Business Trip Pictures

A few pictures from a business trip I did a while ago. How long ago? The guy in the last picture sports a woolen muffler, that's how long. Film photography is a lot of fun, but when time is tight it really takes forever to go from film roll to uploaded image file.

I finally picked a new book to read, by the way, and started on "Drip of Death". It's not Miyabe Miyuki of course, but so far it's a well-crafted, fast-paced mystery; the first victim is already dying on page one, and the second body appears after another 70-odd pages. If I hadn't already seen the TV-drama, I'd fear the hospital would be eerily depopulated by the end of the book. And it's not Miyabe Miyuki difficult either. This one won't take more than a few months to get through — much less if I take a few solid hours to read now and again.

Early morning. Really early — the sun's not up and the subway has only just started running. The normally crowded Shinsaibashi shopping street is empty and echoing. The only people around are first few early-morning commuters and the last sloshed stragglers from the previous night.

Get a seat on the left side of the morning Shinkansen from Osaka to Tokyo, and you'll get a good view of Mount Fuji if you're lucky with the weather. The train really is a little too fast to get a good picture without blurring the foreground a bit.

Shinagawa, Tokyo. A large cluster of modern high-rises around the station, but the buildings quickly become older, smaller and more run-down as you move towards the coast. Kyoto University have offices and seminar rooms here; very convenient for research team meetings and things like that.

The meetings are over, it's already dark outside and it's time to catch a train home. Here Shinagawa stretches out towards the sea in the background.

It's night, I'm finally back in Osaka and I catch a late train on Midōsuji subway line. This guy, another long-distance commuter, looked the way I felt: a bit tired, a bit worn, but happy to be on his way home.

If you want to sell news, at least get it right

I've mentioned the worldwide drop in violence previously, and I've occasionally touched on the role of media in distorting the perception of violence, crime rates and the perception of risk in general.

Here is a fresh new example, from both Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun, based on a white paper from the ministry of justice¹. They report that "40% recidivism rate among youths released from juvenile facilities". Repeat crime rate among all arrested minors have risen to almost 32%, and has been increasing for the past 14 years! In 2004 the total rate was only about 27%; it's risen 5 points, or almost 20% in these eight years! Panic! Mayhem! Blood on the streets! Mass Hysteria!! Cats and Dogs Living Together!!!

Except, well, not.

Take a look at the graph from Asahi (reproduced here, as newspaper links have a tendency to disappear):

See something interesting? The rate of repeat offences — the red graph at the top — have indeed gone up. But look at the dark blue bar at the bottom: the number of repeat offenders have dropped, from around 4 minors in 10000 in early 2000's down to about 2.7 minors last year. That's a drop of 30%! Let me say it again: the number of repeat juvenile offenders have dropped by a third in ten years. This is good news.

And look at the light blue bars, with total juvenile arrests: from around 14 per 10000 in 2000-2002 down to about 8.5 last year. That's a drop in arrested minors of 40%! So, the proportion of arrested repeat offenders have dropped, but the total number of arrests have dropped even more. That's how the repeat offender rate has been rising — not from any worsening trend, but from two good trends, with one improving even faster than the other.

That's nowhere to be found in the Asahi article though. Even with their own graph in plain view, the text discusses only the repeat offences and never mentions that the total rates are down, not up. Yomiuri notes in a single sentence that the total number of offences has been dropping, with no further comment or any attempt to connect it to the rate.

Why the alarmist treatment? One reason can be that a bad news angle sells more papers, and the editors are more interested in their sales numbers than in the accuracy of their reporting. That, or the reporters at both Asahi and Yomiuri are so innumerate that they do not even realize what these figures are telling them.

I've been interested in the Asahi online subscription, where you get the full paper online at another 1000 yen over the subscription we already have. I'd happily pay for factual, balanced, well-researched news, but shoddy pieces like this are putting me off the whole idea.

#1 I've ben browsing their site but I can't seem to locate the white paper itself; it's either not obvious from the title, or it is obvious but my Japanese is insufficient to understand it. This is unfortunate, as Asahi talks about 40% youth repeat offenders while Yomiuri seems to talk about repeat offenders in general, though possibly about juvenile criminals that get arrested again as adults. I can't check this without the original report. Why can't media put links to their source material now that it's so easy to do?

Typhoon #12

So far typhoon #12 has caused 17 deaths, 54 people are missing and thousands are evacuated after heavy floods. Most of the deaths are  from the heavy rains — drownings and people getting caught in mudslides. There's more heavy rain projected, so it's likely the total damage will continue to increase. We have been fortunate that the typhoon veered off and crossed southern Honshu well west of Osaka.

