Robin Wilton's esoterica

Back in 2002, when the World Cup finals were held in the Far East,  I happened to have a Japanese pen-pal - a very refined lady who was a teacher of the tea-ceremony. I was, frankly, appalled at the prospect of her being exposed to one of Britain's least appealing exports, the Eng-er-lund Football Supporter. As it happens, I need not have been too concerned; apparently the Japanese football and tourist authorities acted with jujitsu-like subtlety and assigned teams of school-children to guide the fans around Tokyo... reasoning that this would put an effective break on any too-loutish behaviour.

I see from the news today that there have been some initial protests ahead of the G8 summit in Toyako. Though the details are a little sketchy as to where the protesters are from and what their objectives are - though there's mention of Japanese farmers, Oxfam, global warming and food prices.

Hokkaido's sense of pride at hosting the Summit was evident back in October of last year when I saw this countdown clock in the gardens of the Akarengo (Red Brick) former Government offices. The clock is about 6ft by 8ft, in the form of a laminated wooden outline of Hokkaido island.

The news story mentions that some visitors, including journalists, activists and academics have been extensively questioned about the reason for their visit on arrival in Japan. (I wonder... when activists are filling in their immigration forms, do they put "Profession: Activist"?).

As it happens, when I arrived at Sapporo's New Chitose airport a month ago, I had gone through the terminal building and was already on the escalator down to the railway station when I felt a polite touch on my sleeve. Turning round, I saw a rather flustered young man in a smart blazer, who flashed a police-style badge at me and asked if he could trouble me with a few questions.

Unfortunately his English was only marginally less non-existent than my Japanese. This became obvious when, after a couple of freestyle questions about my reasons for visiting Hokkaido (which I thought went really well, mutually...), he fished out a booklet, presumably entitled "72 polite ways to question a possible terrorist" and read out a few random questions from it, several of which we had already covered, I thought, quite satisfactorily. Still, he had probably been instructe dto give the booklet a go, so give it a go we did.

It was all quite friendly and a little nervous - a bit like asking someone to dance at your first school disco. We parted on good terms. I'm not sure how reassuring this will be, though, to any G8 leaders who are regular readers of this blog..  ;^)

Down in the station there was further evidence of the civic welcome:

Downtown, even though the Summit itself is being held at a secludable resort some distance away, a lot of tidying-up was going on... not that downtown Sapporo particularly needs tidying up, in my limited experience. There were also posters which I assume carry a "See something, say something" message, featuring a policeman who is significantly sterner than my airport security friend, and terrorists who appear to take the form of diabolical blackcurrant Jelly Babies:

And the countdown clock was still doing its thing:

I wouldn't dispute for a moment that the G8 leaders have a lot of things they urgently need to sort out. Japan is far from the only country in this position, but it is faced by the problems associated with an aging demographic, very low birth-rate, heavy dependence on food imports, and of course the presence of China as a massive, fast-growing neighbour hungry for resources and energy. That said, I can't help feelign the only real result of any major protests in and around Sapporo would simply be deep embarrassment for the residents. Let's hope that the protesters and the law enforcers manage to come up with some creative options on both sides, so that any protests are effective and conflict-free.