Days after US President Barack Obama gave his public backing to gay marriages in the US, Mickey Mouse has emerged as the unlikely champion of same-sex unions in Japan.
Tokyo Disneyland said this week it would allow gay couples to hold ceremonies on its grounds, although same-sex weddings have no legal status in Japan.
Disneyland’s decision came to light after Koyuki Higashi, a 27-year-old woman, inquired about marrying her female partner, identified only as Hiroko, at the resort.
Photo: AFP
Higashi was initially told she would be able to marry her partner provided they were dressed “like a man and a woman,” she wrote on her blog. Staff at Disneyland, which attracts about 14 million visitors a year, were apparently concerned about how other visitors would react to the sight of couples both dressed in wedding dresses or tuxedos.
A spokeswoman for Milial Resort Hotels, a subsidiary of Tokyo Disney Resort, later said there had been a misunderstanding, telling Higashi and her partner they could dress how they pleased, although they would not be able to exchange vows in the chapel because of “Christian teachings.”
The park said it would accept all applications for same-sex wedding ceremonies. The only obstacle now appears to be financial: a full wedding ceremony in Cinderella’s castle, with Disney characters included on the guest list, costs about US$95,000.
Disneyland’s stance was a rare sign of progress in a country still uncertain about its attitude towards homosexuality. There are no laws against homosexuality, and Tokyo is home to a large lesbian gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population, many of whom took part in the capital’s first rainbow pride event last month.
Gay and transgender celebrities are regulars on TV variety shows, while Taiga Ishikawa became Japan’s first openly gay politician when he won a seat in Tokyo’s Toshima ward assembly in April last year.
Ishikawa welcomed Disneyland’s decision, which apparently came after officials in Tokyo contacted the company’s US headquarters. “I wrote 10 years ago that I looked forward to the day when gay and lesbian couples could hold hands and go to Tokyo Disneyland, so I’m very happy,” he said.
But he added that Japanese gay men and women were still uncomfortable about making their sexuality public.
“We’re still not at the point where a man or woman can say they have a same-sex partner, especially to colleagues. But now that gay marriages are in the news overseas, there is better awareness here, at least.”
Obama’s endorsement of gay marriages was the cue for an outburst from Takeshi Kitano, the internationally acclaimed filmmaker, who caused dismay in the LGBT community when he ridiculed the US president’s stance during an appearance on a TV news program.
Kitano suggested permitting gay marriages would lead to unions between humans and animals, and questioned the ability of gay couples to raise children. “The child will be bullied,” he said. “People will say, ‘But your mum is actually your dad.’”
His homophobic comments were not the first by a high-profile public figure in Japan. In late 2010, Shintaro Ishihara, the outspoken governor of Tokyo, suggested gay people were “deficient” after watching same-sex couples take part in a parade in San Francisco.
“We have even got homosexuals casually appearing even on television,” he said. “Japan has become far too untamed.”
Higashi and her partner have visited Disneyland to break their good news to Mickey Mouse, but have yet to set a date for the wedding. “Mickey first looked surprised to hear that we are a couple of girls,” she said on her blog. “But we said we were there to thank him ... and he celebrated with us.”
But, she added, taboos surrounding sexuality had forced many gay and lesbian couples to keep their relationships secret. “There is still a lot of prejudice at work and in people’s homes to prevent a lot of us from coming out,” she told Reuters. “Also, when the only public gays you see are the comedians on television who are the butt of public ridicule, it’s hard to find a good reason to come out.”
Taiwan’s English education system is being pulled apart by three opposing forces. Bilingual Nation 2030 pulls students toward English and global communication. Artificial Intelligence (AI) readiness pulls them toward digital judgment, verification and AI-mediated work. But Taiwan’s old exam culture pulls them back toward memorization, grammar drills, timed reading and correct answers. If the education system keeps using old exams to define success, it risks producing graduates who are neither genuinely bilingual nor genuinely AI-ready, but trained for tasks machines can already perform. The first force is Bilingual Nation 2030. Launched in 2018, the policy aimed to “help Taiwan’s workforce connect
It seems every few days one bumps into one of those “real man” comments in which Taiwan is urged to “face reality” or similar, and “make a deal,” with the speaker implying that soon it will be too late. “Deal” advocates always present themselves as having a superior grip on reality, and the manly ability to make the “hard choice.” Their testosterone-laden language often echoes that of Taiwan sellout advocates. Note that such commentary always specifies a process (“make a deal, work with, make progress”), never the end state of what occupation by a violent authoritarian colonialist state will entail. In
June 1 to June 7 "If all Taiwanese were as afraid of dying as you, then what would happen?” Physician Shih Chiang-nan (施江南) reportedly said this to his wife Chen Chiao-tung (陳焦桐) after she urged him to stop intervening on behalf of Taiwanese soldiers stranded overseas after serving in the Japanese Army during World War II. Shih had clashed with high-ranking officials over the issue, engaged in several heated arguments with Taiwan governor-general Chen Yi (陳儀) and allegedly shouted at general Ko Yuan-fen (柯遠芬), chief of staff of the Taiwan Garrison Command, over
“Taiwan’s Opposition Leader Comes to US With a Message Straight Out of Beijing” read a May 31 headline in the Wall Street Journal. Top US administration officials and members of Congress almost certainly read the WSJ, and if there was a bullet point takeaway that people in Washington should absorb ahead of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chair Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) arrival in DC on June 9, that headline is it. The last few columns have discussed this very topic, and the timing is not coincidental. While those top officials likely do not read the Taipei Times, judging by the number
RSS