The Gup of Cups and Ducks and Yen and Bucks (Aug. 1998)
by William Kennedy

The problem with writing for a bimonthly magazine is that current news is sure to be long dead by the time you publish.
That said, the main subjects of conversation at deadline are Japan's experiences at the World Cup and the fate of the yen: two depressing topics about which everyone seems to have an opinion and nobody really has a clue, and which for some reason call to mind something I learned recently.
A few weeks back, I was clued in to the expression kamo negi, which for those whose Japanese is as bad as mine, means literally "duck" and "onion." It originally referred to finding a duck amid a patch of leeks, a meal just waiting to be prepared. Think of it as Edo-period fast food. From its culinary roots, the term eventually evolved into a description of serendipity, and the underworld then added its own nuances. Among grifters, scammers and sundry fast-yen artists, a kamo negi was an easy mark, a dupe, a patsy, which brings us to the World Cup.
Things were pretty grim for the Japanese in France, both on and off the field. The on-field stuff is old news, but I offer this piece of hearsay from the Internet: Apparently striker Shoji Jo was so distraught over his performance that the night before the team left Aix-les-Bains, he attempted to jump out of his hotel room, giving up only after missing wide in several attempts missing wide at the window.
Off the field, things weren't much better. Japanese fans who went to France came back having broadened their horizons with the new-found ability to say, "Looking for tickets" in most major European languages.
Reports on Japan's games included interviews with scalpers who were gleefully charging as much as 41 times the original price of a ticket, sure in the knowledge that the Japanese would pay because, well, they're Japanese and they always pay. Quack.
The injury of the scams was followed by the insult of realizing that the Japanese travel agents had been bamboozled in ham-fisted plots involving a few pilfered letterheads and what PJ O'Rourke refers to as "dog-ate-my-homework" alibis. Double quack.
Back here at home, meanwhile, the yen was going down like a Croatian striker. Foreigners are holding forth and offering economic opinions, in spite of the fact that most of us believe we can't be overdrawn if we still have cheques. The really disturbing thing, however, is that as little as we know about the yen and the Japanese economy, the guy driving the bus doesn't seem to have a much better grip. When he was still one of the LDP's bright young things, Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto held a variety of posh jobs, including Minister of Finance.
International economic types, who usually can't agree on where to go for coffee, are pretty unanimous in the belief that Japan's current economic rot set in under Hashimoto's watch at the MoF. That people are now looking to him for answers to Japan's economic malaise is like a bunch of fire fighters at a burning building enlisting the help of the guy who left the gas on.
All of this has led, at this writing, to an apparent air of weary fatalism. With farcical World Cup ticket scams and the worldwide taking of liberties with the yen, not to mention embarrassingly huge overseas sexual harassment suits, it is sometimes difficult not to believe that there's some kind of cruel joke making the international rounds, with the Japanese perennially cast in the role of the guy who walks into a bar. Sir, your kamo negi is served.
But ducks aren't always what they seem. For all the yen nonsense, Japan's economy is still not exactly Indonesia's. It remains the second-largest in the world and, given that prime ministers here have the political lifespans of fruit flies, Hashimoto's reign of error is already on borrowed time.
The Japanese soccer team, meanwhile, may have not have won any games, but they did win some admirers and have nothing to be embarrassed about. Compare that to the highly fancied Spanish or Nigerians who joined the Japanese on the same bus out of town, or the Koreans, who amassed fewer points in France than they did coaches.
And as for the scalpers and other assorted bottom feeders who spent their summer vacations preying on Japanese, these things have a way of working themselves out in the long run. Wait until 2002, when these characters come to the land of the hidden charm charge and the \1,000 pint.
Then we'll see whose duck gets plucked.





