Strange and Funny Japan News

Ex-U.S. diplomat Maher pulls no punches on Japan

2012-01-30T02:39:00.001+09:00

http://www.japantoday.com/smartphone/view/national/ex-u-s-diplomat-maher-pull...

WASHINGTON — U.S. diplomats typically are unfailingly polite and reverential toward their countries of expertise and, upon retirement, go away quietly into research or business. Not so with Kevin Maher. Since he was unceremoniously removed from his position last year, the veteran diplomat on Japan has gone on the offensive with biting criticism on issues from Tokyo’s political paralysis to the Fukushima nuclear disaster. To his own surprise, he has found an eager audience. A book he wrote in Japanese, “The Japan That Can’t Decide,” has sold more than 100,000 copies and for weeks topped the country’s best-seller list for non-fiction paperbacks. Maher’s main thesis is that Japan—which has had six new prime ministers since 2006—has been crippled by a failure of its politicians to accept responsibility and, hence, to make hard decisions. Maher pointed to the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was devastated by the March 11 tsunami, and dismissed the government’s declaration last month that it had stabilized the leaking reactors. “It’s not stable,” Maher said recently at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. “Tokyo is safe, but Fukushima Daiichi is in really bad shape.” The State Department sacked Maher as its Japan desk chief just a day before the historic 9.0-magnitude earthquake but he stayed on for another month to coordinate the U.S. disaster response. Maher said that the U.S. government was privately terrified over the unfolding crisis. He accused Japan’s then prime minister, Naoto Kan, of evading responsibility and trying to pass the problem over to the plant’s operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. “I remember sitting on a task force many a time thinking, ‘Who the hell is in control in Japan?’ The government’s not doing anything. Kan made one trip and flew up and got in the way and came back,” Maher said. Maher said that he watched in horror as he saw television footage of a sole helicopter dropping water on the stricken plant. “Is that the best Japan can do?” Maher said. “Frankly what happened is the U.S. government called in the Japanese ambassador and said, look, you have to take this stuff seriously. We don’t know what’s going to happen.” Maher said that the United States was even looking at whether it would have to evacuate some 100,000 Americans, although it soon became clear that Tokyo was not in harm’s way. Maher’s earlier strident critiques led to his downfall. While in office, he spoke to students about Okinawa—home to half of the 47,000 U.S. troops in Japan—and accused local leaders of playing on mainland Japanese guilt to “extort” concessions. Japanese media accounts of his remarks stirred outrage. Maher, 57, who has worked on Japan for three decades and has a Japanese wife, called the controversy “water under the bridge” and said he was making a good living as a consultant. Nonetheless, he criticized the two officials he said were behind his dismissal—then deputy secretary of state Jim Steinberg and Ambassador to Japan John Roos. “They just wanted to get this out of the press and decided that the best thing was not to address whether these press reports were actually true or not but just to remove me from my position,” Maher said. Despite his criticism, Maher—like current U.S. officials—sees bright spots in Japan’s latest prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, who is pushing forward controversial plans to raise taxes and join talks on a U.S.-backed trade pact. Maher said he has received little backlash over his book. He believed he won over potentially hostile readers with a message that Japan worked well in the past and needed to return to its traditions. “We used to have an image back in the ‘80s, if a Japanese corporation had a problem, you were worried that the chairman would go to commit ‘seppuku,’” he said, referring to ritual suicide. “He would take responsibility even if it was not a mistake that he made. But now it’s reversed in Japan,” he said. Maher said he was surprised when he visited Okinawa to promote his book. “There were four demonstrators. When I was consul general in Okinawa, I could always get 40.” © 2012 AFP

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Oyaku Nabe Pan

2012-01-29T05:40:00.001+09:00

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Tatsuta Age - Chef Brent's class was awesome today

2012-01-29T04:53:00.001+09:00

http://www.chefbrent.com

Here is tatsuta age we had today:

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IMF's Lagarde calls for Japan, U.S. debt cut targets

2012-01-28T20:20:00.001+09:00

IMF chief Christine Lagarde called Friday on Japan and the United States to set debt reduction targets as their contribution towards lifting the world out of the economic crisis. “Everybody needs to do something, it needs to be collective,” the International Monetary Fund chief told the World Economic Forum. While eurozone states have to make a special effort as Europe is the epicentre of the current crisis, the United States and Japan “have to do something as well.” “They have to really demonstrate that they have a medium-term objective which is to reduce their debt, to reduce their deficit and to run their public affairs on a much more balanced and sustainable basis,” she said. U.S. government debt now stands at just over $15 trillion but is expected to rise to over $16 trillion by year-end. Japan’s total public debt is estimated at 1,024 trillion yen ($13 trillion) Beyond the industrialized world, Lagarde also urged emerging giants to pitch in to combat the crisis by stimulating domestic demand. “China and any country that has a surplus must help its domestic market consume a bit more, a bit better and not to rely too extensively on exports,” she said, echoing EU and U.S. calls for more Chinese spending.

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Number of flu patients surpasses 1.11 million as epidemic spreads

2012-01-28T20:12:00.001+09:00

Jan. 28, 2012 - 04:15PM JST TOKYO — The number of influenza patients admitted to medical facilities for treatment in Japan reached 1.11 million in the week leading up to Jan 22, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases reported on Friday. The institute says that the increase in the number of infections was due in part to the virus being prevalent among elementary and junior high school students, NHK reported. Reported infections among 5-14-year-olds increased by a factor of 4.3 over the previous week. As a result, the 5-14 age group now consitutes half of the total number of infections, the institute reported. Admissions in some hospitals tripled during the week, the institute said. The average number of patients by prefecture was 59.88 in Fukui, 59.31 in Kochi, and 52.17 in Mie. The institute said the infection rate is especially high in the Chubu, Shikoku and Kinki regions. More than 90% of flu cases are due to the Hong Kong influenza A virus subtype H3N2, the institute said. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is calling on children and the elderly to take extra precautions to guard against the influenza virus. The ministry said that it expects reported cases of the virus to peak in the first half of next month and called upon children and the elderly to take extra care to wash their hands thoroughly and to wear surgical face masks in an attempt to minimize the spread of the disease.

