Japan links…
The Sun Always Shines On Your Greens
There’s yet another post up on Deep Kyoto tonight of vegan & organic restaurant Hale ～晴れ～ which means “sunny”. Hmm. I’m sensing a trend for “sunny” organic restaurants here; Sunny Place, Sunshine Cafe…Now here’s a bunch of Japan related links so I can avoid actually writing anything.
Burakumin Photographs by Masaru Goto
http://www.globalcompassion.com/ has an exhibition of photos by Masaru Goto of Burakumin:
The Burakumin are a nearly invisible (yet identifiable) group of Japanese people. They are the remnant of a caste system that formally passed away long ago. Their ancestors were the untouchables. Despite being racially and ethnically Japanese through and through, the Burakumin still face discrimination and struggle together under the weight of their shared history. (Quoted from globalcompassion.com)
The photographs, a series of portraits, are colorful and reveal a remarkable zest for life in each of the participants (like the guy who says he wants to die shouting “Whoo!”). Each picture is followed by a short account of each persons experiences. I found bamboo artisan Keigin Ishida’s story of his relationship with his father especially touching. LINK TO MASARU GOTO’S EXHIBITION
Whale Meat SCANDAL!!!
Recently, Greenpeace have been making a big hullabaloo about Japanese whalers filching whale meat at the tax-payers expense. Now the news has gone global. Here’s a link to the BBC article: LINK And here’s what Greenpeace have to say about it:
We did it! Within 72 hours of our exposé of corruption in the whaling industry and embezzlement of whale meat, 40,000 Greenpeace supporters wrote to Japanese officials demanding an investigation.Despite denials from the company that runs the whaling ship that the stolen whale meat was just “souvenirs” the Tokyo public prosecutor’s office agreed there were grounds for an investigation. It’s working!
By law, the sale of whale meat outside the official “scientific whaling” programmme is not supposed to happen — all proceeds are supposed to offset the taxpayer-subsidized whaling. This means the entire whaling programme is illegal and needs to have its permits revoked and subsidies cancelled — let’s get 80,000 messages in the NEXT 72 hours demanding that! LINK TO GREENPEACE CAMPAIGN
Don’t Read This if You’re Eating
I wonder why it is, that despite broadly agreeing with pretty much everything Greenpeace stands for, I find myself increasingly irritated by them and reluctant to post links to their campaigns. Ah, I know. It’s because of ridiculous videos like this. What genius came up with the idea of “average Joe vomiting off the back of a ship” as a marketing campaign? How is that appealing? Really? Ah, oh well…
Speaking of vomit, this article isn’t particularly enlightening but the headline kind of grabbed me: 54 sickened at hospital after farmer’s chemical-fuelled vomit generates toxic gas. Wow, eh?
