Unless you live in Japan or are by chance a big fan of sumo, you probably didn’t hear about the recent changes to the rule book made by the Japan Sumo Association. It may surprise you to hear that, before the changes, a sumo stable was limited to only one foreign wrestler. And you’ll probably be even more surprised to hear that the recent changes didn’t abolish this prejudiced rule, but rather made it even more restrictive.

There has been some concern among the members of the Japan Sumo Association that sumo is coming to be dominated by foreign wrestlers. The only current yokozuna, Hakuho, is from Mongolia, as is the recently retired yokozuna Asashoryu. Among the current members of the Makuuchi, or the top division, one can find a handful of Hakuho’s countrymen as well as wrestlers from Georgia, Russia, Estonia, Korea, and Bulgaria. They are not the majority, but there are certainly a good number of non-Japanese, and more importantly, they are good wrestlers.

In the past, some stables have gotten around the one foreigner rule by getting their foreign wrestler to apply for Japanese citizenship. The new rules, however, have closed this “loophole” and state that each stable may only have one “foreign-born” wrestler. So much for assimilation. One stable master offered this gem of a comment, “You get the impression it is a severe measure but if the brakes are not applied somewhere, there will be more and more stables overrun with foreign wrestlers, so it can’t be helped.”

I understand that sumo is considered to be a national sport, and it can’t be a great feeling when someone comes from the outside and does better than someone who supposedly has it “in their blood,” but I have trouble understanding why the Japan Sumo Association can’t see the rise of foreign-born wrestlers as a positive thing. They learn the Japanese language and the history and rules of sumo, because, unlike most Japanese, they are actually interested in sumo! In their home countries, there is usually a boom in interest when a wrestler does well. For a sport that has been waning in popularity at home, that is no small thing.

The change in the rules just makes the Japan Sumo Association sound like sore losers. After all, no more than a few wrestlers in the last couple of years have opted for naturalization. The overall number of foreign wrestlers currently active is not going to change much either way. It sounds more like they would just like to reserve some places in the ring for Japanese. And really, if you don’t get there on the strength of your own skills, how can you claim to be the true representative of the sport?

For more articles by Jessica on Japan, see:

Space Beer!

Good-bye, Yamaguchi-san

Amazon announced today that they are caving to publisher Macmillan’s demands to set their own prices for e-books. Amazon had been pressing to keep the price of all the e-books they sell at $9.99, which is undoubtedly part of their business strategy surrounding the Kindle. Macmillan threatened to deny Amazon the right to sell any of their books, electronic or otherwise, and Amazon responded with a brief boycott. But in the end, Amazon opted to let consumers decide if they are willing to pay Macmillan’s prices. Both sides, however, seem to be ignoring the reality of why consumers are turning to e-book readers in the first place.

There are various reasons why bibliophiles make the switch. Of course, portability, more open shelf space and the ability to immediately get the latest must-have novel all play a role, but price is most definitely a major factor. Buying the hardware for reading e-books is a big investment, so the calculus of how much money you save becomes important.

A quick look through Macmillan’s online store shows that they are pricing a lot of their e-books at the same price as the hard copy and in some cases, they were more expensive! It’s hard to imagine something less likely to alienate their e-book customers. After all, part of what you pay for when you buy a hard copy is the costs associated with printing, packaging and distribution. If you are buying an e-book, why should you have to pay the same amount? Macmillan seems to think that customers should pay the same price to get access to their content regardless of the format and that they can just pocket the money saved on e-book editions.

As for Amazon, while their position that e-books should cheaper is sympathetic, their strong-arm tactics and use of proprietary software for e-books is not. The Kindle is a pretty slick machine, but if you choose a different e-book reader, you’re out of luck at Amazon. They aren’t selling e-books in any of the more flexible file formats like pdfs, eReader,  or ePub.

Basically, both companies are pursuing a similar strategy: take away a customer’s ability to choose. Amazon wants you to stay with the Kindle because it’s the only device that reads your purchases and Macmillan wants you to pay the same price for their content regardless of where and how you buy it.

It’s a strategy that is bound to fail. Consumers do not like being boxed in, particularly when they don’t know if they are going to like what they are buying.  Publishers and book seller are going to have to find a way to compete with the availability of free content online at sites like Project Gutenberg and Google Books and the common practice of pirating and file sharing. Many libraries are also offering patrons the choice of checking out books in digital format. As record companies have been learning, if you have nothing to offer but the same content at a higher price and with more restrictions, you are going to suffer.

Consumers want more choice and with a rash of new e-book readers coming out, they are going to find a way to get it, regardless of what Amazon and Macmillan want. Instead of trying to set the price for content, publishers and online stores should be thing about what they can offer customers that will drive them to their sites and keep them coming back. For instance, publishers could cut out the middle man and sell e-book directly from their websites at reduced rates and then offer buys discounts on their other titles. They could also bundle the e-book with other digital content that isn’t available in other places, like interviews with the author, excerpts from upcoming books, games, etc. It might also be viable to sell advertising on their online stores or use customer data on customer preferences to market related titles.

