Voices without Votes » Japan

Japan: Letter to Google about Street View

Aggregated from: Global Voices Online » U.S.A. — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 04:35:56 +0000

One year after its debut in the United States, Google's Street View has arrived in Japan, where it is already drawing criticism. Despite the company's generally positive image in this country, bulletin board threads [ja] and blogs [ja] are filled with comments questioning the way Google has rolled out its latest service. In the past few days, the CEO of a major Internet services company has spotted his own wife [ja], others have found images of men urinating outdoors, and others have caught couples entering love hotels [ja] (not to mention birds in full flight). All of this has raised serious privacy concerns [ja].

But as much as reaction has focused in other countries on private information such as license plates and personal identity, in Japan it is as much the less obvious cases of privacy infringement that provoke a reaction: seeing people's clothes out on the line [ja], open windows where robbers could break in [ja], or cars parked in the parking lot [ja].

One blogger, noting the cultural differences between the United States and Japan, realized that there was a need to explain to people at Google in the U.S. what was happening in Japan, and why the company — which generally has a very positive reputation locally — had provoked such strong opposition with Street View. The blogger is IT professional Osamu Higuchi at Higuchi.com, who wrote a post in his blog on August 7th titled “Letter to the people at Google” which starts:

ストリートビューを使ってみて、やはりこれは何か言っておかなくてはいけないような気がしてきたので、書きます。ひょっとして、このサイトがGoogle 八分になって検索空間から消えるようなことがあったら、この記事のことを思い出してください。

As soon as I tried out Google's Street View, I had the feeling that I had to make a comment on it, so I decided to write [this post]. If by some chance this site falls out of favor with Google and disappears from search engine results, please remember what was written here.

最初にことわっておきますが、僕は Google のことが大好きです（みんな大好きだよね）。日本の Infoseek を作るときにゴールとして思い描いていた「世界中の Web に雑然と散らばっている情報と知識を、秩序立てて整理して、だれでも必要な到達できるようにすれば、世の中が大きく変わる」という、僕らは実現できなかった夢を、しっかり会社のビジョンとして掲げて確実に実現している姿を、本当にうらやましく思います。

Now, let me start by saying that I actually really like Google (everybody likes them, no?). While I was involved in the creation of the Japanese Infoseek, I always felt envious of Google, a company that presented, as their vision, a dream that we were never able to attain. This was the dream that “if all the information and knowledge scattered all over the world on the Web could be organized in an orderly way, so that anybody could access it whenever they needed to, then the world would undergo a major change”. This was a dream that Google managed to realize.

でもね、この日本でのストリートビューは、僕は生理的にダメ。ここまで無邪気に踏み込んではいけないと思うのです。
きっと、セルリアンタワーの中の人も同じように感じていると信じて、なぜこれがダメなのか、海の向こうの人にも分かりやすいように説明を試みますんで、聞いてください。で、リエゾンとして、正しいローカライズについて、きちんと向こうの人を説得してくれるとうれしいです。

But you know what? This Japan Street View, it just feels instinctively completely wrong to me. You can't play innocent and go this far.
I'm sure that the people in the Cerulean Tower [where Google is headquartered in Japan] are feeling the same way, and are also trying to explain to people overseas in an easy-to-understand way what is wrong [with Street View], so please listen. And I would be grateful if you guys, acting as liasons, could properly convince the people over there of how to correctly localize [this service].

ご検討をお願いしたいことはひとつだけ。

I ask for you to consider just one thing.

In the following, Higuchi is addressing the people at Google in the U.S.:

日本の都市部の生活道路をストリートビューから外してもらえませんか

Could you please remove the residential roads of Japan's urban areas from Street View?

以下にその理由を書きます。

Below I list the reasons [why this is necessary].