It's easy to overlook typhoons — they are "only" weather after all — but the reality is that typhoons are a greater danger than earthquakes, even in earthquake-prone Japan. The potential destructive power of a single event is much greater for earthquakes of course, but typhoons are much more common.

If you live in a typhoon (or hurricane) prone area, it's a really, really good idea to look over your preparedness. It's also a good idea to keep typhoons in mind when you choose a place to live, and avoid the riskiest areas near steep hillsides and riverbanks. A mountain-side home may be very picturesque, but it's not very safe if that mountainside decides to turn into a landslide.

Noda new PM

The next political punching bag Finance Ministry handpuppet DPJ party president and Prime minister of Japan is Yoshihiko Noda. He is Finance minister, anti-Ozawa and has recently made some depressingly traditional waves by stating he does not believe the war criminals enshrined at Yasukuni were, in fact, war criminals at all.

The future is notoriously hard to predict, but we do know a few things: there is a regular DPJ party president election in September next year (exact date not fixed). The next lower house election must be held no later than the end of August 2013, but is likely to happen at any time during that spring or summer. There will be less than two years — more like a year and a half, and quite possibly less than that — between the regular party president election and the beginning of general election season and campaigning.

Barring a complete disaster¹, the DPJ will not want to throw out their regularly elected leader and switch leaders again just a few months before the general election. This means that whoever wins the regular party president election next year is going to be² their candidate in the general election in 2013.

If Noda is going to win that party president election next September, he will have to show basic electability. He and his cabinet will have to show decent public support numbers, and he must pull the DPJ up from the gutter and at least become more popular than the LDP. And to do that he'll need to show actual progress of some sort — progress on the economy, on the nuclear disaster mess, on rebuilding Tohoku, on the dysfunctional labour market, you name it. Many of these are problems that the central government has little leverage to do anything about, but all of the responsibility to resolve.

And he'll have to show progress in less than a year. With an opposition whose only tactic is to refuse any legislation offered by the government in order to discredit it. Leading a party where half the members want you out in favour of a champion of their own. And with a foreign policy in tatters before he even forms his cabinet, due to his incredibly boneheaded public defence of the war criminals at Yasukuni.

If he doesn't make it, he'll be out in a year. Everybody knows this, and nobody will risk their own career and throw their weight behind him unless he really seems to make progress and will prevail in next years leadership race. In practice he probably has a grace period of a month or less before the consensus verdict on him is in as either a future political powerhouse or a lame duck counting down the days until he follows Kan, Hatoyama, Aso, Fukuda and Abe into political footnotehood.

You may argue that his election is a momentous event in Japanese politics, that his policy ideas of tax increases and a grand coalition with the opposition will be implemented, and have lasting effect on today's problems and on the political climate. That he will stay on to ultimately contest the general election against the LDP. I would not say you are necessarily wrong. I would say the burden on proof is on you.

--

#1 Never underestimate the DPJ. They seem to have an unlimited capacity for political disaster even where you thought it could not possibly happen.

#2 "will hopefully be" is more realistic. See the previous footnote.

It's Monday Morning…

A few Monday morning notes, in no particular order:

• I know paper reviews are simply reviewing your paper, not your work or yourself. That's what I do when I review other peoples papers after all. I know and appreciate that negative reviews are really helpful and we'll have a much better paper in the end. I know all this but I still take the criticism and the rejections personally.
  
  Most researchers I know are perennial — even pathological — optimists. You have to be, in order to deal with constant failure, uncertain funding and all the other stresses of research. I'm not an optimist at heart so I'm not emotionally cut out for this job.



• My life would be measurably less stressful if it didn't currently include learning the standard kanji and several hundred obscure Japanese grammar points.



• The election of the next DPJ leader, and thus Japanese prime minister is this afternoon. Get MTC's excellent take on the race here, and a voting analysis by sigma1 here.
  
  I'll write a few words about it once it's over, but I belong firmly in the "who wins doesn't really matter" camp, so I haven't found the energy or time to really cover this in any detail. MTC and the others do a much better job anyhow.



• We'll be off to Sweden in another few weeks to see relatives. Central Sweden at the end of September promises to be cold, wet and dark. Right now I can't wait. And with any luck the worst of the summer here will be over by the time we come back.
  
  Really, we're almost ten million people here in Osaka ­— we could each pick up one piece of the city and move the whole thing to the north coast of Hokkaido. We'd have the same great city as now, but with cooler summers, no typhoons, skiing in the winter and the best seafood in the country!

Short Answers to Complicated Questions

Question:     Japanese governments are typically weak, squeezed as they are between internal party politics — politicians are less loyal toward their parties than to their factions and money donors — industry associations and special interest groups, and a powerful, unaccountable bureaucracy that ignores the government at will. We've had five Prime ministers in as many years.

