Should we laugh or cry?

Despite being one of the world’s major financial centers, with large scale securities, foreign exchange and bond markets, the number of subsidiary and branch offices of foreign financial institutions in the city has fallen by almost one-third over the past decade.

The Urban Renaissance Headquarters, chaired by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and the Financial Services Agency will work together to develop a district where overseas businessmen can go about their day-to-day lives speaking English by providing condominiums, day care centers and medical facilities for foreign residents near Tokyo Station.

The plan also envisages spacious new offices specifically designed for foreign financial institutions, to be offered in high rise buildings.

According to the sources, the FSA will discuss its proposal with foreign executives to better understand their needs, with a view to starting to draw up plans some time this year.

Ah, yes–a JAL Pak Tokyo Village for foreigners! (And it’s to be modeled on the City of London. No chance of that turning out kitschy.)

It’s already an easy task to find housing, medical care, and other services provided in English. Much of it is expensive, but that’s hardly a worry for people here on expat packages. Spacious offices can be difficult to come by, even for big-guns foreign financial institutions, but providing them in yet another gaijin ghetto (there’s one in the Azabu-Hiroo-Roppongi-Aoyama area that seems to do its job perfectly well already) is not going to draw them back to Tokyo. Money flows where there’s a dynamic economy with ascendant opportunities for investment.

Between the move and the Golden Week holiday, I haven’t had much energy to post. One of the things I missed while it was current was the Nikkei‘s series of editorials last week about mergers and acquisitions. The first installment (of three) lays out the justification for all the column inches:

M&A is increasing–why now? It’s a fact that in March, listed companies are posting record profits for the fourth consecutive month; however, the reality is that operations efficiency is still low compared with that of enterprises in Europe and America.

According to Nomura Securities, the return on equity, which indicates the ratio of net profit to capital from shareholders, for 2006 is projected to have been a little more than 9%. That’s a little more than half of the 16% figure for United States enterprises. In a study by the Mizuho Research Institute, the return on assets, which expresses the ratio of net profit to gross capital (including debt and liabilities) was found to be 4.7% for the U.S. and 3.1% for Japan for 2005.

It goes on to talk about worker productivity and other indicators. None of the information is really new, at least in its general import. What’s interesting is the gingerly tone. Remember, the Nikkei is the premiere business and economics newspaper in Japan. Its editorial page leans pretty reliably toward being pro-markets. But even the Nikkei‘s editors seem to feel the need to reassure their readership that it doesn’t need to regard M&A as some kind of scary monster.

One of the big news stories this weekend is the fatal accident at an amusement park in Osaka. A car on a roller coaster derailed and listed. One woman collided with a rail and was killed, and a few dozen people were rushed to the hospital. (Well, some of the English stories say “seats,” but it was apparently one of those rides on which you stand and have your torso held in by an overhead harness-type thing.) Not surprisingly, it’s suspected that lax enforcement of safety standards is the culprit:

In February, the amusement park took the roller coaster apart for inspection. However, it said it did not inspect the integrity of the axle shaft because there was no garage available at the time. The park subsequently postponed the inspection until May 15.

The police suspect improper safety management may have led to the accident, and are investigating the amusement park on suspicion of professional negligence resulting in death and injury.

And at a different amusement park, there was another accident–this one a sort of fender-bender with nothing more serious than nausea resulting, luckily, though it still gives one cause for worry:

Four people were taken to hospital after a roller coaster car carrying a parent and child rear-ended another car carrying a parent and child at about 2:50 p.m. Saturday at Wonderland amusement park in Sakai, Fukui Prefecture. The four complained of feeling nauseous after the collision.

Local police questioned employees of the amusement park on suspicion of professional negligence resulting in injuries.

