The man who was arrested for greeting strangers

The story of the Japanese blog that made the nation laugh so hard it caused a major stir in the Japanese blogosphere, and allegedly shot up to first place in their FC2 blog ranking last week, is too good not to be shared.

Since the magnitude 9.0 earthquake in the northeast of Japan last month, much has been written in the Western media about the dignified and selfless manner the Japanese conduct themselves in a crisis. In fact, such was the national degree of solidarity that a large number of companies decided to stop airing commercial advertisements for the time being. 

From mid-March, these have been largely replaced by ads produced by the Advertising Council Japan (AC Japan), a membership organisation which runs campaigns and adverts concerning public welfare: anything from health and recycling to etiquette, much like the Public Service Announcements in the US. Their ads, however, are being shown with such high frequency on Japanese television, they began to attract complaints from exasperated Japanese and foreigners residing in Japan, saying they "get on their nerves".

Amused by one particular AC Japan ad, one Japanese blogger decided to investigate whether the message it was advocating was actually valid. The 60-second educational advert features cartoon characters singing hello ("kon'nichiwa"), good night ("oyasuminasai"), thank you ("arigato"), and other key Japanese greetings to each other. It closes with the slogan: 

"Every time you greet someone, you make a new friend." 

His objective was to test their claims that one can befriend people by saying hello. But what started as a well-intentioned joke ended up landing him in deep waters. 

One evening, accompanied by a friend, the man started enthusiastically shouting "kon'nichiwa" to random men and women who walked past them outside a train station, while he documented their reaction in his blog post, "Is this ad true?"  The experiment went on for nearly an hour. 

A taxi driver, a post office worker, an old lady and a lady with a small child were some of a handful that did react, but the overwhelming majority not only blanked him but also scurried away as quickly as possible. When he finally heard someone take the initiative to greet him first, he was filled with glee. 

It was the police. 

The conversation that ensued is worth a translation:
Policeman: "Kon'nichi wa. What are you doing?"
Man: "I am greeting people."
Policeman: "And why?"
Man: "Do I need a reason to greet people?"
Policeman: "Are you campaigning for an election?"
Man: "Nope, I just wanted to make friends."

The man was then taken to a police station – where he carried on greeting all and sundry – and was questioned by several officers, who, incidentally, all said hello. Following a telling-off for giving tongue-in-cheek replies to the police, the blogger was forced to explain the reason for his uncommon behaviour, before being released. 

Officer 1: "I would not say it is a bad thing but it rises suspicions, so stop it now and just lead a normal life." 
Officer 2: "It is very brave of you; I'd like to tell you to continue but, sadly, it is too much to expect in present-day Japan."

The man concludes the report on his experiment with the result: 

"Every time you greet people, people call the police."

At the time of writing, his blog, called "I am stupid. I howl at the moon. " (Baka damon. Tsukini hoeru), had received nearly 7,000 "Like" (or what the Japanese call "Applause") clicks, 4,000 Facebook "Likes" and had been retweeted an astounding 48,400 times.

Although the preposterousness of the situation makes you chuckle, once the amusement subsides, you can't help but feel a tinge of sadness. It resonates with prevailing attitudes in modern city life, which not even a catastrophic earthquake may be able to shake off. 

No wonder he is howling at the moon.

The Japan quake wall of shameful journalism: are you on it?

Last week I wrote a piece for The Media Blog about Fox News' hilarious blunder in having included a trendy night club in central Tokyo on a map of nuclear reactors in Japan. 

But examples of poor journalistic practice may not always amuse, especially when they can dramatically influence the public's sense of vulnerability or distort perception of a delicate reality, as in the case of Japan's recent earthquake. 

Andrew Woolner, a former IT worker resident in Yokohama, was so appalled by the poor reporting on the earthquake and its aftermath causing unnecessary panic among foreigners in Japan, he felt compelled to create a black list called "The Journalist Wall of Shame", as he explains in his blog. 

The wiki invites contributors to name and shame the worst offenders among the world's media organisations for their sensationalist or misleading coverage.

Earlier this week its bad journalism list had received at least 180 (unedited) entries from the US, UK, Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium and Italy. A separate section Woolner subsequently added for good journalism had 34 entries at the time of writing.

Woolner's original idea was to gather only a few examples of particularly bad journalism with his friends on Twitter and make individual complaints. He told me by email:

"I never thought it would get so big"

Below are three examples of poor/sensationalist journalism from the UK that have been entered on the shaming list:

1. The Sun: Starving Brit Keely: My nightmare trapped in City of Ghosts – Tokyo -the headline says it all. Starvation? Zombies? Ghost Town? Pleeeeze.
2. The Star: Rosie DiManno's No Escape Valve for So Much Grief - nauseatingly and gratuitously melodramatic, and condescending towards the Japanese. 
3. The Mail Online: UN predicts nuclear plume could hit US by Friday... Starts with mentions of "terrified passengers packing Tokyo airport" and predictions that the toxic plume would "head into Southern California [...], Nevada, Utah and Arizona" only to later contradict itself by stating that the US Nuclear Regulator Commission had said "it expected no harmful levels of radiation would reach the U.S. from Japan".

Even the data visualisation in Randall Munroe's Radiation Dose Chart, although well-intentioned, doesn't help contain the panic many are experiencing from possible exposure to harmful levels of radiation. Compare it to this chart by the National Institute of Radiological Sciences, or Tokyo Electric Power Company's, which provide a similar visualisation – in context.

For us, living outside Japan and looking in through the tinted glasses of western media, it is difficult to gauge the real mood of those who are inside. 

Judging from the exasperated anti-media messages I have been seeing on Facebook from expats living in Japan, I fear the reality may differ significantly from what has been reported in the press. One of my personal friends, an American currently working in Tokyo, wrote on his Facebook 'wall': 

"No disrespect to the people that have left - but this is turning into a farce. I hope somebody holds the media responsible when it finally fizzles out."

Woolner deserves accolade for doing exactly that – holding journalists to account – but he is realistic about what his "Wall of Shame" can achieve.

"I don't think the work we've done will necessarily make a big difference, but If we can at least get people to start being aware of the problem, maybe there's hope."

Being ethnically Japanese and having lived in Japan for many years, I admit to having, at times, allowed strong emotions to cloud over my objectivity while watching events unfold in the country the past few weeks. But the journalist in me agrees that, as in any other profession, we should never forget the lasting impact the quality of our work will have on any community, large or small.

As Woolner said:

"Bad journalists [...] are like bad doctors [...], bad soldiers, and bad firemen [...]; they make the world a worse place to live in."

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If you would like to help the victims of the earthquake in Japan, please click on this this link, where you will find a list of organisations (scroll to the end of that page) you can donate to in your geographical area. Andrew Woolner, as promised!