Japanese Newspeak & the Senkaku "dispute"

This is from the Facebook page of  Richard Lloyd Parry's  - The Times' Asia editor.


NHK, Japan's rough equivalent of the BBC, is often accused of being insufficiently independent, and of pusillanity in the face of pressure from the government.The following document, passed to me by a source who wishes to remain anonymous, seems to confirm this. In the past, the NHK style police have outlawed the use of the English expression "sex slaves" for the euphemistic "comfort women", and insist on referring to "the incident known as the Nanking Massacre". Now employees on NHK's English language programs have received the following memo from their boss:


(To all translators)

We forwarded to you the other day a message asking you to refrain from using the expression "disputed islands" in news scripts related to the Senkaku Islands.

The World News department has further decided not to use the word "dispute", to avoid giving the mistaken impression that NHK acknowledges the existence of such a dispute.

We are in the process of determining what expression to use instead of "dispute."
Until then, we ask you to refrain from using this word when writing news scripts.

###

https://www.facebook.com/richardlp/posts/10152140629445645


I expect this from China, but from supposedly democratic Japan.

Political developments in Japan are extremely troubling.

Helping with homework.

I think it exciting to fish.
I think it easy to ride a bike.
To know is quite different from to teach.
He is hungry to eat all the food.


What do these sentences have in common?
Being example sentences in Hiro's niece's government approved textbook...(publisher Sanseido)


The kids of Japan deserve much better


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A new Tokyo transport map - well done JR East

I came across this for the first time this evening. It's a new integrated map of the Tokyo rail network.  it's seriously impressive. Not all stations are marked, but as far as I can tell, all lines are.  (At least if the Toden Arakawa tram line and the Nippori Toneri liner are on it, I think all lines should be.)

It really gives a sense of the extent of the rail network. 

http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/routemaps/pdf/RouteMap_majorrailsub.pdf
This is the link to the JR East page.

Two tales of one city (2)

Today we were in the Ueno Okachimachi area.  I wanted to go to Ueno to buy some chili and other spices that are more easily available from the underground wet market than they are locally.  It's about 5-6 km from Marunouchi / Ginza where we were yesterday, but it couldn't be more different.
For starters there wasn't a shred of evidence of Christmas (not a bad thing in early November)... and then the rest...

I don't think this would make the cut for a Marunouchi Naka dori
sculpture series.

Stepping back the garbage bin & vending machine make it an even less likely candidate.

An Indian / Nepalese "Namaste" Oedo restaurant...
I'm still bemused by the incongruity of Nepalese and Oedo

A darts bar that serves guinness 

The extend of the vandalism in the area

Hotel New Tohoku. Hiro was relieved it wasn't a love hotel...
The trains from Tohoku used to terminate at Ueno and there
is a lot of cheap accommodation near station.

Houses build out of corrugated iron. The proximity of the car park suggests that
there is someone waiting to buy out the residents to construct an apartment building on the site.

Housing which is presumably very basic 

The heart and soul of the shitamachi resides in these kind of houses.
If the locals are forced out by gentrification, the Tokyo matsuris
will find it increasingly difficult to continue.

A chook at the Shitaya shrine

Everything at the Shitaya shrine seemed just a bit wonky.

 

It was 7-5-3 today - children go to the shrine in kimono.

The inari jinja (fox shrine) in the background

Temple people doing maintenance work.

A beat up radio - it's a symbol of a certain generation of Japanese men -
walking around listening the baseball or sumo or whatever... it wasn't on.

The Shitaya shrine

Add caption

The shrine entrance.

Corrugated iron, but unlike some of the others near by did not seem abandoned.