Blowing Smoke: Today's Eruption of Mount Shindake

And the Government's Hot-Air Response

The footage of this morning’s eruption of Mount Shindake, on tiny Kuchinoerabu Island in Japan’s far southwest, is awesome and terrifying and fascinating – and probably very bad for the local tourism industry. In case you missed it, the article accompanying the footage is prettyterrifying in its own way.

 

 

 

Below are a few excerpts in quotation marks.

The keen insights in italics are mine.

“More than 100 people have been ordered to evacuate after a volcano erupted on the tiny southern Japanese island of Kuchinoerabu on Friday morning.”

Ordered to evacuate. Huge volcanic eruption on a tiny island and the authorities think they need to tell people to get the hell out of Dodge? This is what a government selfie looks like.

“Spectacular TV footage captured the moment Mount Shindake exploded, sending columns of thick, black smoke high into the air.”

Guys, the smoke in that ‘spectacular’ footage is medium gray. At best.

“Japan’s meteorological agency raised the alert level to five – the highest on its scale…”

A massive eruption ranks a five. Wow. Tricky algorithm there.

“The agency said no injuries or damage had been reported following the eruption…”

I know, right? People just don’t think to give the meteorological agency a call when they’re running like hell for their lives.

“The agency added that pyroclastic flows, dense currents of rock fragments and hot gases from the volcano had reached the island’s north-west shore.”

Fancy language to make people forget these people giving their important little evacuation orders are hiding under their desks at agency headquarters in Tokyo.

Mount Shindake is on Kuchinoerabu island, located in the middle of the strange round circle there in the bottom center..

“In Tokyo, the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, set up an emergency response team…”

All the natural disaster shit that goes on in this country and they don’t have an emergency response team already set up?

“and dispatched a self-defence forces to the island.”

Nice grammar. And spelling. Can’t wait to see how these guys defend against the pyroclastic flows, the flying rocks and the hot gases. “Stop it! Stop it! Please, cut it out!...”

“Abe said he had instructed local authorities to do “everything possible” to ensure the islanders’ safety.”

Another government selfie. Thanks for the tip Shinzo.

All right let’s skip to the end and put this report out of its misery.

“Authorities in Japan, which is dotted with active volcanoes, are taking a more cautious approach following criticism that they had failed to warn hikers of increased volcanic activity before the Ontake tragedy last September.”

Waving their verbal selfie stick around while they put together their emergency response team. A few words come to mind here. None of them is ‘cautious’.

Note: I live in Japan and am all too familiar with natural disasters. The eruption of Shindake merits serious attention – but since I have not received the Prime Minister’s advice to be “as concerned as possible” I’ll simply wish those self-defense forces good luck against their fight against their pyroclastic enemy.

Shakespearean Tragedy in Yoshikawa Park

To Ignore or Not To Ignore

Children were swarming all over Yoshikawa Park in Matsumoto today. A bunch of animals, they were. Cheetahs and gazelles, racing in circles across the wide open grassy spaces. Monkeys running and climbing all over the bars and rope ladders while lions and tigers growled their way through tunnels and up and down ramps in the expansive playground. Quacking ducks splashed around in the brick-lined river flowing down from the place where young colts in t-shirts and colorful birds in summer dresses brayed and chirped as they danced around on the smooth stone ground, cool water shooting and spraying them from the fountains underneath.

And on a bench in the shade I saw these three kids.

 

What a shameful, pathetic waste of a beautiful day, we righteous parents mutter. Kids with their noses stuck in their video games like that.

We see it and share it all the time. Teenagers glued to their phones like this.

 

Students ignoring great works of art not to mention their friends in favor of whatever.

 

What’s wrong with kids these days? What a sad generation we’re seeing.

But as I walked through Yoshikawa Park today, past all those beautiful animals playing in perfect anarchical fashion, I noticed a few of their parents.

 

Ignoring their children.

 

Ignoring the day.

 

 

Ignoring each other.

 

 

I didn’t walk very far, or very long.

 

 

This was in the space of about a minute...

 

 

...and a couple hundred yards.

 

 

Any wonder where our kids get it?

I have a smartphone too. It picks up the wi-fi at home but that’s it. I don’t have a data plan connected to it. I don’t even have a phone number for it. It’s just a wireless device for home – and a handy camera everywhere else. For phone calls and texts I have this.

Still, at home I catch myself checking email on that smartphone at multiple random times throughout the day. I’ll drop by ESPN. I’ll thumb through the news headlines. And sometimes I do it when my kids are right in front of me, not necessarily in need of something but still...I’m standing there, scrolling through the readers’ comments on an article about the British elections, ignoring my own little daughter.

