Tainted by alien blood: banned from HS speech contest

[Taro Toporific]

Freedom of speech
'Tainted blood' sees 'foreign' students barred from English contests
The Japan Times: Jan. 6, 2004 "It has come to our attention that you have foreign blood. You are hereby disqualified." Sound far-fetched? This happened in 2002 to a Chinese student in Aomori who entered the "Takamadonomiya All Japan Junior High School English Speech Contest," Japan's largest English-language competition.
Susumu and Linda Takiyama have lived in Tokachi for 15 years as an international couple. Their daughter, a native-born speaker of Japanese, attends Japanese junior high like any other Japanese -- and undergoes their English curriculum and events.... The Takiyamas' daughter won the contest. ...This also happened to a Mongolian student in a nearby town.

[gaijinzilla]

Unfortunately this isn't uncommon. It happens at the junior high school level, too (nationally and prefecturally). Several years ago at a friend's (of mine) junior high school (he was an AET there) they had a girl from Argentina (her grandparents had emigrated from Japan to Argentina, her parents had moved back to Japan, she was born there) who "won" the school competition, was able to participate at the school district's competition, & did well. The judges, well the AETs who were judging, had pegged her as the winner but were told (the AETs that is) by the Japanese BOE honchoes that she couldn't participate at the prefectural contest because she was born in Argentina, therefore she could not win and the judges had to pick some other kid. The reason being that she would have an unfair advantage ....because as everyone knows Argentina's official language is.... Needless to say the little girl was crushed when she was told the news (You were the winner but you can't win)
But the fact of the matter that the teacher's act all surprised is such a crock. They know that this will always happen (OK maybe some teachers are not clued into the rules of the game), yet they make these kids go through all this hoop jumping (thinking of something to say for their speech, writing it up, having the teachers re-write it in English, memorizing the blasted thing, having to go through an audition at their school and if they do well then go onto the contest, standing infront of an auditorium full of people they don't know, etc) only to tell them "Sorry, but.." then give some lame ass excuse followed by the obligatory SHIKATTA GANAI when it should have all been explained before the kid decided to enter the speech contest (which in itself is another crock---but that's another story for another time)
For some unexplained reason this asinine rule doesn't apply to the so-called story contests---only for the speech contests.

[Kanchou]

Debito Strikes Again!

errr... Sometimes I think Japan almost WANTS to be the laughing stock of the civilized world. It's like their jealous of the US or something. Honestly though, who comes up with these rules?