Archive for January, 2009

Indoor playgrounds in Japan

Parents worried about the safety of parks can take their kids to this indoor play center:

All the playground equipment been sanitized to protect children from scary things like insects (germs from other children are another matter). It would cost a family of four about 2400 yen to play for an hour at the indoor play center shown in the video. Business is booming for the operators of the play center, and in just a few years they have expanded from 2 locations and 180,000 customers (2006) to 8 locations and 600,000 customers (2008).

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Barack Obama press conference in Japan

Ｃomedy group “The News　Paper” (seen earlier in this post) held a press conference in Tokyo following Barack Obama’s inauguration. The event featured impersonations of the Obamas, Taro Aso, Yasuo Fukuda, and Hu Jintao.

Here are two clips from FTV / NTV coverage of the event:

In this clip, the Obama impersonator starts off his speech with a few well-known lines of Obama speeches, but he soon exhausts his English. Struggling to think of something to say, he stumbles and says “Remember Pearl Harbor.” He then asks if it’s okay to speak Japanese, getting some lulz out of the reporters.

After his speech, Taro Aso shows up wearing an Obama mask and declares that he has “changed.” In between a couple jokes about how he can’t read kanji, Aso offers Barack a choice between a box of Taro Aso manju and Ichiro Ozawa manju. Obama is not particularly fond of either, and picks a Junichiro Koizumi manju box instead.

The next clip also contains the limited English gag. When a reporter asks a question in Japanese, an interpreter puts it into English for Obama. Obama then answers the question in perfect Japanese.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Angry chief priest vandalizes neighboring business

A security camera in Osaka　Prefecture captures the chief priest of a Buddhist temple using salt to vandalize the metal shutter doors of a neighboring business:

When first questioned about the incident, the chief priest claimed that he had seen an evil spirit and was using the salt to purify the area. He eventually admitted that he had been very annoyed by the noise from the vehicles coming and going at the transport company across the street from his temple, so he had intentionally put salt on the shutters to damage them.

The transport company had been experiencing problems with rust for nearly 10 years. After having to re-paint the shutters twice in early 2008, they set up a security camera and were able to catch the chief priest in the act. The chief priest has apologized, but the head of the transport company is not satisfied. Police are in the process of preparing to file charges against the chief priest.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Nude Nepalese arsonist attacks man with knife

This will probably be the weirdest violent crime committed by a foreigner in 2009:

A Nepalese man has been arrested in Osaka after getting naked, setting fire to his house, and using a knife to slash a Japanese man who noticed the fire and came to check what was going on. Witnesses say the Nepalese man was walking in the street and shouting something in a foreign language. He appeared to have suffered some burns.

It has been reported that the Nepalese man had been very homesick recently, especially when looking at nearby mountains and remembering the Himalayas. Apparently he said that he wanted to return to Nepal.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Ice Hotel in Hokkaido

A reporter checks out the Ice Hotel in Shimukappu Village, Hokkaido:

The inside of the ice room is so cold that his meal freezes before he can eat it. Although the water in the room’s bathtub is quite hot, water dripping from the bathtub faucet has turned into an icicle.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)

Photo: Obama Onsen’s blackface celebration

How Nagasaki Prefecture’s Obama Onsen celebrated the inauguration:

Edit: If you want to let Obama Onsen know about how such a crude impersonation of Obama might be viewed by Americans, use this contact form. Ponta has kindly provided the following example of a complaint letter in Japanese:

お名前 (Name)　:
メールアドレス (E-mail address):
確認用メールアドレス (E-mail address – again to confirm):

内容 (message):

オバマ温泉でオバマ大統領就任を祝って、顔を黒く塗った方がおられました。

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20090120-00000027-maip-soci.view-000

悪意のないことはわかりますが、これは、当の米国ではご本人にも、黒人の方にも極めて失礼なことと受け取られ、アメリカでこのようなことが起きたら全国から激しい非難が起きて政治的大問題になりかねないようなことなのです。

大統領に対する敬愛の気持はわかりますが、どうか、このようことは差し控えるようにお願いします。また、類似のことが起きないように小浜町ぐるみで周知徹底されることを望みます。このことがアメリカで報道されれば、不要な誤解をうけ国際問題にも発展しかねません。

日米友好のためにもよろしくお願いします。

And an example explanation of the concept of blackface:

悪意のないことはわかりますが、黒人の方を真似ようとして、顔を黒く塗ることは、当の米国ではご本人にも、黒人の方にも極めて失礼なことと受け取られ、アメリカでこのようなことが起きたら全国から激しい非難が起きて政治的大問題になりかねないようなことなのです。

（ミンストレル・ショー

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ミンストレル・ショー

をご参照ください。）

大統領に対する敬愛の気持はわかりますが、どうか、このようことは差し控えるようにお願いします。また、類似のことが起きないように小浜町ぐるみで周知徹底されることを望みます。このことがアメリカで報道されれば、不要な誤解をうけ国際問題にも発展しかねません。

日米友好のためにもよろしくお願いします。

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
• Kirainet.com – A geek in Japan (Subscribe)