Shanghai Expo Pays 300 Million Yen for Plagiarized Japanese Song
Just a little update on the 2010 Shanghai Expo song scandal, to let all of you who followed the story here on Japan Probe know that it seems to have been resolved in a satisfactory manner:
The Shanghai World Expo will pay 300 million Japanese yen (approximately US$3.2 million) to Japanese singer Maya Okamoto for plagiarizing her song, according to a report published on Japanese news websites last week.
The song Right Here Waiting for You 2010 was used for the month of promotion leading up to the opening of the Shanghai World Expo and organizers had reportedly spent 10 million yuan (US$1.46 million) producing the song.
Soon after its premiere on Chinese television on April 1, Internet users pointed out that 95 percent of the melody was identical to Japanese pop singer Maya Okamoto’s Stay the Way You Are from 1997.
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Categories: General Japan
Chinese Tourists Lack Proper Toilet Manners?
NTV News had a segment the other day about how the huge increase in Chinese tourists visiting Japan. It included this clip about “cultural differences” about toilet use:
Apparently many Chinese tourists are not properly using the sinks in bathrooms and some aren’t using toilets in a cleanly manner. We are shown some public restrooms that have put up signs in Chinese asking people to please be clean and to turn off the water in the sinks when they are finished washing their hands.
Also included is an interview with a staff person at the Prince Hotel in Hakone, who says that Chinese men and women who want extra towels sometimes leave bathing areas fully nude, much to the shock of Japanese guests. The hotel has printed multi-lingual instructions on proper use of bathing facilities.
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Categories: Foreigners in Japan
Dolphin Allowed to Leave Aquarium in Kagoshima
“Nanikore” shows us how the Kagoshima Aquarium that lets its dolphins swim out of their tanks and into a waterway outside of the aquarium building:
The aquarium does this about 5 or 6 times a month. They do it because they think the dolphins might enjoy swimming in a larger body of water.
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Categories: Animal Videos
Badass Rubber Band Gun
“Mezamashi TV” did this short feature on a guy who makes fancy rubber band guns out of metal:
His day job involves metal working, so he has the knowledge needed to make some pretty badass rubber band guns. His most advanced weapon is a rubber band machine gun, which fires off 30 rounds in about 2 seconds (it takes much longer to load).
He says that his hobby sometimes causes trouble at home, since his wife doesn’t like finding rubber bands strewn about the house in random places.
Bonus rubber band demo clip, from YouTube:
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Categories: Odd / Strange
Hatoyama Fashion News
Japanese TV news shows cover some pretty stupid stories, but when it comes to politics, they don’t try to judge the entire worth of a government based upon the kind of shirt a prime minister wears. However, after CNN’s Kyung Lah decided to file just such a frivolously stupid story about Hatoyama’s fashion, ATV news ran this piece about it:
For some in-depth angry ranting about the idiocy of CNN and the numerous non-Japanese news outlets that picked up Kyung Lah’s story and ran with it, check out this post over at Ampontan.
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Categories: General Japan
Junji Koyama – Veggie Music Man
As part of its 5th anniversary celebration, YouTube conducted interviews with some of its most popular users. Included among them was Junji Koyama, the Japanese guy who became world-famous for making musical instruments out of vegetables:
You can see his videos here.
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Categories: General Japan