Archive for November, 2010

Distrust of China Soars: 87% Consider China Untrustworthy

A joint survey conducted by Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun and China’s official Xinhua News Agency has found that 87 percent of Japanese respondents consider China to be untrustworthy:

Also, 90 percent of the Japanese surveyed considered relations between their country and China to be bad, another record high since the Yomiuri began the joint survey with Oriental Outlook Weekly in 2007.

Among Chinese respondents, 81 percent thought bilateral ties were bad and 79 percent said Japan was untrustworthy.

The 2010 survey results are quite different than last year’s results. The 2009 survey had about 50% of Japanese and Chinese respondents saying that relations between their countries were good. It also measured Japanese distrust of China at 69% and Chinese distrust of Japan at 63%.

The Japanese results aren’t at all surprising, considering China’s actions in the latest spat over the Senkaku islands:

• China’s state-controlled media pushed a false and sensational version of the events in which the Japanese ships were ramming the Chinese boat.
• China’s official response to Japan’s detaining of the trawler captain was shockingly petty.
• To force the release of the trawler captain, the Chinese authorities arrested for taking pictures in a “restricted” area. The Japanese, who had not seen any signs or been informed of the fact they were in a “restricted” area, were only released after Japan had freed the trawler captain.

• Mobs of young Chinese, many of them enraged by the Chinese media’s false reporting of the incident, participated in anti-Japanese riots in several major Chinese cities.
• Because of the incident, the Senkaku Islands became a major news topic in Japan. By introducing the history of the dispute to Japanese readers and viewers, the Japanese media described how the Chinese government mysteriously discovered that that the islands were Chinese territory only after oil had been discovered in the seabed around the islands.

The subsequent leak of footage showing the incident as Japan had described it, and the Chinese government’s efforts to suppress the truth only underline the fact the Chinese government simply cannot be trusted.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Dog Overwhelmed by Kitten Assault

Meet Nono, a dog in Japan that puts up with a lot of abuse from cute kittens:

See more videos at Nekoznet’s YouTube channel.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Obama Will Not Attend No-Nukes Meeting in Hiroshima

Barack Obama will soon be in Japan for the APEC Summit. The city of Hiroshima will be hosting a meeting of Nobel Peace Prize laureates to discuss the need to abolish nuclear weapons, and it seemed that they scheduled it for Nov. 12 to 14 hoping that Obama could attend it. However, the American President, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for delivering speeches about that issue, has turned down the invitation:

Mr Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, in part for his call for a world free of nuclear weapons, and a group of former winners of the prize including the Dalai Lama had urged him to join them in the city in November.

‘We are very disappointed that President Obama cannot come,’ Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba told a regular press conference hours after hearing that Mr Obama’s itinerary in Japan does not include a trip to the city.

Mr Akiba said Hiroshima had asked Obama to attend a meeting of eight Nobel Peace Prize winners to be held there to coincide with a November 13-14 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit of world leaders near Tokyo.

‘We will continue efforts so that he will visit Hiroshima or Nagasaki at the earliest possible time, take a direct look at what it’s like to fall victim to atomic bombs, and share victims’ feelings that no more people should suffer like this,’ Mr Akiba said.

Should Obama attend the meeting in Hiroshima?

• Yes
• No

View Results

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

“I’m Part Anime”

So says the guy in this video, which falls a bit short of College Humor’s usual quality.

Here are some other things said or written in pseudo-Japanese, which was obviously made via machine translation, in the video:
彼はKeyマスターです= He is the key master
やった！= Yesssss!
不幸= unhappiness [actually closer to bad luck]
かんつ= [gibberish that sounds like an English swear word. Perhaps one of these.]
super 騎兵= super cavalry
私を見て= look at me
1000幸せの涙= 1000 happiness tears
米= rice
笑うんち= the kanji for laugh+ poop
愚かな= foolish
nya!= meow
キャッハチャブ= Chibchub [I guess]
寿司= sushi
これは段はアニメキャラクターやジャック方法について映画を見るには、クレジットです= This paragraph is the credits for watching a movie concerning anime character or jack way

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Contributor Bio: Claytonian blogs and vlogs about Japan, language, and news at The Hopeless Romantic. He lost precious minutes of life watching this. And now you have as well.
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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Dog Hates Domestic Violence

Here’s Momo, a dog in Japan who apparently hates the sight of her family members hitting each other. Whenever she thinks they are fighting, she will jump in and try to break things up:

It’s not clear how Momo came to care so much about this kind of thing. Do people in that house actually get into serious fights? Maybe we should just ignore that and concentrate on the cute doggy.

An animal behavior expert told the TV program that Momo probably believes herself to be the leader of the family, and tries to prevent infighting in her pack.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

A Ninja, Sailor Moon, and a Geisha Walk into a Tutorial

Michele Phan, despite being the owner of an already perfect face, makes makeup tutorials on Youtube. Recently I ran across her tutorial for making a t-shirt ninja:

BTW, if you want a t-shirt like hers, here’s a cheap one:
Then I found she had gone anime in another video, wherein she mentions a sailor moon wig cottage industry *shiver*:

And finally, her tips on looking like a modern geisha.

Here’s a bonus tutorial from another youtuber on ganguro makeup.
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Contributor Bio: Claytonian blogs and vlogs about Japan, language, and news at The Hopeless Romantic. His totem animal is the ninja kitten.
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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)