Monday, July 4, 2011

Matsumoto's Excuse: "I Am from Kyushu and I have Type-B Blood"

Being criticized for his manner when he visited Tohoku, Ryu Matsumoto, Minister in charge of recovery and reconstruction for the Kan Administration, apologized to Tohoku people if "his words had hurt the feelings of people in the disaster area in Tohoku", and defended himself by saying:

"I'm from Kyushu. People from Kyushu talk tough."

"I have the Type-B blood, so I may be short-tempered."

And it looks some people in Kyusu and from Kyushu and some people in Japan with the Type-B blood are highly offended by the association. Japanese are 39% Type-A, 29% Type-O, 22% Type-B, and 10% Type-AB.

And no, he has no plan nor intention to resign.

If you read Japanese, go to this link to read his excuse.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is no correlation between blood groups and tempers. This is stupid bullshit out of the 30ies when german nazi doctors madeweird research. You still believe in this racist ideologies Mister Minister?Shame on you!

Anonymous said...

Ultraman,
Well I guess I should have anticipated that this creep would be completely incapable of accepting responsibility for his actions! In the United States, when one of our officials is forced to make an apology and he does so in a manner to let everyone know that he is not sincere, we say that he issued a 'non-apology'. And regardless of the language spoken in this case - it is exactly the same. The use of the word 'if' which implies there is no legitimate case to discuss so we'll make this theoretical and the use of 'feelings' to imply the speaker is based on thought and reason but his listeners are overly emotional 'feelings' based children. So, the speaker implies "I am sorry that you are are so weak that when I speak the truth, your emotions crumble and you begin to cry and complain." I wonder how hard it was for Kan to select a sociopath with such a poor capacity to communicate? Hope

Anonymous said...

Actually, many japanese people believes that blood type can determine temper as much as your astrological sign. Have you ever noticed that many japanese celebrities and even fictional characters have their blood type indicated on their data sheet?

netudiant said...

It seems that Mr Matsumoto has correctly assessed his position, a position with essentially no authority, but a grand title, bestowed by an outgoing and poorly regarded Prime Minister. He has no power except to make noise, which he is doing. Berating a local Governor is a good opening act. Logically, he will eventually move to more rewarding targets, carefully selected with help of public opinion polls. He seems a Japanese version of Sarah Palin to me, an ambitious politician on the make.

Matt D said...

His ability to assess various scientific theories on the effect of radiation on humans is extremely important to his position, I would think. Yet he's a believer of junk science. That is, he believes blood types affect personality.

He should resign, and the person who chose him should resign, and anyone else involved in the process of helping him obtain his position should resign. His very presence in that position should be regarded as an insult upon all residents of Japan. It's almost as if the national government were merely spitting on the people of Japan.

Anonymous said...

And.... he's gone. Resigned 10:07 5 July according to Kyodo. In less serious times this would be hilarious, but I really feel for the people of Tohoku and I'm starting to doubt there is a competent minister in the entire Japanese parliament.

Anonymous said...

They are all incompetent and spineless idiots... which is dangerous as the right wing (uyoku) in Japan are waiting in the wings, 10 years from now Japan will be run by the fascists again... watch this space

Anonymous said...

Ummm, when has Japan not been run by fascists? To my knowledge, there's always been some sort of entity controlling the people here. Samurai, Emperors, Tojo, all fascists in my book. It's like a sick fascination with the masochist tendencies of being controlled.

Anonymous said...

"It's like a sick fascination with the masochist tendencies of being controlled."

.. and the corporations rule with an iron hand.

Anonymous said...

...it looks to me that Goto Shinpei, the mayor of Tokyo at the time of the 1923 devastating Big Kanto Earthquake and thereafter the spearhead of the rebuilding of the "imperial capital" (Teito), was not so bad after all.

One can say that Meiji-Taisho prominent politicians paved the way for the military fascism of the late thirties, nevertheless they were strong figures who yielded results.

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