Once in a while, people tell me that they want to study in Japan. Most of the time, they speak no Japanese. Fortunately for these people, the Japanese government has been actively pushing a programme that will see numerous top Japanese universities offer full undergraduate courses in English.

Known as the Global 30 Project, the initiative by MEXT intends to bring 300,000 international students to Japan by 2020.

Introduction

Currently, 13 schools have been selected to participate in the project, including University of Tokyo (東京大学), Kyoto University (京都大学), Keio University (慶應義塾大学) and Waseda University (早稲田大学).

Recruitment poster for Kyoto U’s anime interest group, circa 2011

Waseda University actually started its own English degree programmes in 2004, under the School of International Liberal Studies (SILS) and for a long time was the only option for lazy Americans who want to study in Tokyo without knowing a word of Japanese.

Among the rest of the schools selected for the Global 30 Project, the level of commitment appears to vary quite a fair bit, with some schools offering just a few niche degree programmes, while others are attempting to emulate Waseda in establishing a standalone international college.

Most of the schools are offering some form of liberal arts education, but Nagoya University (名古屋大学) is taking in students for the 2011 school year for both undergraduate and graduate research programmes in science and engineering. I believe Nagoya University is also the fastest school (excluding those with existing English programmes) in getting its programme up and running under the initiative, as other schools such as University of Tokyo and Ritsumeikan University (立命館大学) will only start taking in students next year.

Incidentally, a professor from Ritsumeikan will be in Singapore this Friday to explain and promote the school’s new English-based programme.

Lawson at Toudai’s Hongo Campus, complete with Toudai’s logo

University of Tokyo

University of Tokyo (aka Toudai) has come up with a Web 2.0-style logo for what it calls PEAK (Programs in English at Komaba), which is a really fancy way of saying that international students enrolled in its new English degree programmes will get to spend four years in Toudai’s secondary campus, far away from the main Hongo campus with its iconic Akamon and Yasuda Auditorium.

Other than a handful of graduate students, Komaba is where freshmen and sophomores study before moving on to Hongo. This means that foreign students in PEAK will probably be left alone at Komaba after the second year… Not to mention the fact that extracurriculars and club activities mostly take place at the main campus, so it’s going to be a pain in the ass. (See map.)

PEAK will start admitting students in Fall 2012. The application forms will be made available on the website starting from 1 Aug 2011.

Recruitment poster for Toudai’s animation club I found at Komaba Campus this past spring

School Terms

Interestingly, most English programmes such as PEAK are choosing to follow American and European college terms even though school years in Japan all start in April. Toudai is even evaluating the (remote) possibility of moving the entire school to a fall intake system in order to become more internationalized.

Personally, I don’t see how this will ever fly given that the entire corporate recruitment cycle in Japan is dependant on having April as the start of the fiscal year. Toudai graduates would be at a disadvantage if they graduated five months after everyone else in their batch had already found a job. Of course, given Toudai’s awe-inspiring reputation in Japan, it might just end up causing the entire employment system to change to suit its fancy.

Opinions

The main problem with English programmes run by Japanese schools is that they end up being even more isolated from the rest of the school when foreign students have enough trouble fitting in as it is. (Okay, I suppose the real main problem is that most professors in Japan can’t teach in English.) The entire college experience becomes very different for these students, especially when their classes are physically located away from the rest of the student body. It’s almost like a foreigner ghetto of sorts.

Leftist students at Kyoto University protesting the mutual security treaty between Japan and the USA that will lead to Japan being dragged into a war

Entry requirements for undergraduate programmes in English are generally less stringent than their equivalent Japanese-language counterparts at the same school. This is because very few foreigners can score well in the horrifying mess of rote learning known as the National Center Test for University Admissions that Japanese high school students spend their whole lives preparing for while resisting the urge to fling themselves in front of an incoming train on the Chuo Line.

This means that programmes such as SILS generally have some form of stigma attached to them when it comes to seeking employment in Japan, where brand name elitism and social stratification have been perfected to an exact science. In a country that ranks not just universities but every individual faculty of every school on a national level, SILS is not the “real” Waseda.

Of course, employers back home are unlikely to know the subtle difference between Toudai and Toudai Komaba, so PEAK participants will no doubt be able to proudly proclaim that they are Toudai students, drawing loud cheers of adulation from fellow fans of Love Hina.

Bicycles parked on Toudai grounds have stickers that indicate the faculty of their owners

Engineering Diversity

For the Japanese government, the long-term strategic consideration for pushing internationalism and English programmes in school is the country’s rapidly ageing population. The country needs skill immigrants and foreign business partners familiar with its cultural intricacies, but the language and cultural barriers make it a very difficult for foreign students to choose Japan for their college education.

I am kind of cynical about such initiatives. At some level, it starts off as an idealistic pursue of internationalism and cultural exchange mixed with long-term pragmatic goals, but the implementation often degenerates into yet another bureaucratic performance index, where the figures and statistics take on an importance of their own. Global 30 may indeed bring 300,000 foreign students to Japan by 2020, but it’s hard to imagine the quality of education they will receive in English in a country where few can speak the language at the high school level.

Will the English programmes provide meaningful value for the foreign students and the larger Japanese college education system? Or will they serve as a superficial facade of diversity — The equivalent of a token black guy being Photoshopped into a student handbook cover photo to showcase the school’s diversity? I guess we will find out in a decade or two.

For now, the Japanese government can throw a bunch of impressive numbers around, the participating schools can claim to be international education hubs and the foreign students have an easier backdoor into brand-name Japanese schools. Win-win all around, I suppose.

Another poster for Kyoto U’s anime interest group, next to a poster for the Korean student group

Conclusion

Okay, so it’s not all bad if you ignore my cynical asides, which can really be said for most things in life.

In fact, for non-Japanese speakers genuinely interested in studying in Japan, programmes such as Waseda’s SILS are actually pretty nice options to have. You do get the opportunity to live and study in Japan and you will eventually pick up the language during your time there. You will also make friends with a lot of Koreans.

If you are interested in studying in Japan and you don’t speak Japanese, take a look through the official sites:

• JUMP (MEXT’s Global 30 site for prospective students)
• Waseda University SILS
• University of Tokyo PEAK
• Nagoya University’s Global 30 page

Those looking for ways to fund their studies can consider the Monbukagakusho (MEXT) scholarship for foreigners. It’s a full-ride scholarship from the Japanese government with no strings attached.

