Asia Times: NIPPON: How are the mighty fallen!


	March 18, 2000	atimes.com

Japan

NIPPON: How are the mighty fallen!
By Bradley Martin

Things could be going a whole lot better for the high and mighty in Japan. Consider:

* A grand champion in the sport of sumo has just announced his retirement at 29 because he was racking up a decidedly ungrand record of defeats;

* A former labor minister drew a card, and that card said: ''Go directly to jail'';

* Police elitists are on notice that they're going to have to get their hands dirty doing actual police work;

* And after 55 years of conscientious service Uncle Sam has lost his job as air traffic controller for civilian aircraft in the capital of Okinawa.

Wakanohana is small for a sumo wrestler, only 180cm tall and weighing a mere134kg. But with coaching from a father who himself had been a champion - and with determination no doubt influenced by the sibling rivalry he felt for a younger, larger brother - he learned technique better than anyone else and fought his way to the top.

By the time he reached the highest rank of yokozuna, in 1998, his handsome brother Takanohana had beaten him to it. A ''Waka-Taka Boom'' ensued as the grand champion brothers attracted new fans to the ancient sport.

Waka had won five tournaments up to the point when he became a grand champion. Since then, alas, he hasn't managed to win a single one. Marital problems and disagreements with his brother took their toll, but it was mainly injuries that did him in.

A yokozuna can't just take a demotion and try for a comeback, like Mike Tyson. When one is no longer a credit to the rank, he's expected to do the dignified thing and retire. Waka did that on Thursday after a humbling defeat by an up-and-coming wrestler. ''I have reached the limit of my spirit to maintain my strength,'' he said. Or something like that.

Few fans gloated over Wakanohana's downfall. Most mourned the end of the plucky grappler's once-promising career. But any cynics who wished to do so could have noted that Waka had enjoyed a certain advantage coming up in the sport. Sumo rules usually spared him from having to compete against his more powerful brother-stablemate, thus somewhat artificially inflating his won-lost record in each tournament.

Collateral issues

Toshio Yamaguchi also had an advantage when he went to pester a couple of financial houses for massive loans to save the family business, which was threatened by the collapse of Japan's bubble economy. Yamaguchi was a member of parliament, and a former labor minister. His political connections enabled him to pressure the lenders to give him 2.7 billion yen.

For most of that there was no collateral, but Yamaguchi did put up what turned out to be the property of a couple of government-connected foundations as collateral for 400 million yen of his loans. That got him a rap for embezzlement, in addition to the other charges of breach of trust, fraud and perjury.

On Thursday he drew a four-year jail sentence. Yomiuri Shimbun noted that he was one of 20 politicians indicted while serving in the parliament since 1983, the year former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka got his four-year prison term for taking payoffs from Lockheed. Of the 20, eight have now been given jail sentences.

Pure brass

There are at least two ways to join the police force in Japan. The preferred route is to pass the highest civil service examination and become a ''career officer''. Very few pass the exam, so the vast majority of cops go in as regular grunts. Guess which group stays put, learns the territory and does most of the police work. And guess which group ends up grabbing all the higher positions after transferring hither and yon around the country for short tours in ever more responsible posts.

Then it came out that a couple of career officers assigned to the Niigata Prefectural police had been playing mahjongg and boozing in a hotel in the midst of a big abduction case. If you've ever been in Niigata Prefecture in January, when the icy winds blast in from the Sea of Japan, you can understand why they might have preferred the cosy comforts of a hotel to gumshoeing around all over the place. But the public were not amused.

Oops. The scam, if not over, is at least curtailed. The three parties in Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi's coalition government agreed on Thursday to push through some new rules. For one, the ''career'' officers will have to spend five years down with the rank and file, doing police work, before they can seriously begin their ascent. For another, non-career officers will be eligible to become top guns in the prefectural police forces.

And speaking of top guns

Even after Okinawa reverted to Japanese rule in 1972, the United States hung on to the responsibility for air-traffic control around Naha. Kadena Air Base is there, jammed up against Naha Airport, and the Americans said they needed to coordinate military and civilian traffic ''on a temporary basis''.

Twenty-eight years passed, and the Japanese had complained more than a little about this infringement on their sovereignty. On Thursday, US Defense Secretary William Cohen cried uncle and told Foreign Minister Yohei Kono the Japanese could do the job from now on.

O, how the mighty have fallen! Do all these events put together suggest that Japan is changing in some important way? You can think so if you want to. While we await further evidence, however, consider that all these things occurred on the same day, Thursday, March 16. Coincidence? Ha! Hardly.

The significance should be clear to anyone who knows the secret of how the Japanese manage to preserve their reputation for workaholism by never taking more than a few days of ''vacation''. Their secret is a whole load of holidays, some of which can be bridged to come up with a week or so off work several times each year. Not called vacation, of course.

The emperor died? Well, we'll keep his birthday as a holiday, just rename it. And of course add the new emperor's birthday.

What the country has been needing is a new holiday, in March. Obviously someone set out to create one. Don't be surprised if, henceforth, March 16 each year is commemorated as Bigshots' Bad Hair Day.

Take the day off. Take several. Have a nice weekend.

(Special to Asia Times Online)

back to the top

©1999 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.