Global Voices Online

Superyuko at Nachikasanu Koiuta describes the first time she became aware of her Okinawan identity. 10 years ago, in Tokyo, where she came to live and to attend university, she was asked: “Are you Japanese? Because you don't look very Japanese”, and innocently answered: “I think I am Japanese”. She was asked the same questions many times, and this brought her to wonder: “what does being Japanese really mean?”. It was after meeting many other people from minority groups during a period of study abroad that she came to her answer; she learned that, by freeing herself from the need to define herself as belonging to somewhere in particular, she was able to accept Okinawa [en] and take it on as a part of herself.

Following on a request by the Machida city council for regulation of Google's Street View service, recently introduced in Japan, Asiajin reports that the ward of Suginami in central Tokyo has advised its residents on how to submit [ja] takedown requests to Google. An article at Asahi reports that Suginami city was alerted by citizens about privacy violation concerns related to GSV and has twice contacted Google asking the company to respond by deleting images.

id:norikku225 at Let's survive the subprime shock! (サブプライムショックを生き残ろう！) [ja] comments on news that the Japanese economy has entered a recession, as reported by national [ja] andinternational [en] media. The blogger says that there is nothing new in this and that the scenario has been the same for the last 15 years or so, during which time Japanese have made an art of overcoming recession; that is why investors were not so disturbed when, in the last trimester of July-September, negative economic growth was announced. Norikku225 draws an analogy between Japanese people and the protagonist in a remake of the movie Groundhog Day[en]: they will live the same day over and over until they mend their way of life.