It would be a shame if after the strong efforts made to highlight the “Crime File” issue (and their success) similar efforts weren’t made to alert people to this far more significant problem.

Such gross distortion of facts by a major newspaper should be much more newsworthy for the foreign press, especially when it is in the form of racism for political gain by politicians such as Abe and Ishihara and organisations such as the NPA who either seem to be toeing the political line or seeking a budget increase.

I am quite sure that these sentiments are not shared by the majority of the Japanese people but rather that they simply (perhaps naively or lazily) accept what they are told by the media without question (witness the whole diet natto incident). If enough pressure is placed on the relevant media perhaps a retraction/clarification of the actual figures might be possible. At least a campaign to highlight the actual statistics might generate its own coverage and get the true details out in some fashion.

Rather than being happy with the removal of the “Crime File” hopefully people will use it as a starting point for criticism of this important and more insidious racism.

You guys will be teachers for Japanese general public.
Complaining directly to the media, the organization concerned is a good way, as the project for ura file showed.
(I might add, please be patient ; it is hard for any society to change the awareness of general public. )

Good point, Ponta. This will take time.

Heard this from a Mainichi reporter during my travels (he came to one of my speeches, took me out for dinner afterwards):

There was a recent crime involving two Japanese, one Chinese.

The headline (assigned by a different person than the reporter) was “Chuugokujin ra ga…” commit the crime.

When he asked the editor why this misleading headline was being created, he said the editor said:

“Inpakuto ga chigau kara”
(The impact is different.)

Yes, it certainly is. Mainichi has been receiving a lot of flak from human rights groups for its misleading headlines. Thanks for pointing them out. Debito in Wakayama

I think your criticism is a little misplaced. If you read the English version of the paper as a lesson in translation, then yes, it fails to correctly translate the original piece. But as an exercise in journalism, would you want the headline to better reflect the facts, or perpetuate the original sensationalistic headline? I think the copy writers made the right choice.

Of course, the story doesn’t address the larger question of incipient racism in the vernacular press, and there’s certainly a case for criticising blinkered and/or timid attitudes in the newsroom’s foreign staff. They could after all apply pressure on higher-ups. They could do some writing of their own. They could invite critical voices from media analysts.

But it’s hard to see how a spot news piece could do that.

“I think your criticism is a little misplaced”

It is racism endorsed, if not actively generated by a national newspaper, the criticism is, if anything, far too mild with only the fact that it happens all the time mitigating its impact.

I mentioned in another thread that even the English language headline is misleading in that it seems to link foreigners with unusually high levels of crime (otherwwise why mention that it is decreasing) when the actual statistics show that while some nationalities are slightly above the Japanese crime rate others are dramatically far below it. Taken as an average foreign crimes only exceed those by Japanese nationals when crimes that are inapplicable to Japanese people (visa violations) are included.

Unless they are actively pointing out and correcting the deliberate misinformation being spread to increase public fear and distrust of foreigners, these newspapers are part of the problem.

At the moment this may strike you as an over-reaction but in the coming years, as the number of immigrants increases to fill the need for cheap labour, and the disparity between Japan’s own rich and poor further increases, these racial tensions will also grow and be made use of more and more frequently by politicians such as Ishihara who think nothing of feathering their own nest at the expense of the nation’s stability and harmony.

If the problem such as it is, and the medias role in it, is not highlighted loudly and repeatedly, by the time it becomes a serious enough problem that the majority of foreigners are complaining of it, it will be far too late to effect any worthwhile change.

This is pretty strange… are these newspapers serious ones, or are there any alike the English “daily mirror” ?

All major papers. Not sure if I can remember my English papers but they might equate to:

Yomiuri (Telegraph with the editorial leanings of the Daily Star), Mainichi (Times), Asahi (Inidependent).

There’s no equivalent of the Observer/Guardian.

“Japan is like one great big mid-western hick town. Like in all mid-western hick towns, there are a few nice people who would give you the shirts off of their backs.

But in general, they’re a bunch of inbred, uneducated, grass-chewing mental rejects. ”

Funny..that’s exactly what I think of Korea! I’ve been here a little bit over two years..

If it helps people vent stress, then far better online than elsewhere. However, the act of disparaging the vast majority of an entire race as “inbred…mental rejects” does very little to emphasis any inate intelligence on your own part (of course the same can doubtless be said of responding to Trolls). If hatred for a particuar country is what somebody really needs to express there are surely dedicated sites out there that will give you a great deal more affirmation.

