I would ask the reader to picture the image of a British worker in a similar occupation. The comparison defines the Japanese demands for hygiene.

And even if you live next door to the meat packing factory, just down the way from the cake shop and a short walk to the cement factory, you still grow your sharon fruit tree through your front porch so you can enjoy its tasty bounty during your lunch break at the light engineering plant around the corner.


And so now we are almost home, just cross the road and wander down yet another short street where houses are crowbarred into spaces we wouldn't think possible and our journey ends.

What you have seen is really just the faintest scratch of the surface, the experience here on the ground is one of wonder and amazement. The implications in terms of planing, building construction, social management, service provision and everything else that goes into not just building a city but creating a social model leave me ever more saddened about the opportunities we miss in our culture.

Is there any less health and safety regulation here than there? Absolutely not, in fact there is probably more here. Is there any less bureaucracy here than there is there? Most certainly not, bureaucracy here is enormous and ever present. So what is the difference then? Well I would suggest it is all about attitude and how that attitude is shared across the community. In Japan getting the job done is seen as the obligation, being polite and efficient is seen as the duty and being Japanese is seen as the shared value.

This year we delivered in London a very large project involving three London councils, 19 primary schools, one art gallery, two libraries and over 600 cardboard DOGS. The brief for the Tower Hamlets Borough events team was to collect two lots of crated DOG sculptures and store them safely for six weeks. Then they had to deliver these crated DOGS to the event site. A very simple logistical exercise.

We wasted four full working days of our time (there are two of us so that is 64 man hours lost) because of their collection, storage and delivery of these items. Because in the first collection they were patently incompetent beyond belief we abandoned the second collection and consequently had to reduce the size of the event. On delivery to the site the DOG sculptures were so extensively damaged the artist had to spend two full working days repairing them.

This is only a very short description of the managerial incompetence I put before the events team manger in a meeting one month ago. An apology? No. Any sense that they had done anything wrong? No. Any sense that things would change or there would be managerial lessons learnt? No, the manager said, "I think we shall just keep this in-house".

Imagine these clowns trying to run Tokyo!


Footnote:
In 1990 the police identified over 2.2 million Penal Code violations. Two types of violations—larceny (65.1 percent of total violations) and negligent homicide or injury as a result of accidents (26.2%)—accounted for over 90 percent of criminal offenses in Japan.

In 1989 Japan experienced 1.3 robberies per 100,000 population, compared with 48.6 for West Germany, 65.8 for Great Britain, and 233.0 for the United States; and it experienced 1.1 murder per 100,000 population, compared with 3.9 for West Germany, 1.03 for England and Wales, and 8.7 for the United States that same year.

Japanese authorities also solve a high percentage of robbery cases (75.9%, compared with 43.8% for West Germany, 26.5% for Britain, and 26.0% for the United States) and homicide cases (95.9% , compared with 94.4% for Germany, 78.0% for Britain, and 68.3% for the United States)

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Japan