Kurashi - News From Japan

Kenichi Horie "waved" a fond Aloha to Hawaii at 11:00 AM Sunday (local time) and is now riding the waves to Japan on a new aluminum catamaran that is powered by wave action. The 3 ton boat, Suntory Mermaid II, is crafted of recycled aluminum and is 9.5 meters long (31 feet). Propulsion is provided by two fins mounted at the bow of the boat which flap as wave action acts upon them through a set of levers and springs. It doesn't matter what direction the wave comes from. The max speed is 5 knots and average cruise speed just 3 knots (about 3.5 mph), so it will take until late May for Mr. Horie to reach Japan. Electricity to run cabin and navigation lights, a shortwave radio, and laptop computer, comes from deck mounted solar panels. Horie, who is 69 years old, is no stranger to ocean crossings. Since 1962 he has made solo ocean crossings every few years and two solo round the world trips. In 1962 he sailed his 19 foot boat Mermaid from Nishinomiya, Japan to San Francis...

NHK has a fun show with the tema Worst! Until recently, the worst river in Japan was Harukigawa in Ichikawa, Chiba prefecture, east of Tokyo. Many homes have no plumbing for kitchen waste or laundry, and unless cooking oil is kept out of the sink and detergent use reduced, it all goes straight into the river - and further downriver into Tokyo Bay. Rivers are measured according to a pollution scale and clearly, something had to be done about this issue. Now, people say the water is no longer black but becoming bluish. After a local campaign, it now ranks third, having reduced the pollution index from 14.0 to 11.4 BOD which is not great, but a lot better than a year ago. The average BOD in river water in Japan was reduced from 3.3 in 1979 to 1.6 in 2003, so Harukigawa still has a long way to go. How to get ordinary people to care about the environment? One of the campaigners went around to households, talked to them, and got about 15,000 people to pledge to reduce their kitchen water pol...

A gold-coated wooden Buddha sculpture set a new world auction record for Japanese art when it was sold for $14,377,000 at Christie's in New York, according to Reuters . The newly discovered sculpture of Dainichi Nyorai, the supreme Buddha, attributed to the sculptor Unkei, was bought by Mitsukoshi Department Store at Christie's sale of Japanese and Korean art on Tuesday. "History was made today," said Katsura Yamaguchi, Christie's International Director of Japanese and Korean Art. "We witnessed enormous interest from clients worldwide who traveled from near and far to ... participate in this landmark sale." The 70 cm seated Buddha is believed to be the work of Unkei, considered one of the great carvers of the early Kamakura period of the 1190s. Part of a family collection in the northern Kanto region, before which it was kept in a Tochigi prefecture temple in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, its existence was unknown until it was sold to a Buddhis...

In Japan, most corn processors have used only non-GMO crops to produce corn starch and corn syrup, used as a sweetener, as most customers, mainly beer and drug makers, refuse to use GMOs. Risa Maeda at Reuters notes that beer makers so far are resisting price hikes in corn starch, an important ingredient for beer, or a shift to GMO. "Lack of public acceptance means we don't consider it," said a spokesman at Kirin Holdings, which seven years ago led its peers to use only non-GMO corn starch for Japanese beer. Kirin notes genetically modified foods, allergic foods, food additives, chemical residues in food, endocrine disrupters, beef (BSE), irradiation, and mycotoxins as items with "high customer interest" in its 2007 CSR Report (pdf), prompting the company to create special quality guidelines to deal with these difficult problems. Also, the introduction of IP handling, HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) and ISO9001 certification by food manufactu...

I have decided to disable comments for a while because of frequent spam comments.

As I open my front door, this is the view - plum trees in full bloom.

Swans at Kussharo Lake in Hokkaido, northern Japan. From Janne in Osaka , with an accute eye .

There will be a anti-nuclear power demonstration in Tokyo on Sunday, March 16, 2008. The activists from No Nukes More Hearts and other groups invite everyone to participate and learn more about the problems with the Rokkashomura nuclear reprocessing plant in Aomori prefecture. Meet up in Shibuya at 13:30 by the Miyashita Park. The walk starts at 14:00 and goes past NHK, Hachiko at Shibuya station, and back. Read more at Stop-Rokkasho.jp .

Takeshi Kobayashi has an unusual hobby - or maybe passion is a better word. He designs treehouses. Here in Japan, that is just not very common, to say the least. His treehouses are appearing all over the country, even as a cafe in Harajuku, Tokyo, called Hideaway . I'm impressed. If your computer is ok with Flash graphics, I recommend the Japan Treehouse Network website. Treehouse.jp see this as a "road to freedom". Lots of photos at Treehouse Creator They say, since Japan has a lot of forest, it is possible to live with the forest. This is a way of protecting the forests and a way to experience living with nature. Lumber is also a sustainable resource, if forests are maintained well...

