Archive for December, 2006

Polling Japanese Students #7: Famous historical figures….Do you know them?

In this edition of Polling Japanese Students, I decided to see if the students could identify certain famous historical figures from their photographs. The results are as follows [all of the students were 2nd year junior high school students]:

Read more…

Japan News for December 30, 2006

Some news/links for today:

• Two temporary job-placement agencies in Gifu Prefecture hired 12 children of Brazilian immigrants of Japanese origin to work in factories in violation of labor laws. An increasing number of immigrants in Japan are sending their kids to work, rather than school, due to language problems and economic hardship.
• Former England captain David Beckham, making a lightning 14-hour trip to Japan, said Friday he may play in Japan one day. God, I hope not.
• Tokyo is set to enter into a General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) with the United States next year that will bring the Self-Defense Forces and U.S. military even closer together. The accord would provide an overarching framework to prevent military secrets from leaking.
• A senior official at the Kurashiki Municipal Government, who worked only 26 days in about five years, will finally be dismissed from his position at the end of this year.
• Mari Kanazawa discusses how everything contains a god(kami) in Shintoism.
• An unemployed man arrested for theft after turning himself in at a police box in Wakayama and told investigators that he wanted to be taken into custody because it was cold outside. Do they have heaters in prison? Because if they do, they might actually be better off that some of the classrooms at my school…
• Do you love sex dolls? Danny Choo gives you want you want.
• A festival in Ibaraki Prefecture in which participants shout swear words at the top of their lungs? Cool.
• The holiday travel rush has begun in Japan! I’ll be flying back to Japan tomorrow, so don’t expect any news update on the 31st.

A gift from one of my students…

One half: mild-manned pig….

The other half: an informative guide to meat cuts…..

I always wondered what the difference between the various forms of “katsu” I order in restaurants was. With this attached to my cell phone, I’ll never be confused!

Japan news for December 29, 2006

A few news links for today:

• Mutantfrog Travelogue is reporting a rumor that Prime Minster Shinzo Abe might step down in May if his party does poorly in the April 2007 elections.
• About 7 percent of new medium-rise apartment complexes in Japan are believed to fall below the mandatory quake-resistance strength standard, an infrastructure ministry report showed. Is your building one of the “lucky” seven?
• Telecommunications across Asia were slowly being restored on Thursday after earthquakes off Taiwan damaged cables and knocked thousands offline, but access in parts of South Korea and Taiwan was still patchy.
• The lower parts of a human body were found Thursday in a garden of an empty house in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward, police said. They are now investigating if the latest find is related to a torso found in a plastic bag on a street in Shinjuku on December 16th.
• A recent Asahi Shinbun article reveals a few details of the Japan-China join history study group’s disagreements. It seems that Chinese historians are refusing to budge from the 300,000 Nanking Incident death toll and are refusing to agree that the number could be 200,000 or lower, as some Japanese historians claim.
• A Russian media report has accused the Japanese government of “brainwashing the public on a massive scale”.
• South Korea’s foreign ministry has called for Japan to make more efforts to improve the legal rights of ethnic Koreans living in Japan. Meanwhile, South Korea’s justice ministry has clarified the legal rights of foreigners in Korea: “Foreigners may face deportation or fines if they volunteer at orphanages or organize performances without reporting them to the authorities.”
• Hanshin Tigers outfielder Tomoaki Kanemoto became the highest-paid player in Japanese baseball on Thursday when he signed a 550-million-yen ($4.6 million) a season three-year contract with the popular Kansai team. He had actually been offered a higher salary, but asked the club to spend the money on his teammates instead!
• An investigative panel set up by the Chikuzen town education board in Fukuoka Prefecture has concluded that that the town-run Miwa Junior High School bears grave responsibility for the suicide of a bullied student in October.
• The Tokyo Ubiquitous Network Project, which launches in the glitzy Ginza district next month, sends shoppers information from nearby shops via a network of radio-frequency identification tags, infrared and wireless transmitters.
• The number of entertainer visas issued by Japan is estimated to have fallen by more than 70 percent from a peak of 140,000 in 2004 to 40,000 this year after visa rules were tightened, according to data released yesterday by the Foreign Ministry. The number of entertainer visas is expected to decline from 85,000 to less than 10,000 for Filipinos this year, from 8,500 to less than 5,000 for Chinese, and from 6,000 to 3,000 for Russians. Will the foreign hostess industry ever recover?
• Some dog breeders in Japan are inbreeding cute dogs to the extreme, creating a nightmare of genetic defects, reports the New York Times.
• Will everyone’s favorite South Korean president, Roh Moo-hyun, visit Japan early next year?

The Gaijin Dilemma

If you’re a foreigner in Japan, you have probably had to deal with the “gaijin dilemma” before…

Personally, I’m a “pass by and say nothing” guy. How do you deal with the “dilemma”?

Japan News for December 28, 2006

Here are some Japan-related news/links for today:

• An earthquake near Taiwan has damaged undersea cables, disrupting internet and phone services. Any Asian readers having trouble accessing the American server this site is hosted on?
• Toyota Motor Corp Chairman Fujio Cho and Ford Motor Co President and Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally met last week in Tokyo, fueling rumors of an alliance between the two auto giants.
• The Wall Street Journal reports on Tomoyuki Ishikawa, a Saitama resident who has arranged thousands of x-mas lights on his house, earning him the nickname “Tokyo’s King of Holiday Lights.” Instead of being driven into bankruptcy by electricity bills, Ishikawa has turned his fame into a profitable x-mas decoration consulation business.
• The University of Tokyo said Wednesday it has fired a professor and his assistant for significantly damaging the institution’s reputation and trust through untrustworthy research papers.
• Amusing stories of stupid 9-1-1 [1-1-9] calls from Mainichi’s WaiWai column.
• The Japanese government has requested the Brazilian government to search for and prosecute a man who left for Brazil after allegedly killing a high school girl in a hit-and-run car accident in Japan in 1999.
• The government released details of post-retirement jobs of 1,263 division director-level or higher bureaucrats who retired over a one-year period until Aug. 15 this year. A total of 537, or 42.5 percent, were given lucrative jobs at public utility organizations, public corporations and other semi-governmental bodies that they once supervised.
• The Yasukuni Shrine started is revising its museum displays related to the Sino-Japanese War but will stop short of calling Japan’s actions a “war of aggression.” The officials said they cannot reveal the contents of the changes until the shrine reopens on Jan. 1.
• About 30 percent of pornographic comics for adults in Japan portray sexual acts involving children, according to a survey by the National Police Agency. Minors can buy these comics through Internet Web sites that do not verify the age of buyers. These comics also were available at convenience stores…
• - China and Japan held a second day of sensitive talks on resolving bitter disputes over their shared history but experts saw little hope the vast gulf between the giants could be bridged. The talks have ended for 2006 and will resume next year.
• Danny Choo has posted some fantastic photos he took from Tokyo Tower.
• Black people toothpaste?