Philip Patrick

Philip Patrick

Philip Patrick is an exiled Scot, who lectures at a Tokyo university and contributes to the Japan Times

Monday

Philip Patrick

Why are the Japanese so bad at English?

Tokyo, Japan ‘Shhh! Now on face to respectable great eels life’. How’s that for the first line of an article? I spotted this gem written on a sign in the window of a seafood restaurant in the Hibiya Midtown shopping centre in Tokyo recently. I was delighted. I’ve spent 25 years in Japan and have always enjoyed a good bit of mangled Japanese English. I had been dismayed of late by an apparent improvement in the quality of English on signs and noticeboards around Tokyo. But this was the old stuff. This was ‘Engrish’. Why would a people usually so meticulous about every aspect of life be so seemingly careless about the correct use of a foreign language?

Thursday

Philip Patrick

Japan won’t forgive Joe Biden for his xenophobia gaffe

Joe Biden just threw a particularly nasty insult the way of Japan, a close ally of the United States, at a campaign event. The president accused the Japanese, along with China, Russia, and India, of being ‘xenophobic’ in their reluctance to admit large numbers of immigrants, and of damaging their economies as a consequence: 'Why is China stalling so badly economically, why is Japan having trouble, why is Russia, why is India, because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants. Immigrants are what make us strong,’ he told a Washington fundraiser on Wednesday.

Saturday

Philip Patrick

Scrapping replays could be the beginning of the end for the FA Cup

Is time running out for the oldest knock-out tournament of them all? The FA cup‘s obituary has been written a few times in recent years but the much-loved competition has somehow survived. But, with the latest downgrade imposed by the game’s authorities, its status as a major footballing competition and treasured cultural artefact could be in real jeopardy. From next year, in response to the latest engorgement of the Champion’s League and the calendar war between Uefa and Fifa and the domestic leagues, the FA has announced that not only will there be no replays, but that the final, the traditional culmination of the football season and, once, a truly national event, will be rescheduled, yanked forward to allow a longer summer break.

Wednesday

Philip Patrick

It’s time for Ronaldo to retire

All good things must come to an end, and that surely now ought to include the footballing career of Cristiano Ronaldo, who disgraced himself again on Monday after being sent off for appearing to stamp on and elbow an opponent in his team Al-Nassr’s Saudi Super Cup defeat by Al-Hilal. He then seemed to come close to hitting the referee. This debacle comes hard on the heels of him making an obscene gesture to fans after a game in February. Yes, he’s still scoring goals, at a low level of football, but as a global sporting icon, he’s in danger of becoming an embarrassment.

Saturday

Philip Patrick

The curiously quiet reaction to Oppenheimer in Japan

Finally, eight months after its US premiere and a month after it triumphed at the Oscars, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has opened here in Japan. The film had been mysteriously delayed and there were rumours it would never be screened in the only country to suffer the consequences of a nuclear bomb. No definitive explanation was ever given for the lengthy hold up, but it was almost certainly due to concerns about the subject matter, especially since Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is a native of Hiroshima and lost relatives in the blast. Timing may also have been a factor, as the buildup to the worldwide release coincided with Kishida’s hosting of the G7 summit in his hometown. One theme was global peace and nuclear disarmament and the Oppenheimer premiere might have proved awkward.

Saturday

Philip Patrick

Japan is no country for young men

Another week, another fun fact about Japan’s declining birthrate and ageing population to startle and amuse us. Japan has now recorded a full decade where sales of adult nappies outstripped those of baby nappies. Thanks to the surfeit of geriatric incontinents, one well-known manufacturer, Oji Holdings, has made headlines by giving up on tots entirely and announcing it will shift its production to nappies for seniors instead. It is a reasonable business decision by the company. There just aren’t enough babies. Indeed, children under the age of 15 made up less than 12 per cent percent of the country’s population in 2022, while those aged 65 and over constituted almost 30 per cent.

Wednesday

Philip Patrick

Football is in enough trouble without a ‘regulator’

Unlike David Cameron – who famously got in a muddle about which team he supported – Rishi Sunak is a genuine football fan. But this makes the government’s latest wheeze of introducing a football regulator hard to take. Sunak says the outfit will help to prevent the ‘financial mismanagement’ of ‘unscrupulous owners’. It is, he says, a ‘historic moment for football fans’. Not everyone is convinced. The Premier League is one of Britain’s most famous exports. Millions of people around the world follow teams like Man City, Arsenal and Liverpool. Its success is because these clubs have been left relatively free to conduct business: snapping up the best players and paying enormous salaries to persuade stars to play in England, rather than rival leagues in Spain or Italy.

