2009年12月29日 星期二

浅草最後の羽子板職人 父の遺志継ぎ「ここで続ける」



羽子板

羽子板(日語:羽子板)是一種日本傳統的藝術品以及運動器材。其外形為類似於板球的拍子,上有圖案。有些羽子板是純作為繪畫裝飾之用,有些羽子板則可作為「羽根突き」 ...

浅草最後の羽子板職人 父の遺志継ぎ「ここで続ける」

2009年12月30日8時55分


写真:自宅3階の仕事場で羽子板づくりに取り組む原島康嘉さん=東京都台東区西浅草3丁目自宅3階の仕事場で羽子板づくりに取り組む原島康嘉さん=東京都台東区西浅草3丁目

 東京・浅草で亡き父の後を継ぎ、羽子板をつくり続ける職人がいる。原島康嘉(やすよし)さん、45歳。浅草は古くから江戸の羽子板づくりの中心だった が、戦争や災害などを経て多くの職人が離れ、いま浅草に残っているのは原島さんただ一人になった。職人一筋の父親の遺志を継いだ2代目は、「喜ばれる羽子 板を、この地でつくり続けたい」と意気込む。

 新年を控えた今月、原島さんは自宅3階にある仕事場で昼夜を問わず仕事に打ち込んだ。今年1年で作り上げた羽子板は約150本。浅草寺で17~19日に開かれた羽子板市にも出店した。

 羽子板は、押し絵をつくる「押し絵師」と面相(顔)を描く「面相師」による合作だ。面相師が歌舞伎の名場面を下図にして、押し絵師がボール紙を型 取る。その後、パーツ分けされた型に綿を入れ、あでやかな布を張り、パーツを組み合わせて、最後に描いた顔を組んで完成させる。

 もともとは、押し絵師として50年以上の職人歴をもつ原島さんの父、秀夫さんが切り盛りしてきた。15年ほど前までは他の職人が描いた面相を使っ ていたが、後継者不足もあって面相の入手が困難に。そこで、原島さんが面相師として秀夫さんの仕事を手伝い始め、親子二人三脚で羽子板制作を続けてきた。

 そんな中、秀夫さんは2003年4月に69歳で急逝し、羽子板店は存続の危機に。その時、原島さんの頭には、多くの職人が被害を受けた1995年の羽子板市の火災のことがよぎった。

 「職人の意地がある。ここでやめるわけにはいかない」。秀夫さんの当時の言葉だ。

 火事を機に廃業する職人もいたが、秀夫さんはゼロからやり直して次の年には出店にこぎ着けた。「おやじのことを思うと、何とか羽子板づくりは続けなければと思った」


 ただ、面相師としてキャリアを重ねた原島さんも、押し絵師の経験はない。子どもの頃から見てきた父親の仕事ぶりを思い返し、見よう見まねの手探りで取り かかった。試行錯誤の末、04年の正月に自作の羽子板を完成させた。「行き詰まったとき、おやじに相談するつもりで考えていると、まるで後ろから声が聞こ えるようにふっとアイデアが浮かんだ。見守ってくれているんでしょうね」

 喜んでくれる人がいる限り、つくり続けたい。それが原島さんの思いだ。(杉崎慎弥)

2009年12月28日 星期一

Rice in Japan


Rice in Japan

You are what you eat

Dec 17th 2009 | TOCHIKUBO
From The Economist print edition

Can a country as modern as Japan cling onto a culture as ancient as rice?


Caroline Irby

IN EARLY autumn a pilgrimage of sorts takes place in Japan. People ride the bullet train from Tokyo, pass through a long tunnel in the mountains west of the capital and emerge in Niigata, one of the richest rice-growing regions in the country. They travel to see the harvest, which takes place as the leaves on the trees are turning red and the chestnuts start to fall. But it is not as bucolic as it could be, because Japan’s love of rice is matched only by its attachment to concrete. On one mountain, where you look out over a breathtaking patchwork of ripe paddy fields, an observation tower looms over the valley like Godzilla.

The Japanese can see through such eyesores, however, because the rice fields hold an enduring fascination. For many, they represent a timeless part of Japan’s landscape, history and culture in a country that has transformed itself, not just in the 65 years since the second world war, but in the century and a half since it ended its self-imposed isolation from the world.

Even on a trip to rural Japan, you rarely lose sight of the speed of that change. At a roadside restaurant, there are pictures of the steam train that used to pass by when the proprietress was a young lady. Now there is a bullet train, with seats that swivel parallel to the window, so both passengers can look out on the landscape. In some villages there are still coin-operated threshing machines next to neon coffee-vending machines.

Humility is a virtue the Japanese hold dear: “The heavier the head of rice, the deeper it bows”

In the autumn, almost bare-bottomed men carry o-mikoshi, portable shrines, through the back streets of the capital to give thanks for the harvest—although these days it is a salary they are grateful for. And the fashion-conscious have antennae attuned to the changing seasons: on one day in autumn the bejewelled high heels of summer were all gone, as if by magic. The women had changed into boots.

This awareness of time is closely associated with a rice-growing calendar that has helped to shape Japan’s identity since paddy fields were first dug from the landscape about 2,400 years ago. The Japanese take great pride in the quality, taste and stickiness of their rice. After each harvest each farmer’s crop is checked by gruff inspectors with magnifying glasses screwed to their eyes. They shake 1,000 grains of rice into a saucer (the number that fit on the bottom), and count each imperfect one. Anything below grade two is considered unfit for the table—and the price plummets accordingly.



But the obsession goes deeper yet, as if in the grains of polished rice the Japanese see a reflection of themselves and of their blemishes. Recently, that image has been more troubling than uplifting. Among the many rice-growing nations of Asia, there is none so rich, efficient and modern as Japan. Among grains, few are so steeped in tradition and mystique as rice. Despite a rush to modernity, Japan still clings to its ancient rice culture as if losing it would destroy its soul. Yet its farmers, the keepers of the grain, are literally dying out. Almost half of them are over 65. If they take rice’s rich heritage to the grave, what will that do to Japan?