日本の都市部の生活道路は生活空間の一部で、他人の生活空間を撮影するのは無礼です

The residential roads of Japan's urban areas are a part of people's living space, and it is impolite to photograph ~~a stranger's~~ other people's living spaces

米国、特に西海岸に住んでいる人は自宅のプライベート空間とパブリックな空間の境目は、所有権的にも精神的にも公道と私有地の間にあると思います。というか、みなさんの感覚では公道に面した自分の庭のほうが公的な空間で、自分の庭をきれいにしていないとコミュニティの景観上よろしくないと思っていますよね？

In the United States, and particularly in the case of people living on the west coast, the boundary line between private space and public space, both in terms of actual ownership and in terms of the way people think, is in the boundary line between the public road and privately-held land. In fact, I think that you all will agree that your home's garden, which faces the street, actually feels itself more like a public space, and that not keeping your front yard tidy ruins the look of the community, right?

ところが日本の都市部生活者は逆で、家の前の生活道路、いわゆる路地のほうが感覚的には自分の生活空間の一部、庭先なのです。日本の都市部では、家の前の公道を掃いたり、打ち水をしたり、雪かきをしたりするのが居住者のつとめとされています。下町を歩いているとよくわかるけれど、家の前の路地に鉢植えとかちょっとした物置とかをはみ出して置いてあるのもその感覚の表れです。

For people living in urban areas in Japan, though, the situation is quite the opposite. The residential street in front of a house, the so-called “alleyway” (roji/路地), feels more like a part of one's own living space, like a part of the yard. In urban areas in Japan, sweeping the road in front of one's home, sprinkling water over it, shoveling snow off it, these are all considered to be the responsibility of the resident. Wandering around the older parts of the city, you'll see evidence of this way of thinking in the potted plants and little storage rooms crowded out [onto the street].

僕らはそういう路地を歩くときには、路地の周りの家のほうをじろじろ見つめることはしません。ちょっと横を向くと、文字通り鼻の先はだれかの生活空間なので、そういうところをのぞき込むのは失礼なことだという意識が働いていると思うんです。

When we walk along an alleyway like that, we don't stare at and scrutinize the houses along the way. If you look away [from the road] even a little bit, you find someone's living space literally right in front of your nose. It is for this reason, I think, that we have this awareness that peeping at these kinds of places is something that is actually quite rude.

日本人がアメリカに家を建てるときに、日本の感覚で家の周りに塀をめぐらせて周りからひんしゅくを買うことがあるそうですが、日本の都市部の感覚では逆に通りを歩く人が塀の中をのぞき込むとひんしゅくを買います。

I've heard that when Japanese build houses in America, they do so in the Japanese way and surround their home with a fence, to the displeasure of people living nearby. The way that people in Japanese urban areas think, however, is very different, in the latter case it being people walking on the street, peeping beyond the fence, that draw frowns [from the locals].

もちろん、塀や垣根の隙間から中を覗こうと思えば覗けます。そういう行為は「垣間見」と言って、源氏物語の昔から、ちょっとはしたないこととされています。
この季節、なにかのはずみで、軒先で下着同然の格好で涼んでいるおじさんと目があったりします。そんなときも、その人が近所の風呂屋でのなじみとかだったら、ちょっと立ち話をするかもしれませんが、そうでもなければちょっと会釈をするような格好をしてそのまま目をそらし、お互いに見なかったことにする、というのが礼儀です。

Now of course, if you peep through gaps in the fence or hedge, you can peek inside [people's homes]. This kind of act is referred to in Japanese as “kaimami” [stealing a peek], and from back in the days of the “Tale of Genji”, it has always been considered to be in somewhat bad taste. At this time of year, [walking down these streets], your eyes will meet those of old men cooling themselves under the eaves wearing nothing but their underwear. If this person was someone familiar to you from the local bathhouse or something, then in a case like this you might strike up a conversation with them. If this was not the case, however, you would still nod and greet them, but then turn your eyes away and each pretend like you hadn't seen each other. This is the etiquette.

「公道からの風景だから公開を前提としているはずだ」ではなくて、「公道を通る者はその鼻先の生活空間はのぞき込んではいけない」というのが、日本の都市生活者のモラルなんです。

According to the morals of urban area residents in Japan, the assumption that “it is scenery [viewable] from public roads and therefore it must be public” is in fact incorrect. Quite the contrary, [these morals state that] “people walking along public roads must avert their glance from the living spaces right before their eyes”.

