Raging fires, violent aftershocks, 30 foot waves sweeping away entire towns, roads shorn in half, millions without power, dazed survivors stranded on rooftops — these are the scenes people around the globe have been seeing as they tune in to find out about the massive earthquake  that struck northeastern Japan at 2:46 p.m. on Friday, March 11th.

For those who have never experienced an earthquake, it’s hard to imagine the thing that you always take for granted — the ground — giving way.

“It was like standing on a surfboard on a rocky ocean,” said Robert Michael Poole, a British freelance writer who lives in Tokyo, trying to find words to capture what he had just gone through.

He described the scene in a courtyard outside his apartment in central Tokyo: people desperately embracing walls and lampposts as highrises around them swayed.

The refrain I keep hearing from eyewitnesses — this one was like no other.

“What made it so different was the length, perhaps three to four minutes,” Poole told me. “And the aftershocks keep coming.” Twenty-four hours later, they can still be felt — some powerful quakes in their own right — and will continue for weeks.

Another Tokyo resident, Matt Alt, an American writer and translator, said that in the eight years he has lived in Tokyo, he has never felt anything come close to this.

“I found myself clinging to a wall and then crouching in an attempt to stand on my feet,” Alt said. “When the shaking stopped, there was utter silence for a moment, and then the sirens started.”

To put Friday’s quake in perspective, the Japan Meteorological Agency reported that its 8.9 magnitude is roughly 180 times greater than the 7.3 temblor that struck Kobe in 1995, decimating the city and killing more than 6000.

It is the fifth most powerful earthquake on record, and the strongest to hit Japan, which is located on the Ring of Fire, an area of great seismic and volcanic activity along the Pacific, where 90% of all the earth’s quakes take place.

But  Tokyo is nothing compared to the worst hit areas further north in Japan’s Tohoku region. The violent temblor set off a series of tsunamis that started hitting about 30 minutes later, wiping out entire areas. All along the Pacific coast, residents have been evacuated.

Although Japan has highly efficient tsunami warning systems, many people in the flatlands on the coast just didn’t have enough time to get to higher ground.

Unlike the government’s slow response to the last major earthquake in Kobe in 1995, this time a full-scale rescue operation was launched right away.

The guesstimate of the death toll now tops 1,000, but one thing seems certain — in the coming days, as the waters recede, that unbearable number will stubbornly keep rising.

Click here to see images.

Online I located just what I needed—a white noise machine, going for 50 bucks on Amazon. But shipping from the US would have set me back another $50, so I looked for one here. Well, Japan I learned doesn’t have this kind of item, which is so common stateside the market is saturated with them. (Actually, there is a similar but costlier device, whose purpose is to cover embarrassing bathroom sounds in lieu of the wasteful ‘camouflage flush’ routinely employed by young women. It’s called Otohime, which means “princess sound.”)

All this got me wondering: are Americans more sensitive to irritating noises? Or are Japanese simply more tolerant of at least a certain variety?

Though Japan is not unique in having bothersome sounds, for a culture that places such a high premium on quiet, it can get awfully noisy sometimes. I guess it comes down to context. For instance, everyone knows it’s unacceptable to talk on your cell phone on a bus or train, unlike my hometown where people freely blab away, and this is widely observed in Japan. But on trains and buses no one gives a second thought to the loud stream of longwindedly polite announcements that infringe upon the quiet. Like the one telling passengers to set their phones to manner mode and refrain from talking on them because it’s an annoyance, which is itself an annoyance.

The Association of Japanese Private Railways recently released the results of an online survey that found noise to be the biggest irritation to commuters. Loud conversation topped the list, with noisy headphones coming in second (yet no mention of announcement fatigue). Another place cluttered with noise is supermarkets, where never-ending loops of promo campaigns can play for weeks at a time. And some establishments even use yobikomi, in which real-time humans, in the tradition of carnival barkers, mechanically shout ad slogans to attract customers.