Of course, perhaps this kind of empty bitterness is commonplace on this site, in which case pardon my ignornace in having only just come across it.

Anyway…

Japanese newspapers, very unbalanced towards the right but not incapable of liberal or anti-government opinions.

That’s funny stuff/

“Funny..that’s exactly what I think of Korea! I’ve been here a little bit over two years.. ”

Yeah, but I took it back. Ponta is right as well. Their ignorance isn’t self-maintained in the case of most Japanese, it’s because the only foreigners they see are in their English classrooms, at the Hostess bars, and on TV.

If lots of foreigners end up coming here (which has to happen if Japan is going to maintain its economic strength in the face of its population decline) and the people STILL accept shit like this, THEN we can say they are hicks.

Gray: Sorry, I didn’t notice your comment, and I respond to it below.

“If it helps people vent stress, then far better online than elsewhere.”

I’m not venting stress, I’m expressing my denigration of the negative aspects of a specific culture.

“However, the act of disparaging the vast majority of an entire race as “inbred…mental rejects” does very little to emphasis any inate intelligence on your own part”

They aren’t a race, they are a culture, and to disparage a culture is perfectly acceptable if the culture shows a serious amount of stupidity.

All cultures show varying and differing types of stupidity, but because this isn’t an essay on world culture but Japanese culture, I didn’t address those. And I reworded my point afterwords to say that. Japan has a culture that accentuates and propagates the “hick ideal”. If there were people in New York doing and saying the same things in public that people in Japan accept as normal, there would be an uproar.

“(of course the same can doubtless be said of responding to Trolls)”

I understand that a lot of people write things similar to my post to get a reaction. And I believe that a lot of them are probably trolls. However, that doesn’t make someone who wrote something you disagree with a troll. Argue with the statement, not the person.

“If hatred for a particuar country is what somebody really needs to express there are surely dedicated sites out there that will give you a great deal more affirmation.”

So it’s okay to for you to use fancy words to insult me, but it’s not okay for me to use un-fancy words to criticize a cutlure? Address the point.

“Of course, perhaps this kind of empty bitterness is commonplace on this site, in which case pardon my ignornace in having only just come across it.”

Honestly, belabouring non-issues only points out your own inabiltiy to actually say something of substance.

See?! I can do it, too!

“Japanese newspapers, very unbalanced towards the right but not incapable of liberal or anti-government opinions. ”

I can tell you first-hand that at least one of these major newspapers (the one you would be surprised to hear mentioned) caters specifically to the very prejudices we are now discussing. Can you say different?

Now. Which was easier to write? The above 6 paragraph treatise on Japanese ignorance, or the single sentence I wrote before that says exactly the same thing?

“Japan is like one great big mid-western hick town.”

Disparagement is good when it leads to change. I’m not talking about Japanese people, I’m talking about a single aspect of Japanese culture. The funny bit is that it seems that the one Japanese guy on here now actually understood what I meant by this.

Gray: Sorry, I didn’t notice your comment, and I respond to it below.

“However, the act of disparaging the vast majority of an entire race…intelligence on your own part”

They aren’t a race, they are a culture, and to disparage a culture is perfectly acceptable if the culture shows a serious amount of stupidity.

All cultures show varying and differing types of stupidity, but because this isn’t an essay on world culture but Japanese culture, I didn’t address those. If there were people in New York doing and saying the same things in public that people in Japan accept as normal, there would be an uproar.

“(of course the same…to Trolls)”

Someone disagreeing with you doesn’t make a troll.Argue against the statement, not the person.

“If hatred for a particuar country…more affirmation.”

So it’s okay to for you to use fancy words to insult me, but it’s not okay for me to use un-fancy words to criticize a culture? Address the point.

“Of course, perhaps …just come across it.”

Honestly, belabouring non-issues only points out your own inabiltiy to actually say something of substance.

See?! I can do it, too!

“Japanese newspapers, very unbalanced towards the right but not incapable of liberal or anti-government opinions. ”

I can tell you first-hand that at least one of these major newspapers (the one you would be surprised to hear mentioned) caters specifically to the very prejudices we are now discussing. Can you say different?

Now. Which was easier to write? The above 6 paragraph treatise on Japanese ignorance, or the single sentence I wrote before that says exactly the same thing?

“Japan is like one great big mid-western hick town.”

