Word: ginza
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...weeks ahead of a crucial election, Junichiro Koizumi stands on a stage in Tokyo's bustling Ginza shopping district before a crowd of 3,500. Despite the afternoon's oven-like 35C heat, Japan's Prime Minister wears the white gloves favored by old-time politicians on the stump. But it's his only nod to tradition: nothing about his speech is typical of a Japanese politician seeking votes. "I will carry out reforms that no other parties have dared to touch," Koizumi shouts, the wind whipping his famous locks, helicopters with TV crews whirring overhead. "We will march onward...
...fills a parliamentary seat that was occupied by his grandfather and father, and last fall he held back from supporting a longtime ally's abortive coup against Mori. There was also a fair bit of back-room politicking on Koizumi's behalf. At a dinner in a plush Ginza restaurant in mid-April, half a dozen conservative stalwarts, including former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone and Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, selected Koizumi as their man. "Our backgrounds are different," Nakasone told TIME last week, "but in terms of ideology and policy, he is my protege...
...even sound like one of those confusing Kabuki plays?full of riddles, contradictions and vainglorious people doing despicable things behind decorative screens. But it's all about Japanese politics, which is arguably more important than Kabuki. Or maybe it's another form of Kabuki, with the actors in expensive Ginza-tailored gray and black suits instead of ornately stitched kimonos. And in lieu of the requisite, delicately painted hand fan, the preferred politico prop would be an envelope stuffed with cash...
...close attention to the chatter in the alleys off Showa road in Ginza, where the pols pay $650 a head for dinner (drinks are extra) at places like Kiccho, Mori's favorite, you'll discover just how much like Kabuki Japanese politics is these days. Word is that no senior LDP leader?not Aoki, not Nonaka, not Koizumi?wants to become Prime Minister just now. Forget about the jostling that appears to be going on. Sure, the party wants Mori out because he is such an embarrassment. But there is an election for the Upper House of the Diet scheduled...
...kicks him in the head. Out on the street, he kicks a perp when he's down; when his fellow cop jumps down to shield the man, Asuma kicks him too. The message couldn't be clearer if it were spelled out in neon above the Ginza. Good guys and bad guys use the same methods of punishment; they may be the same guys, except one has a badge. We pay the cops to do our dirty work...