Recently, I was on a train idling at a station for 10 minutes while a pre-departure beep, whose repetitiveness was for me the sonic equivalent of Chinese water torture, just didn’t let up. Those around me were clearly tuning it out. Then a few days later, I had the pleasure of going to a busy sushi joint where the entire staff shouted “IRASSHAIMASE!” every time a new customer walked in, which was every few minutes. Why is it necessary to say that word at full volume? And how is it that the right-wing nationalists, who drive around with marching music and imperialist slogans blaring out of a loudspeaker, don’t get cited for disturbing the peace? Election campaigners make the same racket without violating any decibel ordinance.

I’m beginning to accept that I can’t control the sounds around me in public, but at home I’ve now got a SleepMate 980A White Noise Machine, which could put a baby to sleep and mellow out a highly sensitive 40-year-old. And I also figured out how to deal with the bright naked light bulbs that seem to appear just about everywhere I go. Now, armed with sunglasses and my SilentEar earplugs, I can confidently face just about any sensory assault that comes my way.

Picture by Anniebee

This story first ran in Kansai Scene

One hundred years ago today representatives of Korea and Japan signed the Japan-Korea Annexation Treaty, which gave Japan sovereignty over Korea.

Though the ink hit the paper on the 22nd,  it didn’t kick in until August 29th, 1910 — known in Korea as “the day of national shame.”

All this seems like ancient history, but it turns out some details of Japan’s 35 year rule over Korea are hotly disputed, and South Korea is still awaiting the apology to end all apologies.

In 2001, Seoul and Tokyo formed the Korea-Japan Joint History Research Committee to reconcile their different interpretations of history. Of the many bones of contention that both countries have, one that caught my attention was Japan’s complaint that Korean textbooks barely mention all the apologies made by Japanese leaders over the years.

The first was in 1965. To mark the occasion of a treaty that normalized relations, Japan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs said of the brutal occupation, “It is truly regrettable and we are deeply remorseful.” Then in 1982, the Chief Cabinet Secretary said, “The Japanese government and the Japanese people are deeply aware of the fact that acts by our country in the past caused tremendous suffering and damage to the peoples of Asian countries, including the Republic of Korea.”

In 1984, Emperor Hirohito told the Korean President, “It is indeed regrettable that there was an unfortunate past between us for a period of this century, and I believe that it should not be repeated again.” A bit short on specifics, but in 1989 the Prime Minister took it up a notch: “We are deeply conscious of the fact that the actions of our country in the past caused suffering and loss to many people in neighboring countries,” which was followed the next year by Emperor Akihito, who bested his dad: “Reflecting upon the suffering that your people underwent during this unfortunate period, which was brought about by our nation, I cannot but feel the deepest remorse.” Several apologies came in 1992 from the Prime Minister, one in 1995 on the 50th anniversary of the war’s end, and in 1996 the next PM broke new ground by apologizing to the “comfort women:” “Nothing injured the honor and dignity of women more than this, and I would like to extend words of deep remorse and a heartfelt apology.” The next year, the Emperor said he was sorry again, and more Prime Ministers followed suit.

However, a recent study shows that 58% of South Koreans believe Japan’s apologies were insufficient, while 24% actually believe that no apology has ever been made.

So why have these all these apologies fallen short?

For starters, the Prime Minister and Cabinet members’ yearly visits to Yasukuni Shrine, the war memorial that enshrined the spirits of over 1,000 war criminals along with those of several million others who died, always manage to anger the victims of Imperial Japan’s aggression. Also, the government-approved textbooks that whitewash this era undermine the apologies and leave students with only a vague sense of what Japan was up to in the first half of the 20th Century. And there’s still the matter of victim compensation as well as Korea’s desire for Japan to formally acknowledge the invalidity of the annexation.

But this year things are looking up. In February, the Foreign Minister of Japan visited Seoul, and said, “Regarding what happened 100 years ago, Japan deprived Koreans of their nation and left a great wound on their national pride.” Then on August 10th, Prime Minister Kan, with an eye on the centennial, said, “For the enormous damage and suffering caused by this colonization, I would like to express once again our deep remorse and sincere apology.”