僕らの生活スタイルは、生活空間の様子を一方的に全世界に機械可読な形で公開するようにはなっていません

In our way of living, you do not unilaterally, and in a machine-readable form, lay open people's living spaces to the whole world

そういう文化ですから、東京の都市部で路地を歩きながら10メートルごとに360度周りを見回して歩く、なんていうことをやっていると、確実に30分以内に警察に通報されます。手にカメラでも持っていて通りからの風景を撮りためていたりしようものなら、僕の家のあたりのストリートビュー空白地帯なら職務質問の後、池上署か田園調布署にご同行を願われることうけあいです。

With this culture [of privacy], if you were to walk along a residential street in an urban area of Tokyo, every 10 meters surveying all 360 degrees of your surroundings, there's no question that you would be reported to the police within 30 minutes. Even just filming the scenery from the street with camera in hand, there's no question that if you tried to shoot the area not covered by Street View, you would be asked, after initial questioning, to come to either the Ikegami Police Station or the Den-en-Chofu Police Station.

生身の人間が路地から生活空間をじろじろ覗いているとやっかいなことになりそうなことは日本人なら直感的にわかるので、普通の人はそういうことをやりません。そのため、生活者側も路地から生活空間の様子が知れてしまうことに対してわりと無防備です。

Japanese people intuitively recognize that a flesh-and-blood human being peeking into people's living space from the alleyway results in trouble, so ordinary people don't do this kind of thing. It is for this reason that residents are comparatively defenseless against [people looking in] from the side of the road and learning everything about their living spaces.

ところが、ストリートビューを通して覗くのは、覗かれていることに気がつきませんから通報されることもありません。この非対称性が別の問題を引き起こします。
日本中の、いや、世界中の人が、ケーサツのお世話になるというリスクを負わずに、無防備な生活者の生活空間の様子を見ることができるということは、例えば侵入が簡単そうな構造の家屋を探したり、転売価値の高そうな自動車が公道に面した場所に駐車してある場所などを、誰もが通報されるリスクなしで下見できるようになってしまった、ということです。

On the other hand, nobody notices when someone peeks — or is peeked at — through Street View, and so it is not reported. This asymmetry gives rise to a different problem.
The capacity for people in Japan — or rather, people across the whole world — to look into the living spaces of defenseless residents, without any risk of being stopped by the police, makes it possible for anyone to carry out a preliminary inspection without any risk of being reported. This kind of inspection can be used for example in searching for houses with a configuration that is easy to break into, or in looking for places along the side of public roads where cars with high resale values are parked.

そりゃ、通りからじろじろ下見をする人がいれば通報されるはずだから、と安心して無防備に暮らしている我々が悪いのかもしれないけれど、この安心感が一方的に突然乱されるのは、どうにも納得がいきません。

A person was to do this kind of inspection from the actual street, they would be reported. Maybe it's a bad thing, but we live with a peace of mind in knowing that this is true, and therefore for this sense of security to be unilaterally and abruptly thrown out of order is completely unacceptable, however you look at it.

ややこしいことになる前に、ご自身のモラルで判断して行動してください

Before this problem gets more tangled, please make a decision and take action on this based on your own sense of morals

それにしても、ストリートビューとプライバシーの問題について、意外なほど日本の新聞が何も言わないのはなぜでしょうね。梅田本だか、アンチマイクロソフトのドグマか何かのせいで、彼らの中では「Google＝なんかわからんけど絶対善」ということになっているのかもしれません。右も左も、あの人たち思考停止しているのかな。

Despite this, however, why is that Japanese newspapers, to a surprising degree, have said nothing about this problem of Street View and privacy? Maybe it is because of Umeda's books, or because of the anti-Microsoft dogma, but there seems to be a sense among these people that “we don't really know, but Google must anyway be an absolute positive”. Whether from the right or from the left, people seem to have completely stopped thinking.

