Kurashi - News From Japan

Guam is a small island not well equipped to handle the proposed move of US Marines from Okinawa. The move of 8,000 US Marines and their families may be delayed, according to Yomiuri and other sources. A planned transfer of about 8,000 U.S. marines from Okinawa Prefecture to Guam could be delayed beyond the 2014 target, perhaps by up to six years, according to an office of the U.S. Defense Department. A final environmental impact statement released by the department's Joint Guam Program Office on Tuesday includes a proposal to delay the transfer of the troops and their dependents to as late as 2020 to reduce environmental impact from the personnel relocation and associated construction projects. However, the statement said a new time frame would be decided later. This is a strange fact that suddenly emerges in the middle of this hot summer after all the ground-shaking events, including the way former prime minister Hatoyama fired his outspoken and very popular minister Mizuho Fukus...

Aera wonders if the 10% consumption tax proposal means a thing. In its August 2 issue, they note that the good people of Japan tend to live so terribly long that how can the state possibly be supposed to provide welfare for all of its subjects? Currently, the VAT rate is still set to a very conservative, accross-the-board, 5%, compared to other OECD countries (Sweden tops the list at 25% but does have lower rates for important things like books). Prime minister Kan muddled the waters before the last election, noting that it may have to be raised. Consumers Union of Japan and many others are against an increase - hoping that the state will somehow reduce expenditures (such as military spending) rather than burden said subjects more. Then, Kurashi is fortunate to have readers who do send in rather intelligent comments. What do you think about the consumption tax/VAT in Japan? 消費税 shouhi-zei is a rather loose term that implies all kinds of excise duties, thus generally translated as VAT...

Friedensreich Hundertwasser was an amazing artist from Austria. He helped design the Maishima Incineration Plant in Osaka. I like how he was always interested in all aspects of life, making even the most mundane aspects of life more artistic - such as toilets and garbage: ...According to the guide, the plant didn’t cost any more than a traditional one because they cut corners in other areas. Inside, visitors will see what must be the world’s cleanest incineration plant. The whole place is spotless, high-tech, well-decorated and modern. Trucks pull up to a giant garbage pit, and two giant robotic hands (each 6m in circumference) pick up the garbage and dump it into a huge incinerator. The plant can handle 900 tons of garbage a day and is extremely impressive. If you are interested in finding out more about this quirky waste disposal icon, free tours are available with reservations. There is a good English pamphlet available but the guides do not speak English so please arrange an interp...

If you ever read MSN News in Japanese, which I do, you may be used to having to sift through commercials posing as editorial material. Or is it the other way around? Their summer campaign for hybrid cars takes the cake. Now, I enjoy reading about two girls driving from Asakusa, Tokyo, to Izu (and then apparently they will travel to Hokkaido) but shouldn't it be made much more clear that this is an ad? The young girls pose in bikinis for both Toyota Prius and Honda CR-Z (from July 23) but from what I can gather, this is not really a MSN News segment. So what is it? OK, it is very hot and maybe someone decided that this was the best they could do to combat global warming, let's get out of Tokyo, summer in the city, 2010-style ;) Click on the image to enlarge Sigh - have we learnt nothing since 1957, when Vance Packard published his book called The Hidden Persuaders , about how images were being manipulated in advertising to induce desire for products or ideas in a subliminal fas...

The Koike Beach Clean Up in Tokushima prefecture on July 17, 2010 aimed "to clean up rubbish-coming from the Seto Inland Sea- which has accumulated for years along the coast of Naruto, Japan." Several schools participated, including Naruto High School and Shimada Elementary School. It is another example of how any real "defense" of our lands and our waters now rely on children and volunteers, as governments seem pre-occupied with satisfying global defense contractors (what used to be called the military-industrial complex). Meanwhile children grow up in neighborhoods that are severely polluted. Sarah, from France, also appears here (in Japanese). I like how they made a special blog here and I hope they will share many more photos soon! How did this happen? The roles of Mr Miyamoto and Donoura Waste Treatment Plant are crucial. For this reason, Naruto High School and the waste treatment plant have decided to coordinate their actions. However, we also need more volu...

Many Japanese companies do arrange river cleanup programs as part of their CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) programs. NEC is a case in point: Seventy-three employees from the company, NEC Engineering, NEC Fielding, NEC Media Products, NEC Professional Support, NEC Soft, etc. which are located in the Nakagawara Technical Center cleaned up a river bank of Tama river on April 11, 2004. They also do beach cleanups such as the Miura, Kanagawa prefecture beach. I hope they keep going and see this as an investment in the future, both for the company and for the people involved. In August 2006, NEC launched the NEC B.E.A.C.H. (Beach Ecological Action will Change your Heart) Project to contribute to society and encourage environmental awareness by sweeping beaches. On August 26, 126 people, including NEC employees & their families and local residents, participated in the First Miura Beach Cleaning Campaign. The event included beach sweeping, observation of organisms on the beach, p...

I just love finding stuff like this - a local blog about some region I would not have heard of, and the more I read the better it gets. Check this out: Next, I talked to Mr. Nakano of Oborigawa no Mizu wo Kirei ni suru Kai – the Obori River waterway clean-up association. The Obori River is a part of the Tone River system and feeds Teganuma Marsh. The organization welcomes volunteers who can come out and clean up garbage that washes down the river, teaches children about the water cycle, and hosts events on the river. I was surprised to learn that the Oborigawa to this day has a significant salmon run. So that’s what the grandpas are patiently waiting to catch! Looking down from the Joban train line which crosses the Obori on the west side of the marsh, you can see people with rods. Mr. Nakano says that, like salmon runs anywhere, there is a four-year cycle, and people eagerly anticipate the return. The big event of the summer happens on Marine Day, July 22nd*, when volunteers do “os...