Armageddon Can Ruin Your Whole Day

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, The most hilarious line I have read in a long while:

"If Japan's finances collapse, social order would collapse as well. That would be a tough environment to raise children."

You can find it a huffing-and-puffing Reuters piece on a heretofore unknown sweeping social trend: Japanese buying overseas real estate and non-yen currencies in order to have a safe haven to which they will flee prior to Japan's descent into chaos. (Link)

I know that it is in the writ of wire journalists to alert their most important readers (private investors and money managers) as to emerging social trends. That way said readers can get in on the opportunity before everyone else does. It is in the writ of editors, however, to cool the jets of journalists with "Uhhhh, how sure are we that we are not being sucked into someone else's marketing scheme?"

As for the book whose sales supposedly validate the trend of Japanese seeking security oversees, Escape from Japan (Nippon dasshutsu), check out the home page of its publisher, Asa Publishing (Link - J).

Yes, there's the link, that jittery thing on the right.

And In The Other Japan...

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, ...the one that is fabulous, successful and full of youthful energy, a shock: Maeda Atsuko (20) is "graduating" from AKB 48. The gigantic group's pivot point, two-time winner of the title of Party Leader (sosai) announced her retirement/ascension/eviction at the end of the group's concert on Sunday (J and SP -- I cannot help myself: the news sounds so much more poignant and significant en español).

Serious discussions must have already begun on whether the fans of AKB 48 can be brought together for a snap election of a new Party Leader, so as to avoid leaving the group, the fandom, the marketers, the makeup artists, the clothes designers, the lighting crews, the semi-closeted nympholeptics leaderless.

Questions will also now grow ever louder as to whether Shinoda Mariko, the oldest member of the group at 26, should not also announce her departure.


Later - Oh dear, I was pipped by Japan Probe. Oh well.

Later still - And yes, they can sing beautifully, when they try (Link).

Just Catching Up

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Following up on the recent post on the new societal panic, the double deaths of caregiver and dependant living in virtual isolation (virtual in that the most famous cases have taken place in urban environments) is a The Mainichi Daily News editorial on the subject (E).

In the recent post on the hanging of Ozawa Ichiro's portrait in the Diet, there was the mention that the House of Representatives Steering Committee had approved the hanging of troubled lawmaker Suzuki Muneo's portrait in the House as well.

Here it is folks, in all its ragged glory.

Let's call the style "Hokkaido Primitive."

Some might say that the portrait makes Suzuki look demented. Some might argue that for Suzuki, demented is a step up.

And yes, that is Sato Masaru on the left, the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs bureaucrat who spent 512 days in pre-trial detention for refusing to answer questions about Suzuki's under-the-table dealings and the man who called Suzuki "MOFA's Rasputin."

Image courtesy: Jiji Press

Fewer Than Two Continued - On Death And Dying

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Where the new figures for household size in the Tokyo Metropolitan District intersect with the prevailing zeitgeist in two ways.

The first is the reporting of the increasing number, as if it were a surprise, of famous persons dying alone (kodokushi) and not being found for several days or even weeks.

The first really shocking case was of the former porn actress, television talent, then later blogger and AIDS activist Iijima Ai, who was found dead in her home three weeks after her last blog post in December 2008. The 2009 discovery of the body of longtime film and television superstar Ohara Reiko in her home two weeks after anyone last heard from her further shocked the country. Newscaster and television talent Yamaguchi Mie was found dead alone last year under similar circumstances.

Of course, with the greater number of persons living alone, that the number of persons dying alone should be rising should not surprising. Given the anonymity of the big cities and the hyper-sensitivity over respecting a person's privacy, that persons are not being found dead for days or weeks should also not be surprising.

That the number of persons dying alone at home has not, until recently, been a societal obsession can in part be traced to the incredible rates of hospitalization of the very ill and very old, with over 82% of deaths occurring in a hospital and an addition 3% in special homes for the aged (J - page 9).

Iijima, Ohara and Yamaguchi were 36, 62 and 51 years of age respectively at the time of their deaths. Both Ohara and Yamaguchi had spent many years prior to their deaths caring for aged and incapacitated parents.

It is in the latter situation that the new figures on the size of households gives folks the heeby-jeebies, though in the case of Ohara and Yamaguchi, the parents each had been caring for had either been moved to an elder care facility or died.

In recent weeks there have been a spate of stories about caregivers dying, leaving their disabled or senile charges to die of starvation, thirst or cold. The most shocking was a case in mid-February of a 45 year-old woman dying, leaving her four year-old mentally retarded son to die a few days later of an as yet unrevealed cause, despite visits to the home by what were supposed to be help providers. In more recent days, news organizations have been reporting on couples or parent-child homes where the deaths of the caregiver have left the other, incapacitated resident to die, either slowly or quickly, from lack of care. Despite the fact that these pairs of individuals are not technically dying alone, these types of double deaths are being classed kodokushi.