The journey through the Japanese Alps to Niigata takes you to a land in winter that seems as far away from the hot and swampy business of rice farming as you can imagine. It is “Snow Country”, a place blasted by Siberian winds, whose desolation was best described by the Nobel prize-winning writer, Yasunari Kawabata, in a novel of that name. The winds bring snow over the Sea of Japan (or the East Sea) in winter that piles up so high children toboggan out of their upstairs windows. In the houses, elderly people huddle around electric kotatsu, as the local stoves are called.
Snow Country for old men

The village of Tochikubo sits halfway up a mountain. It is, at first glance, a prosperous-looking place; there are new cars, and an attractive school built after an earthquake damaged the old wooden one five years ago. It has a big playground, which the children make good use of, pedalling around on monocycles and doing cartwheels. But there is a disconcerting fact about the school. A few decades ago there were 120 pupils. Now there are only 11, of such a variety of ages that they need seven teachers.

The shortage of children is symptomatic of a chronic affliction: young families have abandoned places like Tochikubo, unable to make a living. The hollowing out of such communities is a source of deep anxiety in Japan. Tochikubo is on the brink of genkai shuraku, the ageing precipice when more than half of the community are over 65. It is not quite there yet (40% are over 65), but according to the OECD, 18,775 such communities will lose their traditional character over the next decade. Will Tochikubo be one?

In one of the village’s farmhouses, 101-year-old Sadayoshi Fueki, the oldest man in the community, counts on his gnarled fingers the number of households that have moved out in the last decade. Twenty-five. He speaks sadly of the absence of children. It feels like the time in the second world war when all the men of fighting age were shipped out.
Caroline Irby

What is worse, no one has a clue what to do about it. Ask Akira Fueki, president of the local farming co-operative, how to reverse the abandonment of rural areas, and he pauses for a long time before giving an answer. “It’s a tough life,” he says. “Even those who have grown up in the village don’t want their children to work in the rice fields. My father used to push me to work when I was a child but it’s a harsh memory. You should only work in the fields if you are willing to do so and it’s only when people are over 50 that they are willing.”

It is not just the physical effort that is discouraging. The economics are too. In Tochikubo, each of 60 households owns about one hectare. To avoid overproduction, the government pays them to leave about a third fallow, which means they produce, on average, 40 60kg (132lb) sacks per hectare (2.5 acres). A sack sells for about 20,000 yen ($230). That amounts to a yearly income of only about 800,000 yen, which barely covers the cost of machinery.
101-year-old Sadayoshi Fueki speaks sadly of the absence of children

Yet this rice is among Japan’s best—the snow, it is said, gives the local rice, known as minami uonoma, a particular purity. Surrounded by the stillness of snow, the most productive rice seeds are kept through the winter months in an outside storehouse. The building is so closely associated with the nurturing of new life that mothers traditionally used to go there to give birth.

The melting of this snow in early spring heralds the start of the planting season that has done so much to shape Japanese culture. According to mythology, rice was intimately associated with the creation of Japan. That is because the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, gave grains of rice to one of her descendants, the mythical first emperor Jinmu. His task was to turn Japan into a land of rice. Legend has it that Emperor Akihito, who reigns today, is Jinmu’s 125th direct heir. That makes him Japan’s rice-farmer-in-chief, and each year he harvests a small crop to share with the gods. Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, a Japanese anthropologist and authority on its rice, notes how most countries’ creation myths begin with the birth of the universe. Japan’s are more down to earth, and reflected in its businesslike approach to life today: “It was about the transformation of a wilderness into a land of abundant rice at the command of the Sun Goddess, whose descendants, the emperors, rule the country by officiating at rice rituals.”

As these rituals suggest, the planting of rice has an intimate bearing on Japan’s indigenous religion, Shintoism. The religion makes a virtue of the idea of subordination of self-interest to the well-being of the group. Scholars believe this may stem from the traditional labour-intensity of rice cultivation, in which all members of the village were required to help sow, weed and harvest, and water had to be shared out with scrupulous fairness (even today, two-thirds of Japan’s water goes to its paddies).

Those who did not co-operate risked being shunned, in a chilling village practice known as murahachibu; it could lead to ostracisation of a farmer and his descendants. There may be traces of this in the striking conformity that visitors to Japan notice today. A well-known Japanese expression, “the nail that sticks up will be hammered down”, runs through religion and culture and may reflect attitudes established in the paddies.

As well as customs and morals, rice helped to shape history. For much of the Middle Ages and beyond it was the main unit of taxation. The farmers who produced it were long considered valuable members of society, above merchants in the rigid hierarchy, although below warriors. But if they ate rice, they often had to mix it with millet to make it go further. If the harvest was poor, they sacrificed their own needs to give rice to the taxman.

That meant that rice was a luxury good, served in the elegant rice bowls of the warlords and samurai at the cost of back-breaking work in the fields. But the feudal lords went a stage further. They made something implicitly noble—and quintessentially Japanese—out of rice that begun to be reflected in art, aesthetics, even fashion. Rich women wore representations of rice woven into their 17th-century kimonos.

It was during the Edo era, from about 1600 to 1870, a period of self-imposed isolation in Japanese history, that the rice culture flourished most vividly. Trade along the roads to Edo, now Tokyo, was vigorous. Edo and Osaka hosted rice-futures markets. The area around Tochikubo, now known as Niigata, was one of the most populated parts of Japan because of the quality of its crop.

At that time, Ukiyo-e, or woodblock prints, were in fashion. Ms Ohnuki-Tierney notes that the prints depict the rice paddies in beautiful detail. They represent an unchanging “primordial Japanese landscape”, she says. The people in the foreground travelling to and from Edo are far more transitory.

Over the centuries rice became so embedded in Japanese culture that it helped to reinforce a sense of national identity. In the seventh century the emperor Tenmu commissioned the first myth histories of Japan, the Kojiki and Nihonshoki, to explain national origins. As in the story of the Sun Goddess’s grandson, they are replete with rice. They served to reaffirm Japanese identity just as China was influencing it with a writing system and new culture.