Recession Derails Hokkaido Gravy Train (Aug. 1998)
by Tommy Inoue

Even in a country suffering its worst business crisis in decades, Hokkaido stands out as gloomy. Last year saw the bankruptcies of major local enterprises, rising unemployment, and stagnation in all of the prefecture's major fields of business: agriculture, forestry, fisheries and tourism.
Hokkaido's softness first became apparent in January 1997, when Blue House, a major general merchandise and furniture chain, filed for bankruptcy. The failure sucked under Blue House's advertising agency. In November, Hokkaido Takushoku Bank announced suspension of operations, which has led to a chain reaction of bankruptcies among its borrowers. The bankruptcy, the first by a Japanese city bank (toshi ginko), highlighted the weakness of the Hokkaido economy.
The situation can been seen as a consequence of Hokkaido's history of development.
Some 100 years ago during the Meiji era, considerable financial and human resources flowed into Hokkaido under the government's policy. Various complicated processes are believed to have prompted this focus on Northern Japan. The prime goal was to create a buffer against the expanding Russian Empire. It was also of utmost importance to address the unemployment caused by abrupt social changes following the Meiji Restoration. The opportunity to exploit sulfur and silver resources in Hokkaido is also believed to have encouraged the Meiji government to accelerate the development program. The prefecture became, in a sense, a colony of the central government. Because of its severe climate for agriculture, however, Hokkaido couldn't help but become depend on the central government for subsidies and other assistance.
Time passed, ideas changed, but people remained the same. What happened was that it was colonized not only by the Tokyo government, but also by large Honshu enterprises. Hokkaido was flooded with capital, resulting in population increases and economic prosperity relative to the pre-war period. But the Hokkaido economy was still not running under its own power. Many companies didn't stand on their own feet, but depended on capital flow from Tokyo.
When the "Bubble" burst, Honshu enterprises had no choice but to pare their unprofitable business, leaving Hokkaido and its local companies on their own. In this way Hokkaido's economy, dependent on large Honshu corporations, government subsidies and public investment, and never designed to function independently, especially with respect to its small companies, began to collapse.
With the Hokkaido Development Agency due to be disbanded, perhaps it's time for Hokkaido to take a new perspective. Suppose that, instead of seeing Tokyo's desertion as a defeat, and pleading for our piece of the shrinking pie, we chose to embrace independence and begin building a truly regionally-based economy. Hokkaido is standing on the razor's edge of economy. To which side will it fall?





Extreme Sports in Hokkaido For the Thrill of it All (June 1998)
by William Kennedy

Try as it might, modern science has yet to adequately explain the human animal's craving for thrills. The world is still waiting for some rational explanation as to why otherwise normal men and women are compelled -- often at some expense -- to hurl themselves down snow-covered mountains, jump off of perfectly good bridges or willingly subject themselves to rigors in the past reserved for heretics and captured enemies.
Which brings us to extreme sports, a term as challenging to define as the sports are to do. An Internet search for "extreme sports" produces more than a million possibilities, which is an awful lot of people jumping off of bridges or shooting the rapids.
In Japan, a lot of this activity is taking place in Hokkaido. The island's natural blessings make it a natural amusement park, with vast rocky areas, broad flat plains and churning rivers. Throw in snowy winters and mild weather the rest of the year, and you've got the backdrop for almost any extreme sport you want to mention. A few hardy neoprene-clad souls have even been spotted surfing the waters of the Sea of Japan.
Xene spoke with an the owner of an adventure sports company involved in Hokkaido's burgeoning extreme sports industry, an adventure sports jack-of-all-trades, and a runner whose ultra-marathoning may be among the most extreme sports of all.