でも、近い将来、ストリートビューで下見をして空き巣とかクルマ泥棒をやった奴がきっと捕まって、その手口を供述すると思うんですけど、そのときになって突然鬼の首を取ったように「クルマ泥棒、インターネットで下見」とか書き立ててバッシングキャンペーンを始めるのも、その人たちです。そういうことになる前に、常識的なローカル社会のモラルに照らしたサービス設計をしていただきたいと心から願っています。

But in the near future, there will for sure be a case in which a street prowler or car thief is caught and testifies that they used Street View for preliminary inspection. When that time comes, it is these same people who will suddenly start a campaign triumphantly writing articles [with headlines like] “car thieves preview [crime site] on the Internet”. Before it comes to that, I am hoping dearly that you guys design a service reflecting the common-sense morals of local society.

繰り返しますが、私はみなさんの「世界中の情報を整理し、世界中の人々がアクセスできて使えるようにする」というビジョンを非常にすばらしいと思っていますし、それを実現していることを尊敬し、感謝しています。

I repeat, I consider your vision of “arranging the world's information in order to make it possible for people across the world to access it” to be something truly wonderful, and I greatly respect — and am thankful for — the fact that you have managed to realize [this goal].

でも、公開することを前提としていない生活空間の様子を勝手に公開されるのは、どうにも気持ちが悪い。僕らの「ほっといてもらう権利」をないがしろにしていて、どうも“evil”だと思えてしようがないのです。

To have one's own living space exposed to the whole world without ever having been asked about it beforehand, this however really makes me uncomfortable. It ignores our “right [to demand that] you leave us alone”, and comes off as nothing short of “evil”.

お願いですから、僕らのプライバシー感覚と防犯意識が、あなたがたのそれと同じようにアメリカナイズされるまでの間で結構ですから、日本の路地の様子をストリートビューから外していただけませんか。そのために、インターネットがほんの少しだけ不便なものになっても、僕は全然かまいません。

My request is thus, given that it will take considerable time before our sense of privacy and awareness of crime-prevention are Americanized to be more like yours, to remove Japanese alleyways [residential streets] from Street View. This will make the Internet ever so slightly less convenient, but for me that is no problem at all.

Thanks to Taku Nakajima for the suggestion to translate this article.

Hiroshima's Legacy : 63 Years Later

Aggregated from: VivirLatino — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:44:34 +0000

It was 63 years ago today that the United States government unleashed an atomic attack on the civilian Japanese city of Hiroshima. The 9,700-pound uranium bomb lovingly named "Little Boy" killed about 150,00 people from the impact and continued to kill thousands for years after, from the radiation.

Post extendido - Leer más 'Hiroshima's Legacy : 63 Years Later'...

Japan: The problems facing Japan's IT industry

Aggregated from: Global Voices Online » U.S.A. — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:57:18 +0000

An entry [ja] by blogger gothedistance translating and introducing passages of the New York Times article High-Tech Japanese, Running Out of Engineers climbed the rankings a few weeks ago to become a popular article [ja] at Hatena bookmarks, Japan's most popular social bookmarking service. The article describes a growing shortage of engineers in Japan resulting from so-called “rikei banare”, or “flight from science”. Young people, the article explains, are more interested nowadays with fields like finance or medicine, or creative careers like the arts, then they are with engineering. While the shortage has been recognized for decades, only recently have companies been starting to feel its consequences, with one estimate putting the shortage of engineers at almost half a million.

Blogger gothedistance generally agrees with the contents of the New York Times article. It would seem that there is a shared recognition of the situation described in the NYT article among most Hatena users (many of whom are said to be programmers and people in IT-related fields), and many comments on the entry expressed agreement and sympathy with the blogger.

Commenter mkusunok, also known as blogger Masanori Kusunoki , writes:

NYT侮り難し。書いてあること全部正しいし、ヤバ過ぎて日経には書けないよねー

The NYT is impressive. Everything that is written [in this article] is correct, and this something that is so terrible that the Nikkei [a Japanese newspaper] can't write about it.

goyoki comments:

高齢技術者の高待遇ポストが少ないのは問題だと思う。技監やフェロー、CTOなんかは普通は管理職扱いだし、例えば５０代上級プログラマなんてのは日本では半端な待遇で激務、なんてイメージしかわかない

I think the problem is that there are not many posts with good working conditions for older engineers. Engineers-in-chief, fellows and CTOs are generally handled like managers, and I can only imagine that senior programmers over age 50 would be exhausted with this level of halfway treatment.

