SNA (Tokyo) — What follows is an interview with Jon Heese (pronounced Hayes), a naturalized Canadian-Japanese and elected Tsukuba City Councillor of twelve years. A Caucasian Visible Minority of Japan, Heese has long been advocating that other Non-Japanese Residents naturalize and run for office in Japan like he did.

Debito Arudou: Hi Jon. Please introduce yourself as you’d like to be seen by your voting and non-voting public.

Jon Heese: Obviously I would like them to see me as a combination of Brad Pitt and Nelson Mandela. But I would be satisfied if they only see me as someone who is doing his best. I’m left of center on social issues and a fiscally conservative social democrat. This means freedom for people to be who they are within the structures of society. Businesses should also be free to function within a social structure. And I underline social. Businesses function within society. They are not entities unto themselves. It is the community that is educating their workers, building their infrastructure, and protecting their property. Businesses need to pay their taxes and stop trying to privatize profits while socializing risks. Fundamentally, governments should be in the business of regulating, not competing with legitimate businesses. Of course, there are some functions of the economy that must be government owned/operated: defense, healthcare, water/sewage distribution, schools, police, and firefighting services come to mind. However, the idea that a government might buy a cell phone service and then compete with private entities raises a contradiction. In principle we do not allow companies to regulate themselves. We have seen how well that works with the tobacco and oil industries. If a state entity were to buy a mobile service, for example, that would imply that the regulatory body would be regulating a different branch of themselves and someone like a prime minister could interfere with the regulation policies affecting profit generation of the state-owned company. What happens when there is a hole in the budget that a few extra percent points in profit from a cell company might fill? Japan ran into the self-regulation problem with the nuclear energy sector simply because of the incestuous relationship between the power generators and the regulators. Is it any wonder the Japanese are so hesitant to allow the restart of nuclear power plants, in spite of the increased cost in electricity. We also see problems arising from government ownership of Japan Tobacco shares. There is a reason why Japan remains one of the cheapest places to smoke in the G7. Governments should also be inherently inefficient. I know that’s not what the business side of politics (rightwing) would tell you. They’re claiming government should be run like a business. Okay, let’s look at that. Most successful businesses have a CEO who makes all decisions of import. Information flows to them and they decide how the company will react. When he or she says jump left, everyone jumps left. In political terms that sounds suspiciously like a dictatorship. Realistically, party leaders shouldn’t be able to just ignore their supporters, whether they be voters or party members. With enough hustle and tussle a leader can be forced to move in directions he or she may not even agree with. Therefore, development plans sometimes need to be abandoned, money redistributed for no other reason than poverty and need, and jobs created just to reduce unemployment in business down cycles. A CEO/dictator would not consider the needs of others outside of their own organization. Democracies need to serve society first. Sometimes that means allowing companies to develop resources in protected areas under close supervision. Sometimes that means allowing people to leave this mortal coil under their own volition.

Debito Arudou: Thank you. Phew! That was kind a long speech. I asked how you wanted us to see you, and you gave us your personal philosophy of government.  Okay, but I was asking more: “Where are you from, and what do you do?” Let’s back up a sec and get into that.

Jon Heese: Silly me. As a good politician I’ll blame someone else for my misunderstanding. Okay. So, who am I. I’m a small town boy from Wymark, Saskatchewan, Canada, population 175. If you’ve ever seen Dances with Wolves, that’s pretty much what the area looks like. I’m from a family of eleven kids (six adopted). My family moved around a lot due to my father’s career as a Mennonite preacher. I spent about two years as a kid in central Kansas, and after high school I went to Europe for two years to see a bit of the world. I then attended the University of Regina and graduated with a Bachelor of Music Education. In 1991 I landed in Narita looking for one of those sweet English teaching jobs I’d heard so much about. I got a bunch of crap jobs, but they paid the bills. Eventually I ended up in Tsukuba, Ibaraki, a city about 60 kilometers north of Tokyo with a population of about 150,000 at the time. Eventually I understood that students didn’t really want to learn English so much as have an hour of entertainment with one of them movie star types. In the end I lasted about six years in the English biz. By ‘97 I was burned/bummed out and could already see the writing on the wall. The Bubble was bursting. Pay was in decline and finding students was getting harder. Besides which, after six years I had hardly learned any Japanese. I knew I needed to find a job where I would be forced to speak Japanese. I opened a bar and ran that for seven years. Then I opened an import company to supply the many foreign researchers in Tsukuba and rewrite papers for the Japanese researchers. I also did a bunch of acting for TV and movies. Eventually I got into politics at the city level.

