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This is one of the strangest things I've ever read: http://www.debito.org/index.php/?p=240

I haven't read the whole thing, but the gist of it is this:



Bunmei Ibuki is Japan's Minister of Education, meaning he's in charge of the Ministry of Education (actually the "Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology"), which controls the entire educational process.

Now for some additional context, from somebody's response:



My own comments:

It's worth noting that Japan has less human rights enforcement than the United States and many other countries, so I'm wondering kind of excess it is that Mr. Ibuki fears. Also, human rights is an issue for foreigners in Japan, including those who become Japanese citizens, than for the native people. For example, it's rare that there is open racial discrimination in Japan, but when it does happen, it's almost impossible to do anything about it. Given that rights are an issue for minorities in Japan, combined wit Mr. Ibuki's other comments, it's quite possible that Mr. Ibuki is being almost openly racist here.

Anyway... an excess of human rights? Aren't rights supposed to be non-negotiable? Rights are supposed to be something everybody has; that's why they're called rights. Excess + rights = does not compute.

Don't get me wrong: I don't hate Japan. I wouldn't go so far as to say I love Japan; I've never been there and I don't know what it's really like, and it's not the sort of country that you can really get a good picture of by watching a lot of Japanese media; you have to go there. But I think Japan does have some issues that need to be fixed.

Thoughts?

- Kef

...

Hmmm...... That has to be the most nonsensical made-up term I've seen in some time.

First, this guy doesn't know what metabolic syndrome actually is or what causes it. Second, let's worry about the effects of respecting human rights "too much" when any nation on Earth actually manages to do that.

I think it's a case of using a (very) illogical argument to dispute a disagreeable point. It's one case in which the "too much of a good thing" argument fails to work, not to mention that butter and human rights are not particularly analogous.

What disturbs me most is that this person is in charge of education.

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On the one hand, maybe the phrase makes a bit more sense in Japanese. On the other hand, we're talking about politicians here, and they aren't necessarily eloquent (insert obligatory comment about Bush), so who knows?



Indeed.

- Kef

Just because it's a foreign idiom doesn't mean that it doesn't need to make some kind of sense. As an extreme example, you could say that the weather today is "like a purple compact disc in the lucid shade," and acknowledge that it is a poorly translated Ecuadorian saying, but it still wouldn't mean anything.

I'd say that the weather's more like an orange cassette in the intriguing moonlight, come to think of it.

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I don't think they do that... I think what they do is they ignore the issue entirely. It seems that when it comes to anything bad about Japan, past or present, the attitude is "maybe if we ignore the problem, it will go away". I think the problem is that Japan, having a long history of isolation as well as a strong sense of national pride, has trouble seeing things from the perspective of other countries.

Not everyone in Japan is like that, of course, but I think the problem is bigger than you would initially think.

- Kef