January 6
A question for any gardeners out there: When you vacuum or sweep or whatever, you end up with some collectible house dust. The usual is to throw it out. But if you collected it (for example, if your vacuum cleaner packs it all in a disposable paper bag for you), would it work the same as peat moss as a good starter medium for seeds? It has bit of human skin and all kinds of other things in it, but the main thing it has going for it is that, like an old sock, it will hold some water but drain out most of it. So you could put it in a pot, plant the seed, and just water as appropriate. Yes, it is the “wrong” color, but that’s not an issue. Would it work? Is it okay/appropriate to just pile the dust bunnies to the pot where you are growing stuff? Or is there some reason, for example it packs too tightly and the seed cannot sprout, not to do this?
February 5
Interesting bit of back and forth in the Diet today. The opposition has been pressing Abe about his connections to the Moritomo people and what influence he and his wife may or may not have brought to bear in helping them get a sweetheart deal on that land, and today they showed a film clip of his wife saying how much she likes the Moritomo principles and how she wants to do what she can to help. And then they asked Abe if he still denies there is any connection. So what does Abe say? Basically, he said, “she goes to a lot of these ceremonies and things. Says whatever the people want to hear. Doesn’t mean a word of it. Empty lip service every time. Don’t pay any attention to it. Doesn’t mean anything.” Which I mention because there are some people who say she’s a nice lady because she mouths empty platitudes at non-reactionary ceremonies as well.
March 5
Along with doing a little work and trying to get the numbers right on my tax return, I have been reading some more on the efforts to amend or defend the J Constitution and have been following the gun debate in the US. And it occurs to me: Perhaps Article 9 was Japan’s Never Again statement. This “never again” idea is also on the Hiroshima memorial, but Article 9 is very clear on it, even if both are largely ignored.
March 12
As I watch/read all the Moritomo news, I wonder: Where is Kagoike? And why? Hope somebody will ask in the Diet.
March 13
And now for a bit of good news, with apologies that it has to start with bad news. There was a plane crash in Nepal yesterday with many deaths. The news reported all of this and then, typically, commented on how many Japanese were or were not involved. But in doing this, they quoted the Japanese ambassador on the spot as saying there were no Japanese-looking names on the list but he is still checking. Which I took as a nice acknowledgement that there are Japanese who do not have what are traditionally considered Japanese-looking names.
March 19
When Abe says something was done in complete accordance with the law, I really would like it if people would press him to state what provisions of what law he is referring to. Chapter, verse, and read-aloud.
April 3
And in non-Japan news, it is interesting that Trump is criticizing Amazon for not paying taxes. Was not that long ago that a candidate for the presidency said his not paying taxes was proof of how smart he was.
April 16
For his friends, he is a Santa Claus. The rest of us just have to write it off as a Sontaku Loss. Hmmm.
April 29
NHK showed a short clip of a Trump speech that had supporters chanting “No bel, No bel,” and it reminded me of the “belling the cat” story (that Wikipedia says is also known under the titles “The Bell and the Cat” and “The Mice in Council”). No bell. No bell.
May 20
In “Only the Best People” (The New Yorker; May 21, 2018), Evan Osnos writes, “According to Ruch, of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, when environmentalists filed suit to discover if industry lobbyists had influenced a report on Superfund sites, they were told, ‘There are no minutes, no work product, no materials.’ Ruch added, ‘The task-force report was a product of immaculate conception.’ He believes that the Administration is ‘deliberately avoiding creating records.'”
I wish this did not sound so familiar.
May 23
Really would be super-useful if there were a Japanese Literature table somewhere with the name of the work in Japanese, author’s name, title in English, translator’s name, and date the Japanese was published. Yes, I know some things have been translated multiple times. That can be accommodated. Might also want a column for the Japanese title reading for sorting purposes, but that’s optional. Anybody know of such a table?
May 27
If someone is going to admit to lying about a meeting he now says he never had with the Prime Minister and using the “fact” of that meeting to gain preferential treatment from government bodies, surely he will be tried for fraud and “detained” for at least ten months while the police make sure he is not hiding or altering evidence. Right?
May 29
Seeking help from historian friends:
Near the end of the war (WWII), Nishida, Watsuji, Abe, Yamamoto, and Shigeitsu formed a group they called the Sannenkai (三年会). Why was it called the 三年会?
June 2
It is interesting that Abe is saying he and his wife had nothing to do with the Kake and Moritomo messes because there is no record of their being paid. Meanwhile, Tokyo is looking for people to put in a lot of unpaid hours after which they will be able to say they had nothing to do with the Olympics.
June 7
In the Moritomo clean-up cover-up, a number of people got suspended for a few months because they tampered with evidence, lied in response to Diet questioning, and otherwise obstructed justice. (And there is still an important chunk of the story missing.)
Now we have someone at the Foreign Ministry who was suspended for nine months — far longer than any of the Moritomo people. What was his offense? MoFA won’t say. Kono refuses to answer in any meaningful way. But look at the disparity. This is much more than any of the Moritomo people got. Given the few-months’ suspensions in the Moritomo case, what could this man have done to get a nine-month suspension? Sold state secrets to Russia? Slept with the Ambassador’s wife? Disagreed with Abe? Nobody’s saying.
August 10
I keep hoping the LDP election for party president will prompt Abe to put all of his thoughts together in a single volume titled, for example, Abe’s Grand Vision for the Nineteenth Century.