Some went as far as to express opinions like this one, posted by elm200:

このエントリと直接関係無いけど、まだこうやって日本の記事を書いてくれる New York Times はありがたい。BBC News なんてほぼシカト状態からね。”China” の五文字を見ない日はないのに

No relation with this particular article, but I am really thankful to the New York Times for doing this kind of thing and writing this article. Because BBC mostly just ignores [this issue]. Although not a day goes by without seeing the five letters of “China”.

In his book “Economics of excess and destruction” (過剰と破壊の経済学), blogger Ikeda Nobuo earlier wrote the following about the peculiar “general contractor-style multiple sub-contractor architecture” (ゼネコン型の多重下請け構造) of Japan's IT industry:

(親会社が開発・設計を行い入札で安く請け負う企業に発注するアメリカの企業に対して)トヨタは開発段階から「デザイン・イン」などによって下請けと情報を共有する(中略)。トヨタと下請けを結びつけているのは、アメリカ的な契約でも資本関係でもなく、属人的な長期的関係である。(同書 P128)

(In contrast to American corporations, where the parent company carries out development and design and then places orders with companies contracted cheaply through bidding,) from the development stage onwards Toyota shares information with subcontractors through “Design-In”. […] This connection between Toyota and the subcontractor is neither an American-style contract, nor is it capital ties, but rather is a long-term relationship through personnel. (p. 128)

In his blog, Ikeda Nobuo argues that the root cause of the problem indicated in the New York Times article is to be found in this relationship:

この閉鎖的な産業構造は、長期雇用や企業別組合など戦後にできた制度によってつくられたもので、ある種の製造業には適していたが、オープン・プラットフォームのもとでモジュール化された技術を組み合わせるには適していない。

This insular industry structure was established as a result of the system of long-term employment and enterprise unions created after the war, and while such a system is appropriate for certain types of manufacturing industries, it is not suitable for joining together modular technologies based on open platforms.

正社員だけを過剰保護する雇用慣行のおかげでSI業者が人材派遣業になってしまったため、企業のコア部門にITのわかる人材が育たず、情報システムでイノベーションが生まれないから若者のIT離れが進む・・・という悪循環が急速に進行している。

The SI [System Integrator] industry has become a temp-services industry as a result of the employment practice of excessively protecting only full-time positions. Because of this, no personnel in core departments of the industry have been brought up to understand IT, and since there is no innovation in information systems, young people are losing interest in IT… this vicious circle is rapidly getting worse.

Drawing from an awareness of the issue in his daily live, gothedistance then identifies a structural problem of Japan's IT industry, that “the industry called SIer (System Integrater) is not characterized by IT services, but by the human resources industry.”

In an earlier entry , he explains this in the following way:

日本のITビジネスは脆弱なビジネスモデルです。最も品質を問われるべきソフトウェアにおいて派遣による偽装請負なんかがまかり通っているのは、日本だけです。70〜80年代にプログラマの絶対数が足りなくてとにかく人をかき集めて現場に派遣するようなスキームが横行したのと、時間がかかればかかるほどコストがかかり結局その分売上が立つという人月商売モデルの２つの悪因が両輪となって、今のような奇形児になりました。簡単に言うと、腐れエンジニアをかき集めて仕事を進めるスキームになり、腐れエンジニアもできるエンジニアも同じ「１人月」だということですね。

Japan's IT businesses have a fragile business model. It is only in Japan that fake contracts with temp agencies go unmentioned in the software [industry], where there should be the greatest demand for quality. The scheme in the 70s-80s, when there was a lack in the absolute number of programmers, of gathering up people and dispatching them to the scene, and the person-month trade model in which the more time you spend, the higher your profits will be, these two factors were like the wheels, leading to the deformed child that we have today. Simply put, it is a scheme of gathering rotten engineers and moving ahead with the work, where rotten engineers and capable engineers are treated as the same “person-month”.