The current situation is even worse than usual. The ruling party is close to splitting over internal disagreements. The opposition has control of the upper house and is opposing any and all legislation it can in a bid to force the government to call a general election. A general election that won't be held any time soon: the DPJ knows it will lose many seats and wants to delay as long as possible; the tsunami-ravaged areas are still in no condition to hold any kind of election; and the supreme court has declared the current election district system unconstitutional.

Prime minister Kan has promised the opposition to resign in exchange for the passage of a few budget- and energy-related bills. This will happen within a couple of weeks, and the internal DPJ campaign for electing the next PM is in full swing; Maehara, Noda, Mabuchi and others are all possible candidates. This is just a temporary appointment, though, as the regular party leadership election is scheduled in a year.

The newly appointed PM will have virtually no political leverage with the opposition or the ministries and can count on no public support. Everyone knows they will face a re-election (and likely defeat) in a year, making them a lame duck from day one. The pressing problems — reconstruction of Tohoku, resolution of the Fukushima disaster, rapidly worsening state finances and the effects of a strong yen and worldwide recession — are all mostly out of their hands, but still their public responsibility.

Given the grave situation above, what practical effect will the choice of new Prime minister have on Japanese politics in general; and the task of rebuilding northern Japan, turning around the economy and formulating a new energy policy in particular?


Answer:     None.


Thank you for reading this edition of "Short Answers to Complicated Questions". Please join us again for the next edition where we tackle the complicated question of reality-based evidence for a supernatural origin of the universe.

Rokko Mountain

We celebrated my birthday recently, and as usual we went out to eat together. A birthday is a good excuse to try something new, so we tend to pick some place we wouldn't normally go to. Beyond our normal budget, a kind of restaurant or food we wouldn't usually have, or perhaps at an interesting location.

Mikage station on the Hanshin line. From here you take the bus to the Rokko ropeway base station where you go up the mountain. At the top you can take another bus or you walk to the hotel. Walking is more pleasant, but bring a change of clothes in the summer.

The dinner was late this year; I was still at OCNC in Okinawa on my birthday, and we delayed it another couple of weeks to let me catch up with things once I came back. But a few weeks ago we finally went to Rokko mountain in Kobe, and to the barbecue at Rokko Mountain Hotel.

There's no real town along the top ridge, just houses spread out along the road, but it does have this store with daily foods and a large selection of wines, beers and spirits, including a local Rokko beer. There's many summer homes and corporate retreats on the mountain, so I can see the demand.

We last went there for O-bon two years ago. We had the buffet, which was tasty, but of course still buffet-type food. At the time we decided to return some day and have the course menu instead. Expensive, but with higher-quality food. My birthday was a perfect opportunity.

The lobster, with scallops and squid gently frying in the background. Overdoing the depth of field thing here, I think.

The course menu was very good indeed. The appetizer was a sampling plate with sashimi, marinated seafood and vegetables. The small lobster cooked in its own shell was succulent, and the main course meats were tender and flavourful, and included various cuts of lamb, chicken, pork and beef as well as sausages and lots of vegetables. My favourite (if not Ritsukos) was the lambchops, but the beefsteak and the thick bacon slices were excellent too. It finished with dessert and coffe. Well worth trying as an experience. The weather was rather hazy, unfortunately, so the view wasn't very photogenic.

Hydrangea grow wild all over the mountain. They're not native to Japan so they're probably escapees from some garden long ago. At this time the whole mountain top is lit up in light blue flowers.

Power Company Power

A total of seven power utilities in Japan have ordered their employees to attend public nuclear power-related hearings and symposia and pose as private citizens in favour of nuclear power, some of them even asking questions prepared in advance by the utilities.

Good thing Japan has a nuclear safety agency right? One that has oversight over power companies; an agency that is ready and willing to come down hard on this kind of manipulation? Not quite. At least two of the power companies now say the safety agency asked them to subvert these hearings. The nuclear safety agency is all about the safety of the nuclear power generation business, not about the safety for the people living near the power plants.

It's a perfect example of what I've been harping about here lately: government agencies and ministries see themselves as protecting industry from the public, not protecting the public from industry.

Now imagine the same kind of behaviour in other fields: a food safety agency that protects the food and agriculture industry from the effect of tainted foods; an environmental agency that ensures environmental concerns won't stop industrial development or waste dumping; a drug safety agency that keeps local drug companies safe from competition at the expense of effective, inexpensive treatments available elsewhere; police and prosecutors that are willing to plant evidence and send innocents to prison in order to protect a corrupt colleague, or simply to further their own careers.