Disparagement is good when it leads to change. I’m not talking about Japanese people, I’m talking about a single aspect of Japanese culture. The funny bit is that it seems that the one Japanese guy on here now actually understood what I meant by this.

A few points:
1) Thanks to all for having so much interest in the Mainichi and for Japan Probe’s regular support of our stories. Please keep it up!
2) The headlines are different because the original Japanese headline has missed the point of the story. The English translation is not a good one, but read the text of the Japanese story and it’s main point is clearly more along the lines of the English headline. Though we work together closely, the Japanese and English versions of the Mainichi are different, with the Mainichi Daily News (English) an independent publication in its own right (even though highly dependant on translations). But discrepencies between the languages will exist with nearly every story, mainly because news articles are written differently in English and Japanese.
3) The Mainichi abhors any allegation of racism or bias and totally rejects any such claim.
4) I have seen every article of correspondence that has come through official channels to the Mainichi Daily News since April 2005 and we have not received “a lot of flak from human rights group about misleading headlines.” This claim is simply untrue, unfounded and irresponsible.
Ryann Connell
Chief Editor
Mainichi Daily News

Ryan Connell:

Thanks for taking the time to come over to a blog and respond. I understand that MDN is a publication in its own right, and I think it’s great that your staff decided to translate the article so that it presented a more accurate interpretation of the crime statistics. The real problem here is not MDN, but instead the sensationalist xenophobic headline Mainichi used in their Japanese edition. Do you have any idea why the original Japanese headline could have missed the point so badly?

Nice of you to respond Ryann, your comments are appreciated. However…

“The English translation is not a good one, but read the text of the Japanese story and it’s main point is clearly more along the lines of the English headline.”

Perhaps I’m missing something but the point of the Japanese story seems very much to be that it is only the increased efforts of the Tokyo Police which has prevented an increase in Tokyo’s foreign crime rate and that everywhere else things are worse.

The point of contention is that regardless of whether the figures have actually shifted up or down they remain a miniscule amount generally in proportion to the amount of foreign people in Japan with most nationalities in fact being quite a bit under the level of Japanese crime. Even more so when visa-violations are removed from the equation.

To highlight such crimes in itself implies that there is something unusual about their levels when quite obviously there is not.

The only legitimate story to be made regarding it would be to highlight the political use being made of the issue as a form of scaremongering, for politial or bureaucratic gain, and to reveal the true insignifigance of the figures.

Continued repetition of the myth of foreign crime as an actual social problem will only lead to increased xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments. Considering that immigration will nonetheless inevitably increase, such attitudes can only damage the character of Japanese society to say nothing of distracting both the public and the police themselves from the issues of existing socially destructive crimes such as drug smuggling and sexual exploitation.

I can of course understand that, while possibly journalistically apt, championing such causes or highlighting the real extent of foreign crime are unlikely to be politically benefitial for people in your position. This is not meant sarcastically, I imagine if any single journalist were to attempt such a thing their career might experience ‘difficulties’, although you are certainly in a position to prove me wrong.

Again, your comments are appreciated.

Personally I dont have much confidence in the ability of Japan to adapt to the oft-stated need to allow more immigrants to settle in this country, whether on a part-time of full-time basis.
These are just my opinions, they have no scientific countable basis, but from the people Ive met in the just over eight years Ive been here, I think 80% are of the opinion that foreigners are dangerous criminals-in-waiting.
Remember just before The World Cup was here? Remember the media hype? Remember the LDP members comment to the effect “But what are we going to do with all the half-caste bastards left behind after theyve raped our women and gone?”
People in this country are hard-wired with the notion that they, and their culture, are different, unique, superior. They “know” that others are not.
I am given examples of this on an almost daily basis from my students, even those who “like us”.
This ignorance and mis-information comes from “education” (how many times have I been told “Japan has four seasons, other countries dont”), and is perpetuated by the media.
Sadly even my girlfriend, when we have a moment of shared humanity can only put it this way “Sometimes I forget youre not Japanese.” I think she means to say that we are both human, but shes unable to express it other than with reference to being Japanese. Her whole thought processing has to be filtered through this identification first.
Therefore I say what hope is there for the projected hundreds of thousands of immigrants needed to keep this country afloat in future. Will they re-institute Dejima? Will there be inner city ghettoes where no Japanese will go? Will the ranting right-wing achieve more prominence, or even political legitimacy?
I fear for the future here.

Let’s hope so