THE ENTREPRENEUR

Though the Niseko Outdoor Adventure Sports Club is only a few years old, its beginnings can be traced back more than 12 years, to Ross Carty's arrival in Hokkaido as a 17-year-old member of the Australian junior ice hockey team.
"I met a lot of good people," he remembers. "There was all this snow and ice, and I could hardly say a thing, maybe just sumimasen and domo."
Carty is the owner of Niseko Outdoor Adventure Sports Club, which for the last five years has offered a growing range of outdoor activities. These include such standbys as river rafting, mountain biking and absailing (known to North Americans as rappelling), along with "duckie," paddling a kind of inflatable rubber canoe, rap jumping, which is like absailing except you plunge headfirst, and mountain
boarding, which for lack of a better description is like riding a fat-tired skateboard.
NOASC's newest attraction is something called bridge swinging, for those who find bungee jumping too limiting. Using an alpine climbing rope, the bridge swinger jumps from the bridge and then hangs like a pendulum, passing within a few feet of the ground on each pass. It is, says Carty, "a bit of a buzz."
NOASC is your typical 10-year overnight success story. After leaving Japan, Carty returned seven years later, having become an accomplished snowboarder. He was eager to spend a winter in the Northern Hemisphere, but away from the usual spots in North American and Europe, when he came across an ad for a JAL tour to Hokkaido.
He spent the next five winters working in Niseko on the ski patrol or working in restaurants, improving his Japanese as he went along. He decided to stay and open a snowboard shop, which led to snowboarding classes and, finally, NOASC.
In the winter of 1993-94, he began running overnight snowboarding tours and business has doubled every year since. This year he hopes to have more than 12,000 customers.
Carty credits the increased leisure time enjoyed by many people in Japan over the last decade for the recent boom in extreme sports. The time away from the office has allowed people to develop hobbies.
"They head to the mountains more. Outdoor adventure sports is something right in front of them," he says.
With the growth in leisure time has come the travel boom. People have returned to Japan eager to duplicate their experiences in North American or Down Under and less willing to accept the answer that such things can't be done in Japan. In addition to this, the sagging yen has inspired people to ask why they should go overseas to do things they can do in Japan.
He adds, however, that the industry is still in its infancy in Hokkaido, with little in the way of regulations to weed out the incompetent and the unscrupulous.
"A lot of people see it and think anyone can do it. A lot can do it, but not safely," he says.
He tells horror stories of novices who are put into a boat in the morning, given a paddle and that afternoon introduced to customers as a guide. The key to spotting such operations, he says, is simply a matter of paying attention and seeing the way they do business.
Sometimes, however, even experience and caution are not enough. Last year, a woman Carty had hired was killed in an avalanche while snowshoeing days before she was to start work. On top of having her own experience to draw on, she was with a senior guide. The guide, says Carty, made an unbelievable mistake.
"There's no problem in 99.9999 percent of cases. All you can do is be prepared for that .0001 percent," he says.


THE BIKER

John Mauen would like to talk about mountain biking; it's the sport he feels most qualified to discuss. This is despite the fact that he possesses a pair of the top-of-the-line snowshoes, regularly snowboards down Mt. Yotei, Hokkaido's daunting scale model of Mr. Fuji, and begins our interview with a story about his attempts to master whitewater kayaking. On top of this there's his history of competitive bike racing, lifelong love of hiking, and Ultimate (a flying disc team sport). But we're here to talk about mountain biking.
Mauen, 38, is a dervish with no lack of infectious enthusiasm. When talking about mountain biking, he becomes almost evangelical. The sport, he says, contains something for everyone and allows you to have fun even if you're going one mile an hour. The countryside surrounding Sapporo is full of trail running through the forest.
Mauen was something of a late convert himself to mountain biking. "I used to be a hiker. The whole concept (of mountain biking) just infuriated me."
The change came when he moved to Japan seven years ago. Friends already here suggested he ditch his skinny-tired racing bike. "They said, 'John, bring a mountain bike, it's better,' and that was it," he says.
Mountain biking offers two types of enjoyment, both of which Mauen appreciates. There is the lunatic thrill of crashing like a bat of hell through the brush on a steep hill, jumping logs and downed trees, but there is also the quiet joy of reaching a mountain crest and taking in a panoramic view.
There are plenty of places for novice riders looking to try mountain biking without having to notify their next of kin before setting out. Mauen suggests Nopporo, which has enough hills to make a ride interesting without scaring away beginners.
The important thing, he says, is to play and learn. "You don't have to go into some wild place and do a trial by fire."
Nor do you have to drop large amounts of cash to get into mountain biking. Mauen's bike, which he describes as "acceptable," cost US$600, which is at the lower end of the price spectrum for a good bike. The handlebars, the bar stem and the shifter are the only things he has not broken. He explains that mountain biking is all about abuse absorbed by both bike and rider, and no piece of equipment will change that.
"A seat is a seat; your ass is not going to feel good no matter what," he says.
With the crashes come injuries. Mauen says he used to be "insane" on his bike, but has toned it down since breaking an elbow. He also adds that anyone who does not wear a helmet is simply a fool.
The flip side of the risk of crashing is the possibilty of finding what he calls a sweet ride. Every trail offers possibility, every path whispers potential.
"There's so many dirt roads and you don't know, one of them could be it," he says.
He implies that he has found more that a few in his time, but draws the line at telling novice cyclists where such paths might be.
"They want to try it, they've got to pay their dues," he says with a smile.