Two accidents in one weekend don’t constitute an epidemic of safety violations, but they do indicate a problem that’s very real with infrastructure, industry, and public accommodations here: No one really knows where the accidents waiting to happen are, because government oversight of safety is erratic. There are some cases in which the evidence is heartening. Transportation authorities have been riding JAL hard over safety violations, for example, and they haven’t needed an airliner crash to motivate them to do so. The Aneha scandal literally hit the Japanese where they live, but it was brought to light before an real, live catastrophic earthquake revealed that all those fraudulently certified buildings weren’t actually safe. But in other sectors–nuclear power, toxic waste disposal, and pharmaceuticals are big ones–one wonders whether things are actually humming along generally well or it’s only a matter of time before luck runs out.

Having returned from his visit to the United States, Prime Minister Abe is pressing forward with what he hopes will be his legacy: constitutional revision. Because it’s the sort of issue that interests foreign readers, the English-side sites of the major Japanese dailies are covering things pretty thoroughly. The Asahi has the major players mapped out:

Abe has yet to secure support from the opposition camp, notably Minshuto, on this issue. For this reason, there is uncertainty about whether Abe will be able to amend the Constitution under his current Cabinet.

Akihiro Ota, chairman of New Komeito, the LDP’s junior coalition partner, sounded a warning Thursday to LDP lawmakers who want to start deliberations on constitutional amendments immediately after the national referendum bill passes the Diet.

…

The same day, Naoto Kan, acting head of Minshuto, lashed out at Abe’s pro-amendment stance at a symposium in Tokyo.

Noting that Abe became prime minister through the postwar democratic political system, Kan said it is “extremely contradictory” for him to now seek to “break away from the postwar regime.”

Kan’s original Japanese words are in the original Japanese article: 「首相は戦後レジーム（体制）の脱却というが、民主主義（の下で）の総理大臣がレジームを変えるのは、極めて論理矛盾だ。」 There’s the upcoming election, so the DPJ needs to come out swinging against the LDP; but I’m still not entirely sure what Kan is swinging at. Abe knows that he has to adhere scrupulously to proper procedure in connection with an undertaking as delicate and controversial as constitutional revision, and the proposed revisions themselves hardly represent a turn away from democracy. The revision of Article 9 will, it is hoped, give Japan a standing army and specify that citizens are responsible for defending their country. Everything else that I’m aware of is a set of blandishments about the essence of Japaneseness and the addition of “environmental rights.” (Given Japan’s generally unprepossessing built environments and current treatment of nature, it’s a good thing that’s not already in the constitution, or we’d have a violation-of-rights crisis of nationwide proportions. See this article about a recent federal study that found that Japan’s shorelines are festooned with about 148,000 cubic meters of washed-up junk, much of it originating inland and disgorged into the sea from Japan’s rivers.) Oh, and I think there’s a vaguely-phrased right-to-privacy provision. The Yomiuri has a little more detail on the major points of debate.

Those who remember the ’80s may be amused to read that former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone has griped that the proposed new preamble lacks euphony, as documents written by committee are wont to do.

Joji Obara, accused of murdering hostess Lucie Blackman in 2000, has now been tried and sentenced:

A Tokyo court on Tuesday sentenced businessman Joji Obara to life in prison for drugging and raping nine women, including an Australian who died, but acquitted him in the death of Briton Lucie Blackman.

The Tokyo District Court said prosecutors failed to provide evidence that proves Obara, 54, was responsible for the death of the 21-year-old British hostess whose dismembered body was found in Kanagawa Prefecture in 2001.

…

Prosecutors used as evidence videotapes seized from Obara’s home that showed him attacking the nine victims.

But there was no such footage of Blackman on the tapes.

In fact, prosecutors’ arguments concerning the Blackman case were based largely on circumstantial evidence.

Even the cause of her death has not been established.

Prosecutors argued that Obara was seen with Blackman just before she went missing, and that the same type of cement used to encase her head was found in Obara’s room.

But the judge said these pieces of evidence do not show to what degree Obara was involved in Blackman’s death.

…

The judge concluded, “Doubts remain over whether the criminal actions were carried out solely by the defendant.”

