Japan. The 3rd largest economy in the world. A country with a population of over 120 million. A country which suffered a magnitude 9 earthquake and devastating tsunami in 2011. A country still trying to sort out the nuclear mess in Fukushima, still trying to build new homes for about quarter of a million people displaced by those events. A country currently engaged in a protracted and heated row with China over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands. A country where senior politicians visit a controversial shrine to the country’s war dead with increasing frequency and decreasing concern for the feelings of people in other Asian countries.

Japan. According to the BBC World website this weekend, a country obsessed with hamsters’ bottoms.

On May 4th, Japan was hit by the most powerful earthquake since the huge one on March 11th 2011 and the subsequent, related aftershocks. Since it was ‘the biggest since . . . ‘ I expected there to be some report of it on the BBC news, but not a squeak, all day. I checked the website too, thinking there must be something there, but again, nothing. It was reported elsewhere, but not by the BBC, at least nowhere I looked.

On May 15th, the Asia section of the BBC website had an article titled ‘Japan PM Abe calls for new defence law interpretation’:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27420077

The part of the constitution the government would like to reinterpret, since that’s the word we’re using, is Article 9, which states:

‘Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. To accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognised.’

Now, you may think that Japan’s massive Self Defence Force is therefore unconstitutional; there are certainly people in Japan who believe it is. However, the Supreme Court has, on several occasions, affirmed the SDF ‘s constitutionality. So, Japan can have its SDF, but Mr. Abe’s government would like more. China, South Korea, and other Asian countries who have been at the sharp end of Japanese military aggression in the last century take a dim view of this. The BBC article in question featured a photograph of Mr. Abe shaking his fist and looking suitably decisive or aggressive, depending on your, ahem, interpretation. The article is still available but disappeared from the headlines on the Asia page in less than twenty-four hours.

Earlier this week, on May 20th, the New York Times reported on what had happened at Fukushima Daiichi in the days after the tsunami hit, in an article headlined ‘Panicked workers fled Fukushima plant in 2011 despite orders, record shows’, which is only just in the news because the report was not public until recently.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/world/asia/fukushima-workers-fled-plant-after-accident-despite-orders.html?_r=0

The BBC reported this a little later. There has also been an article about groundwater being diverted and pumped into the ocean before it can be contaminated by whatever is going on at the plant these days. At the end of this article is a link to the one about workers at the plant and the aftermath of the tsunami.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-27487332

However, to get to the article above, you have to scroll down past a section called ‘Also in the news’ and this headline:

Craze for hamster bottoms hits Japan

which you can read in its entirety here:

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-27515892

And so once again, here I am, taking issue with the BBC’s reporting of Japan. It recycles those lazy stereotypes of Japan; that Japanese people are ‘obsessed’ with ‘cuteness’ and other weird and wacky stuff. Apparently there are books about hamsters’ bottoms (‘hamuketsu’), there is a Facebook group, it is a ‘craze’, it is a ‘phenomenon’, there are ‘thousands of fans’, there have been ‘hundreds of photographs’ uploaded to the Facebook page.

I have checked this page, and fewer than 10,000 people have ‘liked’ it. As you might expect, it’s a collection of uploaded photographs of hamsters’ bottoms. After a few you wonder who on earth wants to look at a lot of them. Checking other Facebook pages for Japanese sportsmen and women, for musicians, and animation characters, I found that they all had far more ‘likes’.

Then I started to wonder, is this really a ‘craze’? Or is it a news story that is perpetuating itself? A search for ‘hamuketsu’ took me back to the original BBC article and one in USA Today, plus some links to the books referenced in the article. This isn’t news, it’s fluff.

Now, I am not averse to fluff. This week I was very taken with a photograph of an alpaca surfing.  It was a completely ridiculous picture, but although I believe the caption said it was a Peruvian alpaca, there was no cliché’d portrayal of the Peruvian people in connection to this daredevil animal.

What I object to, once again, is this lazy attitude the BBC seems to take in connection with news about Japan. There is a stock collection of words which they trot out on such occasions; they declare the Japanese people to be ‘obsessed’, they make reference to ‘cuteness’, there are images of trends sweeping the country, becoming a ‘craze’ or a ‘phenomenon’. You are led to believe that this is something which is convulsing the whole country. At the same time, there are serious issues facing Japan, and they are reported sometimes, kept on the website for a short time, and then archived.

Until this article appeared, I had not heard anything about hamsters’ bottoms. I have, however, heard plenty about Article 9, Yasukuni Shrine, Fukushima Daiichi, the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands and comfort women.

Japan is a country of over 120 million people. The Facebook page for Hamuketsu has fewer than 10,000 ‘likes’, while over 80,000 people have ‘liked’ Anpanman’s page. There is a grand total of 3 books; one is out of print, one is available and the third has not yet been published. This is not even ‘news’ from elsewhere, it seems like astute marketing on the part of one or more of the publishers.

It doesn’t make Japan ‘obsessed’ with anything. All it does is reinforce stereotypes, once again, of wacky Japanese people and their ‘obsessions’ with weird stuff. Meanwhile, there are serious news stories being under- or unreported. Again.

And anyway, the alpaca was far better: