More on parental abductions in Japan

Here is more on the continuing coverage of parental child abductions in Japan. The post below has tidbits of Terry’s article posted at Japan Today. My previous posts on the issue.

Terry Lloyd (Japan, Inc.) writes: “After the U.S. presidential election, the first foreign trip by new Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was to Japan. Then in a symbolic action within a symbolic trip, Clinton visited with the Japanese families whose children and relatives were abducted by the North Koreans over a 30-year period since the 1970s.

Clinton told reporters, “On a very personal and, you know, human basis, I don’t know that I’ll be meeting as a secretary of state any more than I will be meeting with them as a wife, a mother, a daughter, a sister.” 

But there was one segment of the population in Japan that felt Clinton’s words were more like daggers than bandages. That segment is the foreign parents of children from international marriages, who have had their children kidnapped by the Japanese parent back to Japan, never to see them again.

Alone in Tokio – a short

Jean Snow (I love his blog) just turned me on to Philip Bloom’s beautifully produced short film on Tokyo. It is nice to see so many familiar places, sad to see some of the faces and interesting to view how Tokyo’s daily rat race is. Check out the film here.

The Year of No Money in Tokyo

There is a new book out written by New York City native Wayne Lionel Aponte, an African-American journalist and teacher, who has lived in Japan for almost two decades. According to his website, Aponte  has written for several publications, including  The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Nation.

I have not received a copy of the book to review it but please check out the Wayne Lionel Aponte interview here. In the meantime, I will keep plugging away on my book! By the way, you may enjoy this post by NPR’s Planet Money on Shadow Banking.