I can see how the Blackman family would be unsatisfied with the verdict, but it doesn’t seem unjustified. Obara’s story (the Mainichi has a Japanese report here) is that an acquaintance of his, now conveniently dead, was the one who assaulted and killed Blackman and disposed of her corpse. I don’t buy it, but it certainly could have happened that way.

Of course, one can imagine political reasons for the verdict. There were widely-aired accusations that the police had been slow to investigate and, once on the case, slow and slipshod. The court’s decision doesn’t disprove that, but it makes it possible to take a position along the lines of, “See? Even when the police were forced to investigate thoroughly, they didn’t find enough evidence to convict Obara, so perhaps their original judgment calls weren’t so baseless after all.”

The walls in my apartment can talk.

Not in the if-these-walls-could-talk sense. Don’t expect, if you come for a visit, to have the intercom system chat with you about whether I’m usually wearing anything when I eat breakfast. It’s the water heater and ventilation system. Like those in Atsushi’s apartment, they have enough buttons and lights to make you feel, as a friend of mine once put it, afraid you might launch something equipped with a nuclear warhead if you push the wrong part of the touchpad. Unlike those in Atsushi’s apartment, they don’t just beep at you when the fan goes on or the bath has finished filling. Instead, a chirpy woman’s voice tells you, “Power is now turned on!” or “The bath is heated!” I’m sure it’s a great boon for blind people living alone, but I just find it grating. I figured there’d be somewhere to turn it off, but I haven’t found it on any of the (three) control panels. Yeesh.

Michael has caught some flak (so to speak) over his posting about gun control and how to compare the shootings of students at Virginia Tech and of the mayor of Nagasaki here in Japan. I think he’s absolutely right. (Hey, it happens sometimes.)

If guns were completely illegal in the U.S., and the government did everything possible to collect all of the guns, the VA Tech student would still have found a way to get a gun and shoot up the campus.

All right, yes, that’s speculative, and it’s phrased a bit sententiously. But it has the ring of truth because we know now that Cho was planning this kind of thing for a long time and was obsessed with the military. Henry Lewis may no more know how to get an illegal gun than I know how to get drugs in Roppongi, in the sense that neither of us is interested or would know where to begin. But people who are interested figure out a way to find out.

Does gun control work in Japan? Difficult to say, because there are many other factors that make society function as it does. Japan is much more homogeneous and self-policing than immigrant-rich societies such as the United States. Another thing I’ve definitely noticed in talking to Japanese friends is that the idea that citizens might have the right to defend themselves from agents of their own government if they get too high-handed isn’t one that crosses their mind very frequently. They also don’t think often about situations in which the police or other authorities may not be around to help them and they must see to their own defense. Part of that is that Japanese people are acculturated to like being under authority, part of it is that Japanese people tend to be suspicious of an individual who wants to go it alone, and part of it is that the post-war Japanese government did a lot of things the citizenry is rightfully grateful for. Japanese people–this is my narrow individual experience talking, but I don’t think it’s aberrant–are unusually ready to believe that the victim of a crime by a stranger is at fault for getting himself into a sticky situation rather than staying in safe, known spaces.

And let’s not forget that Japan doesn’t lack for lunatics who kill multiple victims. They tend to be serial killers rather than spree killers–gun control probably does have something to do with that–but their victims are just as dead.

Added later: Unsurprisingly, Connie has a thing or two to say about this, too.

Moving into my new place today–the moving guys should be here any minute. I had planned to get the deal where they pack up your entire apartment for you like dermestid beetles defleshing a skull. But since Atsushi and I still have all our stuff mixed together, I realized I’d be standing over them going, “That television, but not that one…that refrigerator, but not that one…that couch, but not the sofa,” the whole time. So I did the kitchen stuff, the books, and the clothes. I’m not sure exactly when I’ll have the Internet turned on in my new apartment, so posting will be as light as it’s been lately, though you may not notice. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

When it turned out that the perp in the Virginia Tech shootings was South Korean, I actually chuckled mirthlessly at CNN and said aloud, “Well, at least no one’s going to work the race angle on this one.”

