I LOVE JAPAN. Kazuhiro Arai

              San Francisco officially accepted a statue of ‘comfort women’ in spite of the protests from Japanese Prime Minister Abe and Mayor Yoshimura of Osaka City, which was San Francisco’s sister city. I have not heard that San Francisco provided objective evidence that the Japanese army had sex slaves. It would be impossible to do so because there were no such slaves as I discussed on the 18 th of this month. Similar statues also exist not only in South Korea but also in Australia and Germany.               Why are these countries willing to have such statues? The basic reason is that there are many people there who want to debase Japan by all means. Many Koreans dislike Japan because Korea was once a part of Japan, not a colony incidentally. This is in stark contrast with the case of Taiwan, whose people like Japan very much even though it was also a part of Japan. In addition, Korean government has carried out anti-Japan education for many years.               Because

              Who would eventually benefit from globalization? Owners and managers of global enterprises would be the greatest beneficiaries. Most Americans would be better off than the status quo because globalization is almost the same as Americanization, which enlarges Americans’ various opportunities. English-speaking people would also be better off because the world’s only common language would be English, and their cultures are close to American culture.               Most other people would be worse off than the status quo because they would not only be unable to use their mother tongue for work but also be forced to follow the American custom in many important situations. The amount of their gains from free trade would be much less than that of these losses.                Today’s ideology that is used to promote globalization is neoliberalism whose theoretical basis is neoclassical economics or general equilibrium theory. As I hinted in this blog on the 18 th of November

              For centuries Western philosophy has regarded freedom as the most important value. The majority of Europeans and Americans seem to believe that they are entirely free to do anything if they do not harm others, although whether they actually behave according to this belief is a separate question. In economics terms, they believe that an individual has freedom of choice as far as he does not inflict external diseconomies to others. The key to understanding Japanese culture lies in realizing that this belief has serious problems.               It is worthwhile to note that economics has a paradigm called general equilibrium theory which is supposed to justify the above belief. It proposes that if all individuals act from self-interests utilizing freedom of choice, the allocation of resources of the economy will become efficient. This is called the first proposition of welfare economics. Neoliberalism, which seeks for globalization, is based on this proposition or neoclass

             Tokyo is a very exciting city. There are several reasons. First, it has so many attractive restaurants full of variety. I guarantee that anyone from any part of the world would be satisfied with the food. Moreover, the number of high quality restaurants by the Michelin standard is larger in Tokyo than in any other city in the world. Second, you can get almost anything in the shops. You can buy any electronic and even rocket parts in Akihabara, which is well-known among many people in the world. Tokyo has huge bookstores that enable you to spend a whole day reading new books there. Jimbocho street is famous for antiquarian and secondhand bookshops. You can enjoy even natural hot springs near the center of Tokyo*. Third, high-quality arts are available every day in Tokyo, which has many theaters, concert halls, and museums. You can easily gain access to top-class orchestral music, ballet, kabuki, etc.               Fourth, there are many events and festivals going o

The stories of ‘comfort women’ which have been made public by Korean people are untrue. There is no historical evidence that the Japanese army forced Korean women to be engaged in sexual services during the Second World War. No objective evidence has been provided not only by South Korea but also by the USA, which investigated the matter exhaustively. Those stories are based on the fiction Seiji Yoshida  forged  for money or fame. His work should be regarded as a novel rather than a historical document, although it is a very malicious novel. The Ashahi Shimbun, one of the major Japanese newspapers, utilized the fiction by treating it as if it were true in order to debase the Japanese army and Japanese government. Later this newspaper company admitted in its elaborate two-page article that its reports on comfort women had lacked objective evidence, which is an extremely exceptional conduct for a newspaper. It is true that there were Korean as well as Japanese women who practiced

              I think Japanese people are the poorest speakers of English in the world. There are several reasons for the poor ability. The first is that Japanese and English are completely different languages. The word orders of the two languages are almost opposite. For example, an object is placed before the corresponding verb in Japanese. The second is that there are virtually no etymological similarities between the words of the two languages. * Hence, it is hard for Japanese to memorize English words. The third is that few Japanese people have necessity for English speaking ability. Most university students can learn their specialized fields using Japanese textbooks only. Almost all businessmen work speaking Japanese. The fourth is that Japanese people rarely have opportunities to practice English. There are many Japanese who are interested in English and would like to speak it. However, an average Japanese does not have even one chance to speak it in a few months, thoug