Archive for August, 2009

The story of A-bomb survivor Toshie Une

As some of you may already know, today was the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Here’s a partially-translated “NEWS ZERO” report about Toshie Une, a 90-year-old woman who still remembers the horrors she experienced on August 6, 1945:

[The subbing of the video was done with great haste, so there may be errors. If you catch any, let me know and I'll attempt to fix them.]

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Ancient Egypt in Shibuya

A short video clip of the Ancient Egyptian Museum in Shibuya:

Note: The “konkatsu” diety that the museum guide points out is Hathor, goddess of feminine love, motherhood and joy.

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Weird computer animated reenactment of lay judge trial

Japan’s first trial using the new lay judge system is taking place this week and it is a huge news story. In an attempt to create superior coverage of the trial, NTV’s “NEWS ZERO” used computer graphics to reenact the events inside the courtroom:

[hat tip to Ken Y-N, who accurately described them as "some sort of bastard offspring of Miis and South Park 3D."]

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Picasso’s Egg

Sagamiko Resort has been running a commercial for a new obstacle course attraction it calls “Picasso’s Egg.” For some reason, they commercial stars foreigners who are speaking English:

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Yokohama schools to use Tsukurukai history textbook

The textbook was mainly authored by a group of nationalistic scholars called the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, popularly known as Tsukurukai.

It is published by Tokyo publishing house Jiyusha.

The book has drawn international criticism chiefly from China and South Korea for allegedly playing down Japan’s militarist past and justifying its wartime role.

The Yokohama board of education decided to use the textbook in schools in eight of the city’s 18 wards for two academic years starting next April, the officials said.

Jiyusha said Yokohama, with a population of 3.67 million, is the first large city to adopt its history book. It cleared the education ministry’s fiscal 2008 textbook screening.

The original draft of the textbook contained many passages that were deemed to be factually incorrect or unacceptable. It was approved by the Japanese government only after hundreds of revisions were made to its content. If it’s anything like the previous Tsukurukai textbooks that made it through government editing, it probably is far less offensive than it actually sounds when described by the international media.

In its English language article about the textbooks, South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo struggles to find objectionable content and comes up with very few examples (the complaints are also in Japanese here):

Jiyusha’s textbook also says the ancient Korean kingdom of Gaya was founded by the Japanese, a claim long denied by both Korean and Japanese historians. It says Japan was the only nation to use its own chronological era in East Asia.

The textbook also describes the Joseon Dynasty of Korea as the Yi Dynasty, a term used by Japanese colonial scholars, and calls the Japanese attack on Joseon a “dispatch of troops.”

There may indeed be problems with the above-mentioned issues, but none of them seem to have much direct relation to Japanese colonial rule over Korea. (Some might think the “Japanese attack on Joseon” is about Japan’s 20th century colonization of Korean. It is actually a reference to the failed conquest of Korea in the 1590′s.) If this is a horrible right-wing textbook that glorifies Japanese imperialism, why didn’t the article mention some better examples?

To explain why this happened, the Dong-A Ilbo blames the former mayor of Yokohama:

The Yokohama board of education adopted the textbook since its members were designated by the ultra-nationalist Hiroshi Nakata, the city’s former mayor who stepped down due to a sex scandal and failure to hold an event celebrating the port of Yokohama’s 150th anniversary.

It’s quite possible that he is an ultra-nationalist, but there’s no need to spell his name wrong. His name is Hiroshi Nakada. His legal dispute with a hostess who claims to have been his lover has been going on since last year and few in the media are claiming it was the reason why he resigned. He has been very popular and many have praised his reign as mayor of Yokohama. The ongoing 150th anniversary events in Yokohama have received so much press that it’s hard to believe that the Dong-A Ilbo could claim there was a “failure to hold an event.” Pretty sad, since their article is supposed to be criticizing a textbook that distorts facts.

[via FG]

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Japanese tourists ripped-off while visiting Britain

In a follow-up piece about the restaurant in Italy that was shut down for ripping-off Japanese tourists, Leo Lewis of The Times reveals that his own countrymen are the “rip-off kings” of Europe:

The thing is, Japan sends loads of cashed-up tourists around the world, so it gets this sort of thing a lot. So much so, in fact, that the Foreign Ministry has a special department that catalogues and analyses the various ways in which its travelling people are conned, fleeced, insulted and generally ransacked abroad. The 2008 report comes out today and I begged the department for a sneak preview to confirm statistically just how awful those Italians are.

I wish I hadn’t: when it comes to rudeness and rip-offs, Britain turns out to be much, much worse. The vilest place in Europe, in fact.

[hat tip to Mulboyne]

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