What a moron. Salon.com has a selective but interesting roundup of commentary on whether and how Cho Seung-hui’s Korean-ness relates to his having shot at several classrooms full of college students.

I don’t think some of the more ignorant commentary is necessarily motivated by sheer axe-grinding against Korean culture or violent movies or what have you. Treatments for mental illness have come such a long way that no one seems to want to conclude that it’s possible for someone to be just a plain wrong’un who may not be reachable by drugs or counseling. The emerging evidence seems to indicate that Cho might have been schizophrenic; at the very least, he was seriously screwed up in the head.

Maybe his parents’ Asian background made them chary of involving counselors, psychiatrists, and other outsiders in what they saw as a family matter. But, even in this therapy-everywhere age, there are plenty of native-born Middle Americans who would do the same thing. And even when people do try to get help for family members they can’t handle, it’s not always forthcoming. After Sylvia Seegrist killed three people outside a mall near Philadelphia two decades ago, it came out that her mother had tried unsuccessfully to keep her institutionalized. (It was reported, IIRC from the local news shows, that she’d told the officials who wanted to release her, “But she’s psychotic!” and been told back, “Lady, half of Philadelphia is psychotic.”)

One of the blogs Salon singles out for opprobrium is Michael Hurt’s Scribblings of the Metropolitician. Hurt lives in Seoul, and his post asks several thorny questions about how Korean men are acculturated. It’s worth reading and thinking about; if you know Japan, you may find quite a bit of it familiar.

I still don’t buy one of Hurt’s key, if vaguely stated, points, though:

So the top two spots for shooting sprees in history are now held by two Korean men. Hey–I just find this interesting. Is this information not somewhat relevant to the issue at hand?

Well, no, not if the overwhelming majority of Koreans don’t go on shooting sprees and the overwhelming majority of shooting sprees aren’t committed by Koreans. That two major killing sprees have now been committed by Korean men is a catchy-sounding little fact to mention in news items, but in and of itself, I don’t find it very suggestive. After all, millions of guys, Korean and otherwise, are sexually-jealous hotheads who rant and throw tantrums like little boys when their lovers (actual or imagined) cross them, but they still manage to stop short of opening fire on a few dozen people.

Via Instapundit, Bruce Kesler at Democracy Project makes an unsettling discovery:

Wonder why so many of the news articles you read, or steam over, are lacking essential information or perspective? Wonder no longer. Knowledge and experience of the subject is only a “plus.”

Would the AP advertise for a sports reporter for whom knowledge and experience with baseball, basketball, football, soccer, hockey, tennis, and so forth is only a “plus,” rather than essential and primary?

So, why should the AP believe that knowledge and experience of intelligence, or medicine, or any other important and technical subject only requires a “plus”?

I love America, but we do have a tendency to believe that you can learn absolutely anything on the fly. And it’s not just “technical subjects” in the hard-science sense that cause people to trip up. You’ll have noticed that many of us Westerners who blog from Asia expend a lot of energy complaining about the clueless reporting of foreign correspondents here. Or not necessarily clueless, but rote and tending to default to one of a dozen or so stock perspectives on the Mysterious Far East. (Simon World is the best overall resource if you want that kind of commentary.)

It’s not all the fault of the reporters themselves, I imagine, since editors like stories that are to the point and readily comprehensible. It must be difficult to write genuinely nuanced, searching analyses of cultural differences when the best way to please the boss is to turn in yet more column-inches-by-numbers about those crazy prematurely-sexualized teenagers hanging around Shibuya.

And yet, I’ve met Tokyo personnel for several of the major news outlets informally, and in several cases–not most, mind, but enough to be disturbing–I’ve been appalled at their elementary lack of understanding of the environment they’re supposed to be reporting authoritatively on. It’s one thing to have some learning to do; everyone has to start somewhere, after all. It’s quite another not to know where your defects of knowledge lie and therefore what should set off your BS detector when you hear it from an interviewee, are fed it by your own translator, or read it in the local press. If you can read the local press without asking your Japanese sig. oth. for help, that is.