Every country, every society, has its share of problems. The unchecked, unaccountable power wielded — sometimes abusively, sometimes wisely, but always without oversight — by public ministries and industrial groups is one of the main problems in Japan today.

Who's Next in the DPJ? Who Cares?

I'm finally seeing the end of a marathon paper writing process ­— not the end, mind you, but at least there is an end in sight.

Meanwhile, Shisaku is speculating about the next prime minister once Kan leaves office sometime within the next couple of months. I wonder why he bothers. As he points out himself, it doesn't matter who gets appointed as the other major parties are all obstructing any and all possible legislation with the sole aim of forcing a new general election. Largest opposition LDP is fully prepared to vote against their own proposals if the DPJ supports them, that's how bad it is.

That general election won't happen any time soon. The prime minister decides when to hold it, and as the DPJ is certain to get badly beaten, no DPJ leader with aspirations to any kind of political future is going to call it until they absolutely have to, in 2013. Up until then Japan will continue in a state of political deadlock.

And things are very unlikely to improve after the next election. Both the LDP and the DPJ have amply demonstrated that even majority rule is not enough. They are often unable to actually impose any legislation contrary to the wishes of the state ministries and the large industrial and professional lobby groups. Power company executives have been openly mocking the idea of tougher regulations or government oversight; they know an administration can't do it without consent from ministries that see their job as protecting the industry¹, not regulating it.

The stasis will continue, in some form or another. The economy and peoples' lives will suffer for it. Those elected by the public will largely be unable to do anything significant about it, while the unelected power brokers obviously do not care. I'm afraid that things may have to become a lot worse before it ever gets better again.

--

#1 and their own extremely well-paid post-retirement jobs in said industries.

#6

The hot, sunny weather we've had lately suddenly turned rainy and cool (well, not quite as hot is more like it). The reason? Typhoon #6. We rarely get typhoons here in Osaka - the city is well sheltered - but this one seems determined to hit us straight on. Should arrive here around Wednesday. Now, it's unlikely to actually pass straight over the city as Shikoku should deflect the center out towards the sea, but it'll be close enough for some rough weather.

Let's just hope the trains don't stop; I like my current job well enough, but not so much I want to spend the night sleeping under my desk.

Typhoon #6. Click for the full prediction on JMA.

Setsuden

It's been over 35° here lately, and energy saving is on everybody's mind. A piece in yesterday mornings Asahi Shimbun (can't find it online unfortunately) had some interesting numbers.

In summer, in early afternoon - the peak time for electricity consumption - a typical office will use about half its energy on air conditioning and ventilation. Second is lighting, accounting for a quarter of all energy use. All office equipment - computers, phones, copiers and so on - account for just over 15%, one sixth, in total. It's pretty clear that most effort should be on reducing air cooling and lighting costs.

And this is what is happening. At work we have our air conditioner set to a balmy 28°; a decade ago, before "cool biz", many offices traditionally ran at 24° which certainly is pleasantly cool if you wear a formal suit and tie, but cold enough that secretaries brought lap blankets to work so they wouldn't freeze. 28° is fine when you work in pants and a t-shirt (hey, we are a university), but it's really too hot for formal wear, thus "cool biz".

First floor entrance at NAIST, Ikoma.

The lighting is also reduced. Half the fluorescent tubes (literally every other tube) in common areas of our building have been removed, and almost all lighting in open areas are shut down completely during the day. The light level in subway stations and stores is also much dimmer than usual. Somewhat surprisingly, the reactions have been mostly positive. I've long found shops and public spaces to be harshly lit and glaringly bright here, and apparently I'm not the only one. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if many places continue to use a more subdued lighting setup well after the current situation is long resolved.

An interesting sidebar to the article shows that having people telecommute really does save energy over having them work in the office. This isn't self-evident; after all, cooling and lighting one office should be more efficient than doing so for a dozen separate homes. But when you take everything into account you still see energy savings of 14% or so, according to the institute that did the estimation. Reduced energy for the commute is one factor, I guess, and many homes with housewives or children will have air conditioning and lights running during the day whether you're working there or not.

Anyway, the hottest part of summer is yet to come, and there's no indication any of the stopped reactors will be able to restart anytime soon. We'll soon see if these efforts are enough or if they're going to have rolling blackouts in Tokyo again.

Back Home

I'm back home. The cold I got a few days ago has not relented; no more fever and the throat isn't sore any more but now I drag around an irritating cough instead. It'll pass. I developed the two rolls of 35mm Delta 400 that I took during the trip yesterday, and I'll start scanning the stuff today. I experienced my first development disaster - being tired and sick is not conducive to your attention span - so one of the rolls looks iffy, with a few creases and a fair amount of scratches¹. I hope most images are salvageable, though I know some are not.

