Painting fish at Design Festa, by Abdullah Al Mamun.

There were 2.1 million foreigners living in Japan in 2010, 1.6 percent of its 127 million total population. In Japan, common attitudes towards foreigners (or what I’d call “soft racism”) are often born out of the ever-present focus on cultural difference rather than feelings of superiority (“hard racism”). The decision to avoid sitting next to a foreign person on the train most likely derives from a fear of the unknown, rather than a genuine aversion to foreign people.

The word for foreigner in Japan, gaijin, has become synonymous with an “us” and “them” mentality. In Japan, you’re often not an Australian, Briton or Indonesian. You’re simply a gaijin.
The linguistic classification of foreigners into a single group both inadvertently encourages ignorance of the array of different cultures worldwide, and prevents the realization of the many social and human similarities other cultures share with the Japanese. For example, I’ve often been asked such questions here as, “Do people overseas eat a lot of rice?” or, “Do people overseas drink coffee?”—as if everyone outside Japan is a united entity.

But there are advantages to this shared national psyche. It bonds the Japanese people closer together and forms a family-like union between 127 million people, or rather—124.9 million people.

This sense of family unity is reflected in universal social practices such as removing shoes before entering a house or school, the custom of public bathing in onsen as well as activities such as nabe parties or izakaya outings. Following the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 3/11/2011, there were numerous foreign reports written in admiration of Japanese victims and refugees lining up courteously in ration queues and remaining considerate of others despite the horrific conditions.

Another example of this consideration lies in a story of a friend of mine who headed home after work one day carrying ¥100,000 rent in cash. As he reached for his wallet before arriving home his gut sank with the realization that it was gone. As happens in so many stories of this kind in Japan, the local police station called him to interrupt his distress. A stranger had found the wallet on the street and handed it in—along with its precious contents. Though many readers might have heard—or experienced—stories like this, it’s worth remembering that there are few countries in the world where this kind of thing happens. The family-like bond in Japanese society breeds this kind of common respect and thoughtfulness for their fellow community members—and even a foreigner, in this case. But this sense of unity comes at a price.

Many Japanese people struggle to relate to foreigners. Often when I order at a restaurant in Japan, for example, the waiter will turn to my Japanese friends and reply to them—even though I’ve just spoken in Japanese. This lack of familiarity and understanding of foreign cultures could be damaging to an aging Japan faced with increased immigration and intensifying globalization pressures.

Some of these social issues have been recognized by the Japanese business community who lobbied successfully for English to become a compulsory subject for fifth- and sixth-grade elementary school students from 2011—albeit only one lesson per week. Rakuten, Japan’s largest internet online retailer, announced that English will be the company’s official language by 2012, with all internal meetings held in English.

The Japanese government has also made some steps towards “internationalizing” the Japanese psyche over the past few decades. Way back in 1978, the government launched the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) program in communities across Japan. In 2011 there were 4,330 participants from 39 countries acting as assistant language teachers (ALTs), sports education advisors (SEAs), and coordinators of international relations (CIRs). The program has been largely effective promoting cross-cultural interaction at grassroots level. However, there still remains a gap in the appreciation of the diversity of foreign cultures, and a communication gap.

Japan needs to expand on these programs and policies to strengthen cultural awareness and, in turn, improve Japanese international relations. This will expose more Japanese to foreign people—hopefully without adversely affecting their family-like social bond—and allow them to communicate, exchange ideas and most importantly, relate. And perhaps the next time I’m travelling on a train in Tokyo and there are two empty seats, a Japanese person will sit next to me, not because they chose to sit next to a foreigner, but because they didn’t see a difference.

Mt. Fuji at dusk with Nakano-ku in the foreground, by Ben Beechey.

• A new Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Tokyo comes complete with a fully stocked bar called KFC Route 25, in honor of the highway that runs past the original Sanders Café in Kentucky. Whisky, tequila, vodka, rum all available… Name your poison.
• The Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International in Kyoto Prefecture—along with some help from a nutty professor from Osaka University—has come up with a 600-gram human-shaped pillow called a “Hugvie” that allows cellphone users to “feel closer” to the people they are talking to. You insert your phone in the pillow’s head and conversations will cause the Hugvie’s heart to beat. Really.
• A government survey has revealed that one out of every four Japanese adults has thought of offing him/herself, “with young people more prone to such thoughts than others.” A round of Hugvies, please.
• Researchers at the Shibaura Institute of Technology (we don’t even want to speculate on the acronym for this one) figure that some 40 or so dams in Japan sit above confirmed active fault lines.
• Meanwhile, a network of more than 150 earthquake and water pressure detectors is in the plans for the sea off Japan’s east coast. The National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention says the devices will help “to more quickly and accurately predict tsunami.”
• A Mainichi survey found that more than 2,000 bridges in at least 107 local municipalities in Japan have never been inspected, mostly due to “financial difficulties.”

APARTMENTS OF DOOM

• A 23-year-old nurse was found stabbed to death in a friend’s apartment in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture. The friend said he was out with work buddies at the time.
• The skeleton of a 45-year-old man who died more than two years ago was found in a Saitama apartment when the owner of the unit went to check on him… Probably wondering why the rent was so late.
• With up to 14,000 people dying annually in the bathtub—more than three times the number killed in traffic accidents in 2011—the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare will conduct research on bathtub fatalities. At least they left nice, clean corpses…
• Two men in their 60s were arrested for murder after the dead body of another sexagenarian was found dumped in the mountains near Kobe. A financial dispute was apparently the root of the problem, as it so often is in these cases.
• Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko played a little tennis at the Imperial Palace on April 30. It marked the first time the 78-year-old Emperor played the sport since having heart bypass surgery in February.
• A bus accident in Gunma Prefecture that claimed the lives of seven people and left another 39 injured was being attributed to “cutthroat competition in the bus industry and the resulting overwork among drivers.” The driver apparently dozed off on the overnight trip to Tokyo Disneyland.

