Archive for March, 2009

Tokyo flashmob recruiting

Want to be part of a flashmob this Sunday (March 22) in Tokyo? Check out JeanSnow.net for details!
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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
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South Koreans react to World Baseball Classic loss

This year’s World Baseball Classic is underway, and (from a Japanese point of view) the whole thing just seems like a series of grudge matches between Japan and South Korea. Both teams had already secured positions in the semi-finals, but it still seemed like both countries had some national pride invested in the game played earlier today.

Japan ended up winning 6-2, so this evening’s Japanese TV news programs featured some South Korean reactions to the result:

In the first part of the clip, a Japanese reporter in Seoul tries to get some post game comments from people who had been watching the action, but he is met with anger from everyone he approaches. The second part of the clip shows two South Korean students who watched the game at an apartment in Tokyo. After the loss, one student uses his dictionary to look up the Japanese term for “complete defeat.”

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• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
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CNN report on Japanese suicide forest

“There were 2,645 suicides recorded in January 2009, a 15 percent increase from the 2,305 for January 2008, according to the Japanese government.” -CNN.com

A small increase in suicides is enough for CNN’s Kyung Lah to rush to the Aokigahara Forest, a popular suicide spot in Japan, and file a report about how the bad economy is driving Japanese people to suicide:

[via JapanSoc]
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• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
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Design your own Hi-Chew package

Looking for a great gift idea for a friend? Morinaga has set up a website (Pro-chew.jp) that allows users to design custom Hi-Chew candy packages:

Users can upload photographs and add custom text to the label, and many different templates are available. A pack of twelve identical custom Hi-Chew cost 2,520 yen.
[via Zaeega]

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
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Polar bear cubs (gender unknown)

Two polar bear cubs at the Sapporo Maruyama Zoo were shown to the public for the first time yesterday, but the zoo has yet to announce their gender because it wants to avoid a repeat of an embarrassing incident:

This time, zoo officials won’t make the same mistake. The zoo plans to determine the sex of the cubs by DNA testing.

However, perhaps because of Tsuyoshi’s “sex scandal,” a zoo official said it could take more than a year until their sex is confirmed.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
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Japanese astronaut takes censored photographs to space station

Astronaut Koichi Wakata is in the process of becoming the first Japanese person to complete a long duration mission on the International Space Station. While he’s there, he’ll be conducting a lot of research, including an important experiments that could make life on the space station a lot less stinky.

Before going up into space, he asked his hometown to provide him with something to take into space. They gave him a DVD containing the photographs of every student at the city’s elementary and junior high schools. However, Wakata will be unable to see the faces of the children because they have been censored as a privacy protection measure:

….over fears of a possible data leak, six museum staff spent a month blurring the faces of the children in the photos in order to protect their identities. Wakata will return the DVD to the city upon his return to earth

Lawyer Hisamichi Okamura, a specialist in the field of personal information security and an affiliate professor at the National Institute of Informatics, said the action was excessive.

“If the school had a month to process the images, it could’ve used the time to obtain consent from students’ parents,” said Okamura. “The children’s dreams have been spoiled.”

An elementary school principal agreed, wondering: “Is that much protection of personal information necessary?”

However, the 44-year-old mother of one student said, “Some parents don’t want their children’s faces shown even in school newsletters. I think it was an appropriate precaution.”

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• dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
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