Also, there were very old Imperial Eras starting with the letter "H" (for example 宝暦 in 1751). Maybe this is more like the 4-color map problem. You just need 4 different letters in relative location.

Is compromise hypocrisy now?

Pure unadultered Japaneseness is full of Chinese and Western chunks.

Thank you for this news. Now I understand what people mean when they talk about "Jinglish".

...or the existence in Japan of this thing called Buddhism.

Compromise or clinging to awkward anachronisms?

Well, I worry when Marxy's entries could as well be saying quite the opposite, but with the same accusatory tone. Can't you just imagine the entry he'd write if Japan made no concessions whatsoever?

"The Imperial Calendar Fails To Make Concessions To The Western Calendar!"

(Followed by rumblings about isolationism, neo-nationalistic shadows, etc.)

how often and where is the alphabetic abbreviation system S48, H11 actually used? i vaguely seem to recal seeing it somewhere but have no clue where it may have been??

I see it very rarely. I find it fascinating that this little detail would essentially determine the banner name of a grand Imperial Era.

It's used pretty frequently in government publications or other stuffy sectors such as web design:

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=H18&num=10&hs=c5w&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=lang_ja&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images

What is the point of going to all this trouble if you are just going to use Western letters anyway?

The point is to make our life more fun. Life is boring without troubles (that we can somehow live with). Annoying Imperial Era is one of those.

You live in Japan because you can easily find more troubles than in your own country, right? :p

Well, I worry when Marxy's entries could as well be saying quite the opposite, but with the same accusatory tone. Can't you just imagine the entry he'd write if Japan made no concessions whatsoever?

But he didn't, though you did.

Annoying Imperial Era is one of those.

Rectify the names, my brethren! The Master would not put up with this practical subservience to bastard linguistic concerns.

But he didn't, though you did

That was somewhat implicit in "can't you just imagine...", ne?

Technically, when you throw a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" formula on someone, it's called a "double bind". For instance, if Mommy smacks you when you compromise, but also smacks you when you don't compromise, you grow up damaged. You can't win.

I often think how lucky it is that Japan doesn't really listen to this blog. Not only does it allow us to pose questions and speculate endlessly (as if there were no answer, when in fact you could simply ask the first Japanese person you met and get a perfectly satisfactory one), it also allows the double binds to slip harmlessly into the ether.

Yeah, why did Weber write that whole book about Capitalism when he could have just asked the banker down the street???

Sheesh.

There's a slight difference between Max Weber's insights about his own culture and you, as Westerner in Japan, telling us that "pure unadultered Japaneseness is full of Chinese and Western chunks", though, isn't there?

What's the point in setting up a straw man -- some hypothetical person who believes Japan to be pure and unadulterated -- and then pointing to some cultural compromise that shows that, actually, Japan isn't pure? Whose presumptions about Japan, exactly, does this challenge? Why not do some empirical research instead, and, Japan Today Pop Vox style, ask some Japanese whether they believe Japanese culture to be pure and monolithic? If you prefer to stay in the theoretical realm, why not actually tell us whether you approve of cultural compromises or not? Because this entry is structured around the conceit that, while you do approve of cultural compromises, it's not okay for the Japanese to make them because somebody, somewhere, believes in the ultimate purity of the Japanese culture, which makes all compromise hypocrisy. Well, at that point you have to tell us who and where, which means you have to ask someone. Otherwise it's all just straw.

There are two parties who fall spell to the fallacy of a "pure Japan"

1) Nationalists - who see Japanese culture in need of protection under the implicit idea that it is a "pure" body and sui generis

2) The Foreign Protectionists - who rattle on about how Western solutions of Japanese economic practices will "ruin" Japanese culture.

This entry was showing that even the most nominally cosmic, intrinstically Japanese practices have to make compromises with global standards - like romanized letters. (I just let my sarcasm about cultural purity muddy the argument.)

Once you accept this, you can also accept things such as, hmm, rounder hiring standards, a better media system not based on advertorial and information control, actual learning at universities, political leaders who make decisions with transparency, no mafia control of the entertainment industry. All of these things can be a part of the Japanese sytem without making it "American" or ruining the good parts of Japanese culture. If these changes do ruin Japanese culture, they should not be appreciated in the first place.

