You exaggerate. We do not know what changes were asked. We only have one side here. And to be fair, there is nothing in what Ryan Neil said that disputes how he was treated. If anything, he corroborates that. Kimura might be a genious, and cultures can be different. That is no justification to be abusive. Decades ago in my country kids were physically punished by teachers. No amount of cultural differences can make that right. Ever.
I’m not exaggerating anything. The post by @Sansokuu that sparked this discussion was this:
www.facebook.com
Not really illegal. First ammendment protections are really strong in this country and proving injurious intent extremely hardI’m not exaggerating anything. The post by @Sansokuu that sparked this discussion was this:
“The Japanese bonsai community were extremely unhappy with the translations used in the article, and found a lot of the wording exaggerated and in some cases simply untrue. The translator and Kimura requested a number of changes that were ignored. The translator was Makiko Koba and you can see her side of things on her facebook in a translated post that I have quoted here…”
IF this allegation is true, then the magazine irresponsibly published an inaccurate article. Perhaps the allegation is true, perhaps not. I have yet to see definitive evidence one way or the other. But, if true, then it is illegal, regardless of your personal musings about the subject matter. Sorry to break it to ya, buddy!
As a globally recognized bonsai artist, Kimura is a public figure. That sets the bar quite a bit higher for what the magazine published to qualify as libelous. It’s not enough for it to be both false and harmful. The publisher would also have to have published the material with either actual malice or with a reckless disregard for the truth. I’ve seen no evidence that anything written in the piece was false, but let’s assume for sake of argument that something printed in the article was false because of a mistranslation. it’s still quite unlikely to be libelous. The magazine would have to botch their fact checking pretty badly for it to rise to that level.
Is this even for real?????The comments on the Mirai FB site include some remarks about disappointment the piece doesn't mention the sizeable influence of the Yakuza in modern Japanese bonsai. Now THERE be a story worth reading and with some possibly very real consequences for hurting someone's feelings.
I know they more or less control the pachinko parlor scene and to some extent horse racing, I've never seen anything implying the Yakuza has a chokehold on the bonsai market in Japan but that post piqued my curiosity too.
We have met Shinji Suzuki in Obuse, really nice guy. He is teacher of Hagedorn and Matt Reel. In fact that's how we even found the bonsai community here in Portland, he gave us one of Michael Hagedorn's books and we were like 'who's this guy' and he told us to look up Matt Reel who he said was 'a really nice guy (and he very much is)', and he told us about BSOP. Pretty wild to have traveled the path we have from a random visit to a town adjacent to Nao's home town in Nagano. Shinji Suzuki had a lot of apprentices bustling that day (they were the ones that let us in), and one fellow from Korea was the one who sent us all the contact info for Matt. A really positive amazing experience. And we had tea.If he didnt mention Kimura by name, readers would think that Ryan’s experience would be the standard, and I don’t think it was. Its a story about a foreigners experience enduring 6 years with the hardest hardass in the business. Having read about others’ experiences like Bjorn and Hagedorn, while tough, they weren’t nearly as harsh.
Mr Kimura is running a business, and apprentices are part of that. While the bond between a master and an apprentice is closer than say me and my boss, it’s still a business, and not personal. I dont think any lines were crossed in the telling of this story.
As a side note, its a good rule of thumb not to engage in behavior that you wouldnt want the public to know about.
As a further aside, my teacher apprenticed with Kimura while Ryan was there, and was sent home due to injuring his back carrying trees, so yeah. He’s aways telling me not to lift the trees now.
I wish I can link it but FB is really stupid.
If you look her up on FB and scroll down her newsfeed page little bit (she has since updated with the exhibitions going on in Japan) you'll catch the article, most of the upset remarks are in the FB comments.
Defamatory or slanderous if this affect’s Kimura in terms of business or his standing in the bonsai community in Japan…. i guess we will find out
This makes no sense. The New Yorker is an American publication. Only American libel laws apply. Not JapaneseDefamatory or slanderous if this affect’s Kimura in terms of business or his standing in the bonsai community in Japan…. i guess we will find out
I heard that Kobayashi was banned from the Kokufu decades ago because a client of his accused some organization of killing one of his trees, they even flat out discouraged people from visiting his garden. Things are all fine now, but Japan doesn’t mess around when it comes to representing or defending character. If you try to quit your job, your company will literally send out a black list to all companies telling them not to hire you.
I’m gonna tell you all a secret to stronger back muscles. It’s the glutes. With modern shoes and less than natural walking strides, our glutes have become quite flabby. And then other parts of your body try to overcompensate, cue back tendon/muscle overwork and pain. Bjorn knows whats up for keeping in shape for grueling bonsai work.
The dumbbells can have your favorite trees engraved on them.
Even if that was the case, they are a "legal" entity in Japan, and I am sure that if they were not involved in a lot of things they are Japan would be another different place much like the rest of Southeast Asia.The comments on the Mirai FB site include some remarks about disappointment the piece doesn't mention the sizeable influence of the Yakuza in modern Japanese bonsai. Now THERE be a story worth reading and with some possibly very real consequences for hurting someone's feelings.
Sooo, completely non-bonsai related but this statement is 1000% true. I have had severe back pain for at least the last decade, and while browsing FB I came upon an ad from Xero shoes. In the beginning, I thought it was utterly nonsense, but then I thought about when I was a kid, none of my shoes had any heels on them. I mostly used Vans, Chucks, and the most lift I had in a shoe was from my topsiders. Which may have 1/4" at the most. I decided to give Xero a try, and I can say that after a little over a year of using them, my back pain is almost 70% gone. I know there is damage in my back from the Army that will not go away, but the constant aches are almost tolerable now.
Exactly... I wish the US had at least 1/2 the respect that Japan has... we used to.
Ryan was traumatized because of his "westerner" mentality. Japanese kids will get tired of the treatment and quit, or endure it like many has and be fine. It's the same thing in the military, the treatment now is so freaking soft that I would be amazed if they are able to succeed if the "crap hits the fan." They are training soldiers now like a corporate entity... I can't speak of combat arms units because I was removed from them around 2009, but the support units are a mess, to be honest.
