Tidbits
Interac Inc. misses salary payments - Japan Traveler has learned that salaries for Kanto-area teachers were not paid on time in February. Interac had notified teachers that only 40 percent would be paid on Feb. 14 and the remainder at the end of the week. But Interac paid nothing or very little on the 14th and only a small portion on the 18th when the remainder had been promised. The teachers we spoke with have since been paid their full salaries due in February, but Japan Traveler was told this has been an ongoing problem inside the company with it rotating the late payments to different areas of Japan on different occasions. Our sources said the Japanese Interac staff had been waiting longer for their salaries. While the salaries remained unpaid, Interac had a large help-wanted ad in The Japan Times for new teachers, and the company did not respond to our facsimile addressed to the President, Yasuo Niiyama, and telephone call asking for an explanation. Japan Traveler subsequently learned that Interac had been successful, by means of angry threats of lawsuits, in getting at least two Internet Web sites to remove postings from teachers discussing problems at the school, including claims for massive amounts of unpaid pensions contributions for Interac teachers.
Asahi Bank sued for discrimination - A 40-year-old American journalist, Steve Herman, filed a lawsuit on February 15 against the Asahi Bank after his application for a housing loan was turned down. Herman, who is head of the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo, decided to buy a condominium in Yogoyi in June and made a down payment to a real estate agent. After applying for a ¥68.5 million loan with the Asahi Bank, Herman was told by bank officials that it was against company policy to extend loans to foreigners who do not have permanent residency. Herman is asking the court for ¥11 million in damages caused by the bank's discrimination against him.
Internationalization at Asahikawa University - Ex-pat language teachers who want to keep their jobs had better keep an eye on their "sell-by" dates, and above all, never marry a Japanese. That is what English lecturer Gwendolyn Gallagher found out last month when Asahikawa District Court found her dismissal valid on the grounds that her long residence in Japan and marriage to a Japanese national decreased her value as an educator. When Gallagher, 44, was fired in 1996 after 12 years with Asahikawa University in Hokkaido, university administrators claimed they needed "fresh gaijin." The court did not buy that and ordered them to pay her salary. The college reinstated Gallagher and then fired her again a year later, this time citing "curriculum change" although none of her classes had been eliminated from the curriculum. Gallagher sued again. In the February 1, 1999 decision the court rejected Gallagher's claim of unfair dismissal, stating that "because the plaintiff is married to a Japanese and has lived in Japan for about 14 (sic) years, she did not have the ability to introduce foreign culture as found in foreign countries." Ms. Gallagher, a permanent resident who has lived in Japan since 1979, has filed an appeal with the Sapporo High Court.
Warning to Americans with Foreign Spouses - Japan Traveler has received reports of extremely abusive behavior by the American Embassy toward its own citizens wanting to move to the U.S. with their foreign spouses. American citizens who question the six-month waiting period for a green card (the only form of spouse visa allowed by the U.S. government), citing basic human rights like "My child needs to be with her mother, and I happen to be a citizen of the United States," are being scared into submission by embassy officials who are making threats to have the spouse "arrested," "put in jail," "deported," "and never allowed to enter the U.S. again." But the U.S. EMBASSY IS LYING. The dirty little secret that they and their fat-cat designated medical clinics and translation service providers do not want you to know is that the green card application process can most certainly be done and is MUCH MUCH easier and CHEAPER in the U.S. than in Tokyo. American citizens with a foreign spouse can simply enter the U.S. with the spouse "as a tourist." Never mention any "intention of staying" no matter how many American citizen babies the foreign spouse may be holding in his or her arms. Then during the stay (i.e., not preplanned), "decide for whatever family reason that you wish to stay in the U.S." If you had already begun the green card application process in Tokyo, upon applying in the U.S. you may be asked to pay a $35 waiver fee and sign a document (a human rights kind of waiver) saying you did a no no and are sorry. The INS people in the U.S. are much more friendly and accommodating. Without children (absolute proof of a legitimate marriage), there may be a little inspection for legitimacy of the marriage, but compared to Tokyo the process in the U.S. is a cake walk. Temporary work permits for the foreign spouse are also issued and mailed promptly upon request while the application is being processed. Save yourself a lot of money and headaches and ignore the liars at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. (If you are an American citizen who has experienced abusive behavior by the U.S. Embassy while trying to get a visa for your foreign spouse, Japan Traveler would like to hear from you.)
New allegations of sumo bout-fixing - Keisuke Itai, a former sumo wrestler, has made new claims of rampant bout-fixing during his 12 years in sumo from 1978 to 1991 in the weekly Shukan Gendai and at a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Yurakucho. It was Itai's stablemaster, Konoshin "Onaruto" Suga who detailed allegations of sumo being engulfed in fixed-bouts (yaocho), tax evasion, Yakuza connections, drugs and orgies in a series of articles that were published in the Shukan Post from January 1996 to March 1996. The stories were then compiled into a book titled "Fixed Matches - Taking Drastic Action Against the Sumo Association." Shortly thereafter, Onaruto and another former wrestler, Seiichiro Hashimoto, died mysteriously within hours of each other in the same hospital of the same illness--heart failure brought about by a sudden case of pneumonia--just before they were scheduled to talk about sumo bout-fixing at the Foreign Correspondent's Club in Tokyo.
SPECIAL
FEATURE
Human Rights Falling
Through the Cracks in Japan
Japan "Justice" Ministry tearing Japanese children apart from gaijin dad