Debito Arudou: That’s better. Now I know I can approach you at a cocktail party. Switching topics: You know, you contacted me for this interview.  That was a pleasant surprise, because more than a decade ago I contacted you for an interview and you turned me down. What’s changed?

Jon Heese: Back in the day I was still getting on my feet. I didn’t really understand my base, what media they looked at, what they were expecting when they voted for me. These days I think I’ve found my stride and am more confident. Not so long ago, social media was often used as a weapon (Twitter, Facebook, 4chan, etc.). These days we’re seeing a lot more skepticism on what people post. I think I can live with whatever BS might come from being interviewed by a rabble rouser.

Debito Arudou: “Rabble rouser?” Are you referring to me?

Jon Heese: Well, duh. You are “The Debito,” right?  In addition, I understand I need to extend my outreach. People who have beefs need to be heard. I prefer, of course, that beefs come with a side of solutions. Until now I’ve read your newsletters religiously to get a sense of where policymakers could learn. I may only lurk, but I am paying attention.

Debito Arudou: Thank you. Pleased I could have input.

Jon Heese: Ultimately, I represent my constituents, but as I’m a lot higher up on the pecking order these days I feel I have more responsibility to amplify the voices of legitimate grievance. But before anyone starts hollering hallelujah, I want people to understand that I am but one of thousands of councillors at all levels. There are policies that I will be unable to influence. There will be situations that I refuse to get involved in, if, for no other reason, it’s not in my bailiwick. Of course, I’m as outraged as your readers at the abuses the Non-Japanese often have to suffer. I have personally experienced being refused entry because of my skin color, being told to my face it’s because the location was Japanese only. That I am Japanese was of no interest to the dipshit minding the door. So yeah, I fucking get it. I hope your readers understand I will choose my battles. I am not the droid you are looking for.

Debito Arudou: You also back then tried to convince me to run for office in Japan, and very nearly succeeded. You even wrote two essays for Debito.org back in 2009 about the hows and whys of getting elected in Japan.  So now, with more than a decade of experience in Japanese politics, what is your master plan for getting Non-Japanese residents and Naturalized Japanese better represented politically?

Jon Heese: I regularly make requests for input via various Facebook groups. The foreign community in Tsukuba is well aware of who I am and how to contact me. I can sometimes be found in student bars where kids and grad students congregate. I often attend the matsuri [festivals] at the foreign researcher housing complex. When my peeps have issues with the bureaucracy, local businesses, or even individual problems, I am there if someone needs advice, a helping hand, or even financial support. As for encouraging others like your former yourself to run, I’ve found that the people who run need to be self-motivated. Mr. Sultan up in Yamagata, is an example. He lived in Tsukuba when I first got elected. We have mutual friends. And yet when it came to running he just did it. I’ve made efforts to contact the Brazilian leadership in the next over city just to find that the leaders are already busy enough running their various shops and services. I’ve mentored a few kids who have expressed interest, but to be blunt, they saw me in some news outlet and dreamed their dreams. I don’t discourage anyone, but I have much more realistic ideas about who is qualified.  By that I mean, the most important qualification is getting up and running. If anything, I am most useful as an example. We can’t be what we can’t see. Finland-born naturalized former Diet member Tsurunen Martei was the first guy I saw. I had no idea at the time that I’d follow in his steps. I have no clue who will follow in mine.

Debito Arudou: I’m not sure Tsurunen is the best example of footsteps to follow. His record strikes me as ambitious in getting elected for egotistical reasons, but craven once in office in terms of actually advocating for or crafting policy that would benefit Non-Japanese residents.

