Shohei Ohtani, GOAT

Major league baseball (MLB) was the first sport I followed. That's not surprising, because baseball was by far the dominant sport in the United States in the postwar era. I memorized the statistics of the srars who played before I was born: Cy Young, Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio, Christy Mathewson, etc.

Then there was Babe Ruth, who hit an astounding 60 home runs in one season for the New York Yankees. Before he was the "Sultan of Swat," Babe Ruth was a star pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. His numerous records in hitting drew crowds across the country and was enough to put him on the Mt. Rushmore of baseball, but his excellence in pitching made him the greatest player in baseball history.

Until Friday night.

Headline: Shohei Ohtani Just Played What May Be the Greatest Game of All Time

But the things Shohei Ohtani does on the field are so astonishing that they make you wonder if everything you thought you knew about baseball for the last century and a half was wrong. He has redefined what was thought possible in a sport that appeared to have no more secrets.

Ohtani isn’t just the most talented player on the planet. He is likely the most talented player in history. And on Friday, Shohei Ohtani delivered the performance that will define him.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are going to the World Series for the second consecutive season because Ohtani carried them there with a box score that defies belief. On the mound, he dominated the Milwaukee Brewers over six shutout innings, allowing only two hits and striking out 10. At the plate, he blasted three home runs that traveled a combined 1,342 feet, transforming Dodger Stadium into his own personal launchpad...

“We’re like the Bulls,” [shortstop Mookie] Betts said, “and he’s Michael Jordan.”

After the outing that will forever be known as the “Shohei Ohtani game,” Ohtani himself had little to say. The closest he came to any sort of self-praise was, “This time around, it was my turn to be able to perform.”

But everyone who saw Ohtani on Friday knows the truth: There has never been anybody like Shohei Ohtani. There probably never will be again.

Knowledge (and familiarity) breed contempt. but in rare cases knowledge helps us to appreciate the greatness in front of us. The number of Hall-of-Famers who have called Shohei Ohtani the greatest baseball player in MLB's 149 years continues to grow.

Lucky Leaves But We May Have Lucked Out

The former Lucky location has been vacant since April 29, 2025

During the 40+ years we have lived in Foster City the Edgewater Place Shopping Center has always had a supermarket, first Alpha Beta, then Lucky Market, then Albertsons, and finally Lucky again. There never was a vacancy during these changeovers, however, because all the aforementioned stores are brands owned by or related to Save Mart Companies. Over the last several years Save Mart has been closing Bay Area stores that it calls "underperforming," which include Lucky's in Fremont, Millbrae, and Foster City.

The Foster City store, less than a 15 minute walk from our house, has been vacant since April 29th. Many of us had "there goes the neighborhood" fears, because having empty storefronts is a strong predictor of blight. But we were overly worried.

Osaka Fremont (Mehta/Chronicle)

The Osaka Marketplace is moving in.

A Japanese specialty grocery store is expanding with a new Bay Area location, becoming the most recent entry in a flurry of Asian supermarket openings in the region.

Osaka Marketplace has signed a lease in Foster City at the Edgewater Place Shopping Center. The location is the vacant 35,000-square-foot space at 919 Edgewater Blvd., where a Lucky supermarket previously operated. The incoming retailer is best known for its selection of Japanese and Asian goods, as well as fresh seafood and prepared foods.

The store is slated to open in November. This will be Osaka Marketplace’s third Bay Area location, with its other stores located in Fremont and Pleasant Hill. The company is currently working to expand in Northern California and Arizona.

The 123,000-square-foot Edgewater Place is currently in the middle of a capital improvement program to refresh its common areas and parking lot, among other amenities. The shopping plaza has attracted a variety of Asian dining options such as Chinese restaurant Rickshaw Corner, Yemeni Coffee house Sana’a Cafe and Ritha Indian Restaurant.

“We’re thrilled to join the Foster City community and bring our authentic Japanese grocery experience to Edgewater Place,” Osaka Marketplace owner Kazuhiro Takeda said in a statement. “From fresh produce and seafood to prepared meals and pantry staples, we’re looking forward to serving the community and celebrating the tastes and traditions of the neighborhood we now call home.”

