Begging Starbucks For Free WiFi in Japan
Foreign residents and visitors to Japan are often surprised to discover that free Wifi internet access, which is relatively common at cafes and fast food restaurants in other countries, is a very rare thing in Japan. Even foreign chains are super stingy with WiFi. One notable example is Starbucks: it offers free unlimited WiFi access inside stores in its home country, while restricting WiFi access at Japanese stores to subscribers of paid WiFi services (Flet’s, SB, and Mzone ).
One unhappy customer in Japan has turned to the “My Starbucks Idea” site, which allows users to submit and vote on ideas that will improve Starbucks. Here is a screen capture of the submitted idea, which begs Starbucks to provide free wireless internet access at its store locations in Japan:
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the idea will have much chance of succeeding. At the time of this blog post, it had a score of minus 30.
[hat tip to Maurie]
- Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
- Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
Categories: Technology
KFC Commercial Uses Faux Foreigner
Haruka Ayase pretends to be a foreigner in this KFC commercial:
It’s a commercial announcing the Japan debut of KFC’s Brazer sandwich. The ads say the Brazer is from France, so they’ve given their celebrity spokeswoman blonde hair and have her speaking French-like gibberish. ( The result is probably about as authentically French as Kentucky Fried Chicken’s French cuisine. )
- Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
- Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
Categories: Celebrity News, Foreigners in Japan, Japanese Girls
Has Arudou Debito Left Japan?
In the past, I have blogged about the disputes over the Wikipedia entry for Arudou Debito, an American-born Japanese citizen, activist, and Japan Times columnist. Yesterday, I was informed about another very interesting development.
On November 1st, somebody updated the Arudou Debito Wikipedia entry to add a section about how he had quit his job in Hokkaido and moved to Canada:
Emigration from Japan
In late 2011, Debito Arudou resigned his position from Hokkaido Information University, suspended his activities with FRANCA (the Foreign Residents and Naturalized Citizens Association)[17], gave up his apartment in Sapporo[18], and moved to Calgary, Alberta to pursue an independent research project.[19]
The edits were soon removed by another user, who thought that the sources were not good enough to back up the claims being made.
Has Debito actually moved to Canada? For a few months now, users at Tepido.org have repeatedly claimed that he may have. Some say that they called his university in Hokkaido and received confirmation that Debito is no longer employed there. If their claims were nonsense, one would expect very strong denials from Debito, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.
- Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
- Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
Categories: General Japan
Yoda’s Boil Japan Commercial (Star Wars + Cup Noodle)
Yoda has joined forces with Nissin in this new Cup Noodle commercial:
The previous commercial in the “Boil Japan” series featured a Gundam:
Which commercial do you prefer?
- Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
- Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
Categories: Japanese Food
Death Sentence Finalized For Aum Cultist
Sixteen years have passed since Aum Shinrikyo cultists launched deadly nerve gas attacks in Nagano and Tokyo. Today Japan’s Supreme Court finalized the death sentence of Seiichi Endo, a cultist responsible for the production of sarin nerve gas. The Japanese media is reporting it as an official end of the Aum criminal trials. In the trials following the attacks, 189 cultists were tried and found guilty of involvement in criminal acts, and 13 were sentenced to death.
Here is a helpful timeline from the Mainichi:
February 1984 — Shoko Asahara forms AUM Shinsen no Kai, renamed AUM Shinrikyo in July 1987.
Nov. 4, 1989 — Lawyer Tsutsumi Sakamoto, 33, his 29-year-old wife Satoko and 1-year-old son Tatsuhiko are killed at their home in Yokohama.
June 27, 1994 — AUM members release sarin nerve gas in Matsumoto, Nagano Pref., killing seven and seriously injuring four others.
March 20, 1995 — AUM members attack Tokyo subway system with sarin gas. A total of 13 people eventually died and around 6,300 were injured.
March 22 — Police launch massive raids on AUM headquarters in Yamanashi Pref. and other AUM facilities.
May 16 — Asahara is arrested.
June 6 — Asahara is indicted.
April 24, 1996 — Trial of Asahara begins.
May 26, 1998 — Tokyo District Court sentences former AUM member Ikuo Hayashi to life imprisonment for involvement in Tokyo subway sarin attacks. The ruling was the first to be finalized among AUM-related crimes as Hayashi, who had turned himself in to police, did not appeal.
Feb. 27, 2004 — Tokyo District Court sentences Asahara to death. Defense counsel appeals.
March 27, 2006 — Tokyo High Court rejects appeal.
Sept. 15 — Asahara’s death sentence is finalized.
June 11, 2008 — Law on benefits for victims of AUM crimes and bereaved families is enacted. It takes effect December 2008.
March 17, 2009 — Tokyo District Court rejects plea for retrial of Asahara filed by his second daughter. Tokyo High Court and Supreme Court subsequently reject the plea.
May 9, 2011 — Tokyo District Court rejects second plea for retrial of Asahara.
Nov. 18 — Supreme Court rejects appeal of senior AUM member Tomomasa Nakagawa who was sentenced to death by lower courts.
Nov. 21 — Supreme Court rejects appeal of senior AUM member Seiichi Endo, sentenced to death by lower courts, effectively putting an end to the series of trials of Asahara and 188 AUM members.
Although these trials are over, it should be noted that there are still several cultists who are suspected of involvement in crimes but have yet to be apprehended by police. Their faces can still be seen on wanted posters throughout Japan.
- Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
- Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
Categories: General Japan
Tiger Mask Helps Elderly Tohoku Evacuees
Here’s a somewhat strange news story. The president of a heat insulation sheet company visited some temporary housing in Fukushima for elderly evacuees from the town of Namie. To get extra attention from the media, he wore a Tiger Mask when applying free film to windows:
The homes have almost no insulation, and the film on the windows can supposedly increase the indoor temperature by about 5 degrees (Celsius).
- Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
- Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)
Categories: General Japan