I guess this post was really just an excuse for me to post the highly irrelevant photos I took at various Japanese universities over the years.

I don’t normally like to write about breaking news because generally I find that I have neither the first-hand expertise nor the retrospective hindsight to comment on most real-time events non-trivial. The story would be very different if the earthquake had happened three weeks later when I will be in Tokyo and perhaps Kamakura and/or Tochigi, but it didn’t.

That said, I feel compelled to write something about the largest earthquake ever recorded in Japan after spending the past two days following the continuous Twitter updates and watching NHK and TBS news streams. So here it is.

First of all, I am not very good at expressing emotions through words, so forgive me if my language does not sufficiently convey the gravity of the situation. I hope that people affected by this disaster will find the relief that they need, but I suspect that my words and opinions will make no difference either way. Thoughts and prayers do have the power to effect positive outcomes indirectly but they are not my modus operandi. I can only offer some second-hand perspectives.

I was very inspired by the manner in which the Japanese people conduct themselves in times of crisis. They are clearly well-prepared for this. There are numerous anecdotes on Twitter about the calm and efficient manner in which regular civilians conducted themselves during the pandemonium.

Tokyo (Hiro Komae/Associated Press)

Years ago, AP’s Tomoko Hosoka wrote a story about the millions of office workers who would be stranded hours away by foot from their home in the aftermath of a quake due to the massive commuting traffic in Tokyo Metropolis. This was exactly what happened two days ago when, in an unprecedented event, all trains and metro subway services in Tokyo were suspended. But surprisingly, no one died from exposure, stampede or such avoidable tragedies that one comes to expect in the midst of such chaos. The proposed plan mentioned in the article was put to good use and Google Maps was used on various social network sites to alert people to all the schools and facilities designated as disaster shelter.

In fact, not a single building collapsed and the total death toll in Tokyo is in the single digit, an impressive feat given that, though far from the epicentre, the tremors experienced in the capital would have been respectable headline-grabbing earthquakes themselves had they occurred in isolation. The effectiveness of Tokyo’s contingency plans must be applauded.

A fascinating bit of titbit I learnt in the process: many newer beverage vending machines in Japan dispense for free if you pull an emergency level. I hate to make generalizations about groups of people, but I can think of a mountain of reasons why this would never work in many other countries.

I mean Japan is a country where the yakuza routinely volunteers for disaster relief. The yakuza groups Sumiyoshi-kai and Inagawa-kai are both participating in the on-going efforts and the Sumiyoshi-kai (yes, this guy is an actual yakuza) was providing free shelter for stranded commuters in Tokyo on Friday night.

There is a level of general civility that permeates all levels of Japanese society that is difficult to explain. Perhaps it is the result of the country’s relative cultural homogeneity, a strong emphasis on collectivism and societal pressure, an educated populace or some kind of historical inheritance. Whatever the reason, it serves the nation well in times of crisis such as this.

Oh, and here’s a song Kimi de Ite Buji de Ite (Please be yourself, please be safe) composed and sung by Yoko Kanno, a Miyagi native, for the earthquake victims.

Kesennuma city, Miyagi prefecture (Keichi Nakane/Associated Press/The Yomiuri Shimbun)

The situation in Tohoku is a lot more serious than in Tokyo. One interesting piece of information I learnt from people tweeting from Japan is that many people in Tokyo chose to remain in their offices on Friday because they trust their high-rise office buildings to withstand the earthquakes more than they trust their private housings. I am guessing that the rural areas of Tohoku do not enjoy such luxuries.

UK’s The Independent ran a front-page cover with the Hinomaru flag and the words “Don’t give up, Japan. Don’t give up, Tohoku” in both English and Japanese.

Currently, there are fears of meltdown in multiple nuclear reactors in Fukushima caused by the total failure of backup generators that were hit by tsunami waves that exceeded the planned height. This sounds terrifying because “meltdown” conjures images of atomic mushroom clouds and Chernobyl, but the facts and analysis are not that gloomy. My personal feeling is that the media is colouring the facts with a mixture of ignorance and individual bias.

Still, regardless of the final outcome of the situation, nuclear energy appears to have been dealt yet another fatal blow. Germany’s government is fighting to defend its nuclear policy while oppositions in countries considering nuclear power are jumping at this opportunity to bolster their argument.

In Singapore, The Online Citizen, a prominent alternative pro-opposition news blog, posted a rather transparent remark on Facebook saying “Singapore continues to consider nuclear power” while linking to an article about Fukushima’s reactors. It was a cheap shot and they ought to be ashamed. Of course this was immediately topped by the state media Channel News Asia‘s mass email soliciting for advertisers to buy ad spots in its upcoming intensive coverage of the Tohoku earthquake. Talk about ambulance chasing.

Japan is known as the country with the best nuclear safety standards and earthquake preparations and even it has apparently been bested, or at least that is the narrative that the major media outlets seem to have agreed upon — I suspect that the facts will in the long run demonstrate that the danger was greatly exaggerated due to hyper-sensitivity to the word “nuclear”.

Iwaki city, Fukushima prefecture. (Kyodo News/Associated Press)

As of right now, I still plan to continue with my trip to Japan at the end of this month. The scenes of destruction being constantly replayed on various news networks were taken from Tohoku, a relatively rural region in north-eastern Japan, while most of my itinerary involves western Japan. I will also be spending a week in Tokyo, but I am not too worried about it. I have great confidence in Tokyo’s ability to rapidly recover from huge disasters based on an extensive review of Godzilla- and Ultraman-related materials. Cue the omg-how-dare-you-joke-about-this righteous indignation.

On another note, I just want to say that Twitter has really made me feel like I am truly living in the future. (Relevant xkcd strip.) I follow a wide variety of people, and all of them, including members of the anime community, singers, seiyuu, titans of the English blogosphere, news professionals, politicians, real-life acquaintances, were tweeting in real-time throughout and discussing the same issues from very different perspectives including many first-hand ones.

The conversation threads on Twitter were timely, spontaneous and interlinked in a manner that transcends traditional boundaries. It is easy to dismiss social networking as a hive of egotists and exhibitionists and it has become a popular refrain to question the purpose of Twitter whenever the topic pops up in an online discussion elsewhere, but ultimately I really think that micro-blogging in general has a very important role to play in the future ahead.

I’ll just end this long thought dump here. I wish everyone in Japan the best in the days ahead. 幸運を祈る。

“I thought what I’d do was, I’d pretend I was one of those deaf-mutes”

WikiLeaks may turn out to be the real-life Laughing Man. Whether as a hero or villain, it has already secured a spot in history with the release of US embassy cables.