The incoming store is located not far from San Mateo, known for its Japanese American heritage. It’s also the latest in a wave of Asian specialty supermarkets across the Bay Area that looks to satiate ever-increasing demand, as seen in the recent opening of the Korean grocery store Jagalchi at Daly City’s Serramonte Center, which drew hourslong lines. Future Asian grocery store arrivals include Tokyo Central at Emeryville’s Bay Street mall, T&T at San Jose’s Westgate Center and the long-anticipated H Mart in Dublin.

It's difficult for shopping centers to replace long-term anchor tenants who leave because they're experiencing profitability problems--look at San Francisco. It's even rarer to have a tenant upgrade. Foster City may have lucked out.

The Zen of Gray Concrete Blocks

Brutalist example: the FBI building

We've commented on the brutalist style in architecture before. (As with many cultural topics, it became politicized when President Trump disliked brutalism to the extent that he issued an executive order banning the style from future Federal projects. President Biden revoked the order.)

In general our tastes don't run in the direction of gray concrete blocks, but we do find some of the structures, such as UCSD's Geisel Library, esthetically pleasing.

Kanye's $57MM Malibu home (WSJ)

The latest trend by ultra-wealthy home buyers is to have their home designed by 81-year-old Tadao Ando, whose technique some have likened to Brutalism:

Celebrities like Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian are flocking to homes designed by Tadao Ando, a self-taught, Osaka-based architect. Ando’s homes aren’t just rare, but also affordable only for the very rich: Numbering fewer than 20 in the U.S., they are generally defined by their use of reinforced architectural concrete, which makes construction far more expensive than in typical homes...

Tadao Ando (WSJ)

Born in Osaka in 1941, Ando had a brief stint as a boxer before turning to architecture. Largely self-taught, he opened his eponymous firm in 1969, according to the firm’s website. While early works included tiny homes in Japan, Ando became famous for cultural institutions like the Church of the Light in Osaka, which opened in 1989, and the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis, which opened in 2001. He won the Pritzker Prize in 1995...

Sometimes described as Brutalist, Ando’s homes are typically hulking, sparse structures with smooth edges, water features and windows that frame the views. Admirers say they evoke an almost spiritual, Zen-like experience in their simplicity, while others say the concrete is too hard and cold to be livable.

This Ando Santa Fe home sold for $40MM (WSJ)

Tadao Ando's method isn't for everyone, but those who like it really, really love it. Concrete is difficult and expensive to work with, but billionaires and centi-millionaires don't care that his works cost "two to three times more than traditional high-end home construction."

And at his stage in life the architect doesn't seem to care about money either.

“a billionaire could come in the door tomorrow and offer him a billion dollars to design his house, and that wouldn’t motivate him,” said L.A. real-estate agent and developer Tyrone McKillen, who has worked with Ando. “It has to be close to his heart for him to work with you.”

Catalyzing the Decision

Our Asian-American nephew is departing for Yokohama after living his entire life in the U.S. His wife, a Japanese national, and their two children have already moved. He is prepping their San Jose house for sale and wrapping up projects for work.

For his birthday dinner we took him to Gyu-Kaku, a Japanese barbecue restaurant in San Mateo. It was a bittersweet celebration, and there was laughter and a few tears while the beer flowed and a variety of meats were grilled.

The night ended happily with promises to stay in touch and even make a serious attempt to visit each other.

The next day he reported a real downer: the catalytic converter was stolen from his Prius after he returned home. The wait for a replacement is at least three months and the cost is at least $2,000, and the schedule for his remaining months in the Bay Area has been severely disrupted.

The silver lining is that the theft of his converter reinforces the rightness of his move. Japan is a better place to raise his kids (who are fluent in both Japanese and English) and safer for the whole family.

Alison Gerken and Amanda
Arguile (Chron photo)

In general the majority of people who do leave the Bay Area are happy they did so. A minority have second thoughts, and a few regret the decision so much that they move back. One couple returned to San Francisco, the experience was the opposite of their rose-colored memories, and they're leaving again. [bold added]

Alison Gerken and her wife, Amanda Arguile, who rejoiced when they got jobs in the veterinary field, bringing them back to San Francisco from Florida and its miserable anti-LGBTQ politics last fall after a three-year break. They missed the freedom, the weather, the beauty, the quirky small businesses and the easy road trips to the redwoods, Napa, Tahoe and Yosemite. They missed their home.

Then reality struck in the form of a swiped catalytic converter, a theft that ended up revealing a surprising amount about their new, old city. The saga that followed the crime reminded them of what’s not working in San Francisco — and convinced them to leave for good...