Monorail station in Naha.

My flight left at five in the afternoon. I went to Naha airport right in the morning, checked my bag, then took the very convenient monorail into the center. A place without rail transport just doesn't feel like a city to me; the monorail really improves my impression of Naha, which otherwise feels like a pleasant and a little sleepy town.

Ryukyu-ya cafe is a couple of blocks away from the main street. Excellent coffee and a cool, silent, summery atmosphere. I spend half an hour there; had I had more time I could have sat there for most of the day. Good place.

Kokusai street is the main tourist street, with lots of stores selling Awamori, t-shirts and other omiyage. Go there to get souvenirs, then step off to the side streets on either side where you find a quiet town of small shops, sun-baked alleyways and small parks.

A hilly park just off Kokusai street. This guy seemed to be working over lunch.

A set lunch of Okinawan soba and a mini plate of taco-rice. The soba.. not bad, much better than I remember having a couple of years ago. But it does seem Ishigaki-style soba really is different, and more agreeable to me than the Okinawan one. Taco-rice is always good. You want to make it? Easy: just make the stuff you need for Mexican tacos, then skip the taco shells and serve it on a plate over a bed of Japanese rice. Yummy!

Vivid colors; that's my lasting impression of Naha and of Okinawa.

--

#1 Black and white development is easy. It is in fact so ridiculously forgiving that as long as you at least vaguely follow the general directions you're bound to get recognizable images. You need to really work at it to fail completely. People have been experimenting with urine, vitamin C, Paracetamol and instant coffee as developing agents with good success.

But if you want good images, consistently and reliably, then you do need to pay attention to detail. I didn't, this time, with predictable results.

Cold

Cold, in more than one way. The venue - Seaside House - is very enthusiastic about its state of the art air conditioning. As a result I'm freezing as I sit in the seminar room, then get beaten up by a wall of humid heat once we step outside. When you go back in the sweat and humidity condenses and chills you even further.

And now I've caught a real cold, with sore throat, aching joints and all. The AC is partly to blame but of course, if you grab forty people from all over the world and stick them in one building for three weeks you're creating a great breeding ground for any virus that happens to pass by. Happily, Japan allows the sale of over-the-counter cold medications that could club an elephant so I feel reasonably symptom-free at the moment - though not particularly alert, or rational, or awake.

Random images:

Student and tutor in a discussion about his project. The seminar rooms have glass walls that are perfect as whiteboards.

Lunch buffet. The food is good. Problem is, it's pretty much the same food every day, morning, lunch and dinner. I think I might have actually lost a little weight these three weeks, simply because I really can't summon much enthusiasm for the meal times any more.

A typhoon passed by to the west of us; we caught only the edge of the storm zone, fortunately. We got some dramatic weather changes as it cleared up.

Yaeyama

Our trip to the Yaeyama islands, in pictures. The weather wasn't great - usually cloudy and occasional rain - so we didn't get any bright, shiny white-sand-blue-skies type of pictures. That doesn't matter; we had mild climate with perfect temperatures, and the sea and the jungle-covered islands became if anything more appealing with the sense of mystery and drama tropical rains brought with them.

Taketomi

Taketomi is mostly known for its quaint village atmosphere, and for its beaches. Kondoi beach is packed with people on sunny days; when it's raining you get it mostly to yourself.

Taketomi is small and flat, so the preferred way to get around is by bicycle. You can rent a bike almost anywhere, and if you stay overnight the hostel has loaner bikes for its guests as well.

Shisa like this one adorn many buildings in Okinawa, and were traditionally thought to ward off evil spirits.

"Taruria" is one of a number of restaurants on Taketomi, and is frequented by locals as well as tourists. The fried shrimp set and the goya stir-fry were both delicious.

The local tombs have a unique style that reflects the local burial customs. Whole clans are interred in the same tomb, so you need plenty of space.

Taketomi village is crisscrossed by sand and gravel streets bounded by low stone walls, all overflowing with tropical greenery. The atmosphere remains relaxing even when the streets fill up with tourists on bicycles.

Bad weather often means good scenery. This pier is just north of Kondoi beach on Taketomi, and completely abandoned when it rains.

Iriomote

The weather is unpredictable. We had everything from rain to sunshine, often within the same hour. The sea does look better in wet weather.

The beaches tend to be shallow, and the tide is very obvious.

We went snorkelling and beach-combing just outside the village. Here Ritsuko has captured me having a Cousteu-moment.

