Archive for September, 2009

Japanese politicians line up outside the Diet building at 3:00AM

The new diet session began today, with Prime Minister Hatoyama taking office. Early morning news shows could not yet report on Hatoyama entering the Diet because the gates to the building did not officially open until 8:00AM. Luckily, a few politicians lined up early and gave the media something to talk about:

The woman shown in the video is Yukiko Miyake, a newly elected representative from Gunma Prefecture and one of the “Ozawa Girls.” She arrived at the Diet building at 2:50AM this morning, eager to show the media how committed she is to her new position. She was carrying the diet lapel pin of her grandfather, who also served in the Diet.

Ten minutes later, another DPJ politician arrived. It was Yuichiro Tamaki of Kagawa Prefecture. In a blog post he wrote on his mobile phone this morning, he expressed regret over having failed to be the first to arrive as well as his desire to fulfill the expectations of the voters who elected him.

The presence of reporters and cameramen at the Diet gates at such an early hour seems to suggest that the media were expecting (or had been notified in advance) of the arrival of both politicians.

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Chikan: Groping on Japanese trains

Japanese police and railway companies have teamed up and launched a week-long “Let’s prevent groping” campaign. Here’s a subtitled news clip from FTV that introduces the campaign and shows us some video of undercover police officers arresting gropers on the Saikyo Line:

At the end of the report, they mention a Tokyo Shimbun employee who was arrested for groping on the first day of the campaign. You can read more about him in this Yomiuri article. You can also find an English language write-up about the problem of chikan websites here. [via JapanSoc]

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Japanese comedy: primitive tribesmen with bones in their noses

An interesting discovery I made yesterday while sampling the many Ken Shimura comedy clips available on YouTube:

Those of you who left comments expressing frustration with the use of black facepaint in the Michael Jackson moonwalking competition might have a bit more to say about this video.

The joke appears to be based on the Dani people of New Guinea, who are known to wear “penis gourds” and nose bones. According to the video uploader, it comes from one of Shimura’s Baka-tono DVD’s.

Update: Here is a picture of a Dani tribesman wearing a bone through his nose and a penis gourd.

The bone is not the same shape, nor is the gourd. Still, it seems possible that somebody involved in making the comedy sketch was aware of the existence of such a tribe and made some minor changes to make things more silly.

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Japanese compete in office chair race

A couple clips of “Itte Q” regulars Daisuke Miyagawa and Imoto competing in an office chair race in Switzerland [some English language captions have been provided to explain what is going on]:
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Training

The Big Race

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Youtube’s talking goat on Japanese TV

What happens when YouTube’s famous talking goat finds its way onto Japanese TV? It becomes “the goat that talks like Ken Shimura“:

It does indeed sound kind of like the voice Shimura makes when he acts dumb.
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Energy Efficiency of Eating Dolphins

The recent articles on the Taiji dolphin hunt have generated a tremendous amount of discussion in the Japan Probe comments section. Many comments were well constructed and presented, while many were, well… not. One facet of the argument that I didn’t see come up (forgive me if you raised this point and I just missed it) is the energy efficiency (or rather lack there of) in eating top level predators, such as dolphins (or tuna for that matter).

Energy transfer between trophic levels is inefficient, about 10%. Thus, an herbivore only receives about 10% of the total energy captured by the plants it consumes. While determining a trophic level for any particular animal is not straightforward because of a varied diet, worldwide estimates for the bottlenose dolphin, Tursiops truncatus (the same species hunted in Taiji), place it at a level of between 4 and 5, probably closer to 4, which is equivalent to that of tuna, bonito, and other open-ocean large pelagic fish. This means if phytoplankton captured 100 units of net energy from the sun, by the time that energy is passed through two additional levels of animal and ultimately a dolphin on the way to your dinner plate, that you eat only 0.1 units.

However in theory, an herbivore, such a cow, provides 10 units of energy. In reality, the equation is not so simple, though. Just as physicists must invoke the hypothetical “frictionless surface” when explaining Newton’s First Law, I must invoke the hypothetical “free-range cow” because I am completely ignoring the energy and water costs of commercially raising cattle (not to mention the climate effects of bovine flatulence).

So, while in my honest, meat-eating opinion, many arguments against eating animal products made by some vegans are borderline silly, I have to agree with those that advocate, from the emotionally-detached perspective of efficiency and sustainable agriculture, eating primarily (though not entirely) corn, wheat, and rice. Having said that however, I sill plan to visit Fire House this weekend for what I consider the best bacon cheeseburger in Tokyo.

A side note on mercury in dolphins

A number of dolphin photo identification projects are ongoing in Florida, the oldest of which was started by Randy Wells in Sarasota Bay during the 1970s. By the late 1990s, it became clear that the mortality rate for first-born calves was unexpectedly high. The working hypothesis states that the transfer of bioaccumulated toxins and heavy metals from mother to calf is responsible for the high mortality rate. This seems to serve essentially as a “detox dump” for the mother, with deadly effects for the calf. Interestingly though, it is thought that this ultimately increases the longevity of female dolphins, allowing them to bear a larger number of offspring. Mortality rates for subsequently born calves is not unusually high.

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Contributor Bio: Steve has been splitting time between the US and Japan for the past 10 years or so and is now a post doctorate fellow at a large, lumbering University in Tokyo, where he gets paid to play with dirt.

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