Wednesday

Philip Patrick

Japanese toilets aren’t all they’re cracked up to be

What is the world’s best city in which to be caught short? You can imagine a lively discussion on this question on a TripAdvisor forum. A strong candidate would be Tokyo, which has recently added to its long list of otherworldly attractions, a collection of 17 high-tech architect designed public lavatories. The toilets feature, and arguably star, in Wim Wender’s Oscar-winning film Perfect Days which tells the story of a reclusive, obsessively diligent cleaner whose job it is to keep the facilities in immaculate condition.

Monday

Philip Patrick

Liverpool fans should stop booing the national anthem

Liverpool fans, a significant number at least, booed the national anthem at the Carabao Cup final at Wembley yesterday. It wasn’t the first time this has happened – it’s been going on since the 1980s – but it was the first time since the monarch was diagnosed with cancer. This added a certain poignancy to the ‘save’ bit of the anthem, and might have been expected to persuade the Liverpool boo-boys to take the afternoon off. But no. The usual explanation for this ongoing practice is lingering resentment at how Liverpool was affected by the Thatcher government’s monetarist policies of the 1980s (parts of the city reported 30 to 50 per cent unemployment) and how it has been treated after.

Sunday

Philip Patrick

Why are Japan’s trains so much better than ours?

With six more months of train strikes recently announced it is getting hard to imagine a punctual, anxiety-free railway journey in the UK. Over in Japan it’s hard to imagine the opposite. Japan is one of those blessed countries where people understand the value of a modern, reliable, affordable and extensive railway network. In a 2019 global efficiency survey Japan, unsurprisingly, came out on top. And there hasn’t been a strike since the 1970s. If I had to think of one moment that crystallised all that I admire about Japanese trains it would be when I lost my paper ticket and had to negotiate the exit barrier.

Wednesday

Philip Patrick

Who cancelled Miss Japan?

Karolina Shiino, a 26-year-old naturalised Japanese woman originally from Ukraine, has been obliged to give up her Miss Japan title after confessing to an affair with a married man. Shiino, whose parents are Ukrainian and who came to Japan aged 5, was awarded the title just two weeks ago. As the first non-ethnically Japanese woman to be crowned Miss Japan she had already generated a certain amount of controversy but the revelations about the affair, published in one of Japan’s weekly magazines, has brought her brief tenure to an inglorious end.

Philip Patrick

Japan’s naked men are no longer sacred

For the first time in its 1,250 year history, Japan’s Naked Man Festival is to admit women to its sacred rites and rituals – well, one sacred ritual anyway. Later this month, a cohort of 40 women, clothed, will be allowed to participate in the naoizasa ritual where they will carry bamboo grass wrapped in cloth into the local shrine. While hardly a stunning breakthrough for women’s liberation, the decision is nonetheless revealing. Sanitising rather bizarre local events is unlikely to make much difference It is less a reflection of changing opinions than shifting demographics, with Japan’s vast underpopulated rural areas having to be more flexible with their ancient customs in order to keep them alive.

Sunday

Philip Patrick

Not everyone will miss Jurgen Klopp

So, farewell then Jurgen Klopp. What memories you will leave us. You were exuberant, passionate and unorthodox. You ran up and down the touchline, gesticulating manically. You had a nice, albeit cosmetically enhanced, smile. You could be charming and witty. You won. seven trophies in nine years for Liverpool, most significantly the Premier League title that ended an excruciating generation long wait and a sixth Champion’s League. Your place in the Pantheon is assured and things will be duller without you. But is your leaving really a ‘disaster’? From the press reaction it would appear that your tenure at Anfield was an unbroken period of glory and joy the imminent cessation of which has precipitated something akin to mourning and existential angst.

Tuesday

Philip Patrick

Why no one in Japan is talking about the Fujitsu Post Office scandal

‘They are a national disgrace.’ That was the response of a Japanese friend when I asked for her opinion on Fujitsu, the Japanese company at the heart of the recent UK Post Office IT scandal. But her answer was not in any way coloured by the company’s involvement in the affair (they supplied the dodgy software), of which she knew absolutely nothing. But then why should she? There has not been a single news item in the Japanese media. And ITVx is not yet available in Asia. The Japan Times, for example, found space yesterday for a piece on the ‘world’s oldest pyramid’ in Indonesia (which may in fact not be) and a piece on the viability of the Panama Canal.

