journal features

The world is getting worse

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Tokyo, 2010.10.04

I'm at the embassy getting my son's passport updated. There is a Canadian fellow here who is working in China. The Chinese staff at the Guangzhou consulate wouldn't give him a passport because he's PR in Japan and his wife is Japanese. The queried him at some length about his Japanese connections and went on to reject his birth certificate and passport on the grounds that they couldn't possibly verify the documents given his circumstabces. So he went to Hong Kong and it was the same story so he had to come back to Tokyo.

This recent fisherman story seems to be just what the Chinese have been waiting for when it comes to Japan. My bet is that the "prime minister of the month" will step up courageously and win them over .. heh heh not really. Actually I could see this blowing back in the face of every foreigner in this country, too.

rand()m quote

A civilization is a heritage of beliefs, customs, and knowledge slowly accumulated in the course of centuries, elements difficult at times to justify by logic, but justifying themselves as paths when they lead somewhere, since they open up for man his inner distance.

—Antoine de Saint-Exupery