But the myths skirted over an awkward historical fact. Rice did not come to Japan from heaven. It came from China and reached Japan via what is now the Korean peninsula in about 400BC, accompanied by lusty Korean farmers who probably went on to populate Japan, outbreeding the indigenous Jomon hunter-gatherers. Even today, the Japanese are reluctant to acknowledge they may have Korean roots.

As Japan entered the modern era, rice once again burnished Japan with a sense of itself. The Edo period ended with Commodore Perry’s Black Ships parked off eastern Japan in the early 1850s, threatening to blast open its borders with American cannons. Sumo wrestlers were made to carry heavy sacks of rice to show the Americans their strength.

But the country was not strong enough compared with the strapping Americans. So Japan set to feeding up its people. Women were lured to factory work by the promise of three bowls of rice a day. Soldiers in the second world war were given bento boxes of rice with a plum in the middle to symbolise the rising sun.

It was not until the 1960s, however, that everyone had as much rice as they wanted, and at that stage, farmers recall, the landscape changed. Bulldozers made rice paddies squarer and flatter, which let farmers use combine harvesters, increasing productivity. Pesticides and artificial fertilisers improved yields.

These were glorious times for farmers, whose mission was to return Japan to rice self-sufficiency. It coincided with Japan’s industrial renaissance, and with a rising demand for labour in factories that were beginning to lead the world in production of high-tech goods. Yukie Kuwabara, who travels around the rice fields she has farmed for the past 50 years on a motorised scooter, recalls how her sons left Tochikubo to work as “salarymen”. That helped generate cash, which was then scarce in the village, to buy machinery for the family farm.
Heart of rice

But it all came at a cost, she laments. The more the young left the villages, the more they were gripped by the fever of modernisation. Even as rice crops grew, Japanese people were eating less rice. They turned increasingly to bread and meat, much of it imported. Today each Japanese consumes, on average, about 60kg of rice a year, roughly half the amount of the early 1960s. Self-sufficiency in rice quickly turned to surplus, and from the 1970s onwards the government has paid people not to produce. In a country that had always yearned for more rice, farmers suddenly felt that, like their crops, they were superfluous.

Not disdained, however. Tetsuhiro Yamaguchi is a young restaurateur in Tokyo who believes that the “spirit of rice” is part of the Japanese DNA. He is doing his best to keep it alive. His restaurant, Kokoromai (Heart of Rice), has more than ten types of rice on the menu, which bubble on his stove in clay cooking pots. He lists the farms from which each sort comes.
Caroline Irby The glorious days for farmers are long gone

Like wine-tasting, he makes the rice-eating experience a touch theatrical. In his darkened restaurant, the rice sits in the pots it has been cooked in. It is surrounded by small earthenware dishes of sashimi. He kneels and lifts the lids. The steam wafts across the table. The polished rice gleams, pearl-like. “Rice is the backdrop, like the stage in a theatre. It needs stars and characters—that is where the sashimi comes in,” he murmurs.

He is far from being the only Japanese to turn lyrical over rice. The whiteness is like the soul, people say; it should not even be stained with soy sauce. Its relationship with fish reflects a shared provenance: water. Rice is part of the concept of harmony and communality that the Japanese hold so dear. It is the only dish that is shared from a common bowl. A famous proverb written about rice serves as a metaphor for humility, a virtue the Japanese hold dear: “The heavier the head of rice, the deeper it bows.”

For all the lyricism, many Japanese are also disturbingly nationalistic over the foodstuff. They ignore the fact that rice, in various forms, is eaten by 3 billion people across Asia, and that the reverence for it is shared by many cultures. Mr Yamaguchi would never serve foreign rice. Why not? “Japanese bodies are made from rice,” he says. “The Japanese people should only eat rice grown in Japan.”

Such perceptions hold sway at the national level, and governments have done little to change them. That helps explain the extraordinary protectionism in Japanese agriculture. The Japanese may grumble at how taxes are used to support farmers. But it is not just farmers who resist free trade. In polls, ordinary people say that they are opposed to imports, even if prices would drop. The irony is that if the government did not protect farmers quite so assiduously, then lower prices might encourage people to eat more rice.

But Japanese agriculture is paralysed, the farmers unable to think clearly, as if fearing that if market forces were unleashed, paddies would be forever lost, changing both the landscape and the traditional orderliness of the Japanese psyche. It need not be like that. Hearteningly, in villages such as Tochikubo a small flame of private enterprise is being lit. On a Sunday morning in October, 35 students, environmentalists and businessmen, as well as a couple of foreigners, gathered in Tochikubo with sickles in hand to harvest something very rare in Japan: an organic rice field. They cut the stalks, bound them with straw and hung them on iron poles to dry in the autumn sun. Then, adopting the age-old thriftiness common to farmers worldwide, they gleaned every inch of the paddy for the last grains.

It could all have been done much more quickly by combine harvester. And the villagers were bemused to see city folk trying to twist rice into sheaves as if they were 18th-century peasants. But there was a sense of purpose to the shared endeavour, and the farmers sold their rice to the visitors for good prices—as well as charging them for the privilege of toiling.

“It’s rare to find people in their 60s and 70s trying to be entrepreneurs. But there’s only us left,” said Mr Fueki, the co-operative president. That is the sort of spirit rice-growing needs, and there are faint signs of it emerging in parcels of land across Japan. Farmers say that using their initiative lets them bring enthusiasm back to a job that is in danger of becoming as depressingly obsolete as Soviet-style collective farming. If farmers—for so long part of the Japanese bone marrow—recover some self-esteem, perhaps Japan might too.

2009年12月22日 星期二

為什麼我們必須反共抗馬

為什麼我們必須反共抗馬--本周周三23日起停刊數日--版主在某新聞管制之國家

2009年12月21日 星期一

Farming : A growth industry

Weekend: A growth industry

BY HIROMI KUMAI

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

2009/10/23


Farming has caught on among young people over the past year or two. Despite the hard work required to produce rice or vegetables, more than a few outsiders find themselves drawn to the challenge, seeing in it a chance to do something uniquely one's own.