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The importance of blood type in Japanese culture

2012-01-19T11:44:00.001+09:00

The importance of blood type in Japanese culture TOKYO — It is a good idea to know your blood type. While most Japanese know their blood type, many foreigners do not (and Japanese are frequently surprised to hear this). Many Japanese people believe that each blood type has a certain personality and affinity, so it is common for them to ask someone their blood type or try to guess someone’s blood type by their personality. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for women in their 20s and 30s to even select a prospective husband based on his blood type. There are many books about the various blood type personalities. For example, “A, B, O, AB gata jibun no setsumeisho” (A Guide to A, B, O, OB blood types), written by an unknown author who uses the pen name Jamais Jamais, have become best sellers in Japan. Here is a look at what it’s all about. General personality of people who have type A blood —Consider things carefully —Can understand other people’s feelings easily —Kind —Good at hospitality —Don’t express themselves in order to avoid possible quarrel —Do things carefully and steadily, and don’t take the next step if they are not satisfied —Honor student types who don’t go off the rail —Fastidious —Big on cleanliness —Can be calm even when accidents happen —Strong on taking responsibility —Hard workers —Safe drivers Type A blood people’s affinity with each blood type Partner who is type A – They have many common points; however, both of them are highly strung, so they may be irritated by each other. Partner who is type B – Type A person envies type B’s happy-go-lucky personality. However, type A person worries about type B person’s personality. Partner who is type AB – Type AB person is reliable for type A, someone they can turn to for good advice and help. They can have a stable love relationship. Partner who is type O – Type O person is protective of type A. However, if type A talks about every small thing, the relationship won’t be good. General personality of people who have type B blood —Like to go their own way —Do what they want without considering other people’s feelings, rules and customs —Happy-go-lucky and masters of breaking rules —Optimistic —Friendly and open their heart to anybody —Not pretentious —Afraid of being alone —Get lonely easily —Quick to adapt —Flexible thinkers —Pragmatists —Don’t chase a dream much —Like to play —Love festivals and parties —Have been in love many times —Don’t get heart-broken over lost love Type B blood people’s affinity with each blood type person Partner who is type A – Type A person is always willing to help type B person; however, they get tired of each other easily. Type A often complains to type B. Partner who is type B – Both of them are not careful, so they may do things that are off the rail. Partner who is type AB – They attract each other and they may quickly start a relationship. They love each other very much. Partner who is type O – They can understand each other easily. Type O person covers for type B person’s bad points. They are a great match for friendship. General personality of people who have type AB blood —Chase ideals and dreams —Don’t have secular needs such as greed and a desire to succeed —Have strong spirituality —Calm and rational —Sensitive and easily hurt —Have a complicated personality —Private life is important —Don’t like interference from other people —Have various hobbies —Vigorous in pursuit of knowledge in wide range of fields —Are bookworms —Have unique ideas and are creative —Have fairy tale-like hobbies —Calm and frank about love relationship Type AB blood people’s affinity with each blood type person Partner who is type A – Type AB person respects type A person, and they have a passionate love for each other. However, they may quarrel frequently. Partner who is type B – They are a good match and connect with each other easily. Partner who is type AB – Their relationship is always proceeding along parallel lines. They cannot open their minds to each other. It is best not to be too close to each other, nor be too far apart. Partner who is type O – They can succeed in business and at various activities together. They can produce new things together easily. General personality of people who have type O blood —Realistic —Good at developing economic concepts —Vigorous at earning a living —Strong in face of adversity —Romanticists —Dream of getting rich quick, but actually take a steady approach —Ambitious —Go straight toward their goal —Have leadership ability and often take care of younger people and people below them —Very cautious —Don’t care about small things, taking a wider perspective instead —Devoted, but with a strong desire to monopolize Type O blood people’s affinity with each blood type person Partner who is type A – Type O person always wants to take the lead for type A person. They are a good combination. Partner who is type B – They can talk freely and openly and have a comfortable relationship. However, type O person gets confused by type B person’s moody personality sometimes. Partner who is type AB – Their thoughts are a match. However, if they are in the same “arena,” they compete with each other strongly. Partner who is type O – They cannot understand each other basically, and they feel alienation easily. It is best not to get too close together. Source: Ketsuekigatabetsuseikaku (Each blood type’s personality) Dieting methods by blood type Erica Angyal, a Miss Universe Japan official nutritionist and health consultant, has published books on health and beauty by blood type, such as “Bijo no Ketsuekigata BOOK” (beautiful women’s blood type) and “Bijo no Ketsuekigata-bestu Obento BOOK” (beautiful women’s lunch box by each blood type). Also, the fitness and health magazine FYTTE’s February edition introduces a dieting method by blood type directed by Angyal. Here is brief introduction to the dieting method. Recommended diet for type A Recommended foods for type A people are carbohydrates such as rice and grain, vegetables, and fruits because type As originated from agricultural tribes who mainly ate foods from plants. However, type As usually don’t digest dairy products easily, so it is better to have yogurt. Also, meat is difficult to digest and turns into fat easily for type A people, so it is better to eat beans and fish for protein. Japanese traditional foods such as miso soup, natto, tofu, and so on are a good match for type A people. Recommended exercise for type A Stress is the main enemy for type A people, so slow exercise such as yoga is the best way to relax. Recommended diet for type B Type B people have the ability to digest various foods such as vegetables, fruit, fish, meats, grain and dairy products because type Bs originated from nomad tribes who ate various foods to survive in their extreme environment. It is best to have various foods, especially protein, otherwise type B people get irritated and tired easily. Lean meat with low fat, especially beef and lamb, are good because they are easy to digest and make metabolism faster for type B people. However, chicken, sesame, corn, soba noodles and wheat make type B people fat. Recommended exercise for type B Type B blood people have high stress, so it is best to play active sports such as tennis and golf, and also try slow exercise such as yoga to relax. Recommended diet for type AB Type AB people have features of both type A and type B. For example, type AB people don’t have enough stomach acids to easily digest some kinds of meat like type As. Protein from soy beans is good for type AB people, as are some dairy products. Therefore, it is best to take protein from fish and soy beans, and other various foods such as vegetables, fruit, nuts, yogurt, and so on, with a good balance. Wheat, chicken, corn, sesame and soba noodles are not good for dieting. Recommended exercise for type AB Type AB people have negative feelings such as anger and hostility and it is bad for their body when they get excited too much. So the best exercises for type AB people are yoga to relax their body and aerobics to let stress out. Recommended diet for type O Type O people can digest meat easier than other blood types. However, lack of protein tires them easily too because type O people originated from tribes that hunted animals and gathered nuts, fruit and plants. The tribes ate low fat meat, so low fat beef and lamb are good for type O people. Especially fish with omega-3 fatty acid are the best protein source for them. Eating fresh vegetables and fruit is recommended. The early tribes did not eat grains and dairy products, so those foods are difficult to digest for type O people. Wheat and dairy products make type O people get fat easily. Recommended exercise for type O Exercises which improve the heart rate function and muscles, such as running and boxing are good for type O people. Active exercises keep their hormone balance right. Source: FYTTE (in February, 2012) Japan Today 31 Comments Leave a comment japan_cynic at Jan. 19, 2012 - 07:12AM JST Astrology by another name. Fortunately after 10+years in Japan, I've never met anyone who openly admits to believing any of this utter nonsense.

