| The story below is originally published on Mainichi Daily News by Mainichi Shinbun (http://mdn.mainichi.jp). |
| They admitted inventing its kinky features, or rather deliberately mistranslating them from the original gossip magazine. |
| In fact, this is far from the general Japanese' behavior or sense of worth. |
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Churlish Chinese chided for chundering on chagrined Japan 2007,6,9
Asahi Geino 6/7 By Masuo Kamiyama
Whether blatant rip-offs of intellectual properties, exports of deadly dog food to the U.S., or poisonings in Panama -- where over 300 humans are said to have died from ingesting toxic cough preparation -- China's international reputation has come under fire of late.
China's main appeal, notes Asahi Geino (6/7), has been manufacturing on the cheap, made possible by low labor costs.
But these have risen in the country's coastal areas, forcing factories to move to the interior -- where quality control is slipshod at best.
One Japanese maker of ladies' foundation garments was aghast to discover recently that the length of the shoulder straps on an entire shipment of brassieres it had ordered were not of uniform length.
"Workers there are paid by the piece, so they just rush to turn out as many items as they can," a businessman explains.
"And no one even gave them detailed instructions on how to sew them before they started."
But Asahi Geino saves the gist of its polemic on the mercenary individuals who arrive on these shores.
China's "New Badniks" is how the weekly describes them.
"My wife hoped to marry Yukichi Fukuzawa," sighs journalist Shunsuke Yamaoka, author of "My bride was an extraterrestrial" (Futabasha, 2001).
He was not being literal, as Mr. Fukuzawa passed away back in 1901; but his visage peers out from Japan's 10,000-yen notes, the largest denomination currency, which are worth about US $80 each.
"Japanese always complain that Chinese are 'too laid-back,' while Chinese say, Japanese are 'too fastidious,'" relates Yamaoka, who met his Chinese bride while she was working as a club hostess.
When she "proposed" marriage, her sweet words came out as, "My visa's going to expire pretty soon."
"The Chinese in Japan come from the bottom rung of their society," he reflects.
"They come here because they aspire to a more prosperous life. Even my wife would say to me, 'Money, money.'"
Complying to her wishes, Yamaoka estimates that over the 12 years of their marriage, he sprang for over 40 million yen, including drug injections (at 100,000 yen a pop) for her ailing mother, purchasing a condo for her in China and helping out with her younger brother's messy divorce.
"She said if she couldn't get her hands on money any other way, she'd be forced to sell her body," says Yamaoka.
"As a man, I couldn't stand for that."
"When you consider about the way Chinese think, the importance of 'face' is palpable," Yamaoka observes.
"But our marriage was based on true love. Even though our divorce is imminent, I still believe this, even now."
Yamaoka currently only sees his once a year.
"Even though I told her to go back to China, she stays here. I can't figure her out," he sighs.
In Shinjuku's Kabukicho entertainment zone, meanwhile, Chinese continue their pursuit of wealth with such illicit activities as prostitution, credit-card skimming and drugs.
"In some of the Chinese pubs, a place might actually run by an operator until midnight," says Shinjuku's celebrity street guide Li Xiaomu.
"Then it closes, and from 1 a.m., another operator takes over at the same location. The rent is cheaper that way, and a lot of shops do it to avoid police crackdowns. And it's profitable. That kind of business is illegal itself, but the biggest problem is that some of these 'secondary shops' deal drugs."
On May 14, notes Asahi Geino, police arrested a Chinese national, the president of a trading firm who operated a club on the side.
Police found 2.6 kilograms of the hallucinatory drug Ketamine concealed on the premises, and the man is suspected of having peddled over 8 kilograms of the stuff since 2004. (It only became a banned substance in Japan from 2007.)
One question the magazine raises is, with China's economy in the midst of a boom, why would Chinese even want bother with Japan at all?
"The current economic bubble in China has only benefited the people in big cities," opines international affairs commentator Masahiro Miyazaki.
"It has no impact on the rural inhabitants, who harbor a deep-seated resentment that they're at a great disadvantage in their own country. These days, brokers are smuggling Chinese to not only into North America but even to Africa, using swindles like, 'In Angola all you have to do is scratch the surface and you'll find diamonds.'"
(By Masuo Kamiyama, People's Pick contributor)
June 9, 2007
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