Nahoko Takahashi, 28, has been running Girls Farm in Murayama, Yamagata Prefecture, since April. The women grow about 30 crops, including tomatoes and pumpkins.

During a tomato harvest in August, Takahashi issued instructions as she and two staff members cut the tomatoes with scissors: "Feel how hard they are. Don't just look at the color."

The two staffers, Yoshiko Nasuno, 27, and Satoko Tanaka, 25, are beginners at farm work. Nahoko's father Katsuhiro, 59, is on hand to teach them how to use farm implements and spread fertilizer.

The tomatoes were packed in boxes which were covered with wrapping paper designed by Tanaka, who studied at an art college.

"We went to a lot of trouble to grow these tomatoes," Nahoko said. "I want them to look cute."

The women work from sunup to sundown for a mere 140,000 yen a month. The payment is 100,000 yen in Takahashi's case. Theoretically they are entitled to take one day off a week, but during the busy season taking time off is not easy.

Plans are under way for a food processing operation to take up the winter months.

Nahoko's grandparents were against her taking up farming, saying that it does not make money.

But she went ahead anyway and began working with her father right after graduating from university in 2004.

Her initial goal was to make a living exclusively from agriculture, but her monthly income of 50,000 yen was discouraging. It drove her at one point to teaching high school part time.

It was around then that she met Ganari Takahashi, 50, who runs Kunitachi Farm.

Three years ago Ganari left a company producing adult videos to work in food and farming.

He now heads the restaurant business. The vegetables he serves were either supplied by farms under contract or grown by his Kunitachi Farm staff on about 60 ares of land purchased in Chiba Prefecture.

Two years ago, Nahoko Takahashi attended a lecture given by Ganari Takahashi and found herself inspired.

She started the Girls Farm as a Yamagata branch of Kunitachi Farm, leasing land from a neighboring township and a work shed from her family.

She was determined to farm "in an economically viable way in an individual style."

The vegetables she and her team harvest are shipped to the Kunitachi Farm restaurant and other clients. Though she says she's about a million yen in debt this year, she aims to be in the black within three years.

Advice for novices

This past summer saw the publication of a spate of books offering tips and encouragement to would-be farmers. Among them are "Nogyo Yaro-ze" (Come on, let's farm!) and "Ima koso Nogyo o Hajimeru" (Now's the time to start farming), from Takarajimasha and Ikaros Publications, respectively.

July saw the debut of the agricultural quarterly Agrizm, published by Agricultural Communications Co. and edited by Masachika Ogihara, a 30-year-old farmer.

Ogihara grows rice, wheat and other crops on a large farm in Tomi, Nagano Prefecture.

"I want to present agriculture as both cool and profitable," he said. "For my part, I plan to be still farming 10 years from now."

According to a farm ministry survey of people taking up farming for the first time, 8,400 were employed by corporate farms or large-scale farmers as of April this year.

Among them, 5,530 were 39 years-old or younger, up 34 percent from the previous year. The increase is all the more dramatic given that the overall number of new farmers nationwide fell by 13,000 to 60,000 from the year before.

But getting into farming is, for a beginner, no easy matter.

Ganari Takahashi's farm in Chiba Prefecture hired a dozen or so people keen to work the land. None could stick it out. Many gave up after failing to develop effective management plans.

It takes time to learn the techniques involved in cultivating crops with a long production cycle. Because family farms are still the norm, newcomers still find it hard to acquire the needed skills.

Corporate farms, which place value on teaching novice farmers, emerged in part to fill the gap.

Top River, for example, is a corporate farm in Miyota, Nagano Prefecture, whose president Hideki Shimazaki, 50, has a business philosophy of teaching motivated young people, even if they have no land, funds or skills, to cultivate high-demand vegetables.

The first seven days the novices work for no pay. A three-month training period follows, with trainees earning 5,000 yen a day, under the system.

The successful trainee can then become a company employee, with the potential to earn several million yen a year after five or six years, depending on how hard one works.

"The point is to change participants' attitudes towards farming and revitalize agriculture," Shimazaki said.

Is the trend of people taking up farming merely a passing fad?

Kichinori Kon, chief editor of monthly magazine "Nogyo Keieisha" (Farm manager) from Agricultural Communications and a long-time observer of the agricultural scene, said: "Circumstances are not all that great for people who want to take up farming. But there is significance in having people engage in agriculture, even though there is always going to be some who fail."(IHT/Asahi: October 23,2009)

2009年12月19日 星期六

Doubts Grow in Japan About Premier



Doubts Grow in Japan About Premier Amid Money Scandal


Published: December 18, 2009

TOKYO — Japan’s prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, will soon offer written testimony to prosecutors saying that he had no direct role in a campaign finance scandal that has dogged his fledgling government, according to Japanese newspapers. But while he is widely expected to survive the scandal, analysts say it has helped feed doubts among some voters about his leadership.

There is now talk in Tokyo that voters may be showing signs of cooling toward Mr. Hatoyama’s government, which swept into power three months ago with pledges for fundamental change in Japan’s postwar order. While Mr. Hatoyama’s approval ratings remain high, they are starting to slip amid growing questions about his leadership and his ability to manage this long-stagnant nation, analysts said.

“Every day, he seems to say and do something different,” said Minoru Morita, a political commentator who runs an independent research organization in Tokyo. “This is starting to shake the people’s confidence in him.”

Most voters still appeared to be willing to give Mr. Hatoyama and his Democratic Party more time to deliver on their promises to rein in the powerful bureaucracy and build a more consumer-focused economy. But political experts warned that a failure to show results in crucial areas like reviving Japan’s moribund job market could lead to a rapid erosion of support.