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Bums instead of fingerprints?

2012-01-18T13:53:00.001+09:00

TOKYO — Put your fingerprint scanners away. Stand aside iris measurers. Buttocks are the new way to prove who you are. A team of Japanese scientists claim their pressure sensor sheet can accurately identify an individual’s backside and when placed on a driver’s seat could be used as a last line of defense to stop someone else driving away your motor. “The sheet has 360 sensors, which collect data for 39 features to recognize a person, such as pressure patterns and the dimensions of the buttocks,” said Dr Shigeomi Koshimizu, who led the research. Koshimizu, an associate professor at Tokyo-based Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology, said his device is 98% accurate and far less onerous than conventional biometrics as it requires nothing more than someone to sit naturally. But, he added, there are still a few hurdles to clear before the technology makes it to market. “The recognition tends to be compromised by different clothes,” he said. “Sensors read different signals from a pair of trousers and a pair of jeans.” © 2012 AFP

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Okonomiyaki - shrimp and cheese okonomiyaki - Fun in the Kitchen

2012-01-06T04:56:00.001+09:00

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Japan Girl AKB48 Band Spices it Up

2011-12-31T04:48:00.001+09:00

AKB48 is a 92-member girl band from Japan whose one song has garnered some 56 million hits on YouTube. The WSJ's Deborah Kan talks to Tokyo News Editor, Kenneth Maxwell about what's causing the cult following.

I have heard about the band for a couple of years, but knew nothing about them until the Wall Street Journal thought it was important to do an article about them(how we love the new News Corp ownership(sarcasm)).

Basically this is a group that targets the Akihabara crowd and a little of the Harajuku crowd. Here is a link the the video article about them on the WSJ. If you are a fan, do not watch. Below is one of their top videos.

http://online.wsj.com/video/japan-girl-band-spices-it-up/AD7A2747-5058-4351-A7F6-647BFF665A27.html

French Kiss - Kakkowarui I love you! from akb48 factory on Vimeo.

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Japanese tsunami fund 'used for whaling programme'

2011-12-27T23:59:00.001+09:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16064002 - see the full article here

Japan cut short its whaling season last year because of harassment by anti-whaling activists

Japan has used funds from its tsunami recovery budget to subsidise its controversial annual whaling programme, environmental activists say.

Greenpeace says 2.3bn yen ($30m; £19m) from a budget of 12.1 trillion yen is being used to fund extra security.

Japanese officials argued when they applied for extra funding that whaling helped coastal communities.

The whaling fleet reportedly headed for Antarctic waters this week, though Tokyo has not confirmed the reports.

There has been a ban on commercial whaling for 25 years, but Japan catches about 1,000 whales each year in what it says is a scientific research programme.

Critics say those claims are just a cover for a commercial operation, and accuse the Japanese of hunting the animals to the brink of extinction only for food.

Activists from the Sea Shepherd group have attacked the fleet as part of their campaign against whaling.

Last year Japanese abandoned its programme before it was completed, citing "harassment" from the group.

Earlier this year, the Japanese Fisheries Agency applied to the government for extra funding for its programme from the emergency budget aimed at helping communities recover from the devastating tsunami and earthquake.

The agency argued that some of the towns and villages affected relied on whaling for their livelihoods.

Activists say the agency's funding request was approved and it has spent the money on extra security and covering its debts.

Junichi Sato, from Greenpeace Japan, told Australia's ABC that there was no link between the whaling programme and the tsunami recovery.

"It is simply used to cover the debts of the whaling programme, because the whaling programme itself has been suffering from big financial problems," he said.

The Australian and New Zealand governments have both criticised Japan's decision to continue whaling.

They are both considering sending vessels to monitor the whaling fleet.

Sea Shepherd activists have promised to carry on their campaign against the whaling fleet.

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Princess Tenko is attending Kim Jong Il's Funeral

2011-12-23T06:31:00.001+09:00

By In-Soo Nam

: Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Service/Associated Press; Senior North Korean officials visit the Kumsusan Memorial Palace to pay their respects to Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang on Tuesday.

The funeral of a head of state in any country is a major logistical operation. The send off for Kim Jong Il next Wednesday provides its own unique challenges for North Korea’s administrators, not least sorting out who’ll be on the guest list from the dysfunctional Kim family.

According to Korean tradition, the eldest son is supposed to take charge of his father’s funeral. That’s not going to happen this time around, and it’s highly unlikely first son Kim Jong Nam will even be there. Jong Nam has been in effective exile from North Korea for several years, having apparently ruined his dictatorship credentials for good by attempting to enter Japan in 2001 on a fake passport so that he could have some fun at Tokyo Disneyland.

