The famous “dramatic chipmunk” internet meme has been used in a CarMax commercial that aired during the Super Bowl:
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In case you were wondering what this has to do with Japan: The footage of the prairie dog that became the “chipmunk” of internet legend was from an episode of the Japanese TV show ” Hello! Morning.”
“Mezamashi TV” reports on a tourism organization that is encouraging Chinese to come to Kyushu for medical check-ups:
The group of rich Chinese people came to Nagasaki to undergo cancer checks at a hospital (and do some shopping). They are given the results of their check-ups on the same day. Although they can get a similar tests in China at a much lower price, the tourists say that the equipment used in Japan is higher quality and much better than what they would get back in Shanghai.
On Saturday night’s episode of “Sekai Fushigi Hakken,” TBS sent a reporter to New Zealand to tour beautiful areas of the country and find out what’s so great about Kiwi husbands. At one point in the program, she interviewed a group of New Zealanders who were wearing “Pot Dealer” t-shirts:
Apparently they were not actual marijuana dealers, but had named their touch rugby team the “pot dealers.” They tell the reporter that kiwi husbands help out around the house by cooking and cleaning.
She visits the home of one “pot dealer,” a former professional rugby player who has a Japanese wife. He is shown teaching his son, a future Kiwi husband, how to clean dishes. His wife says he helps out a lot, while he says she also does a lot for him.
On the news this morning I heard that JAL has made yet another about face and will be sticking with American Airlines and the Oneworld Alliance. From the AFP:
Japan Airlines has decided to maintain its current tie-up with American Airlines and will end talks with Delta Air Lines, local media reported on Monday.
American Airlines and Delta Air Lines are competing to take a stake in JAL despite its bankruptcy filing last month with 26 billion dollars of debt — one of Japan’s biggest ever corporate failures.
Japanese media had previously said JAL planned to switch to Delta and its SkyTeam airline alliance from American Airlines’ Oneworld alliance as part of its recovery plan.
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JAL plans to tell Delta as early as this week that it will terminate the tie-up negotiation, while together with American the Japanese airline will apply for anti-trust immunity with the US Department of Transportation within this month, the Nikkei business daily reported.
It had been previously reported that JAL had chosen Delta for a partner. Someone at the Dallas Morning News (AA’s parent company AMR is based in Ft. Worth, TX) seems to think this would make a great reality TV show.
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Contributor Bio: Steve has been splitting time between the US and Japan for the past 10 years or so and is now a post doctorate fellow at a large, lumbering University in Tokyo, where he gets paid to play with dirt.
A pretty interesting report from Al Jazeera English about Ainu activists who want compensation from the Japanese government:
101 East looks at Japan’s indigeneous people and their fight for cultural survival and acceptance. Over the last century, they have seen their traditions and their language stripped away, along with their ancestral lands. But after generations of oppression, racism and forced assimilation, change is in the air for the Ainu.
If you’ve watched the TV news in Japan a lot in the last few months, you’ve probably noticed that criminals seem to be wearing blue hoods over their faces when being escorted into vehicles by police officers. Here’s a clip that explains what’s the deal with them:
Apparently the hoods are part of a jacket that police in Chiba prefecture use to protect the privacy of individuals who have been arrested. The blue hoods can be adjusted to different levels depending on just how much a person wants their face to be blocked from the eyes of the media and the public. They’ve been in use for a few years now, but didn’t get much attention because there had not been many high profile crimes in Chiba until recently.
Meet Ban, a dog in Ibaraki prefecture that loves to a climb and sit atop a wall:
Her owners claim she learned to do this on her own, probably because she was bored with being restricted to a narrow space and wanted a better view of the neighborhood.
Radical animal rights group Sea Shepherd was all over the news last month when a collision with a Japanese whaling ship left one of their boats heavily damaged. The media attention had died down, but they’ve managed to get themselves back into yet another collision.
Here is a video filmed from the deck of the Sea Shepherd ship:
Sea Shepherd founder Captain Paul Watson said by satellite telephone that the Japanese ship rammed the Bob Barker—named after the U.S. game show host who donated millions to buy it—as it blocked the slipway of the Japanese fleet’s factory ship.
Japanese officials were not immediately available to comment on the incident, and Watson’s claim that the Bob Barker was deliberately hit could not be independently verified.
No video from the Japanese side has been posted to the internet yet, but it will probably appear on YouTube sometime in the next 24 hours, but here is a video from yesterday showing Sea Shepherd aiming a laser beam at the eyes of the Japanese crew:
Statements have been issued from the Japanese side denying that their ship intentionally rammed the Sea Shepherd vessel:
Institute spokesman Glenn Inwood says the impact was far from deliberate.
“Japan is doing a legal operation there. It has no need to ram anyone. This is all the work of the Sea Shepherd group.”
Mr Inwood says the Yushin Maru was trying to avoid acid bombs being lobbed by crew on the Bob Barker and in doing so, the vessel made a dramatic turn, clipping the Bob Barker. He also claims the protesters had been repeatedly firing a high-power green laser device at the Nisshin Maru crew.
Sea Shepherd admits to actively blocking the slipway of the Japanese whaling fleet’s factory ship when the collision occurred. It was trying to prevent slaughtered whales being loaded onto the vessel.
Meanwhile, in Europe, the Dutch parliament is considering a new law that could lead to the de-flagging of Sea Shepherd’s ships:
The amendment to the law on the nationality of ships would deprive Dutch-registered vessels of certificates of registry issued by the Dutch government “when harm is done to a ship, its crew or load or when it would be used in such a way that relations with other countries could be affected negatively,” according to the draft text of the legislation.
Should the Dutch government allow Sea Shepherd to use their flag?
The story of some Japanese hostesses forming a labor union was reported back inDecember by several English language news outlets, but they didn’t make video reports about it.
Australia’s ABC apparently noticed those old articles and dispatched a camera team to interview the hostesses in question. Here’s their report:
Curry House chain CoCo Ichibanya has hundreds of restaurants throughout Japan, but two of its top three most profitable restaurants are not located on the main islands of Japan. They are in Okinawa, and, as this news report shows, they are successful because of the patronage of Americans stationed at the military bases there:
The main focus of the news report is on a CoCo Ichibanya located right outside of the gate of Kadena Airbase. When the reporter checks inside the restaurant, she finds that almost every single customer is American.
It is noted that the Americans have eating habits that differ slightly from typical Japanese customers. They really like to order lots of toppings for their curry, as well as consume a lot of the tsukemono (it’s free). Although the monthly total of customers who eat there is less than at CoCo Ichi restaurants in Tokyo, the Americans order more per meal, making it the most profitable Coco Ichi restaurant in Japan. [It may also have something to do with the fact that they are exchanging dollars to yen at a rate of 1 dollar=80 yen. Ouch.]
It rarely snows in Tokyo, so when it does, it’s big news. Here’s a video from the Asahi Shimbun showing what the snow on February 2nd looked like from the sky:
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