Next, he refers to an article by Matsubara Tomo, introduced by blogger codemaniax :

ソフトウェア開発ビジネスで、成果責任を負わない派遣形態がかくも横行しているのは日本だけである。

In the software development business, it is only Japan where a structure of temp agencies has flourished in which no responsibility is bourne for actual results.

派遣ビジネスはソフトウェア開発作業を成果で請け負うのではなく、一ヵ月いくらというように、技術者の時間を売る。派遣指向のソフトウェア会社にとって最大の関心事は、人月単価と、人の稼働率であって、稼ぎが減る開発プロセスの改善や、余計な金を使う技術教育は、できればやりたくない。特に品質は、技術者だけの問題とみなされ、経営者は関心を持たない。極端な話、派遣プログラマーが自分で埋め込んだバグの摘出に時間を掛ければ、会社の実入りは増える。

Temp business do not contracts software development on the basis of actual results, but rather sell the engineers' time at some rate per month. The most important concern for software companies that are oriented at temp agencies is the person-month unit and people's operation rate; if possible they want to avoid improvements of the developmental process that decrease earnings, as well as avoid technical training that makes use of surplus capital. Quality in particular is regarded as a problem of the technician alone, something about which managers do not have an interest. In the extreme case, this means that time spent picking out a bug buried by a programmer from a temp agency results in an increase in the actual profits of the company.

Elsewhere, in a thread about the NYT article on Slashdot Japan, the following two comments received a score of 5. This one :

まずは、技術職の給与を見直し、生涯賃金が一般職と同等、もしくは上に設定し一般職に振り回されない体制を作ることができれば改善できるのではないでしょうか？

To begin with, if it was possible to review the contribution of engineering work and create a system that sets lifetime earnings at the same level as that of general office work or higher, a system that is not swayed by office workers, that improve the situation, wouldn't it?

And this one :

今の政治の流れでは海外の労働者に今後ゆだねていくことになるのでしょうが、技術蓄積を行わないままでは、賃金も技術も海外に流出。と思うのですが、この想いをどうやれば現実に反映できるんだろう。

It would seem that with the current trend in politics, [work] in the future will start being entrusted to foreign workers, but if we remain as we are, without accumulating any technology, then wages and technology will flow overseas. That's what I think, but I wonder what will be done to realize this idea.

It seems that there is an irritation that this sense of crisis, which is shared among the younger generation, is not managing to have any significant influence within society.

Translated by Chris Salzberg.

Japan and U.S: Jurisdiction Agreement

Aggregated from: Global Voices Online » U.S.A. — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:15:19 +0000

Niphonese wrote a post on the recent exposure of a secret agreement between Japan and U.S government in 1953 that Japan should abandon jurisdiction over crimes of Japan-based US soldiers, except serious cases.

The Global movement supporting Obama is growing

Aggregated from: The World Wants Obama — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 10:41:00 +0000

All around the world an energetic and unprecedented movement is growing in support of Senator Obama's candidacy to be the 44th US President. Some examples of the worldwide movement include:

In Trinidad, calypso legend The Mighty Sparrow sings that America could "regain worldwide respect with Obama’s vision", and in Jamaica reggae star Cocoa Tea adds "This is not about class nor color, race nor creed. It's about the changes, what the Americans need."
In Egypt, a humanitarian worker has written letters to dozens of superdelegates urging them to back Obama.
In China a dramatic Obama rally is being planned on the Great Wall.
In Gaza, a Palestinian student has been making hundreds of campaign phone calls to the US over the internet, whenever he has electricity and is not under Israeli bombardment.
In Kenya, Obama is so popular that a beer has been named after him!
On the internet there over 40 international Obama fan groups on Facebook, many with more than 500 members, focused on Denmark, France, Indonesia, Tanzania and many other countries. There are also dozens of blogs and websites (see listings in the sidebar).