THE RUNNER

Mountain biking was a natural progression for John Mauen, combining his two loves of cycling and hiking, but for ultra-marathoner Masaki Ueda, there was no such transition.
Ueda, a 38-year-old medical technology consultant, has participated in the last five runnings of the Lake Saroma Ultra-marathon, a grueling 100-km (62.5-mile) run. He is now preparing for this year's race, which will be held in June.
Before he got into running, at the age of 25, he was, in his own words, a non-athlete. His future wife, Tomoko, herself a recreational dancer, urged him to start exercising. He took to the streets after a disastrous fitness test at a local gym and was soon a devoted runner.
He entered his first Lake Saroma race in 1993 at the suggestion of a colleague who had been a famous runner in his college days. Ueda took the challenge, although he admits he had no idea what was waiting for him. The run along the shore of Hokkaido's largest lake is a 10-hour ordeal. Of the 2,000 elite runners who enter every year, some 40 percent fail to finish.
His preparation consisted of a daily 10-km workout, as well as visualization training. "I tried to imagine finishing. I told myself, 'You can do it, you can do it.'"
The experience of the race itself came as a jarring shock. He realized that he could rely only on his own stamina. He considered quitting every step and kept himself going with happy memories of everything from girlfriends and old friends to high test scores. He was grateful to the cheering spectators lining the route and the volunteers, most of them high school students, who handed out onigiri, drinks and bananas to the runners.
But it is Tomoko for whom Ueda reserves his greatest thanks. She followed the route and turned up at aid stations along the course every few hours.
"I said nothing but was very encouraged. Without her cooperation I couldn't have finished," he says, calling her his inspiration.
He has since entered each year and three years ago moved to Sapporo after spending 20 years in Osaka.
The race also remains the only event he competes in all year. He considers the other 364 days to be training for that one day. His best finish was in 1996, when he placed 89th out of more than 1,500 runners. Citing the pleasant landscape, the flat course and the cool weather, Ueda calls Lake Saroma the best of the more than 20 such races held across Japan. "Imagine trying to run in the center of Osaka," he says with a laugh.
He puts in 10 km a day, getting up at 5 a.m. no matter what the weather to run through nearby Nopporo Forest Park. It is in the forest, he says, where he can most readily draw strength from the sun.
Ueda recalls the words of the colleague who prompted him to take up ultra-marathoning, and provides what could serve as a 25-words-or-less explanation of what prompts people to try -- continue -- extreme sports of any kind.
"He said, 'After you finish your world will change.' And it was true, my world has changed."





A Private Matter?
- Sapporo's physically and mentally disabled citizens (Feb. 1998)
by Michelle Cook