The release of a quarter of a million confidential to secret diplomatic cables will be remembered as another milestone heralding the rise of non-state actors as a major influence on the development of the global order. But is it still too soon for the digital rebel to triumph over the physical establishment?

The leaked cables themselves are so far largely over-hyped, both by its defenders and detractors. The “secret” classification sounds very sensitive but, as anyone who has ever worked in the government would know, it is actually a relatively low security classification. The leaked documents are unlikely to reveal any information that foreign intelligence services do not already know and should come as a surprise only to people who spend all their free time listening to Justin Bieber, assuming they read the news at all to even learn of WikiLeaks.

On the other hand, neither does the leak strengthen the foundation of democracy in any way. Like Tea Partiers who tend to confuse tax cuts with a sound fiscal policy, WikiLeak supporters often mistake anarchy for liberty.

A Force of Anarchy

A completely transparent government is a non-functioning one. Even the most obtuse should see this obvious fact. No supporter of democracy would argue that the Secret Service should publish its security details and shift schedules, or that the Pentagon should publish all its self assessments of its defence vulnerabilities. This is unless you believe that a non-functioning government is the best kind, which makes you an anarchist.

The act of whistle-blowing is an act of desperation that should only follow a systematic failure to address corruption and wrong-doings. It betrays the original duties entrusted to the individual and is the final option when all else has failed. It is the equivalent of sawing off a wounded leg to save the rest of the person — it’s not the first option you should be considering.

What WikiLeaks is doing now — the naive idea that all information should be known to everyone — is thoughtless overkill. So far, I fail to see the systematic corruptions that warrant the cables to be leaked. Where is the smoking gun? (Or the weapons of mass destruction in the parlance of our time.)

Information wants you to stop personifying it

Imagine you are charged with the handling of millions of classified papers. Among them, you stumble across one that details an illegal act perpetuated by agents of the government. You have a moral duty to expose this act. Do you 1) release this single paper, or 2) release all the millions of papers? If you answer the former, you are a whistle-blower. If you answer the latter, you are an anarchist.

This is not to say that I am condemning anarchy as a moderating force of international affairs. After all, the Laughing Man, despite the amount of collateral damage he and his copycats caused, did serve some purpose in the grand scheme of things.

Given that governments everywhere prefer secrecy even when it is not warranted, the rise of an international force of anarchy could possibly serve as a counter-balance.

But on the other hand, it might merely strengthen the case for totalitarian rule. After all, China’s secret files are unlikely to find their way to WikiLeaks any time soon, given that treason is swiftly met with a firing squad. From the US Government’s perspective, it is hard to argue why a leak of secret documents should compel it to become more transparent.

Physical Vulnerabilities

The Internet is still in its infancy. We are far from achieving the full potential of a global information network. For one thing, we don’t have cyberbrains yet.

In this latest episode, WikiLeaks, along with its Anonymous supporters, is holding its ground against the thousand-pound gorilla that is the US Government only because the US remains committed, to varying degrees depending on the particular person in charge, to the idea of democracy and rule by law. (China on the other hand…)

Even so, the US has managed to exert probably extralegal influence on Amazon, PayPal, everyDNS and, according to the conspiracy-minded, the Swedish government to isolate WikiLeaks.

These are the physical weak points of today’s aspiring digital rebels: server infrastructures and human beings. A less scrupulous opponent than the US could have done far more effective damage to those two vulnerable spots.

The effectiveness of digital anarchy in the coming future will depend on the development of technology to overcome these limitations. A cyberbrain may be a good start.

Maybe we can use Kinects to overlay spinning smileys over our faces in real time.

Rooster Coming Home To Roost

As I watch US Senators react like Chicken Little to WikiLeaks, I can’t help but wonder what their reactions would have been if the leaked documents had been Iranian or North Korean.

Would they have condemned WikiLeaks for compromising the national security of sovereign nations? Or would Julian Assange have been presented with a Congressional Gold Medal?

In its almost clichéd pursue of freedoms in foreign lands, the US plays a very dangerous game where it constantly risks getting left behind by its own rhetoric, whether in terms of human rights, environmental protection or economic reform. Unrealistic rhetoric discredits both the content of the message and the substance of the actions, however necessary and well-considered they may be in each case.

But looking at the Tea Party movement, perhaps the train has already left the station. Vapid political jingoism has taken on a life of its own and rational policy-making will have to play second fiddle.

Unreleased Cables

Given that WikiLeaks has so far released only hundreds out of hundreds of thousands of purported cables, it may be too soon to draw a conclusion regarding the amount of good/harm done by this leak.

But looking at the past modus operandi of WikiLeaks and considering the fact that the cables were not released in chronological order but rather have apparently been hand-picked for their gossip-worthiness, I am leaning towards the conclusion that the remaining cables do not expose any massive wrong-doings the way the Pentagon Papers did.

WikiLeaks have had months to go through the cables. If any US Government conspiracy existed in the leaked cables, then WikiLeaks would certainly have highlighted it by now, given its stated goal as a whistle-blowing site.

It’s hard to believe that, in face of significant public dissent, WikiLeaks is for some inexplicable reason holding on to the most sensational and pertinent materials instead of using them to justify its actions.

I may yet be proven wrong. Perhaps WikiLeaks has simply not gone through all the documents yet (which would make it uncharacteristically sloppy). Maybe the next Pentagon Papers are just around the corner.

But when it’s all out in the open and we find out that politician gossips and personal musings are all that we are going to get from this whole fiasco, then WikiLeaks would have done no more than the Daily Mail in keeping governments honest.

Of course, that is not to say the Daily Mail is not good entertainment.

Conclusions

The leaked embassy cables make for interesting gossip and are symbolic of growing individualistic forces at work in the modern international order, but ultimately do not seem to have achieved much and are over hyped by the eager mainstream media.

WikiLeaks, or its descendants/copycats, is capable of much more destructive anarchy as technology improves and more aspects of society are digitized. But for now, it remains at least partially vulnerable to traditional political pressure and its effects, and its access to the people, can still be mitigated by government intervention.

National governments, traditional wielders of political power, are capable of much more direct and sinister attacks against WikiLeaks and its future iterations should they feel the situation is desperate enough. So far, it apparently is not.

As for me, I am still waiting for the Laughing Man.