China has announced that it will upgrade its environment agency SEPA to ministry status. The new environment ministry aims "to boost environmental and ecological protection efforts and accelerate the building of a resource-saving and environment-friendly society," State Councilor Hua Jianmin said while explaining the government's plan this week. The ministry will be responsible for drafting and implementing programs, policies and standards concerning environmental protection; working out environmental functions in different regions; supervising pollution prevention and treatment efforts; and tackling major environmental issues Obviously there are huge problems in China. "Some of the policies put forward by the central government, when they are implemented at the local level, in some places they are not completed or in place," Zhang Lijun, deputy chief of the State Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA), according to Reuters . Also in the news, China appears to b...

15 million food items with expired dates have been for sold on Japan's Shinkansen trains. The catering firm is a subsidiary of Central Japan Railway Co. They claim that they have not received any complaints of health problems stemming from the expired box lunches, sandwiches and other food items. Catering company president Takeshi Tategami apologized for "undermining public trust," saying the false labeling "became habitual due to familiarization of the process." That's a poor excuse. The company sold a lot of expired items - as much as 30 percent of what were sold between April 2005, when the company shortened its period for safe consumption of the products, and February 2008, when the false labeling came to light - according to Kyodo. If you have eaten a dodgy Shinkansen bento, why not write them a letter. Rules for " Shelf life ", " Best before " dates and "Consume before" dates are clearly stipulated in Japan's food safe...

Perhaps Japan's most amazing green building is in Fukuoka, southern Japan. It is called ACROS Fukuoka with two very distinct sides: one side looks like a conventional office building with glass walls, but on the other side there is a huge terraced roof that merges with a park. The garden terraces, which reach up to about 60 meters above the ground, contain some 35,000 plants representing 76 species. There is a semicircular atrium and a triangular lobby that provides contrast to the greenery. ACROS has enough space for a symphony hall, offices and shops. The green roof enables the building’s energy consumption to be much lower than other buildings because the plants keep the inside temperature at a comfortable level. The design for ACROS Fukuoka proposes a novel solution for a common urban problem: reconciling the developer’s desire for profitable use of a site with the public’s need for open green space, and the planet’s need for greenery.

On top of the world: The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has added a rooftop garden to its Assembly building in Shinjuku. They have also installed solar power generation facilities. The garden project began in 2002 and has been a sucess. They grow azalea, roses, juniper (cypress) and several types of magnolia on a 770 square meter plot. Visitors are welcome to enter the garden. Solar power generator panels have been set up next to the green areas to supply power to the garden lights on the rooftop and to electrical devices in the Assembly building. Read more on The Greening Project website. Meanwhile, Tokyo is making plans to increase its reliance on renewable energy to 20% by 2020. In order to reach this goal, they want to promote "drastic energy efficiency measures first, then shift from the conventaional energy to renewable energy." Source: Tokyo Renewable Energy Strategy (pdf) Incidentally, the 20% goal is identical to what The European Council has adopted in its "ex...

Click to enlarge. From The Atlantic , where Andrew Sullivan uses it to explain why the US is not leaving Iraq, noting that "Kuwait was worth rescuing, wasn't it?" And of course it also helps to explain why Japan has been so eager to resume its assistance to the international coalition in the Gulf.

Japan's imports of vegetables from China have decreased since late January when tainted Chinese-made meat dumplings caused several cases of food poisoning. Kyodo quotes a preliminary government survey that reveals that Japan imported 20,704 tons of vegetables from China in the first three weeks of February, down 39.7% from a year earlier, said the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. In spite of some media reports, China appears to be very cautious about the gyoza scandal. Officially, they seem perplexed about the level of scrutiny, and at loss about how to deal with the situation. China Daily notes that the investigation continues : China on Thursday said its investigation into the dumpling poisoning incident would continue and no unilateral conclusion should be drawn before the truth was discovered. Foreign Ministry Spokesman Qin Gang made the remarks at a regular press conference, noting that the incident was a cross-border one concerning food safety and could not be...

Update: On Saturday, Kim Ae Hwa was allowed to enter Japan, after criticism mounted over the refusal earlier this week of her entry at the same airport. I'm glad to learn she challenged the system and won. A South Korean civic group leader who arrived Wednesday at Narita airport, to participate in a Tokyo meeting of Asian nongovernmental organizations was refused permission to enter Japan, other participants of the meeting said Friday. The woman, Kim Ae Hwa, planned to discuss regional disparities and the protection of farmers in developing countries at the meeting to be held this weekend ahead of a Group of Eight summit in July in Japan. Kim Ae Hwa, a representative from the Committee for Asian Women , planned to discuss regional disparities and the protection of farmers in developing countries, according to OANA : Mary Lou Malig, a researcher at a private think tank in Thailand, told a press conference that the participants of the forum must look into why Kim was refused entry. J...