There are any number of options, but one thing is for sure:  readers aren’t going to pay full price or even $9.99 for an e-book if they can get the exact same thing elsewhere for less. And you can just bet someone out there is willing to give it to them.

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So the other day, I was listening to Savage Lovecast, one of my growing list of must-have podcasts, when a girl called in asking for advice about her relationship. In the first few sentences, she talked about her queer identity and then proceeded to explain a problem she was having with her long-term boyfriend. I had a complete “wait … what?” moment, and I realized that I had been defining “queer” solely as “gay”.  So I started thinking about what it really meant and who falls under the umbrella of the queer identity.

Now, far be it from me to tell people how they should or shouldn’t identify. People can identify as whatever they like, regardless of the life choices that they’ve made. Nor are people required to take on an established label for themselves. Forcing others to conform to my understanding of the word “queer” is not what this post is about. I simply wanted to take a closer look at what it meant to me and how people in the queer community use it to talk about themselves.

What’s fascinating to me is the breadth of meaning that it seems to encompass. For some, “queer” is a handy term that refers to pretty much anyone in the LGBT community without having to fit them neatly into a category or use that clunky acronym. Some even prefer it because it avoids the basic assumption of a gender/sexuality binary. Yet for others, the term still carries too much of a derogatory meaning. Even assuming that the queer community has done a little linguistic reclamation of the slur, it still has its original meaning of “strange”. Why should we call ourselves strange, when the existence of non-heteronormative relationships are as old as time, they ask. And that is a fair point. After all, even if homosexuals are in the minority, they are hardly out of the ordinary. You might as well call racial minorities weird.

I think the most insightful comment I read was by a person named Alex at Kathy’s Lesbian Life Blog. He or she says:

I think that any term is not going to fully fit anyone’s understanding of self; our lives are much bigger than the words we use to describe ourselves.

And that, I think, is the most important point. Rather than making an assumption about someone’s life based on the term they most identify with, we should get to know them better and understand what they mean by it. Advice that is no less valid outside of the world of gender and sexual orientation, no doubt.

But let me throw this out to the comments. For you, what does “queer” mean? And how important do you think is to find a label that fits your sense of self, whether sexual, racial or otherwise?

The beer was produced in very limited amounts. Just 250 6-packs were made, with purchases limited to one a person. Despite a hefty price tag of 10,000 yen a pack (currently about $110 US), the company had to choose customers by lottery because the interest was so high. Unfortunately for beer connoisseurs overseas, only Japanese residents were eligible.

I wasn’t lucky enough to score a box myself, so I won’t get to judge whether this beer is mostly gimmick or if space barley makes for good brewskies. However, I think it is an interesting project that highlights the huge leaps we are making towards more self-sufficient space travel. What was once only science fiction seems more and more likely each year. Perhaps one day, we will be able to farm and produce any number of crops out in space, easing the burden of food production and expanding the horizons of space travel.

And I can drink to that!

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A crime in progress?

There is something seriously wrong with the laws governing sex offenders in the States. I’ve read yet another article about a young man trying to be a responsible member of society, but being blocked at every turn due to his status as a sex offender. His crime? Having consensual sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend when he was 17.

Call me crazy, but I don’t think that makes him a criminal. I think that makes him a young adult who is being punished for expressing his attraction to and affection for his partner in the way he is biologically inclined to do. And, just for the record, I would apply the same definition to his girlfriend. But of course, his girlfriend is not being punished, because she happened to be the younger half of the couple, a few months shy of adult-hood in the eyes of the law.

Now I understand that age of consent laws are meant to protect not only young children, but pre-teens who might not make the best choices. And if the young man in this case had been 37-years-old, let’s say, rather than 17, I might think that his motives were a tad suspicious. But in this case, the “perpetrator” is almost as much of a kid as the “victim,” with the same good-choice-making disability of the average teenager. And while the girl might have suffered some discipline as the hands of her parents, he will have to live at least the next 10 years of his life with the close surveillance, restricted movement and prejudice that are the lot of more deserving pedophiles and rapists.

It just strikes me as a symptom of the larger problem of sex-negativity in the States. Our social mores rarely have any relation to the reality of human sexuality and the old-fashioned ideas that monogamy is easy, the female virtue must be protected, and that male prowess should be rewarded are still hanging around. Every time I read a story like the one above,  I wonder how much money (and suffering) Americans would save themselves if they could just speak honestly, openly and scientifically about sex. (I’m looking at you, abstinence-only education.) It’s OK to be conservative about sex-related issues. It’s not OK to be ignorant.

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