This also goes back to that "Jean Snow is political" nonsense. I like Jean's site, I read Jean's site, I want Jean to keep doing exactly what he does all the time and I have never once thought Jean should do anything other than what he does.

That being said, I personally cannot write something so glowing about Japanese culture when I have heard too many stories behind things that challenge my ethical standards. It is one thing to say, Japanese magazines are better than Western magazines and have that be some political statement against the West. It is another to go a deeper level down and think about the actual impact of having contents sold to the highest bidder. Precisely because you fail to ask that question (maybe because you don't live here and have to hear nightmare tie-up stories from everyone you meet), I find myself wanting to approach the topic.

Post-politics can and should exist, but not for some ridiculous apologism of difficult political issues. If you did not find Japan aesthetically pleasing, you would agree that the structures are not ideal. I am just willing to question the discrepancy and ask myself, "Is it okay to aesthetically enjoy things that I do not ethically believe are proper?" My blog tends to go far over the edge towards the expose of questionable practices because the rest of the world is already writing about the benefits of Japanese society.

Ignoring politics in order to enjoy aesthetics is not post-political, it's a subtle form of apologism. Jean would be guilty of that only if tried to sell Japan from a subjective political angle like you.

Why not do some empirical research instead, and, Japan Today Pop Vox style, ask some Japanese whether they believe Japanese culture to be pure and monolithic?

Here's the other thing: I do ask people. All the time. Every day. I just ask producers and mediators, not just the consumers in my friend groups. Most of the content on this blog was not learned from Google - I have to ask people "in the know", those pulling the levers and buying the fake editorial and selling the fake editorial to find out all these things. I read the Japanese media and websites to find out what is "really going on" opposed to taking every face-saving, graceful wa explanation at face value.

I can look at data and say, hey, looks like the Japanese music TV shows are all run by a few suspicious jimusho but then I actually ask a writer on those shows and he says, yes, that is EXACTLY what is going on.

I do not, however, blog about all the fancy people I know, all the elite and famous Japanese who I have met, all the yakuza boss' grandkids in my friend group. If you want to believe that this grand paranoid narrative is coming out of my head as fiction, that is up to you, but I think you know full well that I am mostly just repeating what people tell me.

Well, that's a very good apologia for your whole approach, and convincing to some extent. Thank you for spelling it out. I think it brings us back to an old issue: you say that your ethical standards are offended by Japanese ways of doing things, and that I'm an apologist. I don't feel that ethical standards cross cultural boundaries very well. As a cultural relativist, I don't think there are universally good or bad ways of doing things, just your way and my way.

I think that if I started complaining that people in a different culture, people who did things differently, therefore did things worse, I'd be confusing morality with culture. I'd also be -- yes! -- ethnocentric, because I'd be imposing my own learned and cultural preferences on people with different learned and cultural preferences.

So your second comment becomes very important: your claim that Japanese people complain to you all the time about the things Japanese society makes them do. Now, that is not my experience with my Japanese friends. So it unsettles me that you protect your sources, and that these Japanese friends of yours never post here, even anonymously. And I also think that maybe your reputation as someone who likes to hear these stories, and your special areas of research, make Japanese people (who love to please) rummage around for stuff like this to tell you.

So you're not only culturally biased, but your whole Japanese experience is skewed, for these reasons. But I accept that what you're doing here is a good corrective to the polite cultural relativism of people like Jeans Now and me.

As a cultural relativist, I don't think there are universally good or bad ways of doing things, just your way and my way.

But do you believe that a society should be held to its own ideals? I find Confucian ethics and morality to be as helpful as the Western versions. Why am I not allow to hold Japanese social arrangements to their own expressed goals, aspirations, ideals, and ethical boundaries? If wa is about group consensus, should you not point out when wa is used as a cover for elitist domination?

China has a much more corrupt, undemocratic government than Japan, but it does claim to be democratic. Japan does. Japanese companies do not go around saying that their magazines are advertorial. The yakuza are not supposed to be running things, otherwise they would be doing it openly. When artists rip off artists and get caught, the Japanese media openly criticizes them - because they have violated a common held view that plagiarism is bad.