Then I can’t stand it when they come over and want to borrow my phone to watch a Power Rangers Samurai Megaforce video on YouTube?

I’ve recently come to realize how easily and how often I pick up my phone when I’m at home. I’ve never counted how many times I’ve picked it up in the course of a day but I’d bet the number would be embarrassing. It is way too easy to get sucked into that thing.

Leave the phone alone, I tell myself.

I wanted to say the same thing to these people as I walked my kids back to the car.

 

“Why are you taking all these pictures?” my oldest kid asked.

 

 

I tried to explain.

 

I don’t know if he understood, or if he thinks it’s normal for grown-ups to always have their faces in their phones.

But I do know he loves kicking the soccer ball around with me. And I’ll take that over ESPN any day.

 

 

Ichiro Suzuki in Miami

Why Does He Look So Happy?

 

I’ll bet I became a fan of Ichiro Suzuki at the same time most other people did. Namely, on April 11^th 2001 when he fired a screamer from right field to nail Terrence Long at third base. Since that day, whether on the ESPN highlight reel or in the occasional game I’d catch on TV, watching Ichiro has always been a supreme pleasure, for his artistry as well as his level-headed attitude. (Notice the non-reaction after that throw?)

And while his play amazed, his demeanor intrigued, to the point I where wondered if the guy even cared about winning.

 

 

Sure, he was right there in the middle of the celebration, helping toss the manager into the air after driving in the winning run for the Orix Blue Wave in the 1996 Japan Series. In this interview after Japan’s victory in the first World Baseball Classic in 2006 he talks about what a great group of guys that team was, and how this was the greatest day, the greatest moment of his baseball career.

Still, I’d say his focus was not on winning titles but on being the best baseball player he could be. I think that was his championship. The rest was just gravy.

 

 

He absolutely cared about winning. Cared about it every game, every at bat. Cared about it on every play. Cared not about champagne or a trophy, but about his own version of victory.

Knew that his version of winning renewed itself every play, every moment. No time to get excited about that last play, the next one is on the way. Level-headed. Unemotional. Laser-like. Until it’s all over. And if it turns out he’s a champion, he’ll celebrate.

Maybe that’s why he now seems so at ease down there in Miami, in the twilight (can we assume?) of his career. He’s done his thing, and done it as well as anybody on the planet. Time to celebrate. Time to enjoy it all.

Because what’s left to do, catch Pete Rose?

Tokyo Sushi Joint Owner Tells Foreigners To "Fish Off"

And He Has No Reservations About It

"So what can I get for you to - Hey! How did you gaijin get in here?!"

With everyone caught up in the racial tension exploding all over the streets of Baltimore many seem to have missed what is going on across the globe in Japan. While people share videos and trade commentary on rioting and looting and an empty baseball stadium there's barely been a whisper about the injustices happening right in the heart of the ritziest section of Tokyo.

According to this article in the Japan Times there's some guy with a sharp knife and fingers that reek of tuna refusing to play nice with certain non-Japanese people. His heinous crime? Maintaining a policy of not accepting reservations by foreign would-be patrons of his fancy-schmancy sushi bar.

All hell broke loose recently when a Chinese man, who has been a resident of Japan for 30 years, was unable to snag a dinner reservation at Sushi Mizutani because his name wasn't Japanese, even though he had his Japanese secretary call and make the reservation. Mizutani-san offers the simple explanation that “Non-Japanese customers may not show up for their reservations.” Apparently his Japanese customers always do.

But let's set aside this powderkeg for a second and highlight a couple other bits.

First off, one of the few people who work at high-dollar, small-scale Mizutani says “We have an increasing number of cases in which people are abandoning their reservations.” We the readers are left to fill in the blanks and assume the abandoners are all non-Japanese. This person goes on to say that "Japanese-speaking customers are called for reconfirmation a few days before their reservation." From the choice of words one of three things, or maybe all of three things, would logically follow:

1. Non-Japanese are not called for reconfirmation.
2. Everyone is called for reconfirmation because only Japanese are able to make reservations.
3. At Sushi Mizutani "Japanese-speaking" is synonymous with "Japanese".

Or maybe the whole thing has come about because no one at Sushi M. speaks anything but Japanese.

So why was a 30-year resident of Japan given the Heismann, even with his Japanese (speaking) assistant making the call? Check this line:

"The number of foreign tourists coming to Japan has rocketed in recent years as the value of the yen has fallen and as tensions have eased between Beijing and Tokyo."