The South Korean Foreign Ministry accepted, and the right-wing Japanese nationalists  protested, as they always do. But Kan is on a roll, and his words and actions seem to be in sync. This year neither he nor any member of his cabinet visited Yasukuni Shrine, a first. The South Korean President acknowledged these gestures to reconcile, saying they  were “one step forward,” showing maybe Kan really will deliver. For the future of this crucial alliance, let’s hope Kan can.

Sorry by Dave Keeshan

Former Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso and Korean President Lee Myung-bak at the Korea-Japan summit in Seoul, 2009. Courtesy Korea.net

“Don’t you think her nipples are too dark for a high school girl — a virgin?”

“Absolutely,” he answers.

I wondered what sense Western readers might make of this. Most probably just ignored it and moved on. Nipple hue was something I myself had never contemplated deeply until a Japanese woman I knew complained she was unhappy with hers because they were so brown (unlike mine, which happen to be pristinely pink). It turns out some women in Japan really feel this way. Why? “Because pink is cute,” she told me.

And there’s a belief in Japan that pink nipples denote purity, while brown ones … don’t. A female plastic surgeon I know who works in Tokyo put it this way: “Japanese girls want to have pink nipples because Japanese guys like them. For some Japanese men, the less sexual experience a woman has, the better. Little experience means she is clean and precious for them.”

I asked a Japanese guy, apropos of nothing, if he happened have a preference for pink. And he did. Several others confessed the same.

So what’s a girl to do? Well, an array of products can supposedly restore the lost pinkness of youth.

One is Virgin Pink, made by Coo Science Beauty, based in Tokyo. This cream has been around for years, and though known for nipple treatment, it’s actually intended for skin lightening of any blemished area of the body. (For Japanese women, the whiter the better, which is why parasols are so in.) A Virgin Pink representative said they sell 10 to 15,000 units a year, going for about $60 each.

A newcomer to the market, intended solely for brown-to-pink transformation, is Virgin Peach, put out by the Nagoya cosmetics company Glim. Unlike Virgin Pink, this one uses a pink henna dye, which they say becomes permanent after a while. And for half the price. A spokesperson said, “Our product is for a problem many women have,” which must be why sales have hit 30,000 since its debut two years ago. They are highest around Christmas and Valentine’s Day, when this kind of thing matters even more.

An Internet search turns up a slew of other panaceas for the pigmentally challenged, some of which are even targeting the English-speaking population: Bio-Woman Pink Cream, Finale Pink Nipple Cream, Happy Girl Natural Nipple Cream, and the somewhat less inspired, Spot Removing Cream.

Whatever name it goes by, compared to some body alterations available these days, this tweak is pretty minor. And if it makes women feel more pure, beautiful, and virginal, then I’d say they’re getting good bang for the buck.

Boobie cookies by braindamaged217

Virgin Peach photo courtesy Glim

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Last week, a whistleblowing whaler came clean about the underbelly of Japan’s whaling industry and recently Japanese theaters have been bowing out of showing The Cove because of intimidation and threats of violence from incensed nationalists who seem to feel the Japanese Constitution’s free speech applies only to themselves.

What I’ve been wondering is to what extent whaling really is a national Japanese tradition. I came across this analogy on the Japan Whaling Association’s Web site: “Asking Japan to abandon this part of its culture is comparable to Australians being asked to stop eating meat pies, Americans being asked to stop eating hamburgers and the English being asked to go without fish and chips.”

Curious to find out if whale meat is to Japan what hamburger is to America, I spoke to Jun Morikawa, a professor at Rakuno Gakuen University and author of Whaling in Japan, a treatise no Japanese publisher would print. “At best, it’s a regional, localized industry in coastal areas near where whales and dolphins come and go,” he told me. “But to compare it to a meat pie or a hamburger is a gross distortion.”