As a foreigner, I understand why my judgements are viewed as ethnocentric, but I do not believe that a majority of my standards are any different than those held by the normal Japanese person.

The main difference is that I come from a culture that is primarily focused on being outraged about everything and holding the world to impossible standards. I am just infinitely more bitchy.

I suspect that Marxy's friends don't post on this blog, because Japan's educational system has failed them in the area of foreign language instruction. (Yes, I am part of that failure process. Hooray for the Monbukagakusho, and its policy of employing those who either don't know or those who can't teach.) UT's a sweet girl, and I want her to conquer the planet, but Ki5i's English isn't exactly up to the standards of a band of Swedish high school drop outs.

Anyhow, I'm going to start ghosting a book called "The Japan Can Say, 'Shuubun.'" I bet the governor will pay a pretty penny for it.

Did we not have all this months ago when you, Momus, basically said about this american reporter who was killed that it serves him right for trying to impose his ideas of women's rights on a people who just like to do things differently?

It's always the same, when defending your cultural relativism, you at first make it sound like a "you say tomahhto and I say tomäto" issue, like "some people prefer jogurth, others natto". Then people press you about the question of universal human rights, and then you either skirt the issue or say something like the above (which I admittedly paraphrased in a not so friendly way, but go ahead to the archives and dig out the exact quote).

So, is not being harrassed by organised crime a human right or not? Are there things like human rights? etc..

Another point, what makes you think you have access to an unbiased sample of Japanese people? Given your radiant japanophilia, Japanesde people with other views probably keep their distance.

right. pretty amuzing and all.

to answer alin's question: the official calendar system is used everywhere in business, banking and government. Pretty much any aspect of life that a non slack jawed yokel would deal with. To apply for a credit card, the consumer must know their birthdate in the imperial calendar. To close out the books on a business year, there will be none of that fancy christian dating for a Japanese accountant, just good solid imperial dates, thank you very much.

Of coruse nobody born in the second half of Showa or later can remember that crap so every businessman uses either the conversion chart in the back of every dayplanner or a computer utility to convert years. Even the fine employees of the Shibuya Kuyakusho tax dept use conversion charts.

BTW as a tip to non yokel life here for anyone: either make VERY sure your company is withholding your residents tax or verify it at your kuyakusho. Someday it can come back and haunt you.

Human rights transcend culture.

But do you believe that a society should be held to its own ideals?

Not by outsiders, no. Although sometimes I'd love to see Martians come down and force the US to abide by its original constitution (separation of church and state and so on). Perhaps Christian angels could come at the same time and try to force the US to be -- really be, not just pay lip service -- Christian (turning the other cheek and so on). Then the angels could fight the Martians. And then Confucians could come and turn whatever was left of the US into a truly Confucian society. Then after that Godzilla could fight Mothra at the Brooklyn Bridge in a bid to make Mothra embrace the enlightened principles of Godzillism.

Not by outsiders, no

But do you not hold just about anything you encounter to your own ideals? Your Opera seems to be about nothing else.

If marxy were an well-studied foreign-born critic of America living in it's borders and writing a blog critical of US policy, his detractors wouldn't constantly say "country X does it so it's ok". The contrarians around here make an understandable mistake when they think that the mono/dialogue implies that Japan's the only country in the world with problems, considering the unalteringly negative tone.
At least I think it's a mistake. I assume that marxy writes about Japan's problems because it's a country like any other, with its own ticks and quirks, and not because it's uniquely in need of urgent change.
Where is the love? Other than name-dropping and indie cred-flashing there's little here that could be read in a positive light about any aspect of contemporary japan... especially in comparison with other developed countries. Did Marxy never like onsens or gyuudon, demuring women or train station cramming?

momus: youve reverted to trollism

Not by outsiders, no

Then do me a favor next time you go to New York: shut the fuck up about how awful America is.

Your problem with me is not that I violate some kind of universal law of cultural relativism: your problem is that you disagree with my political position. If this were a Japanese kid writing about how much American graphic design was terrible, you would love it. But the only way to quiet me is somehow claim that I am "breaking the rules" by even starting up the discussion.

Probably best not to feed the trolls.