Dinner with Debito

I had dinner last night with Curzon of Coming Anarchy and Joe of Nichi Nichi, as well as a bunch of other folks, which goes to show that bloggers are not just nerds who sit at home in front of their computers. Sometimes we're nerds who go out for sushi and beer.

The guest of honor was Debito Arudo of debito.org, a former American who changed his name from David Aldwinkle and became a Japanese citizen, something which is not easy to do.

Debito is probably best-known for his lawsuit against a bathhouse in Hokkaido that barred foreigners from entering. Of course, since David is a Japanese citizen, he could fairly point out that the bathhouse owner was simply excluding people who didn't "look" Japanese. Debito won the intitial lawsuit, although his victory unfortunately had little impact on racial discrimination by other businesses in Japan.

If you're interested in reading more about a genuine modern social activist, I highly recommend Debito's website, as well as "Japanese Only", his book on the bathhouse lawsuit and discrimination in Japan (available here from Amazon.com's Japan site.)