Professor Morikawa did concede that some fishing villages have done it small-scale for hundreds of years, like the notorious Taiji featured in The Cove. Yet, he explained, whaling has also been taboo in other places such as Same, in Aomori Prefecture, where whales are believed to be Ebisu-sama—gods of good fortune. The only time whale consumption truly reached a national level was after World War II during a severe food shortage, but even then it was “a substitute meat,” said Morikawa. As soon as the economy got going, people bought much more chicken, beef and pork, despite the higher cost. Why? “Because Japanese consumers generally don’t like whale. They don’t buy it. And they don’t eat it.”

But surveying Japanese people I know, ranging in age from 18 to 60, I found it wasn’t so clear-cut. Nearly half, who had eaten it for school lunch and on special occasions now and then, said they like it. About whether Japan should have the right to hunt whales, views were also mixed—some told me it’s part of Japanese food culture, and therefore acceptable if done responsibly, while others said it causes too many problems for Japan, the whales, and even humans because of mercury poisoning.

In Osaka, a handful of restaurants  have it on the menu, and one called Tokuya serves whale cuisine only. On the Web site, the owner mentions a talking point I’ve been hearing a lot recently: “Because whales are currently protected and may not be harvested, their numbers are increasing, and they are eating larger and larger amounts of fish, leaving many fewer fish for fishermen to take. This is an important reason for the decline of many fisheries resources around the world.” But this puts all the blame on the whales while the humans, who are guilty of rampant overfishing, get off scott-free.

I was eager for the Japan Whaling Association to weigh in, but  they didn’t respond to my interview request. The site’s Q&A simply says that “marine management” is called for with whales that are great in number. It also explains why research whaling, which allowed Japan to catch 1,000 whales last year, is necessary: “A large range of information is needed for the management and conservation of whales.” Anti-whaling activists claim that the research is a sham, and any  whaling would be disastrous for the species. This is why the stakes at this week’s meeting are the highest they’ve been since the moratorium on commercial whaling was put in place in 1986. All 88 member countries will vote on a compromise that would allow for the resumption of commercial whaling, albeit with greater restrictions. This sounds fair enough but for the awkward allegation, reported last week by Britain’s Sunday Times, that the Japanese government has been bribing some small countries with cash and prostitutes to vote in its favor.

From an outsider’s perspective, it’s hard to get why the Japanese government cares so deeply about this issue, considering it has to subsidize the entire industry, the demand for whale meat appears to be minimal, and the country’s international reputation is tarnished.

According to Morikawa, one way to  explain it is amakudari—lucrative jobs that retired bureaucrats of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries are guaranteed by the industry. Another that’s more understandable has to do with the sense that cultural imperialists are forcing Western values on Japan. A Japanese acquaintance put it this way: “Different cultures place different values on animals. Hindu people do not eat cow because cows are considered holy. And there are people who eat dogs, cats, and rabbits. The Western concept of what’s smart, cute, and sweet is just one ethnocentric view.”

There may be something to the ‘culture’ argument. After all, it was only 50 years ago that anyone started to care about whales. Some countries that condemn whaling today had large-scale whaling industries that fizzled out  not for any humane reason but because alternate sources of oil became available. Moby Dick, which is based on true stories of whales that struck back, is a relic from the peak of that era in the mid 19th-century. Thinking started to change when the environmental movement got underway in the 1960s, and Songs of the Humpback Whale, an LP of their somewhat avant-garde “singing” put out by Roger Payne in 1970, gave some a deeper appreciation of their sentience. Over the next few decades, more countries got on board, and nowadays the majority seem to oppose it. Yet a few, such as the US, might be open to compromise. So this week, thanks to the good old democratic tradition of the vote, not to mention a little bribery, we’ll find out if the whalers get their way.

