New female Japanese PM, but is it really that big of a deal?

Ok, a lot has happened recently here in Japanese politics, so I'll try and keep it brief.

As you already know, Japan has it's first female Prime Minister, Sanae Takaichi. Personally, I'm not so quick to jump for joy, as Australia had its first female PM in Julia Gillard years ago, and that did not go over well - though I felt that was a combination of high expectations, undelivered promises, and Kevin Rudd. From what I have seen of Takaichi, I don't see her pushing for more inclusion of women in positions. I am also concerned that her cabinet is also made up of ministers that have in recent years been tangled up in financial corruption. Takaichi says the matter been resolved, and the ministers involved had been punished - but the fact they have kept their jobs, when your average peasant's head would be rolling in an instant if they did the same thing. Rules for thee but not for me I guess. 

Regarding the policies I have seen so far - the issues of foreigners is the current trend at the moment here in Japan. Most likely in a reaction to Sanseito's sudden rise to relevance in the Upper House elections back in June this year made foreigners the scapegoats by puffing up how crime is rising because of foreigners (it isn't). Some of her policies make sense - basically kick out any foreigner who is breaching their visa or illegally staying in Japan: That is a no brainer. Another is for Japan to refuse "economic refugees" - those leaving their country not because their lives are in danger, but fleeing from poverty and lack of job opportunities. Keep in that mind that successfully getting asylum in Japan is pretty damn difficult, only a handful of people get their refugee status recognized in Japan each year, way less than other countries. Thing is though, some misinformation has been popping up recently about Sanae Takaichi's policies:

The post is absolute BS, if you watch the video in that post, she is reiterating her stance against economic refugees that those illegally staying in Japan. That's it. Don't get why some folks are trying to claim that it's more than that. The fact of the matter is, Japan needs foreigners for labor due to the ongoing declining birth rate, and to get rid of the people who not only fill in gaps in labor, but also contribute to Japan's Health insurance and pension systems would be absolute stupidity on Japan's part. If some politician was dumb enough to pitch that idea, good luck explaining to the people why their health insurance premiums and pension fees are increased without any significant improvements. Very hard sell. 

Unrelated, but the Japanese government did revise the business manager visa earlier last month. The rules and requirements have been tightened to stop certain people from abusing the benefits of the business manager visa. By that, I mean it was clearly intended to stop mainland Chinese from abusing the system to easy Permanent Resident visas for themselves and their families. When this revelation came out, a lot of Japanese people were pissed, and the fact that a of Chinese were bragging about it online did not help one bit. I think there's nothing wrong with tightening the requirements - if you're not going to contribute to the betterment of Japan and simply leach off the benefits, why should you be rewarded with permanent residency?

PM Shigeru Ishiba resigning

I'm a little late to the party on this one, but it was announced last Sunday that Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will resign within one year. On one hand, it's rather surprising considering it hasn't even been one year since he took over as PM of Japan. On the other hand, given that his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) lost control of of the lower house in October last year, and the control of the upper house in July this year, along with increased costs of living has not helped him much. The price of rice is a particular sore point - despite his strategy of releasing stocked rice meant for emergency purposes, the price of rice still hasn't come down in price. 

This has created a mess as there is no clear agreement that Ishiba should have stepped in the first place. Apparently there are many who thought that Ishiba's resignation was unnecessary. Apparently, Ishiba planned to resign to avoid any fracturing within the LDP. 

Whatever the case, it's going to be a rough ride for the LDP, now that they have to make deals with opposition parties to get any of their policies through. Among the opposition includes the crackpot group known as Sanseito.

Summer break 2025

So a few weeks ago, my mother came to visit Japan again. This had been an ongoing thing since I moved to Japan where she either came to visit me once a year, or I went back home to visit her and Dad. Last year I went to the Philippines to catch up with mum, so this was the first time in two years for her to visit Japan. Though she has met my wife many times already, it's the first time meet her as her new daughter in law.