(Sauce)

Like any modern metropolis, Tokyo’s glittering skylines carefully conceal a more sinister side from the casual observations of an outsider. And like most other things Japan, organized crime in the form of yakuza carries with it cultural quirks that are at times indecipherable for those of us who live outside the Galápagos. Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein is a book that sets out to document and interpret a small slice of this enigma, written from a Jewish-American journalist covering crime stories for the Yomiuri Shinbun. The end result is a thought-provoking page-turner.

I first heard about the book and its author from an episode of The Daily Show last November. Looking at Jake Adelstein’s relaxed demeanour and boyish looks, one would never guess him to be a grizzled veteran reporter well-versed in the workings of the Japanese underworld, but the interview did leave a strong enough impression that I eventually bought a copy of his book. Being the cheap bastard that I am, I of course waited for the paperback release, which is why I am only now writing this review nine months after his Daily Show plug.

I picked up Tokyo Vice without any high expectations. After all, what could a Jewish-American guy possibly manage to uncover about Japan’s crime syndicates, even if he is the first foreign journalist to ever be admitted to the Tokyo Metropolitan Police press club (which is only opened to the Japanese press)? Japan society at large is well-known for its insular nature, much less the secretive yakuza groups with their mystical rituals and honour codes.

As a result, I had expected Tokyo Vice to be a compilation of humorous quirky anecdotes from Adelstein’s time as a reporter there, perhaps only slightly more in-depth and insightful than the typical Japan-is-so-weird drivels that are a dim a dozen at Kinokuniya. There is certainly some fluff of that nature present in Tokyo Vice, but the book is much more personal and serious than that.

The central point behind the book is a record of Adelstein’s journey from an aspiring reporter to a veteran journalist who managed to uncover a huge scoop about how Tadamasa Goto, a then-powerful crime lord in Tokyo, managed to obtain a US visa to receive a liver transplant at UCLA, despite being on ICE‘s blacklist for trafficking and money laundering. The result of his investigation was shunned by the Japanese media, including his own employer the Yomiuri Shinbun, but eventually caught the public’s attention when Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post agreed to publish the story after verifying it with the FBI. He and his family were then put under police protection, while Goto was eventually forced out of his organization (and conveniently became a Buddhist monk while under criminal investigation) as a result of the ensuing scandal. It’s the stuff of TV and movies.

With the popularity of Japanese pop culture, there are many people who dream of studying or working in Japan. But it is actually extremely difficult for a foreigner to enter the Japanese education and corporate systems (which are really one and the same). Most foreigners who do manage to find a living in Japan do so more or less detached from its integrated corporate employment machine (e.g. running a restaurant, working for a foreign MNC, teaching English).

The fact that Adelstein, who is neither Korean nor Chinese (the two foreign groups with the best chance at integration), managed to graduate from Sophia University (one of the top private universities in Japan) and find employment as a full-time Yomiuri Shinbun reporter (a complex process of interviews and standardized testing that only a native can navigate) is a pretty amazing feat by itself. The fact that he managed to not only find a way in but to get to places as an American that even Japanese journalists find difficult accessing is simply unimaginable. The perspective of Japan he offers is nuanced and eye-opening. This is not your typical American travelogue of Japan.

The story that has everything you want from a crime thriller: the murders, the sex, the threats, the corruptions, the battles lost and won. It’s all there, only much more real. Adelstein’s vivd recollection of the many encounters he had has a reporter — with police officers, yakuza bosses, fellow journalists, sex workers — brings his story to life and gives reader a rare matter-of-fact glimpse into a world that, shrouded in the mysticism accorded to it by popular fiction, often seems surreal to those of us living more mundane lives.

Toyko Vice is a hard look at a seldom-seen reality with its share of bitterness and humanity, with the occasional life lesson and a dash of seasoned sentimentality. In a way, it is even inspirational. It is the kind of book that makes me feel that the world out there is a lot bigger than me (and also makes me kind of want to become a journalist.)

Get the book off Amazon or go to Adelstein’s blog Japan Subculture Research Centre for more information.

There’s a pretty good essay on Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong‘s call for young Singaporeans to “dare to dream” over at The Online Citizen. The gist of it is that this statement is highly ironic when interpreted against the realities on the ground, much of them the results of government policy. Predictably, the comment section is filled with comments that miss the bigger picture of the issue and see this as another scheduled anti-government ranting session, with the few thoughtful comments voted down.

The government is no doubt a part of the problem, but it is the mentality of Singaporeans at large that has created a hostile environment for socially deviant dreams to take hold, and the same can be said for many Asian societies.

As Westerners love to say, Asia is becoming richer and richer. The rise of Japan, the Four Asian Tigers, China and India were/are the stables of any economics review. But rapid economic development brings with it deeply rooted social problems that go beyond stress or corruption. Whereas Western societies has had two hundred years and two World Wars to adapt their cultures to fit an industrialized world, Asia is attempting to do the same in the post-colonial era barely half-century old. Some say that Singapore is a successful example of such an endeavour, and they are right in many ways.

Singapore is recognized by the IMF as an “advanced economy” and by the World Bank as a “high income economy”. It also ranks 28 on the Human Development Index, in the neighbourhood of Slovenia and Kuwait. By most measures of national success, Singapore, a country literally just over four decades old with no prior geopolitical equivalent (e.g. China is technically 60 years old but existed as a country long before that), is an exemplary one.

But due to the sheer speed of its development, its overnight transformation from third world to first world took place without a corresponding advancement in social values. Unlike the economy, development of social values cannot be fast tracked even by the most efficient governments, try as they might.

Foreigners visiting Singapore love to comment that it is a clean and beautiful place. The reality is that it is clean and beautiful because we have legions of imported workers who clean the roads of trash, sweep away the fallen leaves and repaint the chipping paint jobs every night and morning. In this case, economic success has allowed us to produce the appearance of social enlightenment. So hurray for us.

The reason why we have clean roads. Taken from The Keropok

However, developing a conducive environment for young people to chase after their aspirations is another ball game altogether. Asians in general are stuck in the survival state of social mentality. Having only recently climbed up the economic ladder, we are still shackled by the idea that money is everything in life.

Our uneducated grandparents worked hard to buy a house and send our parents to school. Our parents worked hard to buy a bigger house and a car and send us to a better school in that car. With even better education and opportunities available to us, we are then expected to earn even more money than our parents. The survival instinct that drove our grandparents to sustain their family has become the consumer instinct for bigger and better.