In a society that values conformity, having a handicap has traditionally been viewed as a matter to be dealt with privately. The physically and mentally disabled in Japan have long existed on the outskirts of their communities, seldom seen outside their homes and rarely discussed publicly. In 1994, Japanese author Kenzaburo Oe, whose son is mentally handicapped, brought attention to this situation when he won the Nobel Prize for literature. However, the disabled and their supporters were working on achieving recognition and improving access and opportunities long before that. Old attitudes and barriers are falling away, but there is still much work to be done.
On this crisp autumn day, the Akashiya Kai group is meeting at Hokkaido Shrine in Maruyama Park, Sapporo. Children in brightly coloured kimonos run excitedly up and down the shrine's main steps for an early celebration of the shichi-go-san festival. Adjacent to these steps is a single, steep ramp with a seven-centimeter step at the bottom; today, it's slippery with rain. One of the group's wheelchair-bound members tries to maneuver over it but can't. When asked who they can turn to with problems like this, group leader Mamoru Takamori says the gods will have to be asked to help improve access for Sapporo's handicapped citizens.
According to a Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare survey, there are more than 2.8 million disabled people in Japan. Sapporo has approximately 56,000 physically disabled citizens, three percent of the city's population. Imagine you are one of them. How accessible is Sapporo? The Akashiya Kai group has been meeting annually for 10 years to check handicapped access to city facilities.
Satoshi Nitsu, a special education teacher in Sapporo, says the number of handicapped coming to live in Hokkaido is increasing and one reason is that the roads and street system are more easily navigable for them. The city is criss-crossed by an extensive yellow tile (tenji block) system which helps blind citizens maneuver. But as one Akashiya Kai member points out, these are virtually useless in winter. This imperfection sums up the situation for the disabled of Sapporo. They live in a city in progress; access is improving, but it is not yet complete.
A quick survey of some of the city's commonly used facilities reveals that Sapporo City Hall and the Hokkaido Government building are both accessible. Many public buildings also have Braille-equipped elevators and information boards. Several larger bank branches and post offices, and department stores are equipped with access ramps. Many older buildings and smaller shops, especially those outside the city center, however, do not have ramps or elevators and merchants are not legally obligated to install them.
According to a Sapporo City Transportation employee, all stations on the Toho subway line have elevators and disabled-access toilets. The other lines have elevators in 15 of their 23 stations and disabled-access toilets in 13. However, a difference in level between trains and platforms means wheelchair-bound customers can't use the subway independently.
To improve the quality of life for the disabled, groups like Akashiya Kai write letters to places with barriers and meet with municipal officials.
Far from the city center, in Sapporo's quiet Fujino district, there is evidence that these efforts to improve the quality of life for the disabled have not been in vain. Mukudori Park has been specially designed for handicapped people. Completed in 1996 as the first neighbourhood park of its kind in Sapporo, it is equipped with handrails, tenji block tiles, Braille information boards, and climbing apparatus, slides and swings for the physically impaired.
Takamori explains it is only a prototype, but Mukudori Park is an indication that, while Sapporo still needs to be improved, it is slowly becoming a city where all citizens can enjoy life to the fullest.
EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT: ONE MAN'S STORY by Michelle Cook, with Alfredo Varela
Mentally and physically handicapped students traditionally were phased out of the regular Japanese education system and into special schools at an early age. Limited education meant severly limited employment opportunities. Those for more severely physically disabled and mentally challenged citizens were almost non-existent.
However, the employment and education picture for Japan's disabled has been improving. There's a trend toward allowing mildly disabled children to remain in the regular school system. Employment opportunities for the visually impaired are opening up in industries such as computer programming. Communities such as Date, in southern Hokkaido, have successfully launched programs to integrate mentally disabled citizens into the local workforce. The government plans to revise the current law, raising the stipulated proportion of physically disabled persons to 1.8% of the workforce in companies with more than 63 workers, up from 1.6%.
Taro Sugawara, a translator in the International Relations Division of the Hokkaido Government, is legally blind. He discussed his education and employment experiences.

Q. What was your experience in school?
A. I enrolled in elementary school about 20 years ago. At that time, my mother had to fight with the Sapporo Board of Education. According to school law I wasn't entitled to go to regular elementary school due to my visual impairment, but I had gone to normal kindergarten. One day I toured a special school for the blind in Ebetsu. Of course, I knew a normal school would be better, so I asked my mother to find a way for me to go there. She fought the school board and this was the starting point for her movement, a grassroots movement, toward liberation - a strong word - of the disabled in Sapporo.

Q. How does this integration affect the classroom?
A. Normal students know everything about what disabled students want to do or say. I think students are good advocates to show the public techniques for dealing with handicapped people. Teachers should listen to them. After these children grow up, the idea of living with disabled people will be deeply rooted.

Q. What about your university education?
A. I have a B.A. in Literature from Oberlin College (in Oberlin, U.S.A.). Most disabled people go to special schools so it's very tough to pass private or national university entrance exams because the level is so different compared to regular schools. The disabled learn more slowly and at schools for the blind they teach more practical skills like how to be an acupuncturist or masseuse. In my case, I needed a large-print test. I applied in advance for this, but some private universities refused only because if a disabled person passes the exam, later the university has to accommodate them and provide ramps or elevators. So some universities strongly object to admitting disabled people. This might be illegal, but everybody says it can't be helped. The exception is schools with Christian or Buddhist backgrounds.

