The month of tests is over… clearing the way for even more work.

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Posted 05 Jul 2010 — by Mashu
Category EN

While I haven’t been particularly vocal about it on here, essentially all of 2010 thus far has been spent preparing for one big test, which fortunately I took, and passed, just a couple weeks ago. The test was to be admitted as a regular (正規) 3rd-year student (3年次編転入学試験) to the economics faculty of Ryukoku University here in Kyoto. Back in Canada I studied a lot of economics and trade theory and things of that nature. Preparation for this test essentially required a full re-study of all that economics and trade theory, in Japanese. Let me tell you, at first that was rough, but slaving away at it for long enough, I’m now at a point where not only is language not a barrier to my learning, I actually know more about finance and economics in Japanese than I do/did in English. Having studied Japanese for less than 22 months, I’m feeling pretty good with the pace of things. Admission is in September, and since I’m majoring in Finance I’m getting into that work right away starting next week.

As the title of this post indicates however, I didn’t just have one test. The day after the big puppy, I took the sub-level 2 of the Kanji Kentei (漢字検定：準2級) which, while (comparatively) enjoyable and short, did hit me with some rough 四字熟語. Anticipating the result next week. If it’s good, I’ll go for 2級 later this year. Update (2010/07/08): I did manage to pass! Onward and upward.

Finally, test mania ended today with N1 of the JLPT (日本語能力試験), taken on a muggy but pleasant day at the Yoshida Campus of Kyoto University, an area I always love visiting. The test was re-formatted starting this time, plus it was my first time trying level 1 (and second time ever taking the JLPT) so I wasn’t exactly certain what to expect. Fortunately, compared with the two examinations above, it was really quite reasonable, I felt. There were a few trickily-worded grammar problems, but the listening was fine and on the whole I feel like it went quite well. One girl had a meltdown at the end of the listening section and got the infamous 失格 red card, which was odd to say the least.

That’s it for long personal updates for a while, I promise the next update will involve some detailed examination or translation of a mundane topic!

夏の到来：府立植物園、ビール工場

夏の到来：府立植物園、ビール工場

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The old kids in a river trick!

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Posted 23 Jun 2010 — by Mashu
Category EN

This one will be brief, but here’s some extremely local news (within 15 minutes walk from my house) which, while it has the potential to be very tragic, I think it’s just going to end up goofy and embarrassing for a lot of people.

Yesterday night someone called the police saying that two kids fell from a bridge into the Katsura River (桂川) right here in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto. Naturally, that’s a big concern, so the proper authorities rushed onto the scene and started combing the river with what really is some impressive manpower.

However, the kids have not turned up. No sign whatsoever. Moreover, there have been no schools in the area which reported kids as having not shown up for unexplained reasons. Oh, and there’s the fact that was recently unveiled that the 46 year-old man who alerted the police has a history of making false claims. Yet the search continues… come on!

One other interesting bit, which already had me suspicious last night when I heard the initial news report. The bridge the kids apparently fell from is called 羽束師橋, which has the odd reading of はづかしばし. While it’s not exactly the same reading as 恥ずかしい, it’s darn close, and I’m predicting the guy who sent in the alarm had a bit of irony on his mind in embarrassing the cops.

京都での遊び：西から北へ、山科と御所も。

京都での遊び：西から北へ、山科と御所も。

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Sunlight and Parliament

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Posted 09 Jun 2010 — by Mashu
Category EN

I’ll be brief with this one since I need to be out the door right away, but I just wanted to write this one down before leaving.

I was/am listening to Morimoto Takerō’s “Standby” radio show on TBS, and their weekly weather expert guy is on. For an interesting bit of trivia, this guest assembled data looking at the correlation between the hours of sunlight on the day a new government is formed, and the duration of that prime minister’s time in office.

It was quite hilarious, and while I didn’t pencil down any numbers, almost all the long-reigning prime ministers over the past couple decades assembled their cabinet on what turned out to be a very sunny day, and the opposite was true for short-run PM’s. This trend was constant and reliable, the guest explained, up until the ascent of Asō Tarō, in which the correlation went completely the other direction… potentially even reflecting that the sunlight hours/time in office relationship had been reversed. Both the Hatoyama and Asō governments were formed on extremely sunny days (8~9 hours)!

The government of Kan Naoto was formed yesterday. Hours of sunlight? Zero.

Hmm… if the reverse-trend theory is true, he may be in office forever! If not, I’ll check back here next week.

比叡山と延暦寺

比叡山と延暦寺

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Political drama.

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Posted 02 Jun 2010 — by Mashu
Category EN

Though I typically don’t have the time to cover late-breaking events as they happen here, I feel that being an avid follower of the political situation (and Japan’s news in general) I should comment at least briefly on this morning’s whopper.

As the always-superb Mr. Cucek at Shisaku has already done a comprehensive (and timely) job of covering things, I’ll only give the briefest of summaries. According to the papers I read (just the Nikkei and Asahi evening editions), Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio has declared his intention to step down. In order to essentially rid the party of the untrustworthy image it has developed quite effectively over the past 8 months, he has also asked Democratic Part of Japan Secretary-General Ozawa Ichiro to resign, and I believe that resignation is also now official.

Interestingly, the one additional person whose leave of office Hatoyama openly sought was that of Lower House member Kobayashi Chiyomi, who was embroiled in scandals surrounding illegal funding activities, in much the same way Ozawa was, though on an entirely different scale in terms of public perception I’m sure. This request is in my mind a bit bizarre, but he couldn’t have picked a better time to do it, I guess.