While mum's trip was mostly to spend time with us, it was a chance for her to do things that she has not yet done in Japan. One of the main highlights is for mum to meet my new Mother-in-law for the very first time. There was a lot of stress on me and my wife's end, but fortunately mum was looking forward to meeting her, and it went without a hitch. Again, my wife gave her seal of approval for my performance, though in reality mum really took a liking to my mother in law, including the exchanging of gifts. 
Other things we did included going to Nikko for one night. While I had heard a lot from my students about their school trip experiences to Nikko, this was the very first time going there. We went to Toshogu Shrine, and it was bigger than I expected. What I was not expecting was the shrine was selling a very specific Gundam model kit:

The Master Grade Musha Gundam Mk. II Tokugawa Ieyasu Nanban Dogusoku ver. on display and sale at Toshogu Shrine

I had heard about this kit, but did not realise this a local specialty of Nikko. Though mum offered to buy the kit for me, I decided against the purchase. I have my heart set on a very, very specific mobile suit that I am waiting for a Master Grade, even if it's going to be a Premium Bandai kit:

I'll wait for as long as it takes for a Master Grade Jegan ECOAS type

Together with my wife, we took mum to Kinugawa Onsen. We stayed in the same hotel as last time, but what was different this time was we had dinner and breakfast included. Bloody hell, given what we paid to stay overnight, we definitely got our money's worth. Two things I really enjoyed was the sweet corn rice - I want to actually learn how to cook this at home, and the sashimi. I normally not a fan of sashimi, but the quality of it here was very nice and tender. Furthermore, because we were staying in a ryokan-style hotel, we had our room for dining, including my wife's name written calligraphy style on the door of our dining room. As it was a set course menu, they included a menu of all the dishes that were being served, along who the head chef was for the evening.

Also, I took mum to Tokyo Disney Sea, as it was one place she wanted to go to. The last Disney theme park she went to was in Paris over 20 years ago. As it was a weekday, it was not as busy as usual. However, it was certainly hot as hell, despite bringing umbrellas, though we made sure to take frequent breaks in between. Mum was more interested in the sights rather than the rides themselves, though we were able to go on a few of what she wanted. There were some areas of the park I wanted to check out, along with some rides I wanted to go on, but going out to Tokyo Disney Sea was more for mum than for me and I didn't want mum just waiting around in the heat while I lined up. I was content to put aside what I wanted to do for that day. 

Though it was fun to see mum again, I won't lie when it came to some frustrations. As mum does not understand Japanese, I do not hold that against her. However, there are many signs and instructions that do have English translations for tourists to make it easier for them to understand. In my mum's case, she will ask me first saying she doesn't understand - without checking if there is an English translation or not. A minor gripe, but as she was only in Japan for two weeks, I could grin and bear it. 

So that was how I spent my two weeks of break. Mum's visit also gave my wife and I a chance to dine out among the various restaurants that are near our apartment. Most of them are pretty good, and we would definitely check them out again in the future. 

Getting Married in Japan part 2 - Long ass wait at City Hall (but we're married at last!)

 Following from my previous post about marriage in Japan, we just got back from city hall, and we are officially married now.

Arriving at city hall in the morning, we had to wait around for a ridiculously long time before we were able to speak with someone. We were initially concerned that we wouldn't be able to register our marriage due to missing some document, or some incorrect information. Experiences with anything bureaucratic in Japan have shown that there is no room for mistakes. So imagine our surprise when we were told we had to make a bunch of corrections. Fortunately, we weren't sent away, and they were fine with us making the corrections right there and then, especially with some of my translated documents. Some was due to the technical terms in Japanese, others were lack of consistency of my parents' names in katakana (I didn't realize I spelt them differently until they pointed it out to me.  
We were hoping to keep a copy of the marriage registration form, considering we took the the time to pick out a design. As we would not see those documents again, we opted to go to a nearby convenience store and photocopy them as backups for ourselves. While we were out, we went to the nearby bakery for some lunch to celebrate (early) our marriage. 