Jon Heese: All politicians get into the ring for their own reasons. People looking from the outside are allowed to have their opinions, but, as one wit noted, hesitate to attribute malice where incompetence is just as likely. Personally, I didn’t follow Tsurunen-sama at all. I met him once. Seemed nice enough. Spoke unbearably slowly but precisely. I get why he did that. I suspect he was terrified of getting called out for not having adequate Japanese. That’s not my problem because I don’t really give a rat’s behind if people think my Japanese sucks… which it does, for what it’s worth.  As for crafting policy, yeah, that’s not much of a thing. Major policy is written by the bureaucrats. Councillors generally just vote yes or no. Sure, I guess Tsurunen-sama could have introduced a resolution or two. But realistically, resolutions don’t add up to much. I could get into it, but to be blunt, I think you might be overly harsh. But that’s my cynical side talking. Did he actually vote for a bill attacking Non-Japanese? I have no idea. But barring something that outrageous… Anyway, if anyone in your readership and in their circles is at all interested, I’ve written two blog posts on what to expect when running and what the councillor life is like. Feel free to share far and wide.

Debito Arudou: You mentioned that one has to be self-motivated. I’m sure you’ve told this story many times before, but what self-motivated you to run for office? I remember it was because you didn’t like how your bar was being regulated. Seems to reflect what you said above about your personal politics.

Jon Heese: I was in a friend’s bar whining about how my own bar had been crushed because of overly zealous police tactics. When similar tactics were implemented in Canada twenty years previously I noted how differently the Canadian bar owners reacted. Instead of just rolling over and taking it, they went to their mayors and councillors and explained how they’d been paying taxes up the wazoo for decades. It was time to get a bit of help. Councils across the country came up with various policies, but eventually settled on running public service announcements explaining how only one friend needed to be sober. Thus the Designated Driver system was born. Initially councils provided bars with some funds to pay for a drivers’ soft drinks. After a few years bar incomes went back to normal-ish. Japanese bar owners, on the other hand, just went with the daiko system–where you pay someone to drive you home. Not so bad for customers who drop ¥20,000-¥30,000 (US$150-US$225) in a night. Adding an extra ¥3,000 (US$25) isn’t the end of the world. But my bar was averaging about ¥1,500 (US$12) per customer. Adding a daiko to the cost of partying for my type of customer base wasn’t going to fly… Anyhoo, I floated the idea that the council in Tsukuba really needed someone to advocate for the nightlife industry. The bar owner, kind of my patron at the time, just started yipping how that advocate should be me. That was the seed. Initially I was a bit stunned, but then thought, why the heck not! Trying wasn’t going to hurt if I failed. The Japanese community wasn’t going to see me any differently, at least not negatively. The foreign community would likely just accept that Japan just isn’t ready for foreign input in the political system. So again, no downside to losing. At worst I’d become a bit (in)famous. At best I’d get a job where I thought I could do some good.

Debito Arudou: So, did you do any good?

Jon Heese: That’s hard to judge. I would like to say yes, but I can’t really point to many tangible results. Sure, I got a right turn lane put in on a notoriously traffic jammed corner which very much helped. I got the city to fix a lot of the bicycle paths and add some icons to indicate which side is for cycles and which for pedestrians, which everyone just ignores. And, after begging for nine years, Tsukuba finally built a skateboard park so the kids have somewhere to skate for free instead of beating up the benches at the city center. As for helping the nightlife? Total zero. They have daytime bus routes which run up to 95% in the red. Why can’t they run a night bus around the periphery of the city once an hour? And might as well make it free. How could that be worse than all the other routes running in the red? Nah! Don’t want to encourage fun in Tsukuba Science City. Dumbasses! On the other hand, I strongly advocated against the city building a 25,000-seat stadium in the middle of nowhere. The vote was incredibly close, but in the end it lost. That alone saved the citizens ¥66 billion (US$500 million). I won’t take credit for that, but I’d like to think some of the other councillors at least listened to my very, very sensible arguments against buying a huge white elephant.

Debito Arudou: But I’ve always had one niggling doubt about your election. You’re a white guy who looks a lot like Bill Clinton—you’ve even played him in at least one Japanese movie. You’ve got charm and charisma, and as a former barkeep you stand out in a good way and instinctively know how to swing it. Don’t you think you might have some natural advantages the rest of the Naturalized Japanese and International Japanese might not?  How do you get around some contrarian—not me, of course—saying you’re not really a template?