: Associated Press; Kim Jong Nam

The pudgy Jong Nam now spends most of his time in the glitzy casino city of Macau and is more fond of Armani shirts and jeans than his father’s dictator-style Mao jumpsuits. It may even be dangerous for him to try to attend the funeral, with Kim Jong Eun reportedly having targeted him as a threat to his ascension to power. In recent media interviews, Jong Nam has disavowed any interest in politics.

It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any sign of Kim Han Sol, Jong Nam’s son, at the funeral. He was the subject of a media frenzy in October when he was tracked down at a private school in Bosnia. Journalists who searched his online activity found messages supportive of the North Korean regime and references to trips he has made to Pyongyang in recent years.

Kim Jong Il’s second son, Kim Jong Chul, will probably be at the funeral. He isn’t seen as a threat to Jong Eun and appears to shun the spotlight. He made headlines in February this year when he popped up in Singapore on a trip to see Eric Clapton play. Mr. Clapton isn’t currently touring so there’s no clash of events to worry about.

Kim Jong Il’s half-brother, Kim Pyong Il, North Korea’s permanent ambassador to Poland, may be in attendance. A media report Thursday said he had left Warsaw.

Officially, North Korea has said it won’t accept any foreign delegations at the funeral, but there are likely to be two from South Korea. The government in Seoul has said it will allow Lee Hee-ho, the wife of the late South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, to attend the funeral after the North sent representation to the funeral of her husband in 2009.

: Associated Press; Princess Tenko

Also going with Seoul’s approval is Hyun Jeong-eun, the chairwoman of Hyundai Group, which has extensive business interests in the North. A twist to her visit is that North Korea earlier this year seized Hyundai assets at the Kumgang mountain resort so she may be looking to discuss business while she’s there.

Another mourner expected to travel from overseas is the Japanese female magician known as Princess Tenko. Media in Japan report that she has received emails and phone calls from Pyongyang inviting her to attend. Ms. Tenko has performed twice in Pyongyang at the invitation of Kim Jong Il and has enjoyed other invitations for dinner with the late Mr. Kim, according to the Yomirui Shimbun.

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Amy’s Top 10 Japanese Christmas Songs

2011-12-22T01:13:00.001+09:00

http://yonasu.com/amys-top-10-japanese-christmas-music/

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Home - Andy's Fish - Fresh from Tsukiji to you

2011-12-21T15:06:00.001+09:00

http://www.andysfish.com

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Ajinomoto

2011-12-21T06:35:00.001+09:00

http://www.ajinomoto-usa.com/

Ajinomoto is very popular and familiar frozen products and seasoning producers in Japan. It has an US office in Portland, OR!
Their sales went up five time last five years, due to its sales line expansion to Wal-mart and Sam's club.
Check it out.

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Ajinomoto

2011-12-21T06:33:00.001+09:00

http://www.afuusa.com/

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The Scot who shaped Japan

2011-12-16T13:27:00.001+09:00

This is a great article and a great book and a fascinating author. For the full article go to:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20111211x1.html

History has not been generous in crediting the crucial roles played by maverick trader Thomas Blake Glover in casting off feudalism and ushering in the modern age. But as the centenary of this most singular Victorian nears, Michael Gardiner sets the record straight

By MICHAEL GARDINER

This coming Friday, Dec. 16, 2011, marks the centenary of the death in his opulent home in the Shiba Park area of Tokyo's central Azabu district of the Scottish-born trader Thomas Blake Glover, who became the first foreigner ever decorated by the Japanese government when he was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun (second class) in 1908.

Mover and shaker: Thomas Blake Glover (1838-1911) strikes a pose in his 1860s entrepreneurial prime in Japan. After leaving Scotland for the Far East at age 18, he was never to return.

Despite that remarkable distinction, however, Glover's life and his contribution to the creation of modern Japan and, unknown (but not unsensed) by him, to its ultimate humiliation in 1945, has registered only unevenly and with some unease in today's still often palpably postwar Japan. And that despite it being a tale of such ambiguities, such outright roguery and cutthroat capitalism — and yet of such vision, too — that it beggars belief it has not already had the "Last Samurai" treatment.

For sure, the traditional live New Year's Eve "Kohaku Uta Gassen" ("Red and White Song Battle") televised by national broadcaster NHK was, in 2009, partly screened from Glover House in Nagasaki, his long-time home that was the first Western-style building in Japan — and which, in the British fashion, he gave a name to upon its completion in 1863: "Ipponmatsu" ("Single Pine Tree").

In popular culture there has, too, been a flutter of increased interest in the 1868 Meiji Restoration of the Emperor and the overthrow of the feudal Tokugawa Shogunate's military government that had been in power since 1603 — a momentous national turning point in which Glover played an absolutely crucial role.

For all that, and despite the fact that Glover House now gets 2 million visitors a year, including many on school trips, there have been no serious historical dramatizations of Glover's remarkable life and role in history, even though there is a background enthusiasm for his modernizing energy and willingness to negotiate in unfamiliar and dangerous surroundings.

It is hard to avoid thinking that some still worry in case his career might reveal more than many would like to know about modern Japan. After all, much of the typology of "race" still commonplace to this day, and the free-trading and civilizing empire the nation embarked on carving out in the 20th century, can be traced back to the encounter between voracious traders, among whom Glover was foremost, and modernizing samurai eager to overthrow the old, clan-based order and unify Japan under its Emperor kept in the old Imperial capital of Kyoto as a symbolic puppet of the shogunate whose base was far to the north in Edo (present-day Tokyo).

Is it perhaps that the desire to lay bare the sheer adventure in his life is overpowered by the purely Japanese realities of his time? Whatever, his was a life spent almost entirely in Japan, from 1859 until his death, and in his time he contributed enormously to its development — in some ways that turned out to be better than others.

Glover was born on June 6, 1838, in Fraserburgh in the Scottish county of Aberdeenshire, to an English coastguard father and a Scottish mother, the fifth of seven children — six sons then a daughter. When the boisterous young Glover was around 10 or 11, his family moved from that port town where, through brothers working as shipping clerks, he already had a flavor of the quick money to be made doing deals with fishermen and timber traders from far-flung lands around the Baltic, to the nearby fishing and shipbuilding city of Aberdeen.