At first, voters seemed not to be much bothered by the financial scandal because much of the money came from Mr. Hatoyama or his mother, a wealthy heiress. But now, analysts say, it is precisely that explanation that is starting to cool public opinion of the prime minister. By highlighting the considerable wealth of his family, the scandal is starting to raise doubts about how in touch he is with the worsening economic plight of average Japanese.

According to reports in Japanese newspapers, Mr. Hatoyama will soon deliver a written statement to Tokyo prosecutors in which he will deny knowledge of some $4 million in donations that prosecutors say were improperly reported, sometimes in the names of dead people. The reports say he will also tell prosecutors that he did not know of millions of dollars more that his group received from his mother. Mr. Hatoyama’s office said it had no knowledge of the statement.

The reports said that prosecutors were considering whether to charge one of Mr. Hatoyama’s former political secretaries for misreporting the funds, but that they would not charge the prime minister with a crime.

Still, just the fact that Mr. Hatoyama could get mired in such a campaign finance scandal has already hurt his credibility as a reformer, analysts say.

Polls show that Mr. Hatoyama’s approval ratings are slipping from their highs of more than 70 percent after he took office in September. A poll released Monday by Japan’s national public broadcasting corporation, NHK, found that 56 percent of 1,111 voters questioned by telephone from Dec. 11 to 13 said they approved of him, with 34 percent saying they did not approve. The poll gave no margin of error, as is customary here.

The credibility of Mr. Hatoyama’s government suffered another blow this week when members of his Democratic Party decided to shelve plans to eliminate an unpopular tax on gasoline. The party said the money was needed to help offset Japan’s soaring national debt.

In recent weeks, major newspapers and magazines have pilloried Mr. Hatoyama for inconsistent comments on whether to renegotiate a 2006 deal to relocate an American air base on Okinawa. Criticisms reached a new pitch after Mr. Hatoyama decided Tuesday to postpone indefinitely a decision on the base.

2009年12月18日 星期五

At Japanese Cliffs, a Campaign to Combat Suicide

At Japanese Cliffs, a Campaign to Combat Suicide

Torin Boyd/Polaris for The New York Times

Yukio Shige, a 65-year-old former policeman, has spend his five years since retirement on a mission to stop those who go to the cliffs of Tojimbo from jumping.


Published: December 17, 2009

SAKAI, Japan — The towering cliffs of Tojimbo, with their sheer drops into the raging, green Sea of Japan, are a top tourist destination, but Yukio Shige had no interest in the rugged scenery. Instead, he walked along the rocky crags searching for something else: a lone human figure, usually sitting hunched at the edge of the precipice.

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Health Guide: Suicide and Suicidal Behavior

Torin Boyd/Polaris for The New York Times

A telephone booth near the Tojimbo cliffs had a sign with a number that distressed people could call for help.

The New York Times

Tojimbo, in Fukui Prefecture, is a top tourist destination.

That is one of the telltale signs in people drawn here by Tojimbo’s other, less glorious, distinction as one of the best known places to kill oneself in Japan, one of the world’s most suicide-prone nations. Mr. Shige, a 65-year-old former policeman, has spent his five years since retirement on a mission to stop those who come here from jumping.

His efforts have helped draw attention to the grim fact that Japan’s suicide rate is again on the rise. Police figures show that the number of suicides this year could approach the country’s record high of 34,427, reached in 2003, almost 95 suicides a day. The World Health Organization says that people in Japan are now almost three times as likely to kill themselves as are Americans.

Mr. Shige and a group of volunteers he put together have saved 222 people so far, a tally that has made Mr. Shige a national figure in a country that often seems apathetic about its high rate of self-destruction. But he has also met with criticism from a conformist society that can look dimly on people who draw attention by engaging in activism, even of the most humanitarian kind.

“In Japan, we say the nail that sticks up gets hammered down,” said Mr. Shige, who says he started the patrols after he grew angry at inaction by local authorities. “But I’ll keep sticking up. I tell them, hit me if you can!”

In part, public health experts blame Japan’s romanticized image of suicide as an honorable escape, going back to ritual self-disembowelment by medieval samurai, for the high suicide rate. But the main cause, they say, is the nation’s long economic decline. Suicides first surged to their recent high levels in 1998, when traditional lifetime employment guarantees began to vanish, and they have remained high as salaries and job security continued to erode.

The situation has worsened during the recent global financial crisis, which is driving this year’s increase, experts say. While Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, in his first policy speech in October, referred to Japan’s suicide rate in calling for “mutual support” among Japanese, experts say the government’s limited steps to deal with suicide have made little difference.

While preventing suicides is a universally difficult task, it is particularly challenging in Japan. Depression remains a taboo topic here, making it hard for those most at risk to seek the help of family and friends. Many Japanese view suicide as an issue of private choice rather than public health, and there are few efforts to highlight the problem.

“Americans raise awareness with grass-roots action, but Japanese just wait for the government to take care of them,” said Yoshitomo Takahashi, a professor of behavioral science who researches suicide at the National Defense Medical College in Tokorozawa, Japan.

Officials in Sakai, the small city in Fukui Prefecture, where Tojimbo is located, have installed outdoor lighting at the cliffs along with two pay phones and plenty of the 10-yen coins needed to dial up the national suicide hot line.

Nevertheless, city officials call this the grimmest year on record, with the police saying they know of more than 140 people who came here intending to commit suicide, twice the average in recent years. Most of them were stopped by the police or nearby tourists, or decided not to jump for other reasons, the police say.

The police figure does not include the 54 people this year whom Mr. Shige says he and his group have stopped. City officials credit Mr. Shige with helping keep the number of deaths here down to 13 so far this year, about the same as the 15 suicides last year.

Mr. Shige says his approach to stopping suicides is quite simple: when he finds a likely person, he walks up and gently begins a conversation. The person, usually a man, quickly breaks down in tears, happy to find someone to listen to his problems.

“They are just sitting there, alone, hoping someone will talk to them,” Mr. Shige said.