She was reluctant to drive the car on the neighborhood’s steep hills and ran inside to call the police non-emergency number to report the theft and file a police report online. By the time she got back to her car, it had a street sweeping ticket — one she felt sure would be dismissed if she explained what happened. It wasn’t.

Gerken had the right to further contest the parking ticket at a hearing, but figured the outcome wouldn’t change and her time was more valuable than the $87 fine. So she paid it.

Meanwhile, she learned from the local Toyota dealership that, because so many Prius owners were seeking catalytic converter replacements, the waiting list was months long. [The Chronicle reporter] called San Francisco Toyota on Tuesday morning to ask how long it would take to get a catalytic converter for a 2013 Prius, and the parts department worker who answered the phone let out a long whistle. “Five or six months,” he said...

Finally, she gave up. A few weeks ago, she had Cash for Cars haul it away in exchange for $2,400, far less than its value before the theft...Gerken received six parking tickets and has paid four of them so far.

This is the reality of living in San Francisco:

“We couldn’t wait to leave Florida,” Gerken said. “But coming back, it was this abrupt holy s—. This is bad. We kind of forgot what it was like.”

San Francisco is just as expensive as ever, they said, but the streets are far less lively. Some of their favorite small businesses have closed and are boarded up with plywood. More of their middle-income friends have been priced out, and they have co-workers commuting from as far as Santa Rosa and Oakley.

The streets seem dirtier, they said, and open-air drug dealing seems more prevalent with cops just passing by. They see bodies sprawled on the street and wonder if they should stop to make sure the person is OK. Usually, Gerken said, she keeps walking, but feels awful about it.

Catalytic-converter theft is rampant, there's next to nothing done to stem the tide, and victims like Alison Gerken pile up fines until there's no alternative but to scrap their cars.

Every individual has his breaking point, and life in the Bay Area produces more than its share.

The Steak Could Use a Little More Voltage

Half of Japan's adults have high blood pressure, and the culprit is the salt content of Japanese cuisine. Chefs are reformulating recipes, but scientists are also working on a tech solution: [bold added]

Japanese researchers have developed computerised chopsticks that enhance salty tastes, potentially helping those who need to reduce sodium in their diets.

Co-developed by Meiji University professor Homei Miyashita and beverage maker Kirin Holdings Co., the chopsticks enhance tastes using electrical stimulation and a mini-computer worn on a wristband.

The device uses a weak electrical current to transmit sodium ions from food, through the chopsticks, to the mouth where they create a sense of saltiness, said Miyashita.

"As a result, the salty taste enhances 1.5 times," he said.

Personally, I'd rather employ salt substitutes than run a "weak electrical current" through my mouth, but I'm usually late to the party and could be persuaded to use the chopsticks.

(RS logo from Adweek)

However, I'm never going to adopt this technology:

A Japanese professor has developed a prototype lickable TV screen that can imitate food flavours, another step towards creating a multi-sensory viewing experience.

The device, called Taste the TV (TTTV), uses a carousel of 10 flavour canisters that spray in combination to create the taste of a particular food. The flavour sample then rolls on hygienic film over a flat TV screen for the viewer to try.

A Rōsui By Any Other Name

At any age it's nice to have people who care (WSJ photo)

When my father passed away in 2019, the cause of death was listed as congestive heart failure. But we knew that the underlying reason was an attack of shingles that had hospitalized him a few months earlier.

Although the doctors declared him to be "recovered" from shingles, all his systems were weakened. He had become vulnerable to any infection or health problem that he might well have fought off a year earlier. Before shingles, he was "younger than his age;" after, he looked like his full 94 years.

More doctors are moving toward listing "old age" as the cause of death.

When a very old person dies without any obvious trigger, should doctors try to come up with a cause? Or is it acceptable to say that the person died of old age?

Doctors are increasingly going with the latter. The third-most-common cause of death in Japan last year was rōsui, a word that combines characters meaning “old age” and “decline.” It is generally translated as dying of old age, and it accounted for more than one in 10 deaths, trailing only cancer and heart disease.

“We would say these days, ‘She had all sorts of conditions but since she was old, let’s say she died of old age,’ ” said Akihisa Iguchi, a gerontologist and emeritus professor at Nagoya University. He said families are usually fine with that.