Mrs. Glover: Tsuru Yamamura, Glover's wife from 1870 until her death in 1899, also bore the couple a daughter.

As the family's finances only enabled the eldest son to go to university, after he completed his basic schooling in 1854, Glover took a job as a trainee shipping clerk in Aberdeen. Soon, though, his free-spirited business acumen caught the attention of the huge Jardine Matheson Far Eastern trading company formed by the Scotsmen William Jardine and James Matheson in Canton in 1832. In 1857, when Glover was 18, he was taken on and soon after posted to Shanghai.

As contemporaries noted, it was as a well-built, well-mannered but no-nonsense young man standing just 168 cm and weighing 59 kg that Glover first set foot outside Britain. He arrived that year during the Second Opium War, a conflict engineered from Britain to open the whole of China to free trade — in particular as a limitless market for the opium being produced in vast quantities in its Indian Empire. The war had been lobbied hard for by Jardine Matheson at a time when China had become a hugely lucrative part of Britain's informal, unoccupied empire on which it had imposed rapacious trade treaties.

After performing well for two years selling opium to local middlemen, and trading in silks, tea and guns, Glover had reportedly already developed the gruff, imposing presence necessary to those in his position so far away from home — as well as the clout to command his own cut of the deals he was doing for his employer.

But following America's opening of Japan with U.S. Cmdr. Matthew Perry's "Black Ships" in 1853, and its imposition the following year of one-sided trade treaties on that nation previously closed to outsiders for more than 200 years, Glover was not slow to join a trickle of the bravest Shanghai traders and move to that fearful country to the east.

When he arrived in Nagasaki in 1859, aged 21, Glover was at first alloted accommodation in the city's concessions area, called Dejima, where he would soon build up a mini-empire of real estate. In 1861, he founded Glover Trading Co. (Guraba-Shokei) to deal illegally — nay, virtually treasonously in light of a commerce treaty signed in 1858 between Britain and the shogunate — in ships and weapons with the rebellious Satsuma and Chosu clans in Kyushu and the Tosa from Shikoku, who were all bridling in those tumultuous times against the policies of the so-called bakufu government of the shogunate.

However, by necessarily living warily as he had little if any legal protection from any side, and by becoming a master at playing off against each other rival forces among the clans and between them and the bakufu, Glover not only survived, but he prospered mightily in his first eight years in Japan that were spent prior to the Restoration watershed in 1868.

Others were not so fortunate, and in the many sporadic conflicts between rival clans, between clans and the shogunate, and sometimes between clans and foreign residents, many, including foreigners, were killed.

In a sense, the British government watched this with eyes half-shut, in an era when diplomatic missions would often follow in the wake of the more aggressive entrepreneurs when it had become safer to do so. Newspaper records show traders occupying the front line, yet with officials avoiding admitting their history-shaping power. Consequently, Glover scarcely ever appears in diplomatic histories, and not at all even in the memoirs of his collaborator and friend, the distinguished British diplomat and Japanologist, Ernest Satow, despite the two young men sharing a crucial role in building relations with samurai rebels that would ensure Britain a favored position after the shogunate's overthrow by them in 1857.

Home from home: "Ipponmatsu" ("Single Pine Tree") in Nagasaki was the first Western-style house in Japan when Glover had it built in 1863. The tree it was built round blew down in a typhoon in 1905. NAGASAKI MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND CULTURE

But Glover and the other pioneering traders thrived in this role of semi-authorized trade piracy. And so it was that, while never trying to foist opium on Japan — thanks to his understanding of the bushido samurai spirit — and lacking the medical and technological expertise largely then the domain of the Dutch in Japan, he turned instead to arming the main rebel clans both against overseas enemies and each other — as well as, in a reality he well understood, against the central bakufu government.

Then, after terribly one-sided, punitive British naval attacks on Kagoshima in Kyushu in 1863 and the key naval port of Shimonoseki near Nagasaki in 1864 — following the killing by samurai of a few British citizens — it became clear to all in Japan that a new, Western mode of warfare had arrived and that it was a matter of urgency to acquire sidearms, rifles, machineguns — and warships — before any sort of defense could be mounted against the foreign barbarians, as was the commonly held view of such outsiders.

Like it or not, Japan was already part of a new geopolitics — and Glover was up to the challenge as, during the 1860s, he became Kyushu's biggest arms dealer. Kyushu in turn was able to establish itself as Japan's most dangerous and volatile political region, with rebel clans increasingly disobeying the bakufu retinue surrounding the Emperor in Kyoto or the shogunate based in distant Edo.

As a lifelong imperialist royalist, Glover could naturally (albeit very profitably) relate to those clans describing themselves as more loyal to the supreme symbol of Japan, the Emperor, than either of the two bakufu groupings in Kyoto or Edo.

But when those clans led the overthrow of the shogunate and in 1868 restored the Emperor Meiji to supreme authority in the state, Glover's world too was transformed.

With Japan now more open than ever before for trade with the world, the market for his weaponry soon became saturated as the new Meiji administration assumed sole control of acquisitions, while many of his old trading and drinking partners took up managerial positions. However, though his direct political influence waned, Glover's connectedness and his experience brokering the building and sale in Japan of ocean-going ships guaranteed a favorable role for him under the new regime.

So, by the end of his life, and despite a bankruptcy in 1870 after he started to develop Japan's first modern coalmine, on Takashima Island in Kyushu, Glover was living in some opulence in Tokyo, where he would die never having set foot again in Britain since leaving. He had, too, his "Ipponmatsu" home in Nagasaki, the city where he is buried in the Sakamoto International Cemetery, a son by one mother and a daughter, who moved to Korea, by another. And he had built up a loose network of powerful friends who knew him as a tough businessman, a fairly heavy drinker and a reckless international broker.

New horizons: When it was delivered in 1870, the 1,450-ton Ryujo, which Glover ordered and had built in his native city of Aberdeen, became the first warship in the new Imperial Japanese Navy.

