Book Info: Japanese Only: The Otaru Hot Springs Case and Racial Discrimination in Japan By Debito Arudou Akashi Shoten Inc.; ISBN: 4-7503-2005-6; October 2004; pp. 432
	Book Info: My Darling is a Foreigner By Saori Oguri Media Factory; ISBN: 4840106835; December 2002; pp. 159
	Who is the Weakest Link? Debito Arudou Gregory Clark Saori Oguri  Tony Laszlo Ana Bortz

The Dave Show: Original Text
By: Yuki Allyson Honjo

First, a disclosure: I know Arudou personally and have sympathy for his lawsuit. I firmly believe that Japan has little excuse to allow businesses to openly reject patrons based on race. I have very little time for apologists such as former Tama University President Gregory Clark: he implies that discrimination is a justifiable defense to preserve Japanese culture. “True, discrimination against foreigners can be unpleasant,” Clark argues. “. . .But as often as not, that is because they do not want to obey Japan’s rules and customs” (Arudou, p. 95). Nor do I give much credence to the idea that it is “un-Japanese” to sue: the lack of Japanese lawsuits is more a reflection of inefficiencies in the Japanese document-based court system rather than some amorphous and undefined notions of “culture.” Given my contact with Arudou, I think his commitment to this lawsuit is genuine and sincere. It should also be noted that JapanReview.Net co-editor, Paul J. Scalise, had vetted a draft manuscript and is included in the acknowledgements. I have—to the best of my abilities—tried to set aside my personal biases and empathies in this review: if I failed, it is solely my responsibility.

Arudou gained domestic and international fame through his protests against anti-foreign sentiments in the port city of Otaru, in northern Japan. In Sept 10, 1999, Arudou came across an anonymous e-mail post to the Issho Kikaku Mailing list by a South American woman married to a Japanese (Arudou, pp. 14-5). The multinational family was ejected by a hot spring in the Otaru area for being “foreign.” In reaction, Arudou and his colleagues created an informal group to test this assertion. Arudou, who is Caucasian and a long-term resident of Japan, was ejected from a hot spring bath house (onsen), Yunohana Onsen. A movement was born.

The onsen owners, who had had problems with inebriated and rowdy Russian sailors, asked Arudou, his Japanese family, and his non-Asian looking cohorts to leave. The businesses had posted signs stating that bath facilities were for "Japanese Only" (see photo Arudou, pp. 31, 39, 113). The onsen owners argued that it was discriminatory to reject only Russians, so they turned away all foreigners. Later, one onsen voluntarily lifted its ban. Arudou, in reaction to Yunohana onsen's continued discrimination, sued the business for damages and the city for violation against the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (UN CERD).

Arudou and his co-plaintiffs (Olaf Karthaus and Ken Sutherland), together with the head of Issho Kikaku, “dapper and intelligent, European-born [Tony] Laszlo,” worked on the BENCI (Businesses Excluding Non-Japanese Customers Issho) Project. Issho Kikaku, according to its website, is a Tokyo based NGO “that aims to monitor issues related to human diversity, language, culture and coexistence worldwide, and strives to facilitate a greater recognition and understanding of these issues, both in the East Asian region and worldwide.” It was a sensible alliance: Ana Bortz, a Brazilian journalist and Issho Kikaku member, won one of the first lawsuits in Japan that ruled the refusal of service based on nationality was illegal based on the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Later, Arudou became a naturalized Japanese citizen and changed his name from David Aldwinckle to Debito Arudou. When he returned to the onsen wielding his new citizenship, he was again rejected based on his “foreign” race.

Disagreements with Laszlo later erupt: he becomes the villain of the piece. Arudou and his partners then win the initial case against the onsen, but not against the city. Arudou, who once enjoyed a wide base of support, eventually finds himself alone, abandoned by his lawyer and co-plaintiffs, begging an anonymous government clerk to help him file his appeal against Otaru in Japanese. (Arudou, p. 365).

It all seems like gripping material for a book and, indeed, could (and should) be. However, Japanese Only never works—and on several operating levels, at that.

 

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