TOKYO BRIEFING March 2005

News this month

The hags lose

On February 24th, a Tokyo district court ruled that Shintaro Ishihara, Tokyo's governor, need not compensate women for disparaging comments he made in 2001. At issue was a magazine interview in which the governor called older women “hags”. The court tossed out a lawsuit filed by 131 women, who demanded a public apology and ¥14m ($133,000) in damages for psychological pain.

In the offending article, Mr Ishihara quoted a college professor who said “the worst thing a civilisation has produced is an old hag,” and that, “it’s a waste, and almost a crime, for women to go on living after losing their reproductive ability.” The governor said the professor’s comments “might be true”, adding that as a politician he could not express such an opinion himself In its ruling, the court conceded that the governor’s comments were “inappropriate”, but rejected the idea that they caused serious suffering to any individuals.

A royal headache

Masako, Japan's Crown Princess, cancelled a trip to the 2005 Special Olympics, reminding the public that she has yet to beat the unnamed stress disorder that has kept her from her official duties The trip to Japan’s Nagano Prefecture would have been her first public appearance outside the capital in more than a year The Imperial Household Agency has described the princess's illness as an “adjustment disorder” stemming from the stress of her position Naruhito, the Crown Prince, made the trip to Nagano without his wife.

In early January, the 41-year-old princess joined the rest of the royal family to deliver a New Year’s greeting, but she has been otherwise mostly hidden from public view since late 2003 In an unusually candid news conference last year, Crown Prince Naruhito said Princess Masako was exhausted from trying to adapt to life in the imperial household, and suggested that she felt her personality was being stifled by her tradition-bound royal handlers (she was a diplomat before she married him) The remarks triggered a rare public rebuke from Prince Fumihito, Naruhito's younger brother, and the Crown Prince apologised in February for upsetting his parents, Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, with the comments.

Not tough enough

After a local television network showed footage of a man with a stick chasing away a pair of policemen, Junichiro Koizumi, Japan's prime minister, rebuked the Tokyo police. “A policeman’s job is to seize the offender. What kind of training are they receiving?” Mr Koizumi asked. He also chastised the chief of the National Public Safety Commission, Yoshitaka Murata, who runs the national police force.

The incident took place in late February, after a 26-year-old man crashed his car along the side of a road in Tokyo’s Minato ward. When two policemen approached the car, the driver got out and threatened them with what looked like a heavy stick. The two officers fled, but later apprehended the man as he attempted to drive away in the patrol car that they had left running nearby. Mr Murata called the incident a disgrace and promised an investigation.

Doomsday scenario

A big earthquake in Tokyo could kill up to 13,000 people, leave millions of people stranded and cause ¥112 trillion ($1.1 trillion) in damage, according to worst-case estimates by the Central Disaster Management Council. The study predicted what might occur if a big earthquake (as large as 7.3 on the Richter scale) hit Tokyo on a weekday evening.

Injuries were estimated at 43,000 people; immediate damage to buildings and infrastructure could amount to ¥67 trillion; while losses from economic disruptions could reach ¥45 trillion yen over the next year The council also figured that 4.6m people would have to walk home from central Tokyo, while 3m would require emergency shelters The government does not have an up-to-date plan for responding to such a disaster; it plans to draw one up later this year to minimise injuries and economic losses The Japanese archipelago sits along a famously earthquake-prone section of the Pacific.

Still dear

Tokyo is the most expensive major city in Asia and the third-most expensive city in the world behind Oslo and Copenhagen, according to a survey of prices and incomes by UBS, a Swiss investment bank. Tokyo was also the third-most expensive city in the bank's 2003 survey, just behind Hong Kong. But Hong Kong dropped to 15th place in the survey, mostly because the city’s currency is pegged to the US dollar, which has fallen dramatically over the last two years.

But Tokyo is not the last word in ruinous living costs. Of 71 large cities, UBS gave Tokyo an index score of 101.3, behind a crushing 115.5 for Oslo and a 105.1 for Copenhagen. (Zurich was used as the baseline, with a score of 100.) Though Tokyo is pricey, Japan’s consumer price index has been falling for over a decade, thanks to deflation caused by the burst of the late-1980s speculative bubble.

Catch if you can

March 2005

Contemporary works at the Mori Art Museum

March 29th-June 19th 2005

The first of two forthcoming exhibitions at the Mori Art Museum (MAM) is “The Elegance of Silence: Contemporary Art from East Asia” It features 26 artists, and stays well-clear of the big names that the older museums over in Ueno unfailingly go for Contemporary East Asian art often bears the influence of traditional forms This exhibit takes up two themes: one is pastoral, leading to lots of mountains, rocks and streams; the other is domestic, meaning feng shui, the art of arranging interiors One piece by Suh Do-Ho, a relatively well-known artist, is a huge, gauzy fabric mock-up of a house that hangs from the ceiling like a ghost.

The second show coming up is “The World is a Stage: Stories Behind Pictures”. This includes 14 artists, who overlay their works with narratives about subjects they invent. Kara Walker, a well-known artist (at least in America), makes elegant cut-out silhouettes of slave-era blacks. Meanwhile, try to catch the occasional seminar or lecture at MAM. The museum is the centre of contemporary art in Tokyo, and interesting guests are always arriving from abroad.

Mori Art Museum, Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, 53F, 6-10-1 Roppongi, Minato-Ku. Tel: +81 (03) 6406-6166. Subway: Roppongi (Hibiya Line). Hours: Daily 10am-10pm. See the museum's website.

More from the Tokyo cultural calendar