Jon Heese: Who thinks I’m a template? I never thought so. Template has a nuance of reproducibility. At best I’m a resource for others who have their own ideas about where they can contribute to society. And that goes for non-traditional Japanese as well. I know of one Tsukuba councillor who looked at my success and was inspired to run himself. He was 28 at the last election, continues to sport a big blonde mohawk, comes from Hokkaido, and is a YouTuber… not your traditional local candidate in any way. He very candidly told me that if a total outsider like me could get elected, he too wanted to give it a shot. Good for him. Rather than template, I prefer to see myself as an inspiration. As in, if a dumbass like Jon can get elected…

Debito Arudou: Did Mr. Mohawk wind up getting elected?

Jon Heese: I think he placed 20th, so yes. It seemed to be newsworthy if one looks at who was getting interviewed at the induction ceremony.

Debito Arudou: Now it’s time for a harder-ball question. Let’s stay back on events a decade ago, before Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s history-making tenure as prime minister. It’s hard to believe now, but that was when the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was out of power, and the now-defunct left-leaning Democratic Party of Japan was doing their best to have rapprochements with China and South Korea, and to grant more civil and human rights to Non-Japanese residents. In character as reactionary outsiders, the LDP kept taking potshots, enacting all sorts of silly legislation at the local assembly level, including a move grounded in pure alarmism to ensure Non-Japanese could never vote in Japan. Even the city of Tsukuba, an apparently open-minded place with arguably Japan’s most international research university, passed a resolution in 2010 “in opposition to legalizing regional suffrage to Foreign Permanent Residents,” You had been elected as a Tsukuba city councillor by then, so this was on your watch.  Jon, how could you have let this happen?

Jon Heese: Bah! My watch, my butt. First off, I was two years in office. I was the sole member of my caucus. I had few allies and was seen as a one-off candidate. A joke. A protest vote recipient. In addition I was in way over my head. I had no clue as to how the system functioned, much less which lever to pull in what direction to bring the process to a halt. Of course, I appealed in council to vote against the obviously fear-mongering BS bill. The decision to pass it was made months before it was even brought to the floor. What I did manage to do was to have all the references to Chinese and Koreans scrubbed from the resolution. If they were going to go after furriners, then I at least successfully requested them to scrap the loudest dog whistles. So yeah, I got a very small bone. I would also point out the same bill passed in Inuyama, Anthony Bianchi’s city, and he had two terms more experience than I. And to give credit, Mr. Bianchi was the one who suggested the edits. I was so green I had no idea it was possible. Interestingly, after the vote one of the most rightwing members of the council came to me to inquire if I was okay. Of course I was okay. Either one believes in democracy or one doesn’t. If the council wanted to vote the way it went, then so be it. It wasn’t the first or last bill I voted for/against which didn’t go my way. While the others were voting in favor of the resolution, don’t think for a second there wasn’t a bit of pleasure in a few members’ thoughts. Just two years earlier I’d kicked all but one of their asses by a pretty wide margin, and the thought of allowing even more foreign voices to vote for me was grit in the gears for their own careers. That I won by even larger landslides the next three times running was quite satisfying. Clearly the voters want me in council, and winning the prefectural council election in December only underlines my support.

Debito Arudou: Pause here. What’s this election? Does that mean you’re no longer on the Tsukuba City Council?

Jon Heese: Hmm, it seems I stepped all over the headline. Yes, I am no longer at the city. In December of 2022 I successfully ran for the Ibaraki council, coming in fourth of five seats. It is a huge step up. I Googled Tsurunen-sama and discovered he never went for politics at the prefectural level–only city and national politics. So it seems I’m the first Non-Japanese born to get elected at the regional level. I didn’t intend to make history. I just wanted to build bridges from Ibaraki to the outside world. Japan has so much to offer to the world. And lordy, lordy… we know how much we Japanese have to learn from others. Our English pedagogy sucks dog’s balls, for example. We really would do well to put a lot more women in power in companies and government. But on the other hand, we aren’t at each other’s throats over ridiculous ideas like giving poor people healthcare, and I am so grateful I don’t need to calculate tips just so I don’t get boogers in my food.