In a sense, the rise of consumerism has always been a point of debate in developed nations, but in Asia’s case it comes with added baggage — the idea that as our economies grow, our lives should be measurably wealthier. Material possessions are therefore the measures we have for successful development as a society. Our list of “necessities” in life is ever expanding and the bar for “success” is ever rising.

And this idea that our survival depends on economic success is what drives government policies. Some say that it is the result of government policies, but it’s really a chicken-and-egg issue. Society and government both agree on this idea and they mutually reinforce each other through their actions. The word “pragmatic” describes Singapore more than any other. Through the tinted lens of pragmatism, we see and judge every aspect of our lives.

An education is not a pursue of knowledge. To be educated is to become a more highly valued member of the workforce and knowledge is only relevant as a mean of achieving that goal. Interests are distractions from a successful education and the career that follows. Literature, history, philosophy and art are all non-practical subjects of study — risky options that only the rich can afford. Subject combinations should be chosen to match future career paths and not interest. Careers should be chosen based on a logical examination of supply and demand, chances of success and likely degree of success, not interest. Dreams are for the naive and real adults do cost-benefit risk analysis. Such is the life of a student going through the motions in Singapore.

The upside of this is a heavy emphasis on foundational education in Singapore. This is why we do so well in international math and science competitions. The downside of this is a dearth of culture. This is why we do so poorly in journalism, literature, art, music and almost everything else. For you see, the only kind of culture that is worth anything is the kind that brings in tourist money.

We applaud people who are successful businessmen and entrepreneurs, but talented musicians are just fascinating sideshows who will one day realize that they have wasted their lives away on the “wrong” career. Business, medicine and law are the officially recognized paths to success in university, and every other subject is for people who failed to get into one of the three and foreign students.

Japan’s university system is perhaps the pinnacle of an education system designed to produce productive workers. Come spring every year in Japan, a new batch of university graduates don identical looking suits and enter the job market to become salarymen and office ladies. The sight of the endless streams of similarly mannered people walking in and out of a busy metro stations rushing to work induces an overwhelming feeling of hopeless futility. This is the Asian equivalent of US suburbia.

Jump through the hoops, follow the markers correctly and be rewarded with a lifetime of comfort and luxury. We treat ourselves and our next generation no better than dogs.

We are all special!

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against capitalism or even consumerism. I am certainly not advocating that we go back to farming and self sustenance. In fact, I am arguing for the exact opposite: thanks to economic development and industrialization, it is now easier to earn a living than ever before and, instead of spending every waking hour tending to the crop fields, we now have free time to pursue our dreams and still feed ourselves. But that’s not what we are doing. We are instead pursuing the dreams of our parents and grandparents — to live a richer life than the ones before us.

One of the fundamental ideas of economics is the value of comparative advantage — the idea that the greatest net gain can only be achieved when we specialize according to our natural advantages.

The problem with Singapore and many Asian countries is that “gain” is measured only in terms of monetary value. The natural advantage of a talented artist is not given its due credit for its bettering of society at large and therefore goes under-rewarded. Those of us whose talents are not in the “correct” domains are naturally doomed to practise bad economics by pursuing careers in less ideal but more socially accepted fields, hence contributing less to society than we are inherently capable of.

It is sad that talented musicians relegate their interests in favour of pursuing business or law. But what’s even sadder is that many Singaporeans do not see a need for having interests and do not seek to discover their own talents. The real tragedy is not people being forced to consciously make difficult but understandable practical decisions between passion and financial stability, but the fact that an even greater number of people are not even aware that there is such a choice to be made.

The rat race is so deeply engrained in our collective mindset that we do not bother to seek alternate paths to success. It is one thing to explore the wilderness before returning to the well-beaten track, but another altogether to not even try. How can we dare to dream when we have no dreams but the one we inherited?

These people had no opportunity to discover their talents but we do

Some people say that our lives are too short to be spent on potential failures over guaranteed success, but I say that our lives are too finite too be spent on not trying. We all die eventually and the worst that can happen is nothing — we return to the grind and continue as always.

And ultimately we don’t live in the Dark Ages any more — we are not choosing between survival and everything else, but between a bigger house and pursuing our dreams. And the two are not even mutually exclusive: time and again it has been shown that actively pursuing one’s interest and making full use of one’s unique talents can and do lead to economic success.

Ahhh, good old meritocracy… It only works for results that can be measured quantitatively.

Those of you who played the 4th Ace Attorney (逆転裁判) game would be aware of the new jury system being implemented in Japan, first proposed in cabinet review committee in 2001 and subsequently passed into law in 2004.

After five years of policy fine-tuning and mock trials, Japan held its first post-war jury trial on Monday. The system consists of a hybrid of six layman jury members (裁判員) and three professional judges (裁判官) and is reserved for serious crimes such as murder. A majority opinion has to be supported by at least one of the three judges in order to stand.

I am on the fence about this whole “democratizing the justice system” movement. The idea that judges in ivory towers often do not possess the necessary life experiences to understand the social context of the crimes they judge has some merits. On the other hand, it’s hard to believe that a handful of randomly selected voters possess the technical expertise to understand the law and how it should be applied.

For example, in a case that involves minority rights, there is little guarantee that individual members of the jury understand the implications of such abstract issues on society at large, hence risking a judgement that stems from narrow first-hand experiences. A judge is also liable to make the same mistakes, but the very fact that he/she is (supposed to be) a learnt legal scholar with a wealth of relevant experience mitigates the risk of unilateralism greatly. That is to say, in a court of law, the legal experience of a judge is likely to present more relevance to any given case than the range of expertises possessed by the jury, an important point that should not be overlooked in the structuring of the system.

As with most things in life, the most important rule of thumb is of course to seek the right balance between the two so as to avoid dogmatic inflexible rulings that have no grounding in reality and at the same time prevent the law from being completely reinterpreted with each new batch of juries. In that regard, I’m not sure if letting the jury decide the punishment is such a good idea. The fine line between justice and retribution is further blurred when professional judges are replaced by the everyman who is expected to bring personal experiences into play. It’s good that the judges can veto blatant abuses in Japan’s case, but it does not completely wash away the lingering stench of mob justice.

And while US opinions are almost universally favourable, the fact that the system is somewhat controversial in Japan also indicates a difference in mindset when it comes to legal justice. Many English-speaking commentators see this as an issue of democracy, when it really should not be. At the end of the day, the value of any jury system should be the varied perspectives and expertises it brings to a trial, and not some abstract idea of democracy. A small selected group of pre-screened voters is no more representative of society at large than a group of judges. If anything, general elections of judges would make more sense if democracy were the ultimate intend, which incidentally is a really bad idea if elected politicians are anything to go by. (Then again, the lack of judicial independence from the political organs of government is already an existing situation in many countries.)