BRANCHING OUT

• The US is giving Japan 3,000 dogwood trees to mark the 100th anniversary since this nation gave Washington 3,000 cherry trees in 1912.
• In a rare move, the Finance Ministry posted on its website protest letters sent to The Asahi Shimbun over a report detailing “relations between key figures of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and senior ministry bureaucrats.” The ministry said the story contained several “misinterpretations of facts.”
• Around 800,000 new job recruits joined companies on the first day of Japan’s fiscal year.
• According to the stats, 80.5 percent of college students found jobs ahead of their March graduation, a 3.1 percent increase over the previous year, which was the lowest since 2000, says the labor ministry.
• About 60 percent of the people polled in a Mainichi Shimbun survey said they were opposed to the government plan to raise the consumption tax while 37 percent were in favor of the move.
• The same survey found that 79 percent were in favor of introducing “a low tax rate on daily necessities in case the consumption tax is raised in the future.”

ANIMAL INSTINCTS

Miwa Kaneoya

• A mutt who failed miserably as a hunting dog got a new lease on life when it was enlisted to keep pesky monkeys and crows off a citrus farm in Wakayama.
• Meanwhile, Kotora the cat was given a few days off during Golden Week from his job as a “station master” in Okayama Prefecture to take up the same position at two railway stations in Aomori Prefecture. Can a karoshi lawsuit be far off?
• Two small kids died and nine other family members were hospitalized in the Philippines after chowing down on some poisonous puffer fish, a Japanese delicacy, for lunch.
• A counter-terrorist drill was conducted at the 634-meter-high Tokyo Sky Tree, in which security guards led about 1,000 people to “safety” from the facility’s observation deck at 350 meters. The poor sods taking part in the drill had to descend some 2,000 emergency stairs.
• A Japanese film crew is making a movie about a 1959 incident in which a US fighter jet taking off from the Kadena Air Base in Okinawa crashed into an elementary school, killing 17 and injuring over 200.
• A landslide in Hokkaido left a set of railroad tracks on the JR Sekisho Line hanging—literally—in the air.

SOMEBODY CALL GUINNESS

• Plumbing new depths, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology said its deep-sea scientific drilling vessel, the Chikyu, managed to bore some 7,740 meters below the ocean surface, a new world record for this type of drilling.
• Actor Koji Yakusho, star of such Hollywood films as Memoirs of a Geisha and Babel, was among 674 individuals and 20 groups who received spring decorations from the Japanese government. The 56-year-old was one of 25 people to get the Medal with Purple Ribbon, given for contributions to the arts, academia and sport.

Compiled from reports by AP, Japan Today, The Japan Times, The Tokyo Reporter, The Asahi Shimbun, The Mainichi Daily News, Daily Yomiuri, AFP, Reuters, Kyodo, ABC News and CBC News.

Based on the cult TV show of the same name that ran from 1966-1971, Dark Shadows tells the century-spanning saga of Barnabas Collins (Depp), a wealthy playboy in 18th century New England who falls victim to a curse cast by a jealous witch (Eva Green). He awakens 200 years later to find himself in the year 1972, dismayed that everyone is driving VW buses, wearing polyester and gazing into lava lamps. As he struggles to adjust to the disco age, he must also come to terms that his beloved Collinwood Manor is a shambles, and that the dysfunctional family there (Michelle Pfeiffer, Chloë Grace Moretz, et al) are his descendants.

Barnabas was a late addition to the original television gothic soap opera, but quickly became the show’s breakaway character. Today, Burton and Depp both recall that Barnabas and the oddball family featured on the show provided solace during their awkward adolescent years. Depp admits he was “rather obsessed” with the TV vamp and decorated his childhood bedroom with posters of star Jonathan Frid, who passed away last month. During his visit to Tokyo, Depp said, “It was a dream come true to recreate the character.”

For director Burton, just as important as the central character is the way he interacts with the troubled Collins/Stoppard clan, which is rounded out on screen by Burton’s partner and frequent star Helena Bonham Carter as the family’s live-in psychiatrist, and Jackie Earl Haley as their boozing groundskeeper. At the Tokyo premiere, the director pulled a lucky Japanese fan’s question out of a box containing hundreds of submissions and found it asked what message he wanted to express through the film. He immediately blurted out, “Families are weird.” He then elaborated, “Families are weird and beautiful and that makes life weird and beautiful, and that’s why we love them.”

Dark Shadows marks the eightth film in Burton and Depp’s long partnership, which began with Edward Scissorhands in 1990. For Depp, the attraction of the role was not only the opportunity to recreate a favorite character from his childhood, but “to do so with my friend and my favorite filmmaker of all time.” The two appeared slightly overwhelmed by the sheer number of fans gathered at Roppongi Hills on a windy evening for the premiere, but chuckled with each other as they pointed out Japanese cosplayers in the crowd dressed as characters from the film, as well as a few Mad Hatters and Sweeney Todds. The pair were obviously delighted to be able to welcome so many visitors into the fantasy world they have created.

• Dark Shadows is currently on nationwide release
• Don Morton’s review

Rowing on the Edogawa, by Steven DiGiacomo.

Sky Tree over the rainbow, by Ai Faithy Perez.

Kanamara matsuri, by Andreas Pall.