Archive for July, 2011

World Cup Facebook Status Updates: Remember Pearl Harbor / Bomb Japan / Here Comes Another Tsunami

The 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup championship match between the United States and Japan will be held on Sunday in Germany. A lot of American soccer fans have posted Facebook status updates expressing their support for their team. Most are good-natured displays of excitement about the upcoming match. However, it would appear that quite a few people have written cringe-worthy updates that call on team USA to get revenge for Pearl Harbor, drop bombs on Japan, or unleash a new tsunami on the Japanese.

Here is a sampling of ugly Facebook status updates from some nationalistic Americans [found via the OpenBook.org's search function]:

Korean Air’s Nationalistic Showmanship

Last month, Korean Air’s new A380 airliner took a publicity “test flight” over the Liancourt Rocks, islets that are claimed by both Japan and South Korea.

From an official Japanese government standpoint, the test flight was conducted over Japanese territorial airspace. However, the area has been under South Korea’s effective control since its military seized and occupied the rocks in the 1950′s.

Japanese Foreign Ministry responded to Korean Air’s action by asking its diplomats to refrain from using the airline for one month:

Given the short duration of the “boycott” and fact that Japanese diplomats almost always fly on Japanese airlines, it was a very weak response.

Nonetheless, the South Korean government and media seems to be making a big stink out of it, beating their nationalistic drums with stories about how Japan is boycotting their airline. Apparently the South Korean government is even threatening “countermeasures” against Japan, which could include a Korean boycott of Japanese airlines.

It seems that this is has been some pretty good PR for Korean Air. The Japanese Foreign Ministry’s one-month of restraint would have had almost zero impact on the airline’s profits. The test flight itself probably received very little attention when it first took place. Now, thanks to the Korean backlash against Japan’s puny boycott, Korean Air is getting all kinds of positive media coverage in its own country. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Japanese people don’t know or care about what’s going on, and many will continue traveling via Korean Air.

Related story: The Korea Times & Korea’s Northeast Asia History Foundation have awarded prize money to foreign students who wrote essays supporting Korea’s territorial claim to the islets.

[hat tip to ROK Drop]

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Animals Predict Japanese Victory in 2011 Women’s World Cup

A lot of Japanese people are excited about their national team’s success in the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup. No human being has the ability to predict the future…but perhaps octopuses and elephants can see the future?

Here are a some of the predictions provided by Germany’s “psychic” animals:

Four out of seven octopuses at a German aquarium picked Japan as the winner:

However, the octopus that has the best record for successful predictions was among the three who picked the United States.

In another area of Germany, a baby elephant has predicted a Japanese victory:

The elephant had successfully predicted the winner of every match involving the German national team. Although this result favors Japan, its previous predictions for the Japan vs. Sweden and USA vs. France matches were incorrect.

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• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Women’s World Cup 2011 – Soccer Nail Art

Japan’s national team (aka “Nadeshiko Japan”) will be playing against the United States in Monday morning’s 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup Final.

One of star players that helped the Japanese team advance to the finals is midfielder Nahomi Kawasumi. Her goals have got a lot of attention, but so has her style. Fans like the pink headband she wore in the match against Sweden, as well as her soccer-themed nail art:

Kawasumi painted her own fingernails. When they show images of the nails to professional nail artists at a salon in Harajuku, she was praised for her skill.

One of Fuji TV News’ male employees tried to copy Kawasumi’s nail design. Sadly, after one hour of hard work, he was only able to create this very sloppy failure:

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AKB48′s Tomomi Itano Speaks English

An English language interview with Tomomi Itano of the pop group AKB48:

The whole interview is unnatural that it’s almost painful to watch. It seems that Itano carefully memorized scripted answers to each question, probably without even knowing the meaning of most the English words she was supposed to be pronouncing.

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• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

New Japan Consumer Affairs Agency Logo Looks Like WorldCat Logo

Japan’s Consumer Affairs Agency is going to change its official logo because it looks too much like the WorldCat logo:

The Agency began using the logo in April of this year. Although they’ll be changing the logo, they deny that any intentional copying had taken place.

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• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)