Snorkelling was an amazing experience. We didn't even get fins, and never ventured far from the shore. I had a blast simply floating on top of the reef edge, observing the variety of corals and small lifeforms and waiting for the fish to line up for a picture. Or we walked along the rocky shore, poking at the driftwood and junk from around the world and observing the tadpoles and tiny fish bustling in the shallow low-tide pools.

Clownfish are absolutely everywhere. Anywhere you find a sea anemone you can be sure there's be a few clownfish looking out at you.

We brought a Fuji recyclable camera, an underwater version of *this*. The camera really was a positive surprise. I expected little more than a grainy, unfocused, blue-tinted mess. What we did get (after scanning and postprocessing) are pictures that are quite decent for use on the web like this, or for making small prints.

This. This is the whole reason to come here. We were wading along the beach to the small cape, where the bottom suddenly dropped and the coral reef began. And it was like being dropped head-first into a BBC nature production; a riot of colorful fish, corals, anemones, invertebrates... David Attenborough swimming by for some running commentary would have made a perfect fit.

I'll need to get fins next time. Probably open-heel ones, so I can wear boots underneath for wading along the coast. I'll also need a better underwater camera at some point, but that's difficult. Many digital compact cameras seem to get worse results than the Fuji; a DSLR with underwater housing is much too big and much too expensive; and if there are any housings for compact film cameras I can't find them. The Nikonos V seems like a good option, but is fairly expensive and seems high maintenance.

The rivers in Iriomote (it's a big island and has several sizeable rivers) are lined with dense mangrove forests.

The river and jungle tour was fun. You go to a landing at the mouth of Urauchi river, just a quick ten minutes from Iriomote village and board a tour boat that takes you upriver. From there you walk about half an hour to a viewing platform overlooking the first falls. If you add another twenty or thirty minutes you can reach the Kanbire falls, which is a lot more interesting than the viewing platform. The tour operator allows you to "skip" your scheduled return boat and catch the next one instead. Just be careful you don't miss the last boat.

The river tour ends at this landing, and the footpath to the waterfalls begins.

Now, it is a path, with gravel in places and small bridges for crossing over streams, and all kinds of people, from small children to senior citizens, were happily following it. But it's not a road by any means. It's steep, muddy and wet, and you'll have to climb over largish boulders and across tangled root systems. If you slip in places you'll have several meters to fall down to the riverbed below.

If you rely on a cane to get around, say, or if you have trouble bending your knees then this walk is not for you. And bring good, sensible clothes and shoes - at the landing we saw one heavy guy in shorts, flip-flops and a bagful of beer; and one girl with more fashion than common sense in a frilly skirt and very high heels, and I doubt either of them managed to finish the walk.

The Kanbire falls are not high; a series of low cliffs with the river rushing by. It makes for easy access, and some people were wading and even swimming in spots.

After the tour we grabbed the bus to Iriomote Onsen on the northeast side of the island. Very good - large pool, both outdoor and indoor baths and saunas. There's separate facilities for men and women, and a common bathing area. A perfect place to wash off the mud and relax for a few hours.

Iriomote village on the west coast is tiny; you can walk across it in ten minutes. It does have three beaches within walking distance, a school and a post office, and the islands only Ramen place, run by a diving enthusiast from Tokyo who moved here with his family to be closer to the diving areas. The Ramen is really good, by the way, the kind of place I'd often go to if I lived nearby.

We stayed at Iriomote Island Hotel. It was a pleasant experience; the rooms are quite large and well maintained, and breakfast and dinner (both included) were tasty and plentiful.

As it happens, the 123°45'6.789" longitude runs by the village, and somebody with a very pleasantly geeky personality streak decided it needed a monument - and no monument to geekery is complete without a laser. Every night the green laser shoots up into the sky to mark the path of the longitudinal line. The world needs more stuff like this.

On a clear evening the stars come out. You never see them like this in Osaka.

Ishigaki

Ishigaki city on Ishigaki island is a fair-sized place, about 45 000 people in all. Like most regional cities the economy is evidently not great, but there's a variety of fairly good restaurants and water holes and fishing and diving boat operators seem to be both plentiful and busy. This kind of out-of-the-way place has always had a hard time attracting business, but I keep wondering if something like a software business wouldn't be viable nowadays? Rent and living expenses are low, most business-related communications go over the net, and Kansai and Kanto are both just a few hours away by air should you need to go someplace in person.

Ishigaki harbour is the main transport hub for the island chain. Most travel and just about all freight pass through here. A couple of large freighters connect from Okinawa a couple of times a week, and small freight ships pass back and forth to the other islands every day.

