i also find it extra fucking sketchy that the UN has reached out to Emma Watson who has no feminist credentials past playing a character she didn’t write and giving one speech but has not reached out to Beyonce who has built a shelter for homeless women put on a performance where only women were featured on stage and has written an essay on feminism
- The protests are being held in order to achieve universal suffrage in Hong Kong. Although democracy had been promised for 2017 in 2008, China announced this August that Hong Kong people would only be able to vote from a pool of 2-3 specially selected candidates (all of whom would definitely have pro-China sentiments)
- University students held a week-long boycott of classes to protest for true democracy in Hong Kong
- Today riot police were deployed against peaceful protesters. Equipped in full riot gear the police used pepper spray to deter the protesters, mainly students and youths but also some elderly people have reported being sprayed point blank
- It is estimated that over 50,000 people have joined the protest and this number continues to grow
- This is the largest political protest in Hong Kong since our independence from the UK in 1997
- Although the protests remain peaceful, police have now started to use tear gas and have brought out long guns loaded with rubber bullets (there hasn’t yet been a report of any bullets being shot)
- Over 80 arrests have been made including students as young as 16 for taking part in these protests
- They are cutting cell phone receptions in the protest area so that people can’t share any information
- Violence is increasing as police continue to instigate protesters
- All this comes right before the October 1st celebration of the 65th anniversary of founding of the People’s Republic of China
- There are rumours that the PLA (the Chinese army) are going to be brought into the city tonight
More facts about Hong Kong:
- We run under a one country, two systems policy with China meaning that we are part of China but have our own government and laws.
- Protests for universal suffrage have been held throughout the summer but these are the biggest yet
- Anti-China and anti-government sentiments are at their highest levels yet. Survey results showed that 1 in 5 people are thinking of emigrating from the city.
- In June, China issued a white paper essentially telling Hong Kong to remember their place and re-asserting their authority over the city
The scenes from the protest look awful. In my 17 years in Hong Kong I’ve never seen anything like it. The world needs to know about this and say something before we get a recurrence of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
I hope everyone stays safe. Hong Kong stay strong.
Ok kids, listen up. I’m about to explain to you, to the best of my ability, why there are 40,000 people protesting in Tokyo’s Nagata-cho as I type this, why it matters, and why you should be talking about it, too.
What Started This Protest?
The short answer —> Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has proposed a round-about way of changing Article 9 of Japan’s constitution, which basically states that Japan will never go to war ever again. This constitution was written by US officials in Japan after WW2 and is actually more balanced than America’s own constitution in certain ways (there is equal pay for women, for example). There have been various Nationalist (think Japanese Tea Party-esque displays) public demonstrations supporting Japan having the ability to go to war again- usually subtly, or not so subtly, naming out potential foes such as China and Korea. But none of that compares to what’s going on right now in Nagatacho AGAINST any changes to Article 9. Last Sunday, a man sat himself on top of a bridge in Shinjuku, protested the changes, and then set himself on fire over all this. 
(The man survived. He’s now being sued by the government for damage to public property)
The long, complicated answer —> Japan has had problems with its top government officials for nearly 10 years now. After a long string of PMs resigning, Abe (who was originally one of those resigning PMs) was reelected and has stayed in power this time the longest in the past several years. Until this issue with Article 9 came about, the biggest issue was the Fukushima nuclear plant, which is still hemorrhaging radioactive water to the point where workers have temporarily given up trying to stop it and recently told everyone that they were now ‘purposefully’ dumping contaminated water into the pacific ocean (although now the current plan is to create an “ice wall” - yes “ice wall”- around the affected ground water in an attempt to stop it. Somehow). TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company), who owns the plant and has been responsible for the cleanup, has failed repeatedly to do their job and has consistently rejected outside international help for reasons, at this point, that can only be attributed to hurt national pride.
At the beginning of this year, Abe’s administration passed a ‘State Secrets’ law which forbade any publishing of Japanese ‘state secrets’ which conveniently included anything to do with nuclear sciences (this would included Fukushima). Not only is this bill extremely vague, leaving it open for the government to essentially call anything they want a state secret, but as I recall, about three days after this was passed, the news was suddenly reporting that all was well at the nuclear plant.
At the end of LAST year, Abe announced that he purchased some battleships- specifically aircraft carriers- that had actually been seen floating off the coast of different parts of Japan up to a month before they were publicly announced. On a personal note, I have seen those ships, and last month I saw one other as well floating off my local waters. Below is a picture I was able to grab while on the train:
While the state secrets law riled up academic circles who claimed that the government had just eliminated the right to free speech, it didn’t gain a lot of news coverage and eventually faded away. It might be worth noting here, too, that NHK (Japan’s BBC, essentially) is chaired by government officials- some of whom Abe seems to have personally appointed.