I think this turn of events could be wonderful for the DPJ. Since late 2009 as public opinion polls plummeted, Japan’s political horizon found itself without a party receiving a viable amount of support. There was no way a DPJ with Hatoyama was going to move anywhere but down in the coming Upper House election. In removing himself, and Ozawa, Hatoyama has essentially changed the entire face of the party when it comes to the average onlooker. Thus essentially, the DPJ is reborn as the (all things considered) fresh face, and while I don’t expect public opinion polls to rise soon, if the new leader (expected to be Kan Naoto) selection process and the following plethora of tasks are handled smoothly, I think the DPJ will be seen in a fairly neutral, if not even good light by the population at large. Compare that to the infinitely negative public opinion which lasted up until this morning.

In addition – the photos of Ozawa and Hatoyama in the papers today were just hilarious. In some the two of them look like they’re about to lock lips, in others Hatoyama’s head looks like Kermit the frog, and others Ozawa is jutting out his chin and looking downward… I guess that isn’t unusual though.

The biggest irritant in all of this for me was the dismissal of Fukushima Mizuho from her position as Minister of Consumer Affairs. She was a well-spoken, tough lady who was doing a fine job. I understand the need to maintain a level of order among the ruling party on its key issues (ie. the Futenma base-moving hullabaloo), but if Hatoyama was going to jump ship anyways, all I can say about her removal is a heartfelt もったいない.

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Rivers in Japan. 「一級河川」の謎

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Posted 28 May 2010 — by Mashu
Category EN

While generally not to particularly distant locations, I think it’s fair to say at this point that I have traveled extensively within the Kansai region and to a lesser extent in the surrounding prefectures. In doing so I, as one is bound to do on an island, encounter rivers quite frequently. At a large number of rivers there are signs with the name of the river and the prefecture (like the photo below) and sometimes some other info.

10年GW：小豆島・直島

10年GW：小豆島・直島

On a large number of signs as well, you’ll see 「一級河川」 or 「二級河川」. The reasoning behind this certification has baffled me for such a long time that I finally decided to look it up. It seemed both beautiful, majestic rivers and trash-laden dried-up gullies could earn the 1級 title, so I really wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Classification Overview
Let’s refer to the delightfully detailed federal law governing rivers (河川法) for Japan.

「一級河川とは」国土保全上又は国民経済上特に重要な水系で政令で指定したものに係る河川で国土交通大臣が指定したものをいう。

(Tier 1 Rivers) are bodies of water (lit. [elements of] the drainage system) which have been designated by the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism as being particularly vital to environmental conservation and/or citizens’ economic well-being. (Article 4 Section 1)

「二級河川とは」河川法第5条第1項で前条第1項の政令で指定された水系以外の水系で公共の利害に重要な関係があるものに係る河川で都道府県知事が指定したもの。

(Tier 2 rivers) are bodies of water besides the ones listed in article 4 section 1, which have been designated by the prefectural governor as being valued in the public interest. (Article 5 Section 1)

So essentially, the level of government which issued the order, and the relative importance of the body of water from an environmental perspective is what decides it.

There is one other main river classification – 「準用河川」, which I’m going to translate as “Legally Applicable River.” These are legally handled in the same way as Tier 2 rivers, except their designation is carried out at the municipal level (city/town/village leader).

Outside of these three, you have the 「普通河川」 (Standard River) label attached, and the paragraph regarding the legal authority of these rivers was just a nightmare to read, so put simply – it’s basically left up to the municipal authorities.

According to 2001 statistics (nothing appears to have changed) there are 109 designated tier 1 rivers, and via 2009 statistics (PDF) there are 2,713 tier 2 rivers. Naturally with tier 1 being far less common, there probably hasn’t been a need to gather more stats in the last ten years!

Responsible Authorities
At present, top-level authority rests with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism’s River Bureau (国土交通省河川局). From the late 1800s until the 1960s a number of different, smaller government orders slowly paved the way to the current standard-setting new Rivers Law (新河川法) which was passed in 1964. One major change from the Meiji era law (旧河川法と呼ばれるようになったらしい) was that of the implementation of the above tiered classification system, which clearly identifies that Tier 1 rivers are the responsibility of the federal government, and Tier 2 rivers are the responsibility of the prefectural government. I like that kind of clear organization of authority. There are apparently cases when responsibility is handed down to a lower level of government, but we don’t need to worry much about that here.

For people who really like to get technical, while the naming of the classification of rivers ends up as ～級河川, there is a special quantification system which is apparently utilized, where 「水系」 (drainage system) is actually utilized as a unit of measure. Thus both 「一級河川」 and 「一級水系」 are technically correct. I guess since really any river-like body of water can be referred to as 河川, the attachment of a physical unit of measure to it (even just in name) reinforces that it is an element of a larger system under the government’s all-seeing-eye of control!

Resources
The government has a great page summarizing all the tier 1 rivers and has links to the sites governing future plans for each body of water. Here’s a more eye-friendly map.

Beyond that, I can’t imagine there is anyone out there who wants to know more about rivers than I’ve written here. However I dig this style of post and will likely be doing more in the future!

鮮やかな紅葉と山頂にある小屋

鮮やかな紅葉と山頂にある小屋

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