As an officer stationed at Tojimbo at the end of his 42-year career, he said he was appalled by all the bodies he had to pluck out of the sea. He said he once stopped an elderly couple from Tokyo from jumping and turned them over to city officials who he said gave them money and told them to buy a ticket to the next town. Days later he received a letter from the couple, mailed just before they committed suicide in a neighboring prefecture.

“The authorities’ coldness outraged me,” said Mr. Shige, whose cellphone rings to the tune of “Amazing Grace,” though he is not religious. He now has 77 volunteers patrolling the cliffs and providing food, lodging and assistance in finding work to those it helps. He said they tried to patrol two or three times a day.

On a recent afternoon, Mr. Shige checked three of the most popular sites for jumpers — all with drops of at least 70 feet. He said the loners were easy to spot because most visitors moved in groups behind flag-waving guides. Speaking through bullhorns, the guides loudly describe the morbid fame of the cliffs, which were named for an evil Buddhist monk who was said to have fallen to his death there.

One of those whom Mr. Shige stopped was Yutaka Yamaoka, 29, a factory worker who tried to commit suicide last year after being laid off. Mr. Yamaoka visited Mr. Shige’s tiny office by the cliffs on a recent day to thank him and tell him that he had found a job.

When Mr. Shige found him last year, Mr. Yamaoka said, he was sitting silently near the cliffs clutching his knees. He said Mr. Shige spoke with him for two hours, then allowed him to stay in an apartment rent free for a month until he felt better.

“I felt saved. I felt I could live,” recalled Mr. Yamaoka, who spoke haltingly in a barely audible voice. “My feelings of panic and unease just built up. I had no one to talk with.”

Mr. Shige’s efforts have stirred local resentment, particularly from a local tourist association that says his activities are bad for business. But Mr. Shige is not easily deterred.

“I will continue until the government finally gets its act together and takes over,” he said. “I can’t let their inaction cost another precious life.”

2009年12月10日 星期四

県花き品評会/茶業指導制度「T―GAP」

茶業指導制度「T―GAP」 普及に向け説明会 

2009/12/10
  本県茶業界がより良い茶業経営のための指導制度として生産現場への導入を目指す「T―GAP(ティーギャップ)」の普及に向けた取り組みが本格的に始まっ た。県内のJA茶技術員を対象に開かれた9日の説明会を皮切りに、今後も生産者向けの説明会が順次開催される予定。年度内にもT―GAPの承認を受ける生 産者を誕生させたい考えだ。
 9日に島田市金谷のお茶の郷で開かれた説明会には営農指導を担当するJA茶技術員約100人が集まった。講師を務め たのはT―GAPの開発メンバーでNPO法人日本GAP協会の宮原義博さん。T―GAPの基本的な仕組みや導入のメリット、評価方法などを解説し、「食の 安全確保だけでなく、環境への配慮や労働保全などを含めた持続可能な農業経営を目指す制度」と強調。茶技術員の果たす役割が重要になるとの認識を示した。
 県西部の茶技術員は「生産者が安全性などを再認識し、ステップアップを図るためには必要な取り組み」と前向きな姿勢を見せた。
 T―GAPは静岡茶の生産工程の管理を徹底し、ブランド力を向上させるのが狙い。県茶業会議所、県、県内JAグループが一体となって進める。JA静岡経済連は「3年間で県内すべての荒茶工場を対象に取り組みたい」(茶業課)としている。


****

県花き品評会特別賞に34点

花を買い求める人たちでにぎわう会場

 県花き品評会が9日、津市北河路町の「メッセウイング・みえ」で開かれ、花きの審査会や販売が行われた。

 品評会は、県や県花植木振興会などが、栽培技術や品質の向上とともに、PRして消費拡大を図る目的で年2回開催している。県内の生産者が丹精込め て栽培した色鮮やかなシクラメンなどの鉢植えや、シンビジウムなどの洋ラン、観葉植物など180点を出品。花の形や美しさ、バランスなどを審査し、5部門 で特別賞34点が選ばれた。

 生産者による販売では、約3000点の花がずらりと並び、甘い香りが漂う中、市場価格より2~3割安いとあって、買い求める大勢の人たちでにぎ わった。また、伊勢茶品評会で入賞した茶の紹介や煎茶(せんちゃ)などの販売も同時に実施された。花きなどの販売は10日も午前9時から午後3時まで行わ れる。

2009年12月10日 読売新聞)

2009年12月9日 星期三

Suzuki, Volkswagen agree to capital tie-up

Suzuki, Volkswagen agree to capital tie-up

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

2009/12/9


Suzuki Motor Corp. announced Wednesday it has agreed to a capital tie-up with German giant Volkswagen AG.

The move would create the world's largest automobile-producing alliance.

Under the agreement, Volkswagen will purchase 19.9 percent of Suzuki's issued shares while Suzuki will purchase a stake in Volkswagen with a maximum of 50 percent of the sum paid by the German carmaker, Suzuki officials said.

Volkswagen has shown a keen interest in tying up with Suzuki, which has a strong foothold in the Asian market, particularly India, according to industry watchers. For its part, Suzuki is hoping to take advantage of Volkswagen's edge in environmental technology, they said.

The production output of such a partnership would eclipse current industry leader Toyota Motor Corp.

Between January and October Volkswagen sold 5.32 million vehicles, compared with 1.91 million units for Suzuki. With combined sales of 7.23 million vehicles, the alliance would overtake Toyota, which sold 6.36 million vehicles during the same period.

A marriage between the companies would create a group uniquely poised to capitalize on demand in emerging economies. Volkswagen has a strong presence in the Chinese and Brazilian markets, while Suzuki boasts a roughly 50 percent share of India's passenger car market.

Suzuki, which has its roots in a weaving loom manufacturer established in 1920, reigned as the nation's top maker of minicars, with engine displacements of up to 660cc, between fiscal 1973 and fiscal 2005. It relinquished the top position to Daihatsu Motor Co. in fiscal 2006.

In 1981, Suzuki forged a capital tie-up with General Motors Corp., with the latter at one point holding a 20-percent stake. However, with the sharp fall in auto sales following the global financial crisis beginning in the fall of last year, GM sold all of its shares back to Suzuki by the end of 2008.