The United Nations has a World Food Programme that sends food aid to some 73 million people in around 80 countries. Recently, the WFP is warning that they have a problem: "We will have a significant gap if commodity prices remain this high, and we will need an extra half billion dollars just to meet existing assessed needs." The Guardian notes that the WFP is holding an emergency meeting in Rome on Friday, at which its senior managers will meet board members to brief them on the scale of the problem. There will then be a case-by-case assessment of the seriousness of the situation in the affected countries, before the WFP formally asks for an increased budget at its executive board meeting in June. Among the reasons for higher wheat, corn and soy prices are: a rise in demand for animal feed [for meat] from increasingly prosperous populations in India and China, the use of more land and agricultural produce for biofuels, and climate change. Soy prices are up some 72% year-on-y...

Japan's Supreme Court this week upheld a suspended prison sentence for a former health ministry official convicted for failing to prevent the use of HIV-contaminated blood products in the mid 1980s, according to Kyodo and Bloomberg . This is the first time in 25 years that a Japanese government official has been held criminally responsible for administrative negligence. The Tokyo District Court issued a one-year suspended prison sentence for Akihito Matsumura in 2001, a decision upheld by the Tokyo High Court in 2005, Kyodo said. The courts ruled Matsumura caused the death of a liver disease patient in 1995 by failing to stop the use of contaminated blood products. In Japan, the contaminated blood products infected 1,430 people with HIV between the late 1970s and 1986. More than 500 of them have died. Green Cross Corp., a Japanese drug company used blood products imported from the United States, collected from needle-drug users and federal prisoners in Arkansas . Bayer...

I know I have a few English teachers reading my blog from time to time, perhaps looking for topics for lessons or picking up ideas for the class room. Environmental education, anyone? Do have a look at Green TV , a great idea with streaming videos such as Tsunami: Green Belts , or Crude (about oil) with Japanese subtitles. There are many Japanese-language videos as well, including a lovely documentary about " Living with forests ". I like the interview with Takanaka Akiyoshi , who talks about poetry and how people express their deep feelings for nature - and how words, in the form of poems, can live for 500 or 1000 years. There are also many videos from Earth Day Tokyo in April, 2007, which I really enjoyed, and wrote about here . Now you can watch Green TV's Part1 , Part2 , Part3 and Part 4 (with Fuji Rock Festival and Greenpeace Japan). I love they way these videos let lots and lots of people appear with their messages for peace and "green" planet. I would ...

Kyodo reports that about 1,000 people held a peace march Saturday in Shizuoka Prefecture, calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. The event was held to commemorate the 54th anniversary of the irradiation of the crew of a Japanese fishing ship by a US hydrogen bomb test at the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The Bravo test, in February 1954, was at 15 megatons the most powerful bomb ever detonated by the US - far bigger than expected. An H-bomb, it vaporized three islands and threw radioactive debris over nearly 50,000 square miles, according to an interesting website maintained by " The Bureau of Atomic Tourism " (for real). Official Bikini Atoll website here , with details about the forced evacuation and sufferings of local residents. They also write about the Japanese fishing ship, called " Lucky Dragon " in English-language media. And here in Tokyo, there is a exhibition hall that houses the fishing ship, and guides explain the horrors of nuclear radiat...

There was a conference yesterday, Feb 29 about Peak Oil and how Japan will be affected. The venue was the House of Councillors, at the Japanese Parliament in Tokyo. The speaker was the author of several books and articles about Peak Oil, Ishii Yoshinori . Ishii argues for (among other things) a " Plan B " for Japan's energy needs, with investments in train services instead of cars, a focus on local food production, less meat consumption, and energy savings at home. Ishii also thinks Japan's population should be allowed to shrink and worries that China will also be hit hard by Peak Oil, perhaps even this summer during the Olympics. Peak Oil refers to the growing gap between oil demand and production. It is the point when the maximum rate of global petroleum production is reached, after which the rate of production enters a decline. If global consumption is not reduced before the peak, an energy crisis will certainly develop because oil will be less available. Prices wi...

Genetically modified foods are terribly controversial in Asia, with no commercial farming of GM crops in Japan or Korea. As I have written before , you find lots of soy-based foods in Japan, such as tofu and miso, that are clearly labelled as made from Non-Genetically Modified soy. Consumer organizations here are even lobbying Australia to keep its ban on GM canola (rape seed) used for cooking oil. And time after time, illegal US crops turn up in Japan, prompting recalls and trouble for food companies and authorities - most recently it was yet another GM corn that still had not been approved here. South Korea will introduce new, more strict GM labelling rules from June 29 this year, according to JoongAng Daily. They note in an editorial that " genetically modified food must be labelled ". With higher grain prices, South Korea is finding it more difficult to continue procure Non-GM crops. Expect this debate to pick up steam as consumers find out more. "If the compa...