Economist.com Cities Guide: Tokyo Briefing - August 2006

News this month

Words from beyond

Among the millions of dead honoured at the Yasukuni war shrine in Tokyo are 14 war criminals. For this reason, visits by Japan's leaders to Yasukuni have long been controversial at home and abroad. On July 21st the shrine was once again in the spotlight when a man, thought to be a right-wing extremist, firebombed the Tokyo headquarters of the Nikkei newspaper. The attack, in which nobody was injured, came in response to a front-page story revealing that Emperor Hirohito refused to visit Yasukuni after the war criminals were first honoured in 1978.

News of Hirohito’s boycott has added a new dimension to the debate about the shrine, particularly for nationalists who love Yasukuni and hail Hirohito. But the Nikkei article may help whoever succeeds Mr Koizumi when he steps down in September: if the new prime minister decides not to visit Yasukuni, he can claim to be siding with the emperor, rather than bowing to Chinese pressure. Mr Koizumi, whose visits to the shrine have caused outrage in China and elsewhere, says he will make a final trip before leaving office. Many think this will happen on August 15th, the anniversary of the end of the second world war.

Nursing a solution

A change to Japan's immigration law could transform health care in the country. On July 31st an advisory panel on deregulation presented the prime minister with a plan to let foreign social-welfare workers and nurses work in Japan. The proposal comes in response to the country's growing elderly population, which is in dire need of care. It would add nurses and care-providers to the list of 27 occupations that foreigners can pursue in Japan, under the country’s Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law.

The plan has its critics in the government’s Health, Labour and Welfare Ministry, who insist that Japan can meet the demand for nurses without turning to foreign workers. But most politicians seem to realise that skilled workers from the Philippines and other South-East Asian countries may be the only real solution, so long as the invention of the robot nurse remains a dream.

The emperor's new movie

Seventeen years after Emperor Hirohito's death, he seems to be at the centre of the summer’s controversies. Tokyo police believe that “Solntse” (“The Sun”), a critically acclaimed film about the emperor, will spark nationalist protests when it is released on August 6th. Directed by Aleksandr Sokurov, a Russian who has also made films about Lenin and Hitler, the film includes scenes in which the emperor appears indecisive and sometimes even childish. Such a depiction is thoroughly taboo for right-wing nationalists, who are against anything that taints the former emperor's image. These defenders of Japan's imperial family also abhor any hint that the emperor bore moral responsibility for the atrocities of the Pacific war.

“Solntse” has been ready for release for two years, but Japanese distributors have been reluctant to screen it, for fear of a violent backlash. Only two cinemas—in Tokyo and Nagoya—have offered to show the film. The film’s release date coincides with the anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.

Capitalism 101

Japanese universities can be slow to change, but even the most conservative ones can no longer ignore the importance of educating people to work in finance. In July Tokyo University announced that a finance department would be created at the start of the next academic year, in April 2007. It will be the university’s first new department since 1919.

In part, the move is a belated response to Japan’s bad-loans crisis, which though mostly resolved by early 2005, still haunts a generation of financial professionals. The department will teach 70 students subjects ranging from derivatives to risk management. Also on the syllabus will be the principles of mergers and acquisitions—apt, given the department will be sponsored by Mizuho Financial Group, the product of a merger of three banks once in crisis because of their bad loans.

Scales of justice

Tokyo authorities will be closely watching a pilot programme in Shizuoka, in Japan’s Chubu region, that plans to use fish to detect any terrorist tampering with the water supply. The system, concocted by Shizuoka’s government in the wake of the September 11th attacks, will see schools of famously sensitive medaka fish released into selected parts of the water-filtration process in April 2007. If their behaviour changes in any of five significant ways, officials will trigger alarms and shut down the entire supply.

Scientists argue that the fish are a more efficient way of testing the water's quality. The existing system of chlorine treatments and other procedures can take up to 15 hours to detect a problem—five times longer than when using medakas.

Catch if you can

August 2006

Flowers, Birds, Wind, Moon: Japan and Europe

Until August 24th 2006

Towards the end of his life, the syphilitic Edouard Manet (1832-1883) painted a beautiful floral piece, “Bouquet of Peonies”. The flowers are nestled in a vase with a Japanese motif: a character from Kabuki theatre called Sukeroku, brandishing a Japanese umbrella and striking a heroic pose. The painting, which hints at the European fascination with Japanese art in the late-19th century, is the centrepiece of this exhibition at the Hotel Okura. The 60 Edo-period paintings, both western and Japanese, allow visitors to compare the Japanese tradition of kachofugetsu—the painting of flowers, birds, wind and moons—with western traditions of still-lifes and landscapes.

Hotel Okura Tokyo, Ascot Hall, B2, South Wing, Toranomon 2-10-4, Minato-Ku. Tel: + 81 (0)3 3582-0001. Metro: Ginza line to Toranomon station or Hibiya line to Kamiyacho station. Open: daily, 10am-7pm (until 9pm Fri). See the website.

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