These Roll-On-Roll-Off freighters is the transport lifeline to Taketomi, Iriomote and all the other islands in the area. They seem to bring anything and everything, from heating oil and gasoline to foodstuff to packages to live cattle. It seems a little romantic and a lot of fun to work on such a ship, but the reality is - as always - probably rather mundane.

The harbour-facing side of the city has office and apartment buildings, shopping streets and restaurants. But walk up the other way and you find quiet streets with older, charming single homes.

A small shrine in an overgrown vacant lot.

There's limestone caves in the hills north of the city, and they're open to visitors. There's a good variety of scenery, and it's a really pleasant visit to cool down from the early summer heat.

The caves aren't exactly natural anymore. It's all well lit and the pathway is extensively prepared, with stairs, gravel, railings and head protection. And this being Japan there's plenty of signs and recorded guide messages along the way. But it doesn't get intrusive, and of course it makes for an easier visit.

Ishigaki harbour at dusk. Ferries, diving boats and fishing boats have stopped for the night, and only a seafood restaurant is still open along the waterfront.

Do I want to go here again? Oh yes. Stay for a bit longer than a scant week? Absolutely. It's a bit out of the way, and the flight is relatively expensive, but it's worth it, no doubt at all. The full set is here.

Kan Prevails

In the end, Ozawa withdrew his support for the no-confidence motion. Without his support it stood no chance; the motion was defeated 293-152.

The LDP and to some extent the New Komeito are arguably losers in this. The no-confidence motion would have happened in any case, largely as a symbolic raspberry to the sitting cabinet¹, but with Ozawas possible, then probable support it took on real meaning and the LDP leaders invested a fair amount of their political capital in seeing the motion pass.

Kan is, well, not the loser he looked to become just this morning. He had to promise to resign as soon as the Tohoku disaster situation and Fukushima stabilizes, but he was well on his way out already and would not have survived politically beyond that point anyhow.

Yukio "I-must-have-left-my-brain-in-the-other-suit" Hatoyama optimistically predicts mid-June for a leadership change; when you look at the progress in Tohoku and in Fukushima I would not be surprised if he stays until September. And with the no-confidence motion behind him he is guaranteed to break the one-year barrier with his prime-ministership, and become the longest-sitting prime minister since Koizumi.

The Japanese public and the Japanese political system are both losers - but they were the moment a few bright bulbs decided that several hundred thousand citizens in refugee camps and an ongoing nuclear disaster is a perfect time to plunge the country into (worse) political disarray.

The big mystery to me is Ozawa; is he a winner or a loser in this sorry charade? Perhaps he overplayed his hand; he realized he didn't have the numbers to topple Kan and elected to withdraw rather than follow through and get kicked out into the political wilderness. On the other hand, he made the LDP look foolish (there is no love lost between him and that party) and extracted a promise to resign from the prime minister. My bet is that he tried and lost. The current result is a bit of a consolation prize, nothing more.

Now, nothing has really changed. The Kan cabinet will still fall soon; the DPJ will still fly apart in the not too distant future; the LDP is no more ready to rule again than they were a year ago; and nobody has any clue, nor much interest in, breaking out of the political deadlock the country has been stuck in for the past decade.

#1 This is considered normal, ethical behaviour here. A lot of Japanese politics resemble nothing so much as a schoolyard of spiteful 7-year olds.

Ozawa Rebels

The opposition parties have submitted a no-confidence motion against the government. By itself it's kind of a pointless gesture, and a bit hard to understand; they don't have the votes to make it pass, and they've been getting plenty of criticism for wasting time with this. The DPJ government has been making the expected hash of things of course, but the opposition has also been obstructing things at every turn.

But Ozawa is urging his followers to vote for the no-confidence motion. In a by now familiar pattern, when he realizes he won't be Prime Minister within his current party he leaves and takes his followers with him, and damn the consequences. It's unlikely that he'll be able to round up the 86 DPJ rebels he'd need to topple the Kan government, but the DPJ leadership (what's left of it) has stated that anyone voting for this motion will be expelled from the party. This includes at least five fairly high-ranking party members.

Effectively, the DPJ is splitting down the middle. MTC argues that this is the end of the DPJ. While it's likely the end of the DPJ as an amorphous big-tent alternative to the similarly sprawling LPD, I'm not as sure it's the end of the DPJ party brand.

The rebels are unified mostly in their fealty to Ozawa himself, but to some extent the rebelling diet members all share an ideology beyond that as well. Ozawa has tended to recruit candidates that can subscribe to his vision of Japans political future. They'll leave, and, I guess, either try to build a new party together with a rump of members from the LDP; or possibly try to merge with another existing party.