Q. Is there a need for average Japanese people to change their attitudes toward the physically disabled?
A. One important thing is learning how to accommodate the disabled not only in the school environment, but also in the workplace. A disabled person takes more time to do a job. That's the basic concern normal people have about working with handicapped people. If disabled people are hired, supervisors will have to change their notion that doing many things is equal to achievement. This will contribute to better co-existence.

Q. What about your employment situation?
A. After I was hired [as a translator], the attitude I encountered was very strange. When I was introduced to each section, they were puzzled as to what I could do and my former section chief kept asking me what I could do. But after six months [of my working], their attitude completely changed.

Q. Did you ever feel frustrated that you lacked full support from society to help you attain your goals?
A. I'm very satisfied with my present position. I really appreciate the staff in my division because they treat me as an equal professionally and privately. At Oberlin, the staff and professors were very cooperative and my friends and family have always been supporting me. But one thing is clear, a normal person has many options in where they work or who they marry. But think about me. I just have a visual impairment, but my range of options has been narrowed. If I was born normal, I would not have chosen to be a public servant. I'd be working for a foreign corporation, maybe stationed in a foreign city.

SPECIAL PROGRAMS FOR SPECIAL NEEDS by Michelle Cook, with Alfredo Varela
Like most mothers, Sunny (Sonoko) Izumi worries about her son's options. Koshiro, or Ko-chan as she calls him, is a 14-year-old junior high school student. While most parents of boys his age are concerned about their sons' high school entrance exam scores, Sunny has different ideas. Ko-chan is autistic. He needs a very controlled environment and Izumi feels his school experiences have hindered more than helped him.
"I don't think the school environment now for severely handicapped children is appropriate, so what I can do right now to help him is withdraw him [from public school]," she says.
There are few innovative programs or centers available in Sapporo to help the mentally disabled develop to their fullest potential. Traditional attitudes may be one reason for this. "Japan is different from Christian societies," says Izumi. "There's no [concept of] sin, so society is regulated by embarrassment. Having a handicap is embarrassing in Japan so it's automatically a negative thing."
According to a report by Megumi Kawabata published by the Hokkaido Chapter of the National Association for Problems of the Disabled, facilities for the handicapped in Sapporo are limited to two dormitories with capacity for 60 people, 27 group homes for 140, and 13 institutions for 662 .
Compounding the problem, these facilities are not innovative treatment centers. "They're very traditional places," says Izumi. She adds that mothers are especially worried about the lack of convenient high school facilities for the disabled. "There are a few now," says Izumi. "But kids in Sapporo with severe handicaps can't get into special high schools here; they take only mildly handicapped [students]."
She can't turn to the medical profession either. "One problem I see is that there are only four or five doctors to look after almost all handicapped children in Hokkaido, so all they can do is prescribe drugs. I asked one doctor what I could do for Ko-chan to help him. He said 'probably nothing'. He's a sincere person but I think he doesn't have enough time to research because he's looking after so many people. I think mothers and parents must make the first move."
That's exactly what Izumi did when she and Ko-chan travelled to the U.S. in 1996 to participate in an innovative program called Son-Rise. The Izumis were the first Japanese family from Japan to participate in this well-known American program for autistic children.
The program, which stresses love and acceptance of the child as he is, involves intensive sessions in which parents and volunteers try to reach the child on his own terms, rather than on outside expectations. Using imitative therapy and prolonged sensory stimulation, someone is with the child for nine hours a day, seven days a week. The goal is to establish eye contact and increase it to the point where the child can interact normally with others. Program participants can continue the therapy at home by re-creating the controlled environment.
It's been difficult to re-create the program in Japan because, as a single mother, Izumi must do all the work herself. However, she maintains a postive attitude and is hopeful about providing Ko-chan with the options he needs. "What I have to do is not worry about the future, but find things I can do right now to help Ko-chan," says Izumi. "In Japan no one knows about the Son-Rise program; I have friends to help but I need volunteers to run this kind of program successfully,"
Anyone interested in volunteering to help Ko-chan can contact Sunny Izumi at tel./fax. 011-898-2533.