Glover's first fortune came from property, currency speculation, refired (black) tea (kōcha, as it's known in Japan — even though this means "crimson tea"), and general trading — but overwhelmingly from guns and warships. He cast around restlessly for projects, but the real profits he always came back to reap were in weaponry. So, after the post-Restoration collapse of his business in small arms, rifles and machineguns, Glover changed tack to focus on warships and ship-brokering as his career staples. In this, he often worked closely with his brothers, who all developed Japanese connections — and indeed, his every surviving sibling would eventually spend long periods in Japan.

Meanwhile, Glover's pragmatic attitude and his survival instinct during the turbulent lead-up to the overthrow of the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1867 had brought him close to Ito Hirobumi, later the first prime minister; Inoue Kaoru, later the first foreign minister; and to the Satsuma strategist Godai Tomoatsu; and many others destined for Meiji government office.

In fact, Glover was involved in a minor way in helping the influential Choshu Five — radical young samurai who would be among the country's first statesmen — to defect their closed country in 1863 aboard Jardine Matheson ships for education in England. Then, two years later, he was even more directly involved in hiding and smuggling abroad for technical training the so-called Satsuma 18 under Godai Tomoatsu, some of whom settled in Aberdeen.

Many of such friends and co-collaborators as these who were to come into power following the Restoration would remain with Glover for decades, even despite growing and confused pressures from the 1880s drawing them back — in the face of pell-mell modernization and unsettlingly sudden internationalization — to "traditional" (in fact largely newly invented) national values. These included the ideas of Yamato damashii (Japanese soul or spirit) and datsua, (literally, "escape from Asia"; the Meiji Era policy of Westernization that drew on a sense of ethnic superiority not shared by other Asians — in the same way British Imperialists believed noone shared theirs). This was an incendiary cocktail set to be so manipulated and then ignited by 20th-century militarists.

Sunday, Dec. 11, 2011

Garden party: The Glover family at the turn of the 20th century. Back row, left to right: Glover's son, Tomisaburo; his brother, Alfred; and Thomas Blake himself. Seated, left to right: Glover's sister, Martha; his daughter, Hana; and Tomisaburo's wife, Waka.

SUNDAY TIMEOUT

The Scot who shaped Japan

By MICHAEL GARDINER

<< CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Meanwhile, after the slump in his arms trade, Glover also turned to coal mining, putting in increasingly torturous hours on the small island of Takashima, only to suffer bankruptcy in 1870 through a combination of bad luck and desperate accounting. Although the new Dutch owners of the mine kept him on as manager, his big peacetime break came when he was recruited in 1874 by his near contemporary, Yataro Iwasaki, the scion of a Tosa-clan former samurai family in Shikoku who had recently set up a shipbuilding business.

Catching up: After a life of unceasing activity, Glover enjoys a spot of trout fishing in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture, in his later years.

In 1873, Iwasaki renamed his business Mitsubishi — forerunner of the now-global Mitsubishi conglomerate — and to the enterprise Glover brought not only his expertise but also considerable funds. And of course both men had close connections with the network of former samurai behind the Meiji government that was to stay in place until the Emperor's death in 1912, and who were happy to pass contracts — especially for warships — their way.

Glover's new salaried position, more or less as a shipbuilding consultant, allowed him to bolster his profile and also work on some of the side projects for which he is now sometimes better known. Among these was the apparently impossible business of brewing and selling beer in a country where it was virtually unknown. Nonetheless, it is no mere urban myth that the design of the Kirin beer-label motif to this day features his mustache, since the original sketch was made by his daughter, Hana, and Glover was one of the prime movers and early directors of the Japan Brewery Co. from which Kirin Brewery Co. evolved.

As well, in a Japan now hungry for all the world had to offer, Glover developed interests in telegraphs, trawl fishing and generally oiling the wheels of deals to bring mostly Scottish engineers to mid-Meiji Era projects including town planning, lighthouse-building and railways. Of these, the most celebrated name now is probably that of Aberdeen-born Richard Brunton, who is remembered as "the father of Japanese lighthouses."

Increasingly though, the rise of the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the authoritarian turn the state was taking, came to worry Glover, as it did the liberal management of Mitsubishi. Although he never seriously considered returning to Scotland, in the early 1880s he moved with his brother Alex to the new untamed frontier of Washington State for two almost undocumented years.

With Glover gone, the openly Anglophile Ito was worryingly looking to Prussia for a constitutional model, since (despite studying at University College London as one of the Chosu Five) he could find no British written Constitution — unsurprisingly, as no such thing existed or exists to this day.

By the mid-1880s, however, Glover had returned and was settled between Nagasaki and Tokyo with a wife of unusually long standing for the time and a son he had "reclaimed" from a previous partner. From the late 1880s till the failure of his health in the mid-1900s he increasingly spent his time in his opulent house in Azabu, where even in semi-retirement he continued brokering between local politicians and foreign residents at a time when tensions were not only still high, but also sometimes increased by Japan's growing power in the Pacific that culminated in its victory over Russia — one of the established Great Powers — in the countries' 1904-05 war.

Though Glover's free-trading achievements were to figure in an horrific legacy of collateral damage, they did doubtless greatly help to propel the progressive course of Meiji Era Japan and beyond. Whether "progressive" is the same as "good" is a much more complicated question; as is the question of to what extent Glover was just an outstanding but soulless opportunist.

Whatever the value judgments of the man, however, what is certain is that, at a time when traders took self-reliance, laissez-faire and their home countries' gunboat diplomacy for granted, Glover contributed to the overthrow of the shogunate and the establishment of Japan's international relations in quite concrete ways — whether as an arms dealer or a freelance quasi-diplomat.

Man of standing: Thomas Blake Glover poses for a photo that was taken in a studio around 1900.NAGASAKI MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND CULTURE

In this latter regard, his massaging of a Satsuma-Choshu-Britain summit in 1865 was perhaps his single most important accomplishment, since it helped forge a rapport between the clans which, in turn, encouraged the British government not to step in to stop their rebellion or the sale of arms.