Personally, I would prefer to see public oversight in the judicial system take the form of an auditing role instead. Oh well, as long as it works out.

And at the very least, this has very real implications on future Ace Attorney games. Will the bald and confused judge still be there? Or will he be sidelined by a group of nervous salarymen and loud gyarus? (Hurray for stereotypes.)

P.S. Yes, I’ve been playing Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth.

Sometimes diving around in the polluted ocean of Digg nets you a rare surviving coral or two. The frequency of this rare occurrence is inversely proportional to Digg’s user base. And so the dance between culture and counter-culture continues on for eternity.

But anyway, someone recently posted a picture from a photo album of female Israeli military conscripts by Israeli photographer Rachel Papo. Little things on the net like this really help to expand one’s global outlook. This reminds me of an interesting experience I once had in Osaka.

I visited Osaka and Kyoto last December with my Japanese language classmates. We stayed at J-Hoppers Osaka, a budget hotel for cheapskates, hippies and students.

On our last night there, we stayed up late to play cards in the common room. After my companions went upstairs to rest, I struck up a conversation with the only other person left in the room. He was reading an old copy of Weekly Young Jump he found on the coffee table and he couldn’t understand a word of it. I translated the chapter for him, which turned out to be a recent chapter of Gantz. (Something about a girl who has a crush on a classmate who looks just like Kei who is supposed to be dead. My Gantz knowledge stopped with the anime…)

He was rather grateful for my translation and we ended up chatting. Apparently, he was a Jewish-Australian traveling alone in Osaka to meet up with some friends, his final vacation before he enlists in the Israeli Defense Force in a few weeks’ time. As he was not an Israeli citizen, he was not actually obliged to serve. He volunteered for military service so as to become an Israeli citizen (via the Law of Return), because only citizens can travel in and out of the country without restrictions and he wished to visit his relatives in Israel more frequently.

Image shameless stolen from Rachel Papo’s gallery

It is hard for people like myself who grew up in peacefully boring places like Singapore to comprehend just how much emotional turmoils such a decision entails, but nevertheless I felt something in me ineffably changed that night. At the time of that conversation, close to Christmas 2008, a fragile six-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was coming to an end. In fact, it was not another two weeks before conflict resumed with Israel launching Operation Cast Lead. Not to mention that it had been just over one year ago when Israel had fought and won (militarily but not politically) the 2006 Lebanon War against Hezbollah.

This guy who grew up in Australia was volunteering to serve in the IDF in Israel, a country that’s pretty much fighting a low-intensity war 365 days a year and was in fact fighting Hamas militants at the time of his enlistment. He was not gungho about it, and in fact he came across as a thoughtful individual with his own hopes and aspirations that were put on hold for this undertaking. If I were in his shoes, I’d be contented with just an Australian citizenship. I don’t know if that makes me more practical or less human.

As much as I hate the ethnic tensions, nationalism and violence that drive the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I can’t help but feel that there is something admirable in his decision. There is a sense of honour in there that has nothing to do with mongered fear, vengeance or hatred. I certainly find it difficult to imagine many people doing the same thing for Singapore if the shit ever hits the fan.

It’s quite sad that I forgot to ask the guy for his contact information. I gave him my name card, but he never did drop me an email. My friends and I took the Shinkansen to Tokyo the next day and I never saw him again after that night. Hopefully he is doing fine in the IDF.

On a side note, Singapore should extend its national service to girls too. D;

JoJo’s Bizzare Adventure, an anime series based on a manga by the same name, is currently under fire from the Middle East for having a villain in the show read the Holy Koran while plotting the death of the protagonist.

Rather stupid if you ask me.

[ Source: JapanProbe | Itai-News ]

The original scene in the manga did not show the contain of the book. Since it is unlikely that anyone working on the show can actually read Arabic, someone probably decided to copy and past the text from a randomly-selected online source without knowing that it was an extract from the Koran.

Though it’s not their fault, Shueisha, the publisher of the manga, has posted a public apology of their website in both English and Japanese, with the Japanese version being notably shorter. Personally I wouldn’t apologize for such triviality, especially if the mistake wasn’t even my own, but then again I don’t run a multimillion-dollar company.

Not Terrorists

I just find it absolutely hilarious (in a sad way) that the companies involved have received death threats for supposedly depicting Muslims as terrorists. Sort of like, “How dare you say that our religion is violent? I’ll blow your company up and kill your family!” Oh irony.

This was probably a simple mistake on the part of some anonymous underpaid animator, but even if it weren’t, it’s really no big deal. The fact of the matter is that some Muslims are indeed terrorists, therefore it makes perfect sense to have Muslim terrorists appear in an fictional Arabic setting. I mean, some white folks are serial killers, and we have no problems with casting Caucasian actors as horror movie antagonists. It doesn’t have to be a general statement about an entire community of people, and it often isn’t. I’m pretty sure at least a few anime villains have quoted or alluded to the Bible before.

If anything, the tendency to over-react in such situations does more to reinforce the violent stereotype of Islam than anything else. The same with most angry protests really. As much as I may (or may not) sympathize with their cause, watching people burn effigies (whether it be Bush, Osama or Dalai Lama) and scream their lungs out simply extinguishes any desire on my part to be associated with what they stand for.

Relativism

Frankly, I think in our blind pursue of political correctness, we often overlook just how frightening extremism and radicalism in religion can be. When someone incurs the wrath of radical Islam, we are quick to denounce him as “culturally insensitive” or “ethnocentric”, among other convenient labels, placing all the blame squarely on the often unwitting offender. It’s a reverse knee-jerk reaction.

Few people pause to consider the flip side of the coin, for it seems almost a given that once religions are criticized (unfairly or not), it becomes perfectly acceptable for the believers to do whatever they fancy in seeking “justice”. And if the offender-turn-victim happens to have his life taken from him in the process, he can look forward to many a posthumous “serves you right” lecturing from his supposedly more worldly peers. (Assuming afterlife does exist.)

I find this quite a sad state of affairs, but I guess that describes the entirety of the human condition since 200,000 years ago. (2.5 million if you consider the entire homo genus as humans. Or 6,000 if you swing that way.)

P.S. Marina is Jewish.