The basic arguments for and against "old age" as a cause of death are fairly clear:

It also gets at the choices families and doctors face when an elderly person grows frail, perhaps suffering from a variety of ailments that aren’t individually life-threatening. They must decide how aggressively to treat those ailments and how to ensure the person’s comfort.

Putting the name of a disease on a death certificate—such as respiratory disease or pneumonia, both on the U.S. top-10 list and common among the elderly—prompts questions about what was done to treat that disease. Death from old age, by contrast, suggests a kind of inevitability.

As for me, I'm not opposed to "old age" as the reason for my cause of death because at that point I won't care.

However, while I'm still breathing--and sentient--please spare my feelings by not saying that I'm suffering from old age. Use WHO's phrase, “aging-associated decline in intrinsic capacity.” Science-speak has a way of mellowing the harsh.

Day of Infamy, 80 Years Later

Gun turret: the rest of the Arizona lies beneath

Below is a post, lightly edited, that has appeared in this journal on previous anniversaries of the attack on Pearl Harbor:

On December 7, 1941 Japanese bombers obliterated the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor. My father, a junior at William McKinley High, saw the silver planes flying overhead on that clear Sunday morning. He didn’t realize anything was out of the ordinary until he saw smoke rising from the Ewa (western) side of Oahu.

My mother, a middle-schooler at Robert Louis Stevenson Intermediate, was preparing to go to Sunday services downtown.

It was a day that changed everything. Millions of Americans, including Dad and his five brothers, answered the call.

While the majority survived the War with life and limbs intact, hundreds of thousands did not, like my wife’s uncle who died somewhere over the Pacific. His body was never found.

Some found the armed services to be to their liking and made it a career, like my uncle who was the best auto mechanic I ever knew. Others, like my father-in-law, seized the opportunity offered by the GI bill and went on to college and jobs that they would never previously have considered.

At the U.S.S. Arizona memorial the names of the fallen are inscribed on the wall.

Are we worthy of their sacrifice? Perhaps......if we preserve, protect, and pass on the gifts they have bestowed to us.

Juicy Tidbits

Are you disappointed with the Nobel-Prize-winning New York Times?

Get The Nobel's Times instead!

It's not just lemon, it's Super Lemon!

When you pierce the crust of Lemon Taste Powder, bite through the mantle of Mild Lemon Candy, and reach the core of Super Lemon Candy, you too will exclaim, Oh! Juicy!

At $2.99 a package The Nobel's Times is a better value than the New York Times.

It's made in Japan and has the highest quality. There have been no recalls or retractions.

It will leave a sour taste in your mouth, but unlike the New York Times you will be smiling afterwards!

Age is Not Just a Number When Benefits Are at Stake

The Kobayashis--Yuichi (retired), 67, and Sachiko, 64,
-- work part-time and full-time, respectively. (WSJ photo)

"Japan is by far the world’s oldest nation, with more than 29% of the population 65 or older" but has figured out a way to solve the problem of too many old people: [bold added]

Japan is at the forefront of change. Millions of people have learned they no longer are old, but merely “pre-old.”

That is the terminology suggested by both the Japan Gerontological Society and the Japan Geriatrics Society, which say the 65-to-74 range now should be called “pre-old age.” The government says the idea is worth looking at and has modified its annual White Paper on the Elderly to make clear it isn’t necessarily calling people in their 60s elderly.

While being called "pre-old" is complimentary to 65-74 year olds who practice good health habits, Japanese are suspicious of the motivations behind the word change.

Among the pre-old set, fear remains that the redefinition, even if advocated only by independent bodies, simply encourages the austerity-minded Ministry of Finance to slash benefits.

Meiko Yamamoto, 74, who works at a medical-clothing factory, said she agreed that many people remained active at a more advanced age these days, but she said wider recognition of that might lead to an unhappy result. “I suspect the government is likely to delay offering pensions,” she said.

Americans would be immediately on their guard if the Federal Government initiated a "pre-old" demographic classification. Because of a long history of instituting vocabulary changes to prepare people for real policy changes, most elderly will gladly accept the tradeoff: continue to call us "old" but don't you dare touch our Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Rice is Life

We know couples of Asian descent who had newborns during the pandemic. Normally we would deliver baby gifts in person but have been limited to sending cards and gifts via Amazon.

But how may the newborn's parents respond, if they want to send more than a thank-you note?