Later, too, Glover would be an important "pro-Japan" lobbyist — most notably through the British courtier and politician Lord Charles Spencer, of the Lady Diana line — adding to the impetus behind the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance, which headed off potential problems for Britain during World War I.

By that time, however, and even more so after the victory over Russia in 1905, Glover — while publicly supporting Japan's imperial ambitions — was becoming privately ambivalent about the speed of the military buildup. Indeed, it was to lead to an expansion which would eventually set the new Empire of Japan against the old Western trading powers and end in the suicide of his own son in post-bombing Nagasaki.

If the Glover story does show how the Foreign Office in London tended to stand back to let traders lead, only to then write those same traders out of the official histories, it also shows clearly how foreign policy operated within the imperial understanding of free trade.

In other words, it lays bare how foreign policy was made an instrument of finance and commerce, with culture then adduced to support it. To see how well that strategy succeeded in Japan, look no further than the many themed balls of the later Meiji Era. Organized by the elites to demonstrate their country's new, outward-looking attitude, these tended to be to slightly parodic imitations of European aristocratic events, even in details of dress. To an extent, Japanese-Western relations have never quite shrugged off these clunky shows of "tradition."

In this sense, the timing of Glover's stay is crucial: The year of the Restoration, 1868, also saw the floodgates open to Enlightenment ideas, as well as the publication of Charles Dilke's influential imperial tract "Greater Britain," which argued for an Anglophone empire based on language and culture rather than military power alone — and was itself a reaction to the expense of maintaining imperial power after the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica in 1865.

A glance at the spread of the new Meiji Era universities, many evolved from English schools, and later highly mimetic fashions, also shows how this shift was registered in Japan — and by mid-Meiji Era editions of "Greater Britain," Japan had been included.

This was the moment Glover inhabited; he grasped how it worked and played skilfully within its parameters. More widely, his success fell within a period when the universalizing of certain specific values was normal.

Universalist Scottish-Enlightenment modes of progressive thought were particularly welcomed by an ambitious new Japan around the time of opening, from Nakamura Masanao's 1872 translation of John Stuart Mill's "On Liberty" to Nishi Amane's rationalist and encyclopaedizing "Seiji Jijo" (1866-70) and Fukuzawa Yukichi's "In Praise of Knowledge" (1872-76).

View from on high: Nagasaki seen today from "Ipponmatsu," the home with a beautiful garden that Glover had built, and which is now called Glover House.

In fact, much of what was taken as axiomatic following the Meiji Restoration originally belonged to the Scottish Enlightenment, and was transmitted at a time when imperial free trade had given Scotland a means of expression within the British state.

As such, the globalizing choices faced by Glover's Japan had been faced by Scotland around a century before, and both countries in their turn came to see that they had to compete aggressively within, or through, empire to avoid being swallowed up by a new order.

In the case of what historians term the First Scottish Enlightenment, Adam Smith and David Hume brought philosophical skepticism and free-trade ideals; in the case of the Second Scottish Enlightenment, Thomas Carlyle and John Stuart Mill added individual responsibility, heroism, and freedom. Both were imported enthusiastically around the time of the Meiji Restoration, and both fed into the heroic, ethnic, trade-based empire-building Japan embarked upon.

Most assessments of Glover, nevertheless, fail to address the importance of the outward push of empire and of social class that he so effectively ushered into the corridors of Meiji Era power.

Firstly, the British Empire had demanded a typology of race (Brits on top; others in need of civilizing, benevolently or otherwise) that would be drawn on by Meiji conservatives as if it were natural and universal. In due course, this was to amplify Japan's sense of an Imperial civilizing mission, while following the humiliation of World War II it would again resurface to amplify a face-saving myth of Japan's separateness.

This conception of race had largely been invented in Edinburgh (the famed medical school's anatomy was key) in the 1840s and '50s, and was typical of a peripheral region that had been humiliated and had lost government power (following failed rebellions in 1715 and '45) and was after new universalizing, rationalist, managerial guidelines — the Scottish Enlightenment — to help them spread into empire. Imported at a very rapid pace in the Meiji Era and, translated into samurai terms, this typology became a principle for the free-market civilizing mission that was the Japanese empire.

Additionally, in terms of social class, the Meiji opening of their country was attractive to Glover's allies in part because it allowed for the easy translation of an existing caste system in which samurai were on top as if by divine right, to a class system in which the same samurai ruled as by managerial merit. To this day, indeed, there remains in Japan a powerful mix of finance and officialdom — just as in fragmenting Great Britain.

In such ways, Enlightenment Japan did indeed mirror Enlightenment Scotland — and the pioneering Glover did indeed define a particular form of progressivism despite his modus operandi being virtually that of today's rogue finance traders who stretch and endanger their institution to the point they are left virtually acting alone.

In a fundamental sense, though, was Glover ever really pushing the envelope of free-market mercantile morality very far? After all, he owed his position as a pioneer trader to Jardine Matheson, a company that was able to flood China with opium and arms with little resistance, one that lobbied for the Opium Wars and was at the center of what would in the 20th century be called a military-industrial complex.

And as for the "free" in free-market morality, of course it was bogus as it relied on British military might and the all-powerful Royal Navy in particular.

In this respect it may be that part of Glover's contemporary significance stems from that desire he personifies — to free markets from a state-sponsored investment thinking which simply draws money to money — and turn them instead toward serving freely chosen interpersonal exchanges of goods. This is significant in our own environment, where bubble economies continue to prevail.

However, there's an anomalous legacy of Glover and his ilk, too, thanks to the persistence of a mid-Victorian typology of discrete ethnicities with which he would have felt quite at home. Hence, in the received wisdom of today's Japan, Glover's fame has slipped far below that of the Tosa revolutionary Sakamoto Ryoma, despite the latter quite likely having been less influential in bringing about the Meiji Restoration. But Sakamoto is now better remembered, not because of Glover's dubious dealing, but because he is imagined to better encapsulate the modern Japanese spirit.

Yet more anomalously, if there is such a thing as a modern progressive Japanese spirit, the course of Glover's pragmatic and flexible career would be a fairly good example of it — accepting vested power for what it is, while acting like a militant liberal quite often.

