Archive for July, 2011

Japanese Commercial: White People Have Gigantic Noses

UPDATE: Choya has pulled the commercial after receiving complaints from readers of this blog post.

A commercial for Choya umeshu mocks the physical appearance of non-Japanese:

Those who don’t appreciate this kind of racial joke can send Choya a complaint via their online contact form (in English – For Japanese language complaints, use this contact form).

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Watermelons Stolen From Japanese Farm

You know you live in a country with a very low crime rate when something like this makes the national news:

150 watermelons have been stolen from a field in Ibaraki prefecture! The total value of the watermelons was about 90,000 yen ($1,139). Police believe the melon heist may be related to a string of similar crop thefts that have occurred in the area recently.

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Documentary: Visiting Shodoshima in Japan’s Inland Sea

Here is the pilot episode for “Real Japan,” a documentary series about interesting people and places in Japan:

Anyone who knows Japan even a little will have visited Tokyo, or the temples in Kyoto, but what about the rest of the country? They very rarely get a mention, but we think it’s the people and places off the regular route where Japan’s real treasures are to be found.

For the pilot, we went to Shodoshima, a small island in the Inland Sea in central Japan, to visit a 200-year-old kabuki theatre, traditional soy-sauce and noodle factories, and Xerom, where they make minute, cutting-edge components for your camera or smartphone. And we stayed with the delightful Sasaki family, who have farmed on the island for generations.

Its creators are asking viewers to leave suggestions about locations for future episodes.

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Japan Wins 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup

Congratulations to team Japan for their 2011 World Cup victory:

Japan defeated the U.S. at a seesaw match 3-1 on penalties after they equalized twice a deficit through midfielder Aya Miyama and Homare Sawa to grab the first ever FIFA World Champions title 2011 in Germany in front of some 48,800 spectators at Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt on Sunday.

Here are some video highlights:

A video of Japanese fans celebrating:

And a video of disappointed American fans:

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Ugly American Racism: “Japs” & “Pearl Harbor” Trending on Twitter During World Cup Match

I woke up this morning to headlines of Japan’s victory in the 2011 Women’s World Cup. Congrats, Nadeshiko Japan!

There are other headlines too. It seems that the ugly online behavior of American fans was newsworthy:

As USA and Japan battle it out on the field to be the considered best women’s soccer team in the world, Americans have taken to twitter to air some racist thoughts. The game has created numerous trending topics on Twitter including names of American players as well as “Japs” and “Pearl Harbor.”

Pearl Harbor is when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, killing thousands and spurring the American’s entry into World War 2. It is considered one of the saddest days in American history. Japs is a racist term Americans and other allies used against the Japanese in WW2.

In my previous post about pre-match ugliness on Facebook, I thought I was highlighting only a few American soccer fans. It was only a few dozen Facebook updates. Unfortunately, it seems I may have been highlighting only the tiny tip of a gigantic iceberg. If “Japs” and “Pearl Harbor” were on in the top trending terms on Twitter, it means that thousands and thousands of users would have needed to use them in tweets.

A quick search on OpenBook.org revealed that Facebook had also been hit by huge numbers of hateful status updates:

The number of hateful facebook status updates visible on Openbook is pretty huge – far more than what I found the other day.

As I write this post, it’s been over 4 hours since the end of the match. I checked Twitter, and the terms were still trending!

Fortunately, most of the tweets right now seem to be from people commenting on how embarrassing it is to see both terms on the trending list. We can also see that “Congrats Japan” has a higher place on the list.

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Japan’s Youngest Sake Expert: 10-Year-Old Akane Niikura

Al Jazeera English reports on a 10-year-old girl who is officially certified as an expert sake connoisseur :

Akane Niikura passed the Sake Service Institute of Japan’s test after earning her expertise on the ancient Japanese tradition solely through her sense of smell rather than palate.

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