Sunday

Philip Patrick

Is Japan finally embracing immigration?

Japan has long been known for its steadfast refusal to submit to the allure of large-scale immigration, as a country that puts social cohesion and societal harmony well ahead of any desire for diversity. Notoriously as hard to get into as Switzerland or Monaco for would be migrants, and even refugees, the ‘yokoso’ (welcome) sign that greets you at Narita Airport is clearly provisional and time limited. But is all that changing? There are signs of a major shift in policy, from an active dissuasion of foreigners to stay (Japan once paid laid-off Brazilian auto workers to go back home for good after the financial crash) to the door being flung open and a tatami welcome mat being rolled out to the world.

Tuesday

Philip Patrick

Japan’s earthquake has brought back painful memories

The year 2024 began in the worst possible way for Japan. At least 30 people were killed by a powerful earthquake which struck the Ishikawa prefecture on the west coast of the country in mid-afternoon on New Year’s day. The death toll is expected to rise considerably. The quake registered 7.6 on the Richter scale, making it one of the most powerful in recent history. To give you some idea of the magnitude, it is a level that will knock you off your feet – I was unnerved enough by the swaying I felt in a Tokyo department store 180 miles away to hold on to a rail. Japan’s geospatial information authority has stated that the quake may have shifted land near the epicentre up to 1.3 meters to the west.

Friday

Philip Patrick

Why can’t the BBC leave Agatha Christie alone?

I would like to report a murder. It took place in the evening of 27 December in millions of homes around the UK simultaneously. The victim was Dame Agatha Christie – well, one of her works, and to an extent her posthumous reputation. But unlike in the great Dame’s novels, there was no beguiling mystery about the culprit: it was the BBC, a serial offender. Yet again, in what has now entered the list of modern Christmas traditions, our national broadcaster chose to ‘reinvent’ and thus more or less kill, one of the Queen of Crime’s novels. Christie’s Murder is Easy was retrofitted to suit the BBC’s obsession with racism and colonialism. The hero Luke Fitzwilliam, in the book a retired English police detective, was recast as Nigerian.

Sunday

Philip Patrick

The admirable humility of Japanese sports stars

Who is the best paid sportsperson in the world? Cristiano Ronaldo perhaps? Or Kylian Mbappé? Lionel Messi? Novak Djokovic? LeBron James? Well, no. As of last week, it is someone even reasonably well-informed sports fans may not have heard of – a certain Shohei Ohtani, Japanese slugger and pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Ohtani’s ten-year, 700-million-dollar contract is the most lucrative in sporting history. Except technically Ohtani will not be the best paid sportsperson in the world, or at least not until the end of his term, as he has chosen to defer nearly all of his salary so that the bulk of the money can be invested by his new club in the team (he apparently has written assurances to that effect).

Wednesday

Philip Patrick

The deep affinity between Japan and Israel

Tokyo Japan and Israel have a curious bond, which recent events have highlighted. A video showing a group of Japanese senior citizens singing ‘Japan loves Israel, and Israel loves Japan’ (in Hebrew) while waving Japanese and Israeli flags has received more than 900,000 views. The group, believed to be Christians, may be at the extreme end of Japanese philo-Semitism but their passion is generally shared. A crowd of 1,200 (big for Japan and probably greater than the number of Jews in the entire country) demonstrated in support of Israel in Tokyo earlier this month, just one of several similar events. The philosophy of the kibbutzim chimed with Japan’s collectivist culture There have been pro-Palestine demonstrations, but they have been small-scale and placid.

Philip Patrick

Does football really need sin bins to tackle bad behaviour?

Here we go again. Just when you thought a period of welcome stasis might have descended on the world of football rules and regulations, we look set for yet more flux. On Tuesday, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) agreed to test a raft of new measures in the game. These include sin bins – a potential 10-minute detention for bad behaviour – and a new rule stipulating that only the captain is allowed to remonstrate with the referee. Trials could be held (including in the Premier League) as early as next season. IFAB has identified unsportsmanlike behaviour by players, including dissent, as ‘the cancer that [might] kill football’.