Archive for January, 2009

Expectations for Barack Obama

Okinawa residents want him to do something about noisy jets:

“I hope the first black U.S. president will understand the pain of Okinawa,” said Shoji Matsuda, head of a residents association of the Sunabe area in the town of Chatan, one of the municipalities hosting the U.S. Kadena Air Base.

“I want him to come to Sunabe so that he can hear the noise himself including the roar of jet fighters is early in the morning,” the 63- year-old community leader said.

Some expect to learn English from his speeches:

“His speeches are so moving, and he also uses words such as ‘yes, we can,’ ‘change’ and ‘hope’ that even Japanese people can memorise.”

Obama City’s mayor expects a visit:

“As the mayor of a city who shares the name of Obama and along with Obama’s citizens, we are very happy,” Koji Matsuzaki, the city’s mayor, said in a statement. “We’d be honored if you could visit our city when you come to Japan.”

The head of Obama City’s Barack Obama fan club expects acess to the White House:

“I wish we will have a chance to visit White House to meet with Mr. Obama over the next four years,” he said.

Students want him to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park:

“I hope that a visit by Mr. Obama to Hiroshima would encourage people all over the world to change their views” on stockpiling nuclear weapons, one junior high school student said in her letter.

“If Mr. Obama visits the Peace Memorial Park (in Hiroshima), more people around the world will become interested in issues to do with achieving peace,” another student wrote.

And A-bomb survivors expect Obama to work towards the elimination of all nuclear weapons:

The survivors place “high hopes in Obama’s pledges to seek a nuclear-free world,” said Terumi Tanaka, leader of the Japan Confederation of A and H bomb Sufferers Organisations.

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Single salarymen making their own lunches

The Yomiuri reports that the economy is so bad that single salarymen are starting to make their own boxed lunches’

A 34-year-old company employee rises at 6 a.m. in his apartment in Hachioji, western Tokyo. He shuffles to the kitchen in his pajamas and opens the refrigerator to reveal a number of Tupperware-style containers containing such items as grilled salmon, rolled omelets and other dishes.

Using these ingredients, it takes him about 15 minutes to prepare his lunch for the office. The man says he cooks all the food for the coming week in one go and stores it in the fridge.

He started making his own lunches last spring. After his bonus plateaued, his drinking sessions with colleagues and friends and trips to hot springs became a luxury he could no longer afford.

You might expect that this situation would hurt convenience stores, but it hasn’t. Reuters reports that conbinis are reporting high growth as many consumers are choosing cheap bentos over meals at restaurants.

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Obama masks in Japan

A Reuters video news report about rubber Obama masks being made at a factory in Saitama:

The factory, which stocks various masks of politicians and celebrities, said the Obama mask was expected to soon outsell its current best-seller, a mask of Japan’s popular former prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi.

“I believe that unlike Japanese politicians’ masks, Obama’s mask radiates something that grabs people’s hearts. I think many people do feel that energy,” said executive director Takahiro Yagihara. The mask is sold for some 2,200 yen ($24) at toy and costume shops across Japan.

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Ladies, gentlemen, and gangsters of the jury

The Asahi reports that police officials are concerned that the new lay judge system, which relies on randomly selected citizens as candidates, could assign yakuza gang members as citizen judges for trials on serious criminal cases:

The citizen judge law does not have any stipulation on gangsters.

“Gangsters exploit every opportunity to manipulate any situation to their advantage,” a senior police investigator said. “There is a good chance that they may slip in as citizen judges and stand in the way of justice while staying on the right side of the law.”

Prosecutors are hoping that they can weed out possible gangsters during the candidate interview process, but there is still a chance that a few gangsters will end up as lay judges.

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Cloned beef, anyone?

A government food safety panel has stated that meat from cloned cows and pigs is safe to eat:

A working group of the Food Safety Commission has compiled an evaluation report draft saying that such clones and their offspring were as safe as regular cows and pigs.

In the near future, an expert panel on newly developed food and the Food Safety Commission will discuss the issue, and will report the results of their evaluation to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. Based on this, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries will consider whether to lift a ban on using beef and pork from somatic cell clones.

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Obama’s Magic Show

For other Japanese Obama impressions, check out:

• Barack Obama Visits Japan (Blackface Comedy)
• Barack Obama press conference in Japan
• Photo: Obama Onsen’s blackface celebration
• Taro Aso meets Barack Obama

A couple of comedians put on a wacky Barack Obama magic show:

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