keeping old laws on the books--and enforcing them

I wanted to send some rice by mail to the US, so I went and bought 5k of some that I like to eat, put it in a box and got ready to send it off. Then I got to wondering, maybe the US would not like Japanese rice because of pest issues.

I called US Customs in Tokyo, and asked the very helpful Mr. Cox there if it would be alright to send rice to the US. He said that it was just fine. I said that I was worried about pest problems, so I called to make sure that it was alright. He said that the US has no problems with rice from Japan coming in, but that I would not be so successful sending rice to Japan. No problem there. Japan has a lot riding on its rice crops, and if some beastie got in and ruined a crop, that would be disastrous.

My box of rice and I headed to the post office, and when asked what was inside, I said rice. The gentleman at the desk asked if it were prepared in some way, like cooked into sembei or something. I said no, just genmai rice. He said that I needed a special form to send rice overseas from the Japanese government. "What?" I asked incredulously. He said that I have to go to some government office and get a form that says that I can ship the rice outside the country. I told him that I asked the Americans and they didn't have problems with it. He said that wasn't the issue. I would have to get permission from the Japanese government to send my 5k bag of rice.

There were no good explanations I could come up with for this kind of regulation. I couldn't go to the government building, so my wife went, and found that they didn't really know why the regulation was still on the books either. It was a law made around 50 years ago, and that it stays on the books, and is still enforced, though no one really knows why. There was some speculation what it could be about, but nothing for sure. My wife got the form and went to the post office with the form. She filled out all the paperwork to send the rice out, and got the post office to accept the package. Maybe it will arrive, though I have no confidence in that outcome, either.

More good reading

My mother gave me two books recently that I have really enjoyed, both by Peter Matthiessen. The first one I read was End of the Earth and the second was Snow Leopard. Chronologically the order in which I read them was wrong, but they were both good. Both really chilly reads, actually. I guess that was appropriate, as I read most of them huddled close to the kerosene heater.

End of the Earth chronicles Matthiessen's two trips to the South Pole on ice breakers. These were chartered trips, mostly with birders who were anxious to see some of the polar bird life. Matthiessen's prose and thorough research make the book a great read. It is a super history lesson on polar exploration and nature, a brilliant explanation about why the South Pole is so essential to life on earth as we know it, and an interesting travelogue.

The events in Snow Leopard really happened in 1973. He and a biologist, George Schaller, traveled to Nepal and the Himalayas. Schaller was interested in studying blue sheep, and Matthiessen went along for the adventure. His wife had died recently, and the trip turned into a pilgrimage of healing for him. Schaller happened to be going to Crystal Mountain, where Matthiessen hoped he would find the Lama of Shey.

As student of Zen like Matthiessen, his wanderings through the mountains, through his physical privations and his psychic pain in a Buddhist land, brought me to new understandings of spirituality.

Great titles on language in Japan

I'm in the process of writing a paper for my MA in Japanese Studies, and have been reading some books that I would like to recommend.

1. Miller, Roy Andrew. (1982) Japan's Modern Myth: The language and beyond
Weatherhill

How Japan's language and racial identity are linked. Very good social commentary.

2. Maher, John C. and Yasuhiro, Kyoko. (1995) Multilingual Japan. Multilingual Matters LTD.

Eight informative articles on the multilingual nature of Japan and its various linguistic minorities.

3. Denoon, Hudson et. al. (2001) Multicultural Japan: Palaeolithic to Postmodern. Cambridge University Press

16 essays on multicultural aspects of Japan and Japanese culture. Very comprehensive.

How Sexism in Japan Worsens Its Debt Outlook

Great article on the economic costs of gender discrimination in J-land. My prediction is that even if the playing field were leveled today, there would be a lag of several years, even a decade, before people could get used to the idea. It isn't just a policy issue. It is a social system of belief and behavior that would take years to overcome even if equality were the rule of the day.
How Sexism in Japan Worsens Its Debt Outlook