With the state secrets law now in place, which has limited what one has to assume are more ‘negative’ stories and updates about the Fukushima nuclear plant issue (which its admitted failure by the government would oblige Abe to step down as prime minister), we’re brought to the main course- significantly altering/reinterpreting/removing Article 9 of the Japanese constitution:
"The Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution Chapter ii. Renunciation of War Article 9. 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. In order 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 recognized."
Now, Japan DOES have what is essentially a National Guard, which participates in non-combat efforts in both their own country and abroad, so Japan is not totally helpless here- they’re just confined to their own borders when it comes to personally rolling out ammunition (which happens whenever North Korea makes a missile threat where the path of the missile is supposed to go over Japan- the US military assists in this temporary defense bubble whenever it has to go up).
What Abe wants to do, however, is “reinterpret” this article in a way that allows Japan to expand and use their military like any other respectable country does. That seems fairly reasonable, right? Except that Abe’s chosen route to accomplish this goal is to go around the Democratic process, ignoring the public’s opinions, and holding what are basically closed-door votes amongst a group of people who are already on his side, instead of, say, passing an actual constitutional amendment instead. This has made people angry- people that might agree with having the military restored are angry because of how shadily it’s being done, and people who *don’t* agree are angry because they don’t want Japan to go back to war and they *don’t* like Abe’s tactics.
Then there’s the potential US angle to all this. Paranoia over China seems to have gotten so high that there’s the rather strong theory going around that it was actually the US behind the state secrets bill getting passed and that it’s the US again behind trying to restore military rights to Japan. While that seems like a giant big ball of irony and contradictions, this handy image popped up on Twitter:
(I’m so sorry- there’s such a rush of info going on right now that I’m not sure where this diagram came from but it makes a point.)
China, as many of you may know, has been relentlessly heckling neighboring countries such as Japan, Korea, and The Philipenes over who has rights over tiny islands (some of them literally just rocks jutting out of the sea) that nobody lives on. Even the largest of these islands (Japan was particularly riled up over an island it has dubbed “Takeshima”) are uninhabited except for wild goats. Japan has unfortunately taken the bait over what has been a magnificently farcical dispute and decided to engage China over these useless islands. At the height of the Takeshima dispute, NHK took to telling you the weather for the island with the regular forecasts (remember- nobody there but wild goats), and airing documentaries about the occasional Tokugawa-era fishermen who used to camp out for the day to fish there before going home again. One of these, which I caught, consisted of nothing but old guys sitting around talking while background footage perpetually looped showing nothing but these goats frolicking around on the rocky terrain of the island. That one went on for at least an hour. It was, in a word, ridiculous. So while China has even started going so far as trying to “reinforce” its claims and even “create” new islands by dumping sand in the ocean, Japan hasn’t exactly been mature about the situation either. 
(“Stop war!” “Protect Peace!”)
Basically, guys……I could go on, but it would probably just end up going in one big circle. Maybe I’ve not presented this the best way possible, and I truly do apologize for that, but hopefully this has helped to explain a few things. What I will say, though, is that after everything I’ve mentioned above, things have piled up so badly and so messily that for at least the second night in a row, 10,000, and now reports say around 40,000 people have taken to protesting outside government offices in Tokyo, and other smaller demonstrations have taken place in at least Osaka and Nagasaki as well. They’re fed up, they’re chanting for Shinzo Abe to leave Article 9 alone and to resign. They’re calling him a facist. They’re mocking him with Nazi symbols. Japan- today’s Japanese- which is a people of almost bottomless patience and calm and who will go out of their way so that you never have to feel awkward or uncomfortable about anything- these people are out there and they’re fed up. They’re doing these things which are radical for them because they don’t want this to happen. And the media here is in such an iron grip that the guy who set himself on fire on Sunday in Shibuya and these protestors are lucky to get even a brief mention on the nightly news. 40,000+ people out there. And they need more people to spread the word. 
ALL PROTEST IMAGES (**EXCEPT for the individual being carted off by police- that one came from a friend who does not wish to be named) USED WITH PERMISSION AND BELONG TO @KjeldDuits AND @asianskys ON TWITTER. These two people are on the ground posting live updates so go follow them for more info and even more pictures.
