Restraint order

Just before we left for the EGU, I heard that Ishihara, Governor of Tokyo, had called for "self-restraint" to show sympathy with the victims of the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami/meltdown disaster. I assumed that everyone would ignore the old buffoon who is continually making a fool of himself - he already said the tsunami was divine retribution for the Japanese being soft and self-indulgent, which would be idiotic enough even if it hadn't hit a relatively poor rural area rather than, say, central Tokyo. However he was comfortably re-elected recently - it would perhaps be a bit cruel to say that as an ageing surly grumpy xenophobe he is ideally suited to represent Tokyo, but only a little bit!

Anyway, back we came to Japan and found out that in fact most of the main sakura festivals have been cancelled. I even saw a report that the Tokyo Fireworks have been cancelled - these are scheduled for the middle of August! Mind you, my Japanese colleagues didn't seem to have heard this, it may be an error of the English-language press (and this article seems to contradict the story). The "restraint" has hit the tourism trade hard, and a particularly unfortunate consequence of Ishihara's campaign is the threat of a slump in sales in sake from Tohoku, which is one of the major production regions. In response to the slump in sales, Tohoku sake brewers have started a counter-campaign to get people to buy their products again. It would be a sad irony if these nth-generation family businesses, having survived war, recessions, earthquakes and tsunami, were put out of business by the mawkish sentimentality of people thinking that sitting at home being resolutely glum is somehow sharing the pain of the troubles up north, rather than merely adding to them. The mood has been a bit sombre than usual here, not surprisingly, and there is no reason why anyone should be forced into an insincere show of jollity, but conversely, the idea that we should all be coerced into "self-restraint" by order of the governor, or through fear of public criticism, is self-contradictory at best.

So, jules and I decided to have a small hanami party, and bought some Tohoku sake (Nihonshu, to give it its real name - sake is a generic term for all alcoholic drinks) to enjoy under the falling blossoms.



Plenty of people seem to agree with us, a famous old cherry tree was swarmed by visitors in Fukushima despite the cancellation of official festivities. I'm not really a huge fan of Nihonshu but I'm prepared to give it some serious consideration as part of my contribution to the regeneration of the region. Cheers!