After returning to city hall, we did some more waiting, and everything seemed to be processed without problems. The only one obstacle was regarding who was going to be the head of the household (or 世帯主 / setainushi). We hadn't really thought it about too much, and until now, we put my wife as the head of the household, because the apartment, and utilities are under her name. While the staff said that we could change it later on, they gave us something to think about, as apparently depending on who is listed as head of the household, we'd be paying less tax. The staff said it is an unusual situation for the wife to be the head of the family, though I'm guessing the city I am currently in doesn't get a lot of foreigners going to register their marriage. In any case, not long after that we finally got our certificate of marriage. I will admit though, compared to some of the certificates I have seen online of other cities (Osaka's for one), this city's certificate of marriage design is rather... underwhelming. Very bureaucratic in design, nothing fancy at all, which was a bit of a letdown, but we are finally married and that's all that matters at this point. 

As mentioned before, the wedding itself is still a ways off, though we have decided to hire the services of a wedding planner to help when we realized that there are a lot of things that need to be done, and with both of us working full time, it was too difficult for us to do, even if we're aiming for a small wedding. 

Upper House elections - Hating on Foreigners is trendy now

With the House of Councillors / Upper house elections happening this weekend, there's been a lot of talk about the future of the ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Last October, they lost the majority in the Lower House elections, creating a minority government. As a result, the LDP has had to make deals the opposition parties to get legislation through parliament. A loss in the Upper house elections is the last thing they want right now.

A lot of smaller political parties have been making their pitch recently in the lead up to the elections. What's unusual this time is that many of them are touting policies regarding foreigners. The short story is that many of these smaller parties are using foreigners as scapegoats for the country's failures in recent years. 
One prominent minor party is Sanseito (参政党) who's catch phrase is "Japan first" (ironically, expressed as 日本ファースト). Among some of their policies is deporting those who are staying illegally - of which I have no problems with that. All that needs to be done is enforce the existing laws to deport staying illegally. My issue with parties like Sanseito is that their implication that foreigners are the reason for perceived increase in crime, as well as receiving special treatment when it comes to benefits like health. 
Here's the thing though: the claims of foreigners leading to the increase in crime is false. Based on reports by the National Police Agency (NPA) and the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), foreigners only make up a small percentage of national crimes. This page gives a pretty good summary of the situation in Japan. The TL:DR version of that report is that nationally, crime in Japan is low, foreigners only account for 6% of all crimes, of which most foreigner-related crimes fall under visa violations or theft, and the recent increase in crime is due to Japanese offenders. However, despite the facts showing that parties like Sanseito are full of it with this claim, a lot of Japanese voters are gravitating towards them, feeling like the LDP doesn't really care of their plights 

I feel that painting all foreigners as the bad guys is quite a reach. Especially as there has been recent news about fraud committed by Vietnamese and Chinese living in Japan when it comes to taking exams like TOEIC or the JLPT.  I found a recent article about a Vietnamese woman arrested, along with a recent video of Chinese students in Japan getting busted for proxy test-taking. In case you don't know what this means, basically someone pays somebody else who looks very similar to them to take the test on their behalf, including borrowing their residence card for ID verification purposes to pass the tests. Many need to take theses tests either to be able to get a job, or to even change their existing visa in to a better one that would allow them more work opportunities.
Unrelated, but when I was living in Kawagoe, near my station I saw a lot of warning signs in Chinese and Vietnamese (as well as Japanese), but never in English. It seems that this is because they are the ones causing problems in the area. Of course, parties like Sanseito can't single out specific nationalities out of fear of being accused of hate speech, but I mean, they're already on that slippery slope and are shrugging off all accusations of targeting their hate at foreigners.