The insides only come in white (Guardian)

Headline: Japanese parents send relatives rice to hug in lieu of newborns

Parents in Japan are sending bags of rice that weigh the same as their newborn babies to relatives who are unable to visit them due to the pandemic.

The bags come in a wide range of designs, with some shaped like a baby wrapped in a blanket so that relatives can feel as though they are hugging the new arrival while looking at a picture of their face, which is attached to the front.

Your humble blogger thinks the idea is brilliant, but not surprising since it came from the land that made Tamagotchi a world-wide craze nearly 30 years ago. (h/t Tyler Cowen)

New Taste on the Block

Trader Joe's Umami seasoning

It took a hundred years for a "new" taste, umami, to be acknowledged by food science. [bold added]

In 1907, while enjoying a bowl of soup made with dashi broth and kombu seaweed, the Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda had an insight that would change the culinary world. He noticed a taste that wasn’t sweet, salty, sour or bitter.

Ikeda gave this hard-to-describe savory taste a name—umami—and went on to identify the specific amino acid that triggered it.

Scientists in Europe and the U.S. remained skeptical about whether umami really was a taste until a receptor for it was discovered on the tongue almost a century later, in 2000. Today, it is taken for granted by most scientists and chefs...

Now kokumi has come on the scene.

Trader Joe's umami seasoning and
garlic sprinkled on beef ribs:
maybe they'll have kokumi.

The newer taste, kokumi, is even harder to describe than umami, but it is potentially just as important for understanding how and why we enjoy food. In Japanese, the term koku describes foods that have the kind of mouthful “thickness” often imparted by fats—what English speakers might describe as rich. “It feels like a physical sensation,” says the culinary scientist Joshua Evans. It works “by coating the mouth and becoming more intense and being extended in time.” When asked what foods have koku, Japanese food experts list wild boar, adult wasps, duck eggs and aged sake, as well as long-simmered and fermented dishes.

Koku reflects a sensory experience most closely allied with touch, influenced by aromas and textures. Adding the Japanese suffix -mi, meaning taste, highlights the specific taste detected by the tongue. The precise nature of kokumi remains the subject of great debate among sensory scientists and chefs, in part because it can’t be detected on the palate on its own; rather, it modifies other tastes and flavors.

The earliest kokumi research focused on the contribution of garlic to foods. In 1990, Japanese scientist Yoichi Ueda discovered that if he added diluted garlic to two types of soups, people eating them would describe having more sensations associated with kokumi. Subsequent research isolated amino acids in the garlic that seemed to cause the effect, including glutathione.

A Japanese lab claims to have identified the taste receptor triggered by glutathione, and scientists elsewhere have discovered that glutathione and other compounds appear to trigger kokumi in yeasts and in other foods. These include long-cooked meats such as chicken in chicken broth; some cheeses, such as Blue Shropshire, Gouda and Parmesan; and fermented foods like beer, soy sauce and fish paste.

Some sensory scientists remain skeptical. Paul Breslin, a nutritional sciences professor at Rutgers University, contends that the term kokumi will be difficult to understand and use “until the scientific and nonscientific community can agree both on its definition and on the prototypical eliciting stimuli”—that is to say, until we know more.

For all the uncertainty, kokumi has two potentially important implications. The first relates to our understanding of human evolution; the second, human health—especially efforts to create foods with fewer calories but more flavor. In both cases, kokumi may provide a kind of missing link.

Our ancestors didn’t have to be able to give kokumi a name or know its chemical sources to enjoy it. Our own research suggests that one key to the adoption of fire by humans, and the invention and adoption of fermentation, was the flavor of cooked and fermented foods. It is known that humans (as well as dogs, gorillas and chimpanzees) prefer cooked foods over raw foods. Humans also tend to prefer many fermented foods relative to their raw counterparts. But it has long been unclear why.

One possibility is that humans evolved a preference for complex aromas and the experience they contribute to flavor. Uncooked meat and rotten meat that is full of pathogens both tend to have simpler aromas than cooked meat or meat that is fermented and full of beneficial fermentation microbes. It is also notable that cooked meats and fermented foods tend to have kokumi.

We might picture an ancient human ancestor holding up a piece of meat that has been cooked on the fire, pleased by its aromas but also by the rich mouthfeel of its kokumi. Our ancestors didn’t have to be able to give kokumi a name or know its chemical sources to enjoy it.