I have some things that I want to talk about and I have no other platform to say it. Therefore I shall be spending this blog post on a topic that holds next to zero relevance to what you are probably here for. If you are here just for the cynical Gundam humour or the pretty cosplay pictures, then feel free to ignore this entry because you will not find anything missed. But if you found that my previous rants offer you something new and worthy, then please read on.

Hope for a better world

It is not often that one senses history being written. History is only such because it is the past, and often the greatest achievements made in humanity’s past were acknowledged only in their distant future. Perhaps the figures of our previous generations were simply larger in death than in life, and perhaps a degree of mysticism gets caught in the passing down of their stories, but somehow one gets the feeling that there are too few public leaders who can inspire and unite like those from before our time.

But today I felt something, a feeling which one only gets to experience a few times in his entire lifetime. I felt that I was watching history being made in a single moment. Though our collective mundane routines gradually build up over time to give birth to what will be one day called heritage, the awe-inspiring sensational of history being made can only come from great deeds and great people of colossal impact. I have only felt this once before in my lfe thus far, and that was the night* I stood in front of my television as I watched the live CNN broadcast of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center. * I live in GMT+8

And today it was Barack Obama’s speech in Philadelphia.

Now before you groan, I acknowledge that the fact that because tech-savvy Americans are overwhelmingly Democrats and that political popularity on the internet tends to create a mindless legion of fans that turns off moderate/neutral parties with its incessant praise for the candidate (just take a look at the number of Obama articles showing up on the Digg front page), the pro-Obama message is getting somewhat old and diluted.

But I honestly believe that Barack Obama has done much to deserve it and I will try my best not to let this article degenerate into another groupthink exercise.

Of course, I am in no way suggesting that Obama’s speech will have as much historical impact on the world as the 9/11 attack. In fact, while I do believe that he has a very good chance of becoming the next president, I am under no delusion and I know very well that his speech will ultimately amount to nothing but a footnote in history if he fails to clinch the Democratic nomination and the presidency.

All I am saying is that his speech invoked within me a sense of hope for change, that perhaps this may just be deem as the starting point of a revolution in the history textbooks of generations down.

A deficit of empathy and a surplus of apathy

While the main theme of Obama’s speech from Tuesday dealt with racism in America and its pervasive influence on a society that does its best to pretend it doesn’t exist, the underlying message is one that can be found in his book The Audacity of Hope: It is a criticism against the senseless polarization of ideological groups and a lack of common ground between opposing world views.

Partly, the media and its corporate agendas are to be blamed for this. It is often simpler and more profitable for news network to filter issues down to their core slogans and define entire public personalities with a few lines of soundbite.

But the real reason why people are so susceptible to such over-simplifications is due to ignorance and apathy. Apathy is not fixable as far as I see it, for there will always be people who do not feel compelled to know beyond their immediate surroundings. On the other hand, I feel that ignorance is curable and the way to do it is to make information so easily obtainable and experiences so widely accessible that apathy will not be enough to keep a person ignorant.

This issue has been at the back of my mind for a while, and occasionally something comes along to remind me of it, the most recent example being Tibet.

Tibet

While most Westerners, after decades of Hollywood activism, are convinced that the Chinese government is an evil monolith and Tibetans are being repressed on a daily basis, most ordinary Chinese people are equally convinced that Tibet rightfully belongs to China and the central government is spending a huge amount of their tax money in bringing modernity and wealth to the remote region.

The language barrier prevents the two group of exchanging ideas meaningfully and you end up with two ideological groups who engage in massive groupthink within their own ranks. There is zero effort made to understand the other side, because the other side is simply “wrong” or “evil”.

The truth is somewhere in between. While Tibetan grievances with regards to the preservation of their culture should be addressed by the central government, pro-Tibet actvists should also reconsider their unquestioning support of the acts of violence being committed by the rioters in Lhasa.

I find it baffling how Western commentators refuse to acknowledge any wrongdoings on the Tibetan side while not missing a single chance to slam China. As pictures of destroyed shops owned by Han Chinese streamed out of Lhasa, I did not see a single English comment condemning these acts of violence against innocent civilians. Instead, the all the self-righteous indignation was being directed at China for sending in troops to suppress what was essentially anarchy with angry mobs.

The fact is that Free Tibet activists look like hypocrites when they ignore the elephant in the room and overlook any misdoings by the rioters. This prevents ordinary Chinese from paying any serious attention of their message. At the same time, ordinary Chinese do not seem to comprehend just how negatively their nation’s actions are being perceived by foreign spectators.

The same two-way bigotry and ignorance are corrupting Sino-Japanese relationship, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Serbian-Kosovar issue, the whaling confrontations between Australia and Japan, and even US politics.

Yes we can

The message Obama brings is one of change, but not many people understand just what kind of change he is talking about. Most politicians promise change in one form or another but ultimately fail to deliver, and because of that many feel that Obama’s campaign lacks substance. I disagree.

The change he talks about is very specific: he wants to create a less polarizing government. He recognizes the stupidity of how politicians rather stick to party lines than weigh the pros and cons when handling issues, and he has made reconciliation, both domestic and foreign, a core part of his message.

Can he really accomplish that even as president? That’s hard to say, but the fact is that he is one of the few politicians who has even identified it as a problem. There is a natural tendency for people who feel they are in the right to simply dismiss or even smother the opposition’s message, but ultimately that fails to address the real issue.

Cuba is a very extreme example of this, almost to the point of being comical. If US seriously intends to bring democratic change to the government, then lifting the sanctions would be the best way to do it. But the current president seems to treat this issue as a matter of personal pride, and refuses to “give in” as long as Cuba does not get down on its knees and beg for forgiveness.

The ideological differences that were the cause of this divide have long ceased to matter: Communism is beyond dead. The standoff today is nothing more than the result of chauvinistic pride. The fact that Obama has said that he is willing to engage in unconditional dialogues with Cuba is a huge plus in my book.

A better world tomorrow

Now while I am unmistakably pro-Obama (and which non-American isn’t?), and this post was indeed sparked off by the speech he made, the purpose of my post is not to convince you to vote for him (if you are American).

I strongly believe that the next generation of people will be more and more like Obama, as technology overrides geographical divides and people grow to be more accepting of differences. The WW2 and Cold War generations may be stucked in perceiving the world through a “them vs. us” mentality, but perhaps one day that will not have to be the case.