Time for more logic games:

1. More foreigners to Japan means more foreigners trying to make reservations at Su-Mizu.
2. The foreign tourists coming to Japan are coming from China. Otherwise why mention Beijing?
3. The reservation-abandoners are all Chinese.

Okay to be precise none of these follow pure logic. It's all pretty much circumstantial evidence of the crime - kind of like the guy in the article getting the stiff-arm is Chinese. More than mere coincidence, methinks.

Over the years I've had more than a few students who were from China. For the most part they were great, engaging, energetic people. I despise China the political entity. I like the Chinese people I meet. Most of them anyway, just as I like most of the people I meet from any other country. And in my travels I've met a lot.

But I've also been on airplanes with large groups of Chinese people. As a group their behavior was annoying at best though abhorrent is probably a better term. I've seen them in crowds in various countries, in Asia and in Europe. They tend to stand out...like that undisciplined little brat in the restaurant who won't shut the f**k up and sit down. Sorry to offend anyone who would rather turn a blind politically-correct eye but like I said, the Chinese people I've met I've liked. A lot. The groups I've come in contact with, on the other hand, remind me of this fun look at Chinese tourists in action.

Mizutani-san waits for a no-show party-of-8 "for the last effing time."

Now look, before you start whining and calling me an ignorant racist (the correct term would be enlightened prejudicial ass by the way) let me tell you about a guy I used to know.

He held a full-time university job - but not the kind with a decent paycheck so he drove a taxi on the side. And he always told his black customers to pay him before he took them where they wanted to go. Because he was a prejudicial ass? No, because he'd been screwed too many times, and always by black people. These were his own words. And by the way, he was black.

Was his practice a commentary on all black people? No, it was just how he chose to do business. He got called some colorful names (no pun intended). He lost a bunch of customers. He also stopped getting shafted.

Think Mr. Mizutani simply hates the idea of foreigners (ahem, Chinese people) in his sushi shop? For no tangible reason? No, he hates the trend of foreigners (ahem) bailing on their reservations. He hates losing money to people who can ask for something but can't hold up their end. How to end the trend? By cutting off the trendsetters.

As for this latest guy who got the palm: what if had every intention to honor his reservation?

This is Tokyo for Christ's sake, sushi ain't too hard to come by.

But really, what's the big deal if someone bails on their dinner reservation?

Good question. Except this isn't the Olive Garden we're talking about, there aren't hordes of hungry middle-class families hovering over the hostess stand waiting to be called so they can go try the new (and microwaved) Fettuccine Festa Plate. Sushi Mizutani has a grand total of eight seats. Dinner starts at around $200 a pop. Jackie Chang and his buddies don't show up and Mr. Mizu is out several hundred bucks. Plus he's got some of the best sashimi on the planet turning into dollar-a-plate sushi train material back there in the kitchen.

Eight seats. $200 or more for dinner. This isn't the kind of place people just decide on a whim to go


Mizutani's first name, Hachiro, means 'Eighth Son'.
Growing up, brothers 1-7 rarely left him more
than dinner scraps. This may help explain things.

to and then when they roll through the front door write their last name on a piece of paper with how many in their party and whether they want smoking or non-smoking. This is a place where you either make a reservation weeks in advance or you go somewhere else.

Comments at the end of the article suggest taking deposits by credit card. Great. 50% down on dinner. The guy is still out $100 minimum for each no-show, with the sashimi already bought and no one hanging out at the hostess stand that doesn't exist. Commenters cry about discrimination and racism and Waah waah waah take their Michelin stars away! Whatever. You run your business how you see fit, this guy has no obligation to cater to your ideas of justice.

If his stance does eventually bite him in the ass then that is just the price of his business philosophy at work.

Bottom line, this Mizutani character is just watching his bottom line.

And if he also has a distaste for Chinese people, or Americans or Zimbabweans and doesn't want them in his place, so what? If I owned a fancy-schmancy sushi joint I would have a firm policy of not allowing in anyone named Lindsey Lohan. Discriminatory? Maybe. But not without reason. And if it's my place then I get to decide on the reasons.

Lindsey can go eat somewhere else.

NOTE: This 'Tiny Urban Kitchen' blog post from January 2012 lends an interesting inside look at Sushi Mizutani. It may or may not alter your opinion on the matter though the blog author (an American of Taiwanese descent who DID eat there by the way) gives a much clearer picture of the nature of the place than the scribbler of this article manages to