A whale of a problem
It seems Japan’s “scientific” whaling programme may have bitten off a little more than its country is willing to chew.
An article in The Japan Times reveals that whale meat seems to be piling up and is only going to be getting bigger.
Surely this makes Japan’s decision to double this season’s catch of Minke whales to about 900 ludicrous?
It seems apparent that the Japanese will have to launch a huge advertising campaign to get people to eat whale if they want to reduce their current stocks let alone consume the extra 450 whales they are killing.
Never-the-less there seems to be two schools of thought on whales and whale meat in Japan. Those who think Japanese could be convinced not to eat whale and those who think it’s perfectly okay.
There’s an interesting article in the Mail and Guardian.
It is very disheartening to read how little notice was taken in Japan of the actions to try to stop the whaling fleet in Antarctic waters over summer. And I have to agree with at least one of the sentiments in the article: It would likely take the work of trendsetting people within Japan to force a change in thinking.
In the meantime we must keep up the fight and hope that eventually whales will be safe to swim the seas without fear of ending up on the end of a pair of chopsticks.
January 31st, 2006 at 8:29 pm
I recommend the NZ Herald article from 23 January by Claire Harvey, “Japanese schoolkids are having a whale of a time”. She rightly points out that most middle-aged Japanese people hate whale meat because they were forced to eat it in school dinners in the 50s and 60s. And the tradition of eating whale meat only applies to a few coastal villages prior to 1945.
The simple fact is, there is no great demand for whale meat among Japanese consumers—it is a tiny niche market for people who want to skite about eating something “unusual”. The push for whaling is a combination of whale industry interests out for a handout and chauvenistic nationalism on the part of Japan’s MAFF and foreign ministry.
A lot of Japanese people don’t like the anti-whaling protesters because they think Japan is being unfairly picked on—another typical Japanese response of painting yourself as the victim when you are actually the aggressor.
February 1st, 2006 at 1:40 pm
Couldn’t one argue that since even you consider it ‘ludicrous’, and since it does not really make sense for the whale meat industry to flood the market, because of the law of diminishing returns…. that maybe it is a “scientific” whaling programme?
February 1st, 2006 at 1:56 pm
That’s scientific as in ballistics testing of harpoons, perhaps..?
February 1st, 2006 at 6:01 pm
“…since it does not really make sense for…”
Is Adam Smith implying that actions by such and such should have some “sense” behind them?
LOL
chauvenistic nationalism doesn’t make much sense but that doesn’t mean it’s not prevalent in the of motivations for various actions.
February 2nd, 2006 at 6:04 pm
It must be remembered, that the Japan Times, being written in English (not the language of choice for 99.9% of Japanese) is not typical of the Japanese response to events. It is a fairly conservative paper aimed at its readersship, which is residents from the US and other expatriats whose Japanese reading ability is not up to the mark (the large Brazilian community has its own Portugese language paper).
I found that the Japanese language press often had a different take on things, especially issues such as the US bases in Okinawa that were opposed by Japanese more than by the English speaking population of Japan. Of course the Japanese language press may also be pro-whaling, but that should not be assumed without actually checking it out.
February 2nd, 2006 at 9:09 pm
whaling as an issue is almost completely ignored by the mainstream Japanese-language press. try doing a search in the Japanese version of google news for recent articles on whaling. virtually zilch. for example, a search for “Institute of Cetacean Research” and “Greenpeace” (in Japanese) gets five hits: 2 in national dailies, 1 in CNN japan and 2 in local papers. in the English version of google news, the same search yields 319 hits.
BTW, the great majority of Japan Times subscribers and readers are native Japanese and not expatriate English speakers. people who work at the Japan Time have told me that. and you see far more Japanese people on trains reading the Japan Times (to improve their English and get a more international perspective than the Japanese-language press) than you see foreigners. the number of native English speakers resident in Japan is just so small compared with the overall population: about 100,000 versus 127 million. under 0.1%…
there are five national dailies in Japan:
Sankei - ultra-rightwing
Mainichi - very right wing
Yomiuri - conservative
Nikkei - conservative
Asahi - centrist
the national tv and radio stations are all affiliated with one of these media groups.