With Japanese enjoying, if that can be the term, extended lifespans, and the chances of one member of a two-person household being seriously incapacitated in some way increasing, the number of these kinds of double deaths is sure to increase unless civil society or local government develop ways on keeping tabs on caregivers and their charges. A great deal of help is currently available. With the society as a whole aging, however, the capacity for society or local governments to continue to provide help services will diminish.

Some companies, such as the ALSOK corporation, advertise home surveillance cameras for younger relatives to keep tabs on the status of their elders. The concept seems way too creepy and invasive to come into common usage, however. This may change. Indeed, the installation of cameras might come to be seen as a natural part of the aging process -- that once you are past a certain age, you will never have a moment's privacy again, even in your own home.

Fewer Than Two

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,,

This is for all the lonely people
Thinking that life has passed them by
Don't give up
Until you drink from the silver cup
And ride that highway in the sky

This is for all the single people
Thinking that life has left them dry
Don't give up
Until you drink from the silver cup
You never know until you try

- America, "Lonely People" (1974)*

If you are in the Tokyo Metropolitan district, and you are alone, you are not alone. Indeed, you are in the whopping majority.

The TMD released the results of its survey of households yesterday. As of January 1 of this year, Tokyo had 12,686,067 residents living in 6,368,485 households, an average of 1.99 residents per household. Considering the number of families with children in the TMD, the balancing number of persons registered as living alone is simply immense -- over 60% of all households registered.

The Mainichi Shimbun provides a nice graph of the crash in the number of persons per registered household since 1957, the first year the survey was conducted.

TMD Governor Ishihara Shintaro, ever the one to come up with the conservate morality play view of a situation, remarked, "I am shocked. It a matter of grave concern. It's truly unhealthy. I feel as though the family unit has fallen to pieces."

If so, then our dear governor (How is it possible that he has won election four times?) should be worried about our neighbors to the north, with all their cows, corn and sunflowers, for the next in line is Hokkaido, with 2.06 residents per household. (J)

The TMD being the great vampire squid of Japan's prefectures, it still managed to eke out a 0.31% increase in its population, the 16th straight year of population growth, despite its shrinking household size (J). It also has remained relatively youthful, with persons in their 30s being the largest age cohort and the percentage of those over 65 years of age still a low (for Japan) 21% of the population. (J)

So all the ongoing creative destruction, with old neighborhoods and commercial properties being demolished and being replaced by high-rise and low-rise condominium and rental units is not necessarily cheap financing leading developers to run amok.

* Yes, I know that the song is an appeal to rebith through faith in Jesus Christ. However, it was either this or "Eleanor Rigby."

Photo credit: MTC

Two Earthquakes, One National Broadcaster

PLEASE WAIT LOADING ,,,,,,,,, Two fairly large earthquakes struck Japan's eastern coast last night, a 6.8 temblor at 6:09 far off the coast of Hokkaido and a 6.1 temblor near to shore at 9:05. The earlier one released the greater energy (seven times as much, the Richter scale being logarithmic - correct me if I am wrong) but the latter one was the one causing damage and injuries. The latter one shook the bewillickers out of Tokyo, guaranteeing it would get better press. It even seems to have scared a 95 year-old woman to death, leading to an official count of one fatality.

The timing of the two quakes could not have been more apt for NHK. They gave the national broadcaster a chance to try out its new, hysterical style of delivering earthquakes and tsunami warnings during what are normally news time slots.

Whereas in the past bulletins on tsunami risks were delivered in a flat, informative tone and were checked first with the Japan Meteorological Agency, the new, post-3/11 mode of operation is to, frankly speaking, go nuts as soon as possible, warning viewers in staccato, barking tones to be prepared to run to higher ground even before the JMA has made any predictions.

The new style, which NHK previewed only last week as a part of its pre-3/11 build up is in answer to criticism of the broadcast community for failing to instill sufficient panic in the residents of the Tohoku last year, and in particular for following in lockstep the predictions of the JMA as to the size of the incoming waves. The initial JMA predictions were for a 3 meter wave, then a 6 meter, then finally a greater than 10 meter wave for many parts of the Tohoku (the highest crest was an astonishing 39.7 meters at Miyako City - J).

It is thought that the initial, more conservative warnings misled some early evacuees to seek shelter at lower elevations, resulting in them being swept away when the very much higher surge arrived. In at least three instances, large groups gathered on a raised area or in a tsunami shelter that ended up being far too low, one of which is the now iconic Minami Sanriku Disaster Center.

Whether delivering disaster warning messages in a voice that it both louder and filled with more tension will save lives is a question. Certainly last night, when the tsunami from the first earthquake rolled in at a less-than-astonishing 10 centimeters in height, the new urgent warnings seemed somewhat silly. Then again, with the aging of the population, startling semi-somnolent viewers and listeners may be just what is necessary to get folks off their aging keisters and way up on higher ground.