Debito Arudou: Thanks. Now back to the rant about the xenophobic resolution…

Jon Heese: Without all the above excuses… If the resolution had been introduced last year while I was still at the city level, I doubt I could have stopped that freight train, even just to get the vote suspended, in spite of caucusing with the largest (LDP) group in council my last two terms. Scorpions are going to sting. So sling those arrows as you please. Perhaps a more sophisticated politician might have swung it. Too bad the citizens of Tsukuba didn’t elect them. All they got was my sorry excuses… For the record, once again at the Ibaraki council level I am seen as the protest vote recipient. And I more than likely am. I’m not the only one, for what it’s worth. I don’t mind. Lots of folks are tired of the LDPers running everything. Just like Mr. Sultan in Yamagata, I really could care less what others think of my politics. If I’m doing a crap job, vote me out. If not, I’ll continue doing what I do best. If that means getting the protest vote, lucky me. In spite of the setbacks in council, in spite of the slights–recently being asked if I understood what was going on in a committee meeting by older members for fuck sakes, hashi ga jozu, anyone?–I love my job. I know I can do things that no other councillor can do. I’ve already met the Canadian ambassador. I will also likely meet other ambassadors at some point. I plan to meet as many trade and education ministers, political and business leaders as I can during my term. I will likely meet many big cheeses all over North America, Europe, and beyond. Will I be able to turn those meetings into tangible results? My wife says no. I intend to prove her wrong. Will I be able to help the many suffering Non-Japanese? I can only try. If something happens “on my watch,” I hope you and your readers will remember that scorpions are going to sting and freight trains are hard to stop.

Debito Arudou: Okay, so let’s say you’ve just had a bad day, politically, like all politicians do. I study politicians as a matter of my field of discipline, and admit a begrudging admiration for just how complicated their jobs are, especially if they have a conscience.  What do you do that evening or over the next week or so to get over that day’s setbacks?

Jon Heese: I whine and complain to anyone who is silly enough to listen. The world is my therapist. I’m also very fortunate to have a supportive wife who knows when to slap me upside the head when I’m being ridiculous. I like to play darts, steel tips so it really hurts, and over-imbibe on weekends. I’m a fan of our local matsuris. And whacking golf balls is a good outlet for frustration. By that I mean, there’s nothing like smashing your head with a hammer because it feels so good when you stop. I have a decent group of friends who keep me abreast of science, sports, the Ukraine war, or whatever is on their mind.

Debito Arudou: Thanks for contacting me for this interview, Jon. Pity it came more than a decade after I asked for it, but at least now you can say things a lot more conclusively. In any case, this rabble rouser for one is happy to see you’re trying to make a difference precisely because of who you are, not despite it.

Jon Heese: I’m happy to see you happy. Rabble rousing is a hard job and I’m amazed you’ve kept at it for twenty-plus years. In any case, there is nothing to be pitied. The pieces I wrote ten-plus years ago are opinions from a total noob. Had I done the interview like you wanted back then, I would be just as embarrassed at my uninformed answers. I’m sure I’ll look at today’s interview the same way in ten years. My whole life I’ve been hesitant to say my piece because I didn’t think I had anything of merit to say. Having just turned sixty last month, I’ve come to realize it’s time to speak before my brain turns to mush. Since I drink a lot less than I used to, the alcohol just isn’t catching as many of the slow brain cells as it used to. So, as I say in my election posts, if not now, when? If not me, who? I don’t claim to be an expert, especially on politics. I have experiences and I have opinions. If my tall tales inspire, great. If they inform, well, in the end I can only take partial credit for shaping others’ opinions. We like to think that were we to have lived in times past we would have been able to see the future and save the Jews, save the slaves, save the whales. But in the end we are mostly only heroes in our own stories. I’m sitting in council and hoping to influence the future by proposing policy today. I have no clue what the future holds. None of my co-councillors do either. The vast majority of politicians start out as good people. The good ones retire without incident and are forgotten. We remember the bad ones because we are rightly outraged. I would like to leave your readers with an optimistic outlook. We are mostly doing our best, but politics is a funny business. To be successful we really need to find the balance where everyone is happy to get a bit of what they want, but are still dissatisfied–to paraphrase some high muckity-muck. It’s a crazy life, but I love it. I’ll stop there. Your readers really should find something better to do than consume more of my bloviating. I hope this interview was what you were looking for. I can guarantee you it’s much better than what you would have gotten ten years ago. Keep up the good fight.

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