Last week, GM and Suzuki announced they would dissolve a manufacturing joint venture in Canada, further weakening ties between the companies.

Suzuki has also fallen behind its competitors in the development of eco-friendly vehicles. The company had been searching for a partner to share the high costs of developing technology from scratch, but with little success.

Fierce competition in the auto industry, particularly in the fields of eco car development and low-priced vehicles for emerging economies, has prompted other automakers to seek out possible alliances.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. has been wooing PSA Peugeot Citroen for a possible capital injection.

Suzuki reported consolidated net sales of 3.005 trillion yen in the business year ending March 2009, and a net profit of 27.4 billion yen. As of the end of March the company had 50,613 employees.

Volkswagen, established in 1937 as a state-operated manufacturer, had net sales of 113.8 billion euros (about 14.8 trillion yen) in the business year ending in December 2008, and a net profit of 4.6 billion euros. As of the end of September, the company had about 367,000 employees.(IHT/Asahi: December 9,2009)

小林一茶

俳句会 チラシに一茶の名前あり 版木を発見、選者に

2009年12月9日5時16分


写真:版木を見つけた奈良大の永井一彰教授=奈良市の奈良大、森井英二郎撮影版木を見つけた奈良大の永井一彰教授=奈良市の奈良大、森井英二郎撮影

写真:小林一茶らが選者となった俳句興行のチラシを刷るために使われた版木=奈良市の奈良大、森井英二郎撮影小林一茶らが選者となった俳句興行のチラシを刷るために使われた版木=奈良市の奈良大、森井英二郎撮影

写真:小林一茶らが選者となった俳句興行のチラシの版木(上)。下は、版木を印刷したもの=奈良市の奈良大、森井英二郎撮影小林一茶らが選者となった俳句興行のチラシの版木(上)。下は、版木を印刷したもの=奈良市の奈良大、森井英二郎撮影

図:  

 江戸時代の俳人・小林一茶(1763~1827)らが選者を務めた俳句の興行「発句合(ほっくあわせ)」への参加を募るチラシを刷った版木1枚が、見つ かった。奈良大学(奈良市)が8日、発表した。確認した同大学の永井一彰(かずあき)・文学部教授(近世国文学)によると、一茶に関する版木が見つかるの は珍しいという。

 発句合は、江戸~明治時代に庶民の娯楽として各地で開かれた。採点のための参加料を払って俳句を投稿し、優秀作に選ばれた句は神社に奉納されたり、投稿者に景品が贈られたりした。

 版木は縦19センチ、横29センチ、厚さ1.8センチ。永井教授が3月、京都市の古美術商で見つけた。選者として、誹諧字(はいかいじ)一茶(小 林一茶)、八巣蕉雨(はっそうしょうう)、八日庵(ようかあん)万和ら当時の著名な俳諧の宗匠(師匠)7人の名前が記されている。一茶の別名の庵号(あん ごう)は「誹諧寺」で、誤って「誹諧字」と書かれていた。参加料は38文(現在の約1200円)で、募集数は1万2千句。季語を指定しない「乱題」として いた。

 景品の一つとして1820(文政3)年発刊の俳句集の名前が書かれており、一茶の生存年から考えて、江戸後期の1820年代に催された興行のチラ シとみている。また、主催者や補佐役の名前の上に「越後魚沼郡」「信州」の地名があり、新潟や長野で配られたらしい。優秀作の景品は他に、長野県上田地方 で生産された紬(つむぎ)織物「上田縞(じま)」などがあった。

 永井教授は「発句合は宗匠にとって重要な収入源だった。文学だけでなく、生活の点からも一茶の活動を考える上で貴重な資料だ」と話す。(土居新平)

2009年12月1日 星期二

Sharp's New Plant Reinvents Japan Manufacturing Model

夏普於2009年11月30日向媒體公開了正在大阪府界市建設的
液晶面板和太陽能電池面板生產基地“夏普綠色前線界”(Sharp Green Front Sakai)。夏普在公開部分生產基地的同時,還舉行了說明會…


Sharp's New Plant Reinvents Japan Manufacturing Model

By DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI

OSAKA—Sharp Corp.'s new production complex in western Japan is massive by any measure: It cost $11 billion to build and covers enough land to occupy 32 baseball stadiums. But it carries a meaning as large as its physical size. It's a litmus test for the future of Japanese high-tech manufacturing.

The facility, considered the most expensive manufacturing site ever built in Japan, started churning out liquid-crystal display panels last month, and Sharp's new flagship televisions featuring the energy-efficient LCD panels go on sale in the U.S. next month. Sharp moved forward the factory's planned opening by six months, saying the new plant would help it be more competitive.

Sharp

Sharp's new facility in Sakai city is considered the most expensive manufacturing site ever built in Japan.

"When you look to the next 10 or 20 years, the existing industrial model doesn't have a future," Toshihige Hamano, Sharp's executive vice president in charge of the Sakai facility, said in an interview. "We had to change the very concept of how to run a factory."

Located in Sakai city along Osaka prefecture's waterfront, the complex represents Japanese industry's biggest gamble in LCD panels to remain competitive with rivals from South Korea, Taiwan, and China.

The factory's size accommodates two main factors. One is the size of the glass used to make the LCDs. Sharp is using the industry's biggest, or "10th generation," sheets, which allow the company to produce 18 40-inch LCD panels from a single substrate—more than double the eight 40-inch panels per sheet it uses at its other LCD television panel-making factory.

The other factor: Sharp has decided to try and cut costs by moving suppliers on site, a kind of hyper-"just-in-time" delivery system.

The plant currently employs 2,000 people—roughly half from Sharp and half from its suppliers—although the work force will ultimately reach 5,000 as it adds production of solar panels as well.

It remains to be seen whether it makes sense for Sharp to keep seeking ever more-sophisticated production in Japan, or, as competitors have, to simply use less advanced production techniques at lower costs in places like China.