August 24
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September 7
I understand that politicians want to get airtime, so that’s why, for example, the METI minister is out there announcing what Hokkaido Electric told him the schedule is for restoring power to blacked-out areas. But if you’re going to do that sort of thing, you really should look like you’re on top of the subject. Abe, for example, walks into the room where he has all the cameras waiting and reads — that’s right, woodenly reads — a short message telling everyone to do their best under the circumstances. Obviously just there for the ego massage.
September 7
I find it entirely fitting that Amari is Team Abe’s manager for this LDP walk. This is the man who abruptly resigned under fire in 2016 promising a full explanation when he came back and is now back explanation-free.
September 9
Not a question, but a thought for the (J<>E translators) group: The book I am reading (not for work, just reading) posits a hypothetical with もし emphasized by the emphatic dots beside the two kana. Normally, I would interpret/render these emphatic dots as underlining/italicization. But since it is so short, I am thinking internet-style capitalization IF would work just as well, if not better. In a print publication (if I can get someone to pay me to translate this). So I open the idea for comments, if any.
September 17
I do not understand why a publisher who will give bookstores a substantial discount wants to charge an individual postage on a book order. In effect, the publisher is saying: “We don’t want to think about it. Go to a bookstore. Online is fine. We don’t care.” Strange business model.
October 10
Japan, Korea, Italy, and a number of other countries keep getting told their economies will tank if they don’t start having more children (=workers). The population decline, we are told, will devastate their economies. At the same time, we are told that advances in artificial intelligence (AI) will render half or more of the working population redundant. No jobs for these people when they reach working age. But putting the two dire warnings together, I wonder if the declining birth rates will not just mean these economies will have fewer redundant workers. Or do these two dots not connect for some reason?
October 26
Wondering how they might have translated some of the passages in the Prime Minister’s policy speech a few days ago, I went to the Kantei (PM’s Office) website to get the English translation. Could not find it. So I phoned the Kantei and asked where it was. Got told they don’t have it and I should ask the Foreign Ministry.
So I went to the Foreign Ministry website and looked around for it. Could not find it. So I phoned the Foreign Ministry and asked where it was. Policy speech? What policy speech? Oh, yes, the one the Prime Minister gave a few days ago. Hmmmm. We don’t have it. Not our job. Besides, it would take all kinds of time to do that, and the speech was just a few days ago.
In the old days, that “all kinds of time” was taken while the speech was being edited and the Japanese and English were distributed to the diplomatic corps and the media at the same time (typically the morning of the speech). This was so they would all be reporting the same speech in the same terms. It was assumed this was the price of getting consistent coverage. (Even if the foreign press complained about the speech, they should at least be complaining about the same speech.)
But now? Oh, that’s going to take all kinds of time, and I really don’t know who is going to do it. Foreign Ministry only does foreign policy, such as the speech to the United Nations. The Prime Minister? No idea.
Somehow, this does not strike me as an improvement in promoting the government’s policies internationally.
November 23
The government has known about the broken promises and wretched working conditions that people on “trainee” programs endure for a decade or so, but has done nothing about them. It has simply looked the other way rather than disciplining the companies that are abusing the system and the trainees. Now, all of a sudden, it wants to create a new visa category or two to supplement these programs because “we don’t have enough workers for these positions.” Rather than correcting conditions, it wants to expand the system that bred them.
At the same time, there are many people who have applied for refugee status but their applications have not been processed, leaving them in limbo. Why have these applications languished so long? Would approval entail a visa that could not be revoked? Or is it that it would anger whatever regime they are fleeing? Or is it some other reason hidden deep within the bureaucracy?
Whatever the problem, why not side-step the refugee issue and give these people the kind of work visas that already exist under the current system? Why not tell them, for example, “we are still looking at your application, but we will give you an interim five-year visa so you can have a life while we look at it, and if you compile a good record in that five years, the visa is renewable for another five”?
And instead of spending political capital railroading a bill through the Diet, spend a little energy on improving working conditions on the lower rungs of the employment ladder.
December 8
With the US decision saying government offices should not use Huawei stuff, ostensibly on national security grounds, and the Japanese government’s follow-thy-leader directive that government offices should not just buy the cheapest available but should think about (cyber)security concerns as well, what do you think the chances are that people sending patent applications out for translation will follow that lead (i.e., not just go for the cheapest but actually think about who is going to see this application before it is filed)?
December 12
Looking at the new defense ministry spending plans, which include lots of airplanes to placate Trump and a new aircraft carrier, I wonder if all of this — which Abe and his friends say is clearly allowed under the Constitution — is not the same war potential that Abe and his friends say the Constitution has to be amended to allow. And if it is not, what do they have in mind if the Constitution is amended?
December 14
There is a short article in the evening paper reporting that the Ministry of Justice accidentally discarded/destroyed (誤廃棄) many thousands of official documents, including some that were still within their “save until” periods.
One of the problems of being and/or hanging out with repeat offenders is that nobody is going to believe you even when you’re innocent.
December 21
If the state is really that intent on keeping Nissan from being merged into Renault, why aren’t Abe and his friends out there buying a majority stake in Renault?
December 27
A marketing organization that I am affiliated with puts out a little anthology of members’ thoughts every year — similar to JAT’s Translators Perspectives, doubtless because it was the model for the JAT anthology. This year, one of the regulars, a professor at Waseda, commented on a book by Cal Newport titled Deep Work. Basically, he said deep work is a way of producing quality work. Curious, I bought the book and read it.
In turn, I am recommending it to you. I suspect translators already do deep work when we are engrossed in a translation. Especially when the deadline looms. But Newport says we should extend this to the rest of our lives as well, and offers a multitude of hints on how to do this. It is okay, he says, to leave time for shallow work. Just don’t let the shallow intrude on the deep. Worth reading and thinking about.