Chef-researchers employed by top restaurants, such as Nabila Rodríguez Valerón at Copenhagen’s award-winning Alchemist, are now eagerly experimenting with the ways in which kokumi could be featured in modern meals to make foods that taste rich but are low in fat. A recent study by Ciarán Forde at the Clinical Nutrition Research Center in Singapore discovered that if the amino acid associated with kokumi is added to beef broth, particularly in combination with umami flavors, consumers perceive the broth to be richer and to have more calories.

Many traditional recipes from cultures around the world appear to already take advantage of this kokumi effect. For example, adding onion and garlic to soup stock to give it a fuller, deeper flavor. Often recipes start with a step in which chopped onions are soaked in fat or oil, in effect amplifying the flavors of those fats and oils. Kokumi is a taste that asks us to think of food holistically.

At least it's organic

Cooking in fat and oil makes dishes taste better, though traditional food vocabulary--sweeter, saltier, etc.--is inadequate to describe what made the food more enjoyable. Now we know that it was umame and kokumi.

However, I'll probably pass on the wild boar and most definitely the adult wasps. (By the way, how did "Japanese food experts" know that adult wasps are redolent--food critic word--with kokumi?)

Happy New Year: Time to Face Our Fear

I make it a point never to laugh at a person because of his lack of knowledge. The balkanization of culture insures that there is very little knowledge that Americans, or more broadly Westerners, widely share. (I have my own knowledge gaps, for example 21st century pop music.) Nevertheless, I had to laugh at an educated Brit's response on a TV game show.

Well, this did me in pic.twitter.com/njBVwTjb3W

— L Johnston (@FinalBullet) December 26, 2020

King Ghidorah, Megalon, and Mothra are among creatures to have fought which enduring film character in films made between 1964 and 1992?

"Lassie."

Being totally unfamiliar with kaiju is nothing to be ashamed about, but naming her as the principal slayer of movie monsters shows that one is totally unfamiliar with Lassie, too.

Speaking of the answer to the question--after a year of contending with an enemy too small to be seen with the naked eye, and inspired by the above, I spent a couple of hours this morning watching Godzilla: King of the Monsters.

Taking full advantage of special effects technology that exploit today's high-resolution screens, the producers made Godzilla and his fellow monsters truly terrifying. The most powerful weapons, i.e., nuclear bombs, that humans can throw at Godzilla only make him more powerful.

If a fire-breathing, mountain-sized monster is coming toward you, you're allowed to be scared. However, in the New Year resolve not to be afraid of something that can be warded off with a flimsy cloth mask.

Memorial Day, 2020

Golden Gate National Cemetery, San Bruno, CA

Today I thought about my Dad, who passed away in June. He was the last of seven boys, six of whom served during World War II.

I thought of Harry Truman, who made the now-controversial decision to drop the bomb. After 3½ years of all-out war, I can see why he wanted to end it.

Look at us, we can barely tolerate two months of being confined to our air-conditioned Internet-enabled homes.

I probably wouldn't be here if it weren't for the bomb. Dad was training in Texas in the spring of 1945 and would have been part of an invasion of the Japanese homeland that would have cost the lives of up to a million U.S. soldiers and many more Japanese.

"I was terrified at what might happen and damned relieved when the invasion became unnecessary. I accept the military estimates that at least 1 million lives were saved, and mine could have been one of them."
----James Michener

Today we remember and give thanks for the lives of Dad, his brothers, Harry S. Truman, and all who wore the uniform to give their descendants blessings that many of them could not have imagined.

South Korea and Japan Should Just Move On

The U.S.-China "trade war" gets all the headlines, but there's budding conflict between two of the world's most important economies and American allies. South Korea's resentments over its Japanese colonization from 1905 to 1945 had gradually subsided over time--though Japan's whitewashing of its World War II history remains a sore point--but exploded anew over policy toward North Korea.

South Korean business owners trash
Japanese logos. (Ahn Young-Joon--AP)

The new face-off in the conflict between the two U.S. allies started July 1 when Japan slapped export restrictions on South Korea, the latest move in a long-running feud between the governments of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Moon Jae-in over World War II history. The new curbs slow shipments of three materials essential for semiconductors and flexible displays, two drivers of Seoul’s export-heavy economy.

Tokyo officials have suggested the moves are justified for national-security reasons, accusing South Korean of not doing enough to ensure Japanese-produced chemicals and equipment can’t be shipped on to help rogue nations build weapons. One of Mr. Abe’s closest aides named North Korea as a possible destination.