It is concerning, though on the other hand, there are a lot of Japanese political parties out there batting for foreigners, and pointing the finger at the Japanese government for the country's failures. It is good to see that not everyone is falling for the "all foreigners are criminals" rhetoric that's being spouted. I just hope that common sense will prevail in this upper house election.

Returning to the Community Gym

After nearly 4 years of using Anytime Fitness, I ended my membership just last week. As much as I love using Anytime, and the convenience of usually having a branch somewhere near me whenever I'm off on extended business trips to other parts of the country, the cost per month was getting a bit too much for me. With planning for a simple wedding coming with its own costs, my fiancé and I are cutting back on things. Fortunately, there is a community center gym that is within reasonable distance from where I live - either one train stop away, or a 10 minute bicycle ride. 

I went there today for the obligatory orientation session. Of course, all in Japanese, but most of it was pretty self explanatory - basically, don't do anything stupid on the machines, keep your usage on the running machine down to 30 minutes, unless there is nobody else waiting on you. However, a minor thing that is annoying is that you can't bring water with you inside the room to drink - which is important if you're between sets. Instead, they tell you to go outside the room to drink (and place your bottle on the dedicated table just outside the training room), and if you're in the middle of using a machine/bench/etc, leave something there to indicate that is still being used. In Japan, this is fine because nobody is going to be stealing your stuff -  but compared to other gyms, this is a bit of a hassle. However, I noticed that the training room floor is mostly carpeted, so I can see why they have that rule in place - though perhaps they should not have used carpet at all. Minor gripe aside, the community gym is cheap - 170 yen for 2 hours max. 

Now, I have posted about community gyms in the past, and when comparing this one to others, it's definitely top tier of my favorite community gyms, but I wouldn't say it is the best one. While there are a lot of machines available, and a lot of space dedicated for stretching etc, the machines have certainly seen a lot of use over the years. I would say this gym would number 2, just behind the community gym I used in Ryugasaki. The only catch is that this gym closes at 10pm. For most people this wouldn't be a problem, but I have actually been going to the gym later in the evening these days (partly to get the most out of my remaining time at Anytime Fitness), so it is a tad inconvenient if I get home a little later than usual. 

I will give this gym a try this month to see how it goes. There is another franchise gym that is much closer to where I live, and is about the half the cost of Anytime Fitness. I had a quick look through their website, and there is a lot more on offer compared to the Anytime gym that is also in my area. However, I suspect that there will be a lot more people there because it's cheaper. 

Expensive Rice in Japan

In a change of pace from talking about what I've been doing in Japan, I figured I should talk about some recent topics that have been hitting the news in Japan. One of the big topics is the cost of rice.

The cost of rice in Japan has risen to over 4,000 yen for 5kg of rice. Normally that much rice would cost around 2,000 yen. The reason for the increase in the price of rice is due to a poor harvest back in 2023, due to high temperatures. Only recently has the country started to feel the shortage of rice available to purchase. 

Now, the government has several hundred thousand tons of rice that it has put aside for emergency purposes. Of course, rice has a limited shelf life before it spoils, so it usually releases that rice to the public, and replace that released rice with newer harvest. In response the shortage of rice, the government decided to release of its reserve rice in an attempt to provide relief for the increasing costs of rice. Problem is, this was done back in March, and prices are still going up. The problem seems to lie with the wholesalers who purchase the rice released by the government. Despite 210,000 tons of rice being released to wholesalers, many are holding off on supplying the rice to stores and supermarkets in fear of another rice shortage this summer. While I can't remember the exact number that was cited on the news recently, I believe it was less than 10% of the released rice had actually made its way to the supermarkets. The government has taken additional measures to solve this problem, but these didn't take effect until the last of last month.
The other cause of this is possibly being that there is more demand than what the government had predicted, and they're playing catch up as a result.

Hopefully, we'll soon see the price of rice drop, but given that wholesalers are hoarding the rice in fear of another shortage this summer, I'm not holding my breath. We will probably have to adjust our budget and what we eat, as have recently started eating pasta again at home after so long.