And wherever opinion polls have been conducted, comparing him with Clinton and McCain, Senator Obama is consistently the favourite candidate by a wide margin, for example:

74% in Japan
71% in Brazil
68% in Holland
64% in South Africa
61% in Britain
54% in Iraq
48% in Switzerland

The world wants Obama - on YouTube!

Aggregated from: The World Wants Obama — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:17:00 +0000

There are so many videos being created in support of Senator Obama all over the world what we've can't really keep track of them on this blog alone, so we've created a YouTube channel with songs, news reports, personal statements of support and translations of speaches and songs to other languages (Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Japenese... so far). Go and have a look, subscribe and also let us know if you find or make other videos on YouTube that should be on there. You can also embed our "playlists" onto your blogs and websites (click on the "menu" button for the links), there are four so far:

1. Songs
Highlights include a multilingual Yes We Can, and the hilarious "Canada for Obama"

2. Global news

From Germany, Gaza, Kenya, Japan...

3. Personal videos of support

From Brazil, Canada, Italy, UK...

4. Translations/subtitles for songs and speaches

Yes We Can song in 6 languages so far... plus Obama's Iowa victory speach in a few

Japan: Obama gets support from Japanese city

Hanako Tokita — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:39:15 +0000

Excitement is growing in a sleepy fishing town on the coast of the Japan Sea. The city of Obama, whose name means “little beach” in Japanese, is receiving unusual attention for its coincidental resemblance to the name of a certain US presidential candidate.

Obama merchandise, from T-shirts to manju to chopsticks with Obama's face printed on them, is sold at local shops and posters are put up at every corner of the city. On Super Tuesday, a volunteer group that supports Obama organized a “public viewing” event, attended by about 300 residents wearing their Obama T-shirts and headbands. Adding to the excitement, the mayor of Obama received a letter from the Senator expressing appreciation for their support.

A blogger [Ja] shares the city's excitement:

It is quite a surprise that a letter addressed to the city arrived from [Senator] Obama.
Even though it was for the support that came from a place that has no influence [on the election].

It shows Mr. Obama's greatness as a person.
I think it marks a huge difference [between him] and another person who is competing using her husband's achievements and name value.

On the other hand, many bloggers have expressed critical views and pointed out that the candidate's policy does not seem to matter to the Japanese Obama “campaign” and it lacks political sensitivity.

stoyachi writes:

とはいえ、オバマ氏の政治手腕は未知数。日本に対してどのような政策を実行するのかもわかりませんね。

Having said that, Obama's skills in politics are unknown. We don't even know what kind of policy he would implement for Japan.

One of the users of a news BBS commented expressing their critical opinion:

この選挙に対する選挙権もないわけで、ただのお祭り騒ぎと傍観していてもよいかもしれません。

しかし、小浜市民の全員がオバマ氏を支持しているわけでもないだろうし、ましてや税金使って応援グッズを贈ったり、「市長」自らが「健闘を祈りたい」ということには、違和感を覚えます。

Because they don't have the voting rights in this election, maybe it's ok for them to party and be onlookers.

However, I don't think all the people of Obama City support Mr. Obama, and not only that, spending tax money on sending merchandise, and the mayor himself wishing [Obama] good luck — I think there's something wrong about this.

オバマ氏は、米国の将来を決める大統領になるため、自らの信念を掲げて立候補しているわけで。
米国民の生活がかかっているわけですよね。責任重大です。
なのに、日本のある行政機関が、そのオバマ氏の主張や主義を認めて応援するのではなく、単に「音」が一緒だから応援するというのは、ヘンじゃないでしょうか？

Mr. Obama is running the campaign diplaying his belief in order to become a president who will determine the future of the US.
American people's lives are at stake. It's a great responsibility.
Despite this, isn't it strange that one administrative body supports [Obama] just because the name sounds the same, not because they agree with Mr. Obama's message and principles?