But that also means the remains of the DPJ are free of a long-running ideological and personal split. The DPJ, like the LDP, has never really made much sense, with members representing almost every conceivable point on the political map. The remaining DPJ will possibly be a fair bit more unified in its political outlook, and with less personal acrimony to thwart coherent policy-making.

And of course the same thing can be said of any future Ozawaist party; if they manage to create a viable organization then it, too, should be able to present a clearer alternative to the voters than its members ever could as part of the DPJ. The New Komeito, Everybody's Party, the long-established small parties all have a coherent ideology of sorts (though the Social Democrats and the New Komeito seem to share "being in power" as a major part of it).

That leaves the LDP as a sprawling "everything-for-everyone" big-tent party. But LDP support is more and more concentrated in the rural Japan, areas that have been losing population and influence for a long time now. They rely on a voting district division that gives disproportionate power to rural areas at the expense of urban Japan, but the supreme court has recently ruled this discrepancy as illegal and unconstitutional. It is very likely that the LDP power base will be substantially reduced when the redistricting happens. That disruption will hopefully be enough for LDP members to split into more coherent parties as well, and will in any case lessen the LDP influence no matter what.

We might see the beginning of the end of the current Japanese political system. A good thing in the long run. Hopefully.

Edit: MTC reports the rebels may have the needed votes, and Kan may be ready to resign. In any case, that doesn't really change the longer-term outlook; the party is falling into pieces, the question is simply who owns what piece.

Tsuyu

Tsuyu - the rainy season - has arrived in Kansai. It's early; it normally starts around the second week of June. Also, Okinawa is expecting its first typhoon of the season already, and it may even reach Honshu in a few days. While typhoon season typically starts around now, it's rare for the early typhoons to be strong enough to hit Japan directly.

The weather service has predicted a hotter summer than normal; let's just hope it won't be as bad as last year. Much of the country is going to have energy supply problems already, and a heatwave will make the problem worse. Of course, it would give us an excuse to go snorkelling...

Super Cool Biz

Not so Cool Biz.

A recurring feature here every summer lately is "Cool Biz"; a campaign to limit air conditioner use in offices during summer and have office workers dress a bit more casually - no tie and no jacket - to combat the heat instead. This campaign has taken off, and it seems most offices go casual between June and September or so.

Cool Biz.

This summer the campaign becomes more important than usual. The Tohoku disaster has caused major disruptions in energy production. It's not just - or even primarily - the broken-down reactors at Fukushima; a couple of major coal and gas power plants were also heavily damaged, a number of power plants were emergency shut-down, and one plant - Hamaoka - that lies right on top of a fault overdue for a quake has been ordered to halt until safety measures can be strengthened. A number of other reactors are due for yearly maintenance and inspection and are or will be shut-down for summer. If no reactors get permission to restart again - and in the face of the ongoing Fukushima disaster it would be difficult - Asahi Shimbun estimates that 42 out of 54 reactors, 80% of the nuclear capacity, will be offline during the hot summer months.

The government is setting an enforced 15% power savings target for eastern Japan during summer, and capacity is stretched thin in western Japan as well. The environmental agency is instituting "Super Cool Biz" in their own offices, where they allow employees to wear t-shirts, jeans and Hawaiian-style short-sleeved shirts. They also recommend extending the Cool Biz period to between May and October.

Really Cool Biz.

I don't expect a lot of companies will go as far as allowing t-shirts in the office, but NHK did have a segment last week on a company that institutes "Extreme Cool Biz" this summer, with no air conditioner at all, just fans and open windows, and employees wear t-shirts or tank-tops. It's a web design company, with an average employee age of 25 or so, which makes it a tad less surprising perhaps. You're unlikely to ever find the branch manager of a major bank in a tank-top at the office (and when you consider the physical condition of middle-aged office workers I doubt you'll want to).

Cool Biz doesn't really affect me personally; I wear the normal academic uniform of jeans and open shirt all year round. But I do see it during my commute of course. It's become a sign of summer when the dark coats and ties all but disappear in the subway, and when the coats and ties return you know we're due for autumn. It almost makes me wish for a festival or something; each company with its own salaryman dance troupe parading down Midosuji street on the morning of June 1st, ceremoniously casting off their coats and tie to welcome the summer.

I've noticed a possible longer-term change. Some years ago, salarymen all wore their suit jacket and tie in the mornings, ready for the office. But the past couple of winters more and more office workers - up to one in four perhaps, this winter - elect to go casual for their commute, and put on their tie and coat only once they reach the office. It seems Cool Biz is gradually eroding the perception of proper business attire. After all, if it's OK to wear an open shirt when it's 35 degrees, why not when it's 25? The strict suit-shirt-tie uniform is certainly here to stay for now, but I would not make any bets for the next generation.

Relax Biz.