Humpback whale breaching photo by macro.ca

Beluga whale photo by jspad

Whale bacon photo by enfu

Sperm whale tail photo by Strange Ones

On this 23rd annual World No Tobacco Day, serious kudos are due for all the countries that have enacted smoking bans since the WHO declared May 31st a day to fill ashtrays with flowers rather than Marlboro  butts. However, one developed country missing  from the group is Japan, where it’s commonplace for people with a cold to don a face mask to stop their germs from spreading but pretty unheard of for smokers to show concern about their emissions. Although being mindful of neighbors seems to be hardwired into Japanese DNA, the default stance still somehow favors smokers, whose numbers have fallen to 25% of the adult population.

So why is it that Japan, a country so advanced in so many ways, still hasn’t gotten its act together when it comes to meaningful tobacco laws?

To answer this, I talked to Doctor Manabu Sakuta, a 61-year-old retired professor of internal medicine and neurology, who chairs the board of directors of the Japan Society for Tobacco Control. Their aim is to educate the public about the dangers of smoking, help smokers quit, and pressure legislators to put a smoking ban in place that would protect non-smokers from secondhand smoke. Doctor Sakuta explained that the Japanese government’s surprisingly pro-tobacco policies are the result of its major stake in Japan Tobacco, one of the biggest cigarette makers in the world.

A Japan Tobacco representative explained on the phone why they don’t particularly care for a full ban. “Statistics prove that smoking and secondhand smoke do not result in ill effects like lung cancer. Tobacco is a luxury grocery item sanctioned by the Japanese government and we just sell it.” She went on to say that the real issue of tobacco is the “heartless smokers” who burn children on the street and toss their cigarettes on the ground, a belief lawmakers seem to share, which is why Tokyo and other big cities like Osaka and Nagoya have banned sidewalk smoking in some busy areas.

“Japan Tobacco’s manner campaign is a fraud,” Sakuta told me. “Japan Tobacco uses their in-pocket famous doctors, Diet members, Ministry of Finance bureaucrats, mass media, and even ordinary smokers” to work toward stifling regulation. The Japan Society for Tobacco Control, though lacking in funds, is replete with doctors, lawyers, and even government employees among its members that number in the thousands. The organization stages monthly protests, publishes anti-smoking literature, has its doctors lecture schoolchildren, holds anti-smoking commercial contests, and even initiates lawsuits. “If you can get someone to quit smoking,” Sakuta said, “you can save their life.” Although Japan Tobacco insists the solution lies in harmonious separation between smoking and non-smoking areas, Sakuta feels that a strictly enforced ban along the lines of New York or London is the only way to go.

Curious to see what this would look like in Japan, I paid a visit to Bootleg Tavern, one of the only smoke-free bars in Osaka. After 17 years of breathing his customers’ smoke, the 54-year-old owner, Tim Oba, banned smoking last year because he just couldn’t take it anymore. “This will never be a smoking bar again,” he told me. “Now my phlegm is clear. Before it was dark, and I’m not even a smoker!” But some of his regulars aren’t as pleased. “I don’t like him because he don’t let me smoke,” the “millionaire” whined to me in slurred English when Oba snatched the cigarette he was putting in his mouth. “He always says he’s not coming back,” Oba said, “but then he does.” An alternate view was eloquently expressed by a young, bespectacled doctor with a goatee, who waxed on the sundry joys of the smoke-free experience: “The alcohol smells and tastes better,” he said, and ordered me a whiskey to demonstrate his point. “Sushi also—” he went on, but the “millionaire” cut in, putting his arm around me, shouting, “I’m leaving because I can’t smoke here!” But he stayed, fidgeting with his pack, joining in the repartee in a scene that struck me as a Japanese version of Cheers.

So will Japan ever have a countrywide smoking ban? Doctor Sakuta is optimistic, especially because of the newly elected government. “With the Democratic Party of Japan ruling now, they can change things overnight since they have more than 50% stock.” And it’s already happening on a prefectural level. In Kanagawa, the most ambitious ban yet went into effect in April. And who knows—if this catches on, maybe one day Japan too will deserve a pat on the back every May 31st. But I’m not holding my breath, except when confronted by a billowing smoke cloud.

Photo by Tahmid Munaz

Adapted from a story written last year for Kansai Scene.