Archive for June, 2011

Tsukuba University Tracks Radiation Hotspots in Ibaraki / Chiba

A news report about how Tsukuba University has taken readings of radiation throughout northern Kanto, finding relatively high levels of cesium in a few locations that were quite far from Fukushima:

The project was carried out by Professor Keisuke Sueki. After taking soil measurements from about 110 locations, he found that a couple hot spots in southern Ibaraki and northern Chiba prefectures. Cesium-137 levels as high as 40,000 becquerels per square meter were found in the cities of Toride (Ibaraki) and Nagareyama (Chiba).

Although the measurements in those areas are about 400 times the usual level of radioactive cesium-137, the report stresses that it is not dangerous. It is at a level that would justify continued monitoring, but it is not high enough to pose a threat to human health.

In related news, Japan’s government is still trying to create safety regulations for radiation in swimming water at beaches. It is not yet clear whether they will make it stricter than the current 200 becquerels per liter safety level for drinking water.

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2011 Asakusa Samba Carnival Cancelled

This year’s Asakusa Samba Carnival has been cancelled:

The Samba Carnival has been held every year sine 1981. This is the first time it has ever been cancelled.

The 2011 Tohoku earthquake is to blame. The disaster forced planners to push Tokyo’s famous Sumida River fireworks display to August 27, 201１ – one month later than its originally scheduled date. That also happened to be the day of the Samba Carnival.

If that area of Tokyo tried to simultaneously host two huge events, it would very difficult to mobilize enough police officers to close off streets and control crowds. Because the fireworks are considered more important, the Samba Carnival has been cancelled.

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Japanese Immigration Point System

The Yomiuri reports that the Japanese government is working on an immigration point system, which aims to make it easier for skilled foreigners to come and live in Japan:

the point system is expected to cover foreigners working in the fields of academic research, advanced expertise and technology and business management.

The government is likely to provide an evaluation system to conduct an objective rating on a 100-point scale.

For example, under the category of business management, the government is likely to allocate 35 points for a candidate’s academic background; 15 points for working career; 35 points for annual income and 15 points for the candidate’s status at his or her current company.

The government is expected to add bonus points according to Japanese language skill and previous places of employment. The pass line is expected to be 70 out of 100 points.

There are also a few proposals that will help foreigners who are already living here:

• — Easing the conditions to obtain permanent residency, so that persons may apply after living in Japan for a consecutive three to five years, instead of the current 10 years.
• – Extending the period of stay to five years for people holding visas of up to three years.
• – Allowing such workers to be accompanied by their financially-dependent parents and their employees, such as maids.
• – Eliminating the 28-hour per week work limit for dependent spouses.

The original Japanese version of article can be found here.

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Sheep Riding Rabbit

A rabbit in Fukushima that looks like it enjoys riding on the back of a sheep:

However, looks can be deceiving. The rabbit sees the sheep as little more than a ladder. Getting up on the sheep’s back allows the rabbit to hop over the fence and make his way to the other part of the farm, where there is a female rabbit.

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Why Do Japanese Women Look So Young?

A Japanese TV show asks tourists from Western countries to guess the ages of Japanese women, and finds that they tend to see them as far younger than their actual ages:

As the picture at the top of the post shows, there were some pretty big gaps between the guesses and the actual ages, especially in the case of the 32-year-old woman. When asked to guess the age of TV announcers (23-27), quite a few people even thought the women were teenagers!

Why do they think Japanese women look younger? A few possible reasons are provided:

• Bags/wrinkles seem to stand out more under the eyes of Westerners.
• Many Japanese women avid the sun by carrying parasols, wearing strong sunscreen, or covering up their skin with clothing. This makes their skin less likely to have wrinkles. (22 countries were represented in their poll of foreign tourists, and apparently tanned skin is seen as a good thing in 17 of those countries.
• Japanese women wear make-up. Of 25 Japanese women interviewed, all 25 were wearing full make-up. Of 25 foreign women, only 2 were wearing full make-up. On average, the Japanese women were carrying 10.6 different make-up products, while the foreign women were carrying 2.7 different make-up products.

They ask one 34-year-old English woman to go through a full course of Japanese-style “natural” make-up. Here is the result:

After her makeover, the English woman says she now understands why Japanese women look so “flawless.” A lot of make-up is used, but the end result still looks natural.

The Japanese woman who taught the make-up technique remarks that the English woman became younger-looking. The English woman’s response presents us with a major difference between their two cultures: she doesn’t want to look like she’s in her twenties.

To test how Japanese and Western women have different views about looking younger, they set up a rigged “let our reporter guess your age” game and have the reporter guess that every woman looked younger. The Japanese women were happy, but the Western women were not.

Their poll found that only 8% of the Western women wanted to look younger than their actual age. In contrast, 76% of Japanese woman thought it would be great to look younger.

It would seem that Japanese women think it is fantastic to look young and Japanese men tend to prefer younger women.

Cultural Anthropologist Masakazu Toki of Edogawa University believes that Japan has a long history of idolizing young women. One 18th century example is given: “three famed beauties of the Meiwa period” (明和三美人), all of whom were 14-15 years-old when they were praised as the most beautiful women in Edo. Professor Toki says things were quite different in Western countries, where religious views made society less likely to treat younger girls as objects of sexual desire.

Note: In this post, “Western women” refers to women from Western countries. It looks like almost every tourist they interviewed was from Europe, Australia, New Zealand, or the Americas. Had they also included tourists from Asian countries, the results of their poll may have turned out differently…

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Japan’s Creepiest Panda (II)

Somebody thinks they found a playground panda even creepier than the one we blogged about back in January:

This creepy panda can be found at a park in Saitama city. Here it is on Google street view:

Apparently it’s been there for a long time. Unfortunately, the company that manufactured the panda has gone out of business, so the TV show could not call up and ask who created the panda and why it looks so creepy.

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