CLSA research analyst Atul Goyal warned in a report last month that the company is making a mistake by "chasing technology" with the new factory.

In the past, such efforts by Japanese electronics makers have resulted in costly capital investments, only to be confronted with limited appetite for cutting-edge technology and then eventually outflanked by a cheaper alternative.

[SHARP]

Even Sharp's Mr. Hamano acknowledged that the company only gave the green light to proceed during a boom period for LCD-panel demand, and that a similar choice might not be made in today's market.

Rival Samsung Electronics Co. has said it is looking into building a new LCD-panel factory using even bigger glass sheets than Sharp, while LG Display Co. has said it plans to build a new factory in China using current glass size.

Sharp announced the Sakai project two years ago when LCD demand was surging and the company had produced five straight years of record profit. When consumer spending ground to a halt in late 2008, Sharp didn't cut costs and curb production quickly enough. Saddled with excess inventory, Sharp posted the first annual loss in nearly 60 years in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009.

The experience taught Sharp a painful lesson that its supply chain needed to be leaner and its production more efficient, especially if the factory was going to be in Japan, where the strong yen and expensive labor force put the company at a disadvantage to its Asian competitors.

Sharp aims to streamline the costly LCD-panel production process by moving 17 outside suppliers and service providers inside its factory walls to work as "one virtual company."

In the past, Sharp kept suppliers within driving distance. Now they are all within the same facility. Supplies are sent not by truck from a nearby factory but by automated trolleys snaking from one building to another.

The suppliers, which include Asahi Glass Co. and Dai Nippon Printing Co., built and paid for their own facilities and are renting the land from Sharp.

Despite their location inside the plant, Sharp says its suppliers are permitted to sell their products to other companies.

At Sakai, Sharp has also linked its computer systems with suppliers so an order to the factory alerts suppliers right away. In the past, Sharp would email or call suppliers and place orders, creating a longer lag time.

Sharp wouldn't disclose how much, if any, cost savings will result from manufacturing LCD panels at Sakai, but analysts estimate a 5% to 10% savings.

Corning Inc. the world's largest maker of LCD glass substrates, built a factory next to Sharp's Sakai plant. Corning says the arrangement reduced total order cycle time from an average of one to two weeks to a matter of hours. Corning also says the proximity reduced the damage risk in transporting massive glass sheets on trucks.

While Sharp is a long-standing customer, Corning said it was concerned initially that building a factory on site would mean that it was "hitching its wagon" to Sharp since it's the only customer for such large glass substrates. Ultimately, Corning decided to proceed based on its faith in Sharp's Sakai plans.

"There's nothing like it anywhere," said James Clappin, president of Corning Display Technologies.

Write to Daisuke Wakabayashi at Daisuke.Wakabayashi@wsj.com

Hatoyama apologizes for donation scandal

Japan's leader apologizes for donation scandal

PROBE DOGS PRIME MINISTER
Family linked to fake campaign contributions



By Blaine Harden
Tuesday, December 1, 2009

TOKYO -- For politicians in Japan, the road to scandal usually winds through construction companies, defense contractors or a mistress. For newly elected Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, the road leads to his mother, an octogenarian heiress.

Prosecutors have traced about $10.4 million that Yasuko Hatoyama, 87, gave to her son over a five-year period ending in 2008, sources in the investigation have told major news outlets in Japan. Some of that money was reportedly funneled into fake campaign donations, listed as coming from dead people or from people who never contributed.

Hatoyama apologized Monday in parliament for the donations scandal, but suggested that he will remain prime minister unless he is prosecuted.

"In light of the decision to be made by law enforcement authorities, I would like to fulfill my duties," he said. "If there were any contributions by my mother, I will take appropriate action according to the law."

The investigation is hurting Hatoyama's credibility with the public, although so far it has found no evidence showing his direct involvement in illegal activity. Hatoyama's mother might soon be questioned by prosecutors, but she has not been named as a suspect.

In a weekend poll, three-quarters of respondents said they were dissatisfied with Hatoyama's vague explanations for the donations. Last week, when reporters asked him about money from mother, he said that he was "wondering what was going on without me knowing about it" and that he was "very surprised by it all."

Hatoyama became prime minister in September, after his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won a historic landslide in an election that halted 54 years of near-continuous dominance by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).


The LDP had become deeply unpopular, in part because of a long history of campaign-finance scandals among party elders. Hatoyama promised that his party would break up the cozy triangle of back-scratching and payoffs among bureaucrats, politicians and big business.

That promise continues to resonate with the public, and approval ratings for Hatoyama's government remain well above 60 percent. But a steady drip of leaks from the Tokyo prosecutor's office about fundraising improprieties -- allegedly involving Hatoyama family money -- is beginning to push up his disapproval ratings, which jumped three percentage points in the past month, to 25 percent.

Hatoyama, 62, a Stanford-trained engineer and grandson of a prime minister, comes from an immensely wealthy and influential family. He and his brother, also a politician, grew up in a European-style family palace in Tokyo and are believed to have assets of at least $100 million.

Their mother, Yasuko, is the eldest daughter of the founder of Bridgestone Corp., the world's largest tire manufacturer.

Questions about family money in fundraising have dogged Hatoyama since early summer when, as a candidate for prime minister, he admitted that a fundraising aide had reported fake campaign donations using the names of dead people and others. That aide has resigned and appears likely to be prosecuted.

In a public show of contrition for that scandal, Hatoyama apologized in June and said he was correcting campaign reports as he became aware of improprieties.

Since then, the prosecution's investigation has broadened as the amount of allegedly fake donations has jumped from $250,000 to about $4 million. According to leaks from the investigation, which have appeared almost daily in the past week in Japan's leading newspapers, about a third of the fake donations came from Hatoyama's mother. Most of the rest of the falsified donations have been traced back to the Hatoyama family's asset-management company.

As new allegations have become public, Hatoyama has frequently declined to comment. Once the official inquiry is complete, he told parliament Monday, he will give the public a full explanation.