Although not entirely critical, this blogger provides a cynical view:

ポリシーなど何もなく、節操がない様な気もするが、これはこれで良いのでは。オバマ氏が大統領になったとしても、小浜市を訪れることはないと思うけど、地方都市が(ヤケッパチ(?)でも)元気を出しているのは今どき悪いことではない。小浜市には小浜さんという名字の方もたくさん居るのだろう。一方、日本には「くりんとん市」は無い。「ヒラリーの涙」と名付けたワインが出回ることもないだろう。名前を聞いただけで「超辛口」で飲む気がしない。

There seems to be no policy and no principle but I guess this is OK. Even if Obama becomes president, I don't think he will ever visit the city of Obama, it's not a bad thing that a rural city is picking up and has so much energy in this day and age. There must be a lot of poeple whose family name is Obama in Obama City. On the other hand, there is no city called “Kurinton (Clinton)” in Japan. I guess there will never be wine named “Clinton's Tears”. The name alone makes me not want to drink it as it sounds “super dry”.

Poll Results: Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Iraq & London for Obama!

Aggregated from: The World Wants Obama — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 08:15:00 +0000

Here are the results from polls we conducted of 1000 people across 5 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Middle East and Latin America:

71% of Brazilians support Obama, (Clinton 22%), (McCain 15%)
61% of Londoners (UK) support Obama, (Clinton 32%), (McCain 7%)
54% or Iraqis support Obama (Clinton 25%), (McCain 21%)
74% of Japanese support Obama (Clinton 18%), (McCain 9%)
64% of South Africans support Obama (Clinton 25%), (McCain 12%)

The polls were conducted from February 16th – February 23rd (using Facebook polls - http://www.facebook.com/business/?polls ), the sample size was 200 For Each Poll, targetted at specific national networks (London was used because there is no Facebook network for the UK as a whole). The question asked was "Non-Americans, who should be the next US president?" The order of the candidates was automatically randomized so there would be no bias towards Senator Obama. The full demographic breakdowns (screenshots from Facebook Polls) follow:

(1) Japan ______________________________________(2) UK (London)

(3) Brazil ________________________________________(4) South Africa

(5) Iraq

Japan and U.S: U.S. Military Crime Record

Aggregated from: Global Voices Online » U.S.A. — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:46:14 +0000

Edward Chmura from Japundit reposts a list of U.S Military sex crime record in Okinawa since 1955.

A Town Called Obama

Aggregated from: Times Online - Across the Pond Blogs — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:46:43 +0000

Thousands of Pacific miles might separate residents of an isolated fishing town on Japan's snowy west coast from the buzz of the US election campaign but that hasn't prevented them from taking an avid interest in the fortunes of one candidate - the young Illinois senator with whom the ancient community shares its name. Obama, Japan has been thoroughly infected by the mania surrounding its accidental namesake and is mounting an astonishing display of support for the man who hopes to become America's first black president.

The main hotel is splattered with posters hailing Obama, while his image will grace headbands and T-shirts currently in production. Sweet bean “manju” cakes bearing Obama’s portrait are being prepared by local confectioners, and the town of 32,000 has even held special primary night parties to celebrate his victories.

Mayor Toshio Murakami plans to send the candidate a good luck “daruma” doll in the lacquerware for which the town is famous nationally, with the word “victory” emblazoned across its chest in Japanese calligraphy.

Murakami sent a gift - a set of lacquer chopsticks - to Obama last year but is not sure whether it arrived as he used an address he found on the internet.

“I will present you the chopsticks of Wakasa paint and I am glad if you use it habitually,” Mr Murakami said in the letter, written in English. “I wish you the best of health and success.”

He pointed out that Obama's birthday, August 4, happens to be “Chopsticks Day” in the city.

“At first we were more low-key as Hillary Clinton looked to be ahead, but now we see he is getting more popular,” Murakami said.

“I give him an 80 per cent chance of becoming president,” the 75-year-old said, beaming with pride.

But policy doesn’t seem to be a major concern for the candidate's Japanese supporters - the main draw is his name.

“Obama gives good speeches and has a good voice, so I want him to do well. And, of course, we
share the same name,” Seiji Fujiwara, a hotel executive and leader of a local support group established
earlier this month for the candidate, said.

Residents in Obama - which means “small shore” in Japanese - want nothing in return for their support, but hope that if their man becomes president, he might grace them with a visit or perhaps even an international summit to put their little-known home on the tourist map.