Archive for October, 2011

Saitama Residents Spot Seal in Arakawa River

For the last three weeks, residents of the city of Shiki in Saitama prefecture have been reporting the presence of a wild seal:

It’s in a part of the Arakawa River that is quite far inland. It’s very rare to see any seals in this part of Japan, especially when you consider the fact that the seal would have had to swim its way upriver through Tokyo to reach Shiki.

Here’s the location on Google Street view, for those who might be interested in checking it out:

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Japanese People in Alabama

A short documentary by Alexandra Jo Hancock and Christian Sutton about the people Honda sends to work at its factory in Alabama:

“The Japanese families of the men working at the Honda Plant in Lincoln, AL, strive to maintain their culture and connection to their homeland.”

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Cat Election in Japan

The city of Saga has found an interesting way of dealing with stray cats. Instead of sending animal control officers to round up and imprison the cats, it has turned them into celebrities. Two years ago, eight of the downtown area’s stray cats were designated “stray cat idols.” Local shops began to sell souvenirs featuring images of the eight “lucky” cats, and one bakery sold cookie reproductions of them.

However, the project soon encountered a problem that wasn’t exactly unpredictable. Sometime last year, two of the eight cats could no longer be found. Stray cats are hard to track, and apparently they sometimes relocate to new areas or just disappear.

So two of the eight cats were gone, and the city had a couple dozen other stray cats wandering around downtown. To select new members of the lucky eight, they decided to follow the example of AKB48 and have fans elect the two top idol cats:

Eight candidates were chosen and citizens were allowed to vote by placing stickers on a voting board. The voting was carried out over a period of 3 months.

The #1 cat was “Horie no Pan” (Horie’s Bread), named after a local bakery. Second place went to “Chibi #4.” However, Chibi was disqualified because he disappeared from the downtown area, apparently lured away by a female stray. Ultimately, the second spot was awarded to “Ni Sen Man En” (20,000,000 yen), who had actually come in third place.

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Taro Aso Visits Taiwan

Aso Taro is doing something he could never do back when he was Prime Minister: visiting Taiwan.

Here he is visiting an elementary school along with other Japanese lawmakers (including the young Koizumi):

The elementary school had been destroyed by an earthquake in 1999 and rebuilt thanks to donations from Japan. After the March 11th earthquake and tsunami hit Japan, its students launched a fundraising effort that eventually send about 1.9 million yen in donations for relief efforts.

The main purpose of Aso’s visit is to attend the Republic of China’s centennial celebration. Other foreign dignitaries, such as former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield and Linda Chavez-Thompson, vice chairperson of the Democratic National Committee, will be there too.

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Japanese Automata

A video about Hideki Higashino, a craftsman who keeps alive the art of Karakuri:

Japan has always been at the forefront of cutting edge robotics. Its modern-day roots can be traced back 200 to 300 years to the Edo period when skilled craftsmen created automata (self-operating machines).

Using pulleys and weights they were able to make the Karakuri (Japanese automata) perform amazing tasks without the use of electronics or power.

At the end of the clip, they show one that can write kanji with a brush. Here’s a Japanese language video that shows a little bit more about that one (a unique piece which was recently repatriated to Japan after having been taken abroad in the late 19th century):

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Diaper Tortoise

A Japanese news program reports about a runaway tortoise that was found in Tochigi prefecture. It was easy to see that the tortoise was a pet because it was wearing a diaper:

And not just any diaper – it was a human child-sized diaper! A reporter visits a pet shop and checks out diapers designed for birds and elderly dogs, but it seems that no company makes diapers for tortoises.

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