Empathy is derived through shared experiences. Since the dawn of time, this has always referred to geographical location, race, religion, culture and language. It is difficult to empathize with the unknown, and it is all to easy to fear and hate it. At the time of WW2, coming into regular contact with foreigners was a rarity and most people saw the world beyond their own as whatever their government propaganda had depicted it as.

This is still very much true in many parts of the world today, but at least it’s improving. Internet has made it possible for the ordinary person to at least have some idea as to what the other side feels. If virtual reality were to reach the level seen in Matrix someday, then perhaps we will finally be able to empathize with a person on the other side of the globe just as we empathize for the friends physically next to us.

Primitive tribes consolidated into towns, cities and ultimately nations because improvements in technology and bureaucracy allowed people to empathize and understand each other over a greater geographical area. As such, I see nationalism as an issue that has to be resolved through technology.

Then again, maybe I am being too optimistic about technology as usual because I love it so much. Perhaps a mature global information network will not result in more world-savvy individuals like Obama, but rather polarize people in different ways than before. Still, at the very least, I don’t see anti-Apple radicals bombing Cupertino.

Either way, I think we can all do with a lot less ignorance and a bit more empathy. It makes me cringe when people dismiss entire nations or races due to an uninformed self-righteous opinion, but at the same time I wish people paid more attentions to the social background and disenfranchisement that produce such distorted world views in the first place.

P.S. I just watched Evangelion 1.0… It’s the same show as before! What a money-milker. >_<

Image shamelessly stolen from Stippy.com

This is a particularly unpleasant development in my opinion, not because I am a strong advocate of individual privacy (I am not), but because it really brings out the uglier, nationalistic, racist and ignorant side of Japan.

As of today, all foreigners entering Japan above the age of 16 have to have their fingerprints and photos taken or face immediate deportation. The interesting thing is that fingerprinting a Japanese citizen is specifically prohibited by law unless the individual is suspected of having committed a crime.

Supposedly this is done to fight terrorism, but can you really think of any instance of a terrorist attack in Japan that was executed by foreigners? The high profile sarin gas attack was perpetuated by the Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese cult. Japan’s infamously closed society already makes it next to impossible for any Islamic fundamentalist groups to operate there with any success, so this new measure is clearly an overkill in fighting terrorism.

Apparently, the fact that a high-ranking Japanese official claims to have friends in al-Qaeda who managed to enter Japan with various passports is enough justification for tighter immigration measures. This would have been just a really terrible joke if it were not actually true.

The reality is that all this talk about terrorism is just for the foreign media. The real reason for this measure is because foreigners are perceived as the cause of crimes and social problems in Japan. This racist attitude is so pervasive in right-leaning media outlets that it legitimizes itself and influences the thinking of people in a way that is not immediately apparent and very, very sinister. For example, magazines supposedly detailing the criminal acts of foreigners can find shelf space in regular convenient stores.

Hive of Villainy

One look at Itai News’ article on the latest fingerprinting scheme gives you a glimpse into the mindset of xenophobic Japanese who have probably never interacted with a foreigner in their lives. Most of the comments are along the lines of:

• Japan needs to maintain its good public safety records
• Most crimes are committed by foreigners
• Only criminals would complain about being fingerprinted
• America is doing it too

Itai News does coverage on the latest hot topics on 2ch, so you can say that it’s not that reflective of mainstream Japan. But still, it’s mind-boggling just how ignorant some people can get when they refuse to see beyond their immediate surroundings.

Discrimination

In Japan, foreigners can be stopped for questioning for the “crime” of riding a bike. Bicycle theft is a very common offence and foreigners are likely to be criminals, right? Police officers are also known to randomly stop foreigners to ask for identification and detaining people who do not have the proper papers with them. How do they tell that you are a foreigner? By looks of course! Permanent residents, naturalized citizens and Japan-born citizens with foreign parents are thus screwed both ways. Not only do they pay taxes, they still get treated as foreigners. Of course, there are the ever-infamous no pets no gaijin signs.

Once again, it seems that my post has become too tangential. Let’s go back to fingerprinting.

Fingerprinting can be good

As mentioned, I am not a huge fan of over-emphasizing on individual freedoms. I think that a nationwide fingerprint database can probably do wonders for crime-fighting, provided that the right instruments are put in place and they are properly scrutinized for potential abuse. For example, I won’t advocate such an implementation in a country suffering from rampant institutional corruption because it would just be another tool for mid-level bureaucrats to profit off.

But I think that if proper procedures are followed, there is really no harm in a central fingerprint database. It would certainly help solve a lot of serious crimes where fingerprints actually come into play. (I doubt that they get any prints to work with in the case of a bicycle theft.)

What I do have problem with is the current implementation. Why is the fingerprinting of Japanese citizens restricted by law? Clearly the existence of such a law implies that there is something unpleasant about being fingerprinted. And yet we have a bunch of racist Japanese net commentators saying “only criminals are afraid of getting fingerprinted”. Well, if that is true why not fingerprint everyone then? This is just pure discrimination, nothing more and nothing less.

We didn’t start this!

And the argument that the USA is already doing it is even more laughable. Firstly, it implies that foreigners “deserve” it for starting this whole thing. Well, newsflash! Not all foreigners are American! Moreover, I don’t think the US is that great an example to follow right now.

According to Fareed Zakaria of Newsweek, the number of Japanese tourists travelling to the US each year dropped from 5 million in 2000 to 3.6 million in 2006 and the number of Britons travelling to the US decreased by 11% but increased everywhere else.

Declines in the number of tourists since 9/11 cost the US $100 billion in spendings and taxes. Overall, global travel is experiencing continuous healthy growth, except to the US. Why? I think the possibility of being anal probed at the customs may have something to do with it!

Clearly, today’s United States of America is a shitty example to follow as far as immigration policy is concerned. I don’t think Americans are any safer today than before 9/11, just a whole lot less free (and less rich thanks to the spiralling dollar). If al-Qaeda really hated freedom (and not years of being screwed over by America’s asinine foreign policies), then they have really succeeded in a big way. But I digress again.

To conclude…

I guess that in the end, getting fingerprinted isn’t that big of a deal. But what is disgusting is how discriminating against foreigners is taken as a given by so many Japanese, and how valid concerns like security are used to manipulate public opinions for such an insidious agenda. It’s the vile combination of ignorance and protectionism that paved the way to Star of David badges more than sixty years ago.

Fingerprint everyone or fingerprint no one!

Ultimately, I just hope that I don’t have to wait for an hour to enter Japan when I fly there next month. (More details about that at a later date.)