Dogs and Demons: Tales from the Dark Side of Japan
Alex Kerr
Language: English
Pages: 320
ISBN: 0809039435
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A surprising assessment of the failures and successes of modern Japan.
In Dogs and Demons, Alex Kerr chronicles the many facets of Japan's recent, and chronic, crises -- from the failure of its banks and pension funds to the decline of its once magnificent modern cinema. He is the first to give a full report on the nation's endangered environment -- its seashores lined with concrete, its roads leading to nowhere in the mountains -- as well as its "monument frenzy," the destruction of old cities such as Kyoto and construction of drab new ones, and the attendant collapse of its tourist industry. Kerr writes with humor and passion, for "passion," he says, "is part of the story. Millions of Japanese feel as heartbroken at what is going on as I do. My Japanese friends tell me, 'Please write this -- for us.'"
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say that MOF's love of the system is far greater than its interest in financial health. Japan's low capital productivity begs another comparison with ancient Sparta. Plutarch writes that Lycurgus, the founder of Sparta, ordained that Spartans must use iron money. Given that iron was of so little value and yet so heavy, the best people could do was lay up stocks of it in their closets. After a while, they ceased to have much interest in acquiring wealth and instead devoted themselves to military
teachers could not operate computers, and matters had improved only very slowly by the end of the decade. In late 1998, Japan ranked fifteenth in the world for Internet users per capita, falling far below the United States and some European nations, and lagging behind Hong Kong, Korea, and Singapore. It is one of the curious and unexpected twists of modern times that Japan, thought to be enamored of advanced science, has been so slow to embrace the new world of information technology – for most
steady increase in Japanese government scholarships. And many of the students are in Japan only as their second choice. A conversation with a Taiwanese student in Kobe gave me some insight into the lack of interest on the part of Asians in coming to Japan. When he decided to pursue higher education in Japan, his family was bitterly opposed. «Japan is where poor and ignorant people go,» his parents said. This reminded me of my two groups of friends in Thailand. One consists of farmers in a poor
debts of ¥8 trillion, former MOF men (amakudari, or «descended from heaven,» because after retirement they descend to the management of companies under MOF's control) ran six of the seven Jusen, which together had extended loans of which an astonishing 90 to 98.5 percent were nonperforming. In the years before the final collapse and exposure, the amakudari executives guided the Jusen banks in a game of elaborate trickery. At Juso, for example, the bank showed investigators and lenders three
but the city government pushed the project through. It was a symbolic stake through the heart. Kyoto's history since then has been one long effort to sweep away its past. Thirty-five years later, most of its old wooden houses have been torn down and replaced with shiny tile and aluminum. I have seen ancient gardens flattened, historic inns bulldozed, and mansions as gorgeous as any French chateau razed. The city of Kyoto legislates only the most primitive protection of old neighborhoods, and the