＊＊＊＊UPDATE POST 9/27/14 :: >CLICK HERE<
ABE IS TRASH. this is indisputable. i’m glad to hear that a large number of japanese ppl think the same. however, the post below is kind of a mess in some points, particularly the bit about china and territorial dispute:
China, as many of you may know, has been relentlessly heckling neighboring countries such as Japan, Korea, and The Philipenes over who has rights over tiny islands (some of them literally just rocks jutting out of the sea) that nobody lives on. Even the largest of these islands (Japan was particularly riled up over an island it has dubbed “Takeshima”) are uninhabited except for wild goats. Japan has unfortunately taken the bait over what has been a magnificently farcical dispute and decided to engage China over these useless islands.
like, where to start. the anti-chinese sentiment is just. FANtastic. and and just a touch wrong, like take this so-called “”“”“TAKESHIMA DISPUTE”“”“” between CHINA and JAPAN.
i cannot even. surprise! china is not involved in that one! IT’S KOREA!!!! ps way to go only referring to disputed islands by the japanese name… the island is also knowns as 독도/DOKDO aka the liancourt rocks aka takeshima. and the dispute has been going on for ages. CHINA HAS NOT HECKLED KOREA ABOUT THIS. JAPAN HAS. china and korea have a strained relationship for sure, but i’m pretty sure territory is one of the smaller points of contention, like the bigger issues that have come up recently in the news are about north korea and like the fact that china exports cheaper, equally delicious kimchi to korea that is overwhelming the korean kimchi industry or something. also cellphones, i think???
ANYHOW. it’s kinda gross how this post is framing china as some villain, while uh… when it comes to land disputes? JAPAN is the one fucking pissing everyone off. also territory disputes are NOT MAGNIFICENTLY FARCICAL. that is so fucking dismissive of the larger historical context that underlies these dispute, like JAPAN’S IMPERIALIST PAST and the fact that japan at one RECENT point in history was not the pacifist state we all know and love today, but a fucking war-mongering colonizer that raped and killed its way across asia. the fact that people - japanese, american, whatever, ignore this aspect of recent history when it comes to japan’s relationship with its neighbors is horrifying and utter bullshit and a testimony to the power of japan’s image management (propaganda machine???) and DELIBERATE historical blindness.
and to bring it all back: ABE IS INVOLVED IN ALL THAT TOO. YASUKUNI (if anything qualifies as relentless heckling, it’s when japanese politicians deliberately visit yasukuni, fully knowing how fucking wrong and angering it is). COMFORT WOMEN. HISTORICAL REVISIONISM. TEXTBOOK “REFORM.” AND NOW HE’S SHADILY TRYING TO BRING BACK THE MILITARY!
color me shocked.
FUCK YEAH PROTESTORS. ABE IS TRASH.
(and 독도는우리땅!)
Wow okay.
Tumblr doesn’t send anymore asks if you send a “.” and a letter or word without a space right after it.
Example: H…hello (doesn’t send it) - H… hello (will send it)
It says it sends the ask but it doesn’t. My gf and I were trying since 2 days now and we just found out what the problem was.
Pass it on.
Fun Story: My director kept telling me and my tenor sax buddy to play softer. No matter what we did, it wasn’t soft enough for him. So getting frustrated, I told my buddy “Dont play this time. Just fake it”
Our Band Director then informed us we sounded perfect.
To my readers: “p” means quiet, “pp” means really quiet. I’ve never seen “pppp” before haha.
On the contrast, “f” means loud, and “ffff” probably means so loud you go unconscious.
I had ffff in a piece once and my conductor told me to play as loudly as physically possible without falling off my chair…
Me and my trombone buddies had “ffff” and he sat next to me and played so hard that he fell out of his chair.
The lengths we go for music.
Okay yeah so I play the bass clarinet and the amount of air you have to move and the stiffness of the reed means it only has two settings and that is loud and louder, with an optional LOUDEST that includes a 50% probability of HORRIBLE CROAKING NOISE which is the bass equivalent of the ubiquitous clarinet shriek.
One day, when I was in concert band in high school, we got a new piece handed out for the first time, and there was a strange little commotion back in the tuba section — whispering, and pointing at something in the music, and swatting at each other’s hands all shhh don’t call attention to it. And although they did attract the attention of basically everyone else in the band, they managed to avoid being noticed by the band director, who gave us a few minutes to look over our parts and then said, “All right, let’s run through it up to section A.”
And here we are, cheerfully playing along, sounding reasonably competent — but everyone, when they have the attention to spare, is keeping an eye on the tuba players. They don’t come in for the first eight measures or so, and then when they do come in, what we see is:
[stifled giggling]
[reeeeeeally deep breath]
[COLOSSAL FOGHORN NOISE]
The entire band stops dead, in the cacophonous kind of way that a band stops when it hasn’t actually been cued to stop. The band director doesn’t even say anything, just looks straight back at the tubas and makes a helpless sort of why gesture.
In unison, the tuba players defend themselves: “THERE WERE FOUR F’S.”
FFFF is not really a rational dynamic marking for any instrument, but for the love of all that is holy why would you put it in a tuba part.
Oh man, so I play trombone, and we got this piece called Florentiner Marsch by Julius Fucik, and we saw this
which is 8 fortes. We were shocked until,
that is 24 fortes who the fuck does that
Who does that?
This guy. Take a good look - that is the moustache of a man with nothing to lose.