Seoul has denied the suggestion. North Korea slammed Japan’s trade policy in a state-media report Thursday. “This is a cunning artifice to justify the unreasonable economic retaliation by disguising it as an ‘issue related to national security,’ ” the North’s state media said of Japan’s export restrictions.

Relations are souring but haven't reached the point where the U.S. will step in:

The U.S. has kept relatively quiet on the matter. But on a visit to Seoul on Wednesday, David Stilwell, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asian affairs, said Washington would “do what it can” to help patch up the frayed relationship between its two allies.

From the American vantage point South Korea and Japan's differences are minor compared to their common geopolitical interests. Just like Americans do with ancient grievances, both parties should look past the sins that no one alive is responsible for and move on.

Independence Day, 2019

Alfred, 20, in Fukuoka (1945)

My father died earlier this week.

Starting the sad process of notifications and filings, we looked high and low for his discharge papers. Then we opened his wallet. Miniaturized to the size of a credit card, they commemorated events of 72 years ago. He always carried them.

The greatest generation won a two-front war against the most powerful war machines in history, then battled a determined adversary for over 40 years, during which a misstep would have killed many millions. We owe them our independence and our very lives.

On this Independence Day we humbly give thanks.

Fresh Eyes

The City of Hiroshima donated a half-size scale replica of its famous Torii Gate to Honolulu in 2001. The friendship offering stands in the small McCully-Moiliili triangle park, where King and Beretania streets split near the University of Hawaii.

The park itself was unkempt, but the area around the gate was neatly mown.

Thousands of people drive by every day with hardly anyone giving it a second thought. I'm like them back home in the Bay Area, but as someone who hasn't lived in Honolulu for a long time I have fresh eyes.

Happy Thanksgiving

And now for something beautiful: a flash orchestra playing Beethoven's 9th in the Omotesando Hills shopping center in Tokyo. The musicianship and acoustics are outstanding, and the sight of Japanese "shoppers" singing the Ode to Joy in the original German might have moved the master himself.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Skin Color Prejudice - Japanese Version

(Image from blog.gaijinpot.com)

In decades past your humble blogger flew frequently to Japan, and one of the top-five pleasures (after food, cleanliness, public transportation, and absence of crime) was the hot-springs bath. The travel industry has spread the word, and tourists are now a lucrative market for the bath industry. Except...[bold added]

the staff increasingly find themselves turning away tourists, too, [spa manager Yuichi Ohama] laments: “We’re surprised by how many have body art.”

In Japan tattoos are associated with criminals....the mere sight of a tattooed thug is enough to frighten other customers away, so many gyms, pools and onsen (hot springs) ban tattoos or at least insist they be covered up. Japan’s growing army of foreign visitors has inadvertently stumbled into this cultural minefield.

Despite the cultural overtones, it looks like the deciding factor is economics.

Foreign tourists have helped offset the long-term decline of the onsen industry, admits Masao Oyama of the Japan Spa Association. But government pleading cannot remove the deep taboo on tattoos, he says. “There are still many more Japanese customers than foreigners and their feelings must come first,” he says.

Look for the prejudice against skin coloring to change as the customers for traditional bathing decline.

Year 72: The Mushroom Cloud's Silver Lining

(Image from Atomic Heritage Foundation)

Horrible though it was, Hiroshima probably saved more lives than it took. As I wrote two years ago,

There's a good chance that I owe my existence to the bomb. My father, who celebrated his 90th birthday in June, would have been part of the invasion of Japan. (Dad served in the post-War occupation.)

Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated the bomb's awesome destructive power to such an extent that nuclear weapons have never again been used in wartime. The fear seems to be receding, however, and our vacation from history may be ending.

“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita; Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty, and to impress him, takes on his multi-armed form and says, 'Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.' I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.” ― J. Robert Oppenheimer

Cross-Cultural Marketing

We've previously noted how one of Japan's popular soft drinks, Calpis, had to change its name to the non-cringeworthy Calpico when it was introduced to the American market.

The Daio Paper Company should likewise consider a name change for its GOO.N diapers. Goon has several meanings in the English language, none of which are positive.

The diapers appear to be an excellent product whose high price won't deter parents in this market. Perhaps "Glow" or "Good'n Dry"?