{"id":9654,"date":"2009-12-07T14:06:40","date_gmt":"2009-12-07T18:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=9654"},"modified":"2009-12-07T18:22:26","modified_gmt":"2009-12-07T22:22:26","slug":"wit-life-60-%e6%94%bf%e6%a8%a9%e4%ba%a4%e4%bb%a3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2009\/12\/07\/wit-life-60-%e6%94%bf%e6%a8%a9%e4%ba%a4%e4%bb%a3\/","title":{"rendered":"WIT LIfe #60: \u653f\u6a29\u4ea4\u4ee3"},"content":{"rendered":"

WITLi<\/strong><\/em><\/a>fe<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong>is a periodic series written by professional Translator\/<\/em>Interpreter\/<\/em>Writer Stacy Smith<\/a><\/strong> (Kumamoto-ken, 20<\/strong><\/em>00-03)<\/strong>.\u00a0 Recently she\u2019s been <\/em>watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends togeth<\/em>e<\/em>r <\/em>w<\/em>ith h<\/em>er own<\/em> <\/span><\/span>obser<\/em>vat<\/em>ions.<\/em>\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

\u653f\u6a29\u4ea4\u4ee3<\/strong> (seiken\u00a0koutai)<\/em> or “change of government,” was announced to be the winner of Japan’s 2009 Buzzword Award<\/a> on December 1 (Incidentally, last year the title was won by \u300c\u30a2\u30e9\u30d5\u30a9\u30fc<\/strong><\/a>\u300d or “around 40 years old”).\u00a0 This phrase of course refers to the rise to power by Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), overturning over 50 years of Liberal Democratic Party rule.\u00a0 Other contenders for the buzzword title were \u65b0\u578b\u30a4\u30f3\u30d5\u30eb\u30a8\u30f3\u30b6<\/strong> (shingata influenza<\/em>)\u00a0 or “new flu” and \u8349\u98df\u7537\u5b50<\/strong> (soushoku danshi<\/em>) or “herbivorous men<\/a>.” <\/span><\/p>\n

Since the change in administration, Hatoyama has been dealing with 3Ks.\u00a0 However, this is not referring to the typical usage regarding undesirable 3K jobs that are kitsui<\/em> (difficult), kitanai<\/em> (dirty) and kiken<\/em> (dangerous).\u00a0 Hatoyama’s very own 3 K’s are kenkin<\/em> (contribution), keizai<\/em> (economics), and kichi<\/em> (military base). <\/span><\/p>\n

The first K is in regard to a donation scandal plaguing the new Prime Minister. <\/span>Prosecutors have traced about $10.4 million that his 87-year old mother, Yasuko Hatoyama, provided to him over a five-year period ending in 2008.\u00a0 Some of that money was reportedly funneled into fake campaign donations, listed as coming from dead people or from people who never contributed.\u00a0 Last week Hatoyama apologized in parliament for this scandal, but said he will remain prime minister unless prosecuted.\u00a0 He also said that he will give the public a full explanation when the official inquiry has been completed.<\/p>\n

The second K referes to the economic woes currently facing Japan.\u00a0 The DPJ came into office promising to eliminate wasteful government spending, and one potentially powerful way to chop budgets is to reassess the necessity of projects and programs.\u00a0 This method is known as jigyo shiwake<\/em> (sorting out operations) and was developed by Japan Initiative, a private-sector think tank.\u00a0 It has been used for seven years to review the expenditures of local governments, and is now being implemented at the federal level.\u00a0 A rough estimate of the budget for the next fiscal year is about 95 trillion Japanese yen.<\/p>\n

The final K refers to the relocation of the Marine Corps Air Station at Futenma in Okinawa.\u00a0 There was a previous proposal to move it within the prefecture to the Henoko district of Nago, but Japan declared that it will postpone a decision on the relocation until next year.\u00a0 U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos was in Japan last week, and conveyed Washington’s anger regarding this standstill.\u00a0 He warned that the Futenma base will remain in its current location permanently unless the two countries go ahead with the agreed upon relocation plan.<\/p>\n

Hatoyama not only wants to relocate the base abroad, but intends to redefine the Japan-U.S. alliance as a whole on the occasion of next year’s 50th anniversary of the amendment of the bilateral security treaty.\u00a0 This is based on a “security arrangement without the permanent presence of U.S. forces in Japan,” part of Hatoyama’s campaign pledge for the 1996 House of Representatives election.\u00a0 Ironically enough, it has been said that this idea emerged from his time studying at Stanford University in 1976, where he was deeply impressed with Americans’ patriotism and pride while celebrating the bicentennial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Translator\/Interpreter\/Writer Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03).\u00a0 Recently she\u2019s been watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations. \u653f\u6a29\u4ea4\u4ee3 (seiken\u00a0koutai) or “change of government,” was announced to be the winner of Japan’s 2009 Buzzword Award on December 1 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,30,18,1,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articlejournalism","category-japan-trends","category-translatinginterpreting","category-uncategorized","category-wit-life"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-2vI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9654"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9702,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9654\/revisions\/9702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}