In this form, that spirit takes in the attitudes of samurai like Sakamoto, Ito and Godai in the same way Glover was as power-driven and as dismissive of weak will and empty bureaucracy as those of samurai stock whose company he shared.

And just as Glover's aggressive free-trading came with a sense of destiny and a civilizing mission, so too did Japan head off on that route — a route that these days tends to follow the course of globalization in competitive, strategic and unequal modes.

Michael Gardiner is the author of "At the Edge of Empire: The Life of Thomas B. Glover" (Birlinn, Edinburgh; 2007).

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Unwrap Tokyo for the Holidays!

2011-12-16T04:13:00.001+09:00

©Patrizia Tilly - Fotolia.com

Like all big cities, Tokyo is bursting with hidden treasures. You could spend a lifetime here and never uncover all of them. That’s why we have asked some of our contributors and friends to share some of their little-known tidbits with you. Think of it as a Christmas gift—and don’t worry about getting us socks in return.

Organic cosmetics

Aoyama-based Antianti is Japan’s first cosmetics maker to be recognized organic by the US Dept. of Agriculture. www.antianti.com/en/index.html

Posh incense

at minimalist store Lisn www2.lisn.co.jp

Masami Yamane, musicJAPANplus www.musicjapanplus.jp

Hidden wonder guide

Made by craft wonder woman Ebony Bizys, Hello Sandwich is a cheat sheet to Tokyo’s wondrous nooks, divided into suburbs. http://meturl.com/sandwich

Gemma Rassmussen

Organic Living

could be your new regime for the New Year. Try Sai Market in Itabashi. Organic shampoo, etc., pesticide-free veggies, a vegan café and more. http://saimarket.com

Alena Eckelmann

Karaage

The best fried chicken in Takadanobaba is at Spicy Flyers, where you can get karaage, snow cones and Corona all under one roof. Triple win. www.spicyflyers.com

Jesse Koester, Ice Block Films, www.iceblockfilms.com

Sweet slice

Rustic and relaxing café Haru and Haru specializes in—mon dieu!—French toast. http://haruandharu.com

Caroline Josephine www.carolinejosephine.com

Punk discs

Known across Japan as a central hub of the domestic punk scene, Mortar Records is located five minutes from Kumagaya station. Great selection, and super-knowledgeable and friendly staff. http://mortar.cart.fc2.com

Dan Orlowitz, music photographer www.thirdlensopen.com/TLO

Yama-NOT-e

Though Tokyo has one of the most comprehensive public transportation systems in the world, my secret is just to walk instead of ride within the Yamanote line. I find it shows you a different rhythm to this place. The stations are like wave crests, and you can feel the surges and rolls in between.

Kyle Hedlund

Bagels

Best hoops o’ bread in town are at Kepo Bagels. The bagelmeister general studied the craft in key NYC bagel kitchens, including the legendary Essa Bagel. Closed for maternity, reopens Jan 5. www.kepobagels.com

John Daschbach

Time travel

is what it feels like to go to Tatemono-en in Musashi-Koganei. Part of the Edo-Tokyo Museum, this open-air architecture museum is apparently a favorite with Hayao Miyazaki. http://tatemonoen.jp/english/index.html

Tatsuyuki Mori

Disaster maniac

Try a force 7 earthquake on for size in a fake kitchen, a smoke room where you have to find the exit, and see a movie about Tokyo in the event of apocalypse, at Disaster Prevention Museum in Ikebukuro. www.tfd.metro.tokyo.jp/hp-ikbskan

Couple capsules

In Kiba there is a rarity—Tokyo Kiba Hotel, which offers capsules for two for about ¥6,000/night. www.tokyokibahotel.co.jp

Guilhem Malfre

Cutlet above

Head out Shimokitazawa south exit and walk down Minami Shotengai for one minute. A tiny restaurant on your left, staffed by an old man who’s been there for eons, will serve you the best tonkatsu in Tokyo.

Zare Ferragi

Catch your own dinner

in a tank with a fishing rod, at Zaou in Shinjuku http://zauo.com

Amanda Taylor http://whoa-im-in-japan.com

Classic café

Experience Lion, a dark converted theater with classical music booming from an excellent sound system. Free entry with a drink—but no talking allowed. On Love Hotel Street in Dogenzaka. http://lion.main.jp

Cherry Cheung

Marmite

The tar-like love-hate substance has been located at Kitchen Garden in Sangenjaya. http://meturl.com/marmite

Rent-a-cat

for free, with ArkBark. It’s actually called fostering and you can help out some abandoned pets via their website. www.arkbark.net

Louise Rouse

Healthy gambling

At the shotengai by Musashi-Koyayama station is four-floor pachinko emporium Angel, whose first floor is smoke-free—a rarity in ball-flicking venues. Check out the view from the bike park on the roof. http://meturl.com/angelpachinko

Silver Balls

Swing that, cat

Opposite a soapland in Kichijoji is hammock showroom and café-bar-restaurant Mahika Mano. Relax amid a jungle of swinging ropes in a one-person hammock with a massive cappuccino, cocktail, or dish, and check out their calendar for gigs, parties and DJ nights. http://mahikamano.com

Jewish penicillin

Try the tori-yuzu ramen at Manrikiya on TV Asahi Dori in Roppongi, four minutes after the Grand Hyatt on the left. Light and healthy tasting, the broth is reminiscent of my mother’s chicken soup.

David Labi

Cover up

your (reasonably-sized) tattoos for onsen purposes with flexible adhesive sports tape. You can find rolls of in any drug store, in beige or white and widths up to 75mm.

Wigs

can transform a bad hair day into a confidence-filled adventure, spark up a party outfit, or provide camouflage in a city full of dark heads. My favorites come from Cyperous in Kanda. So affordable you can have a wig wardrobe in a range of styles and colors. They can be washed and styled and are as comfortable as your favorite hat. http://cyperous.com/english

Kristen McQuillin www.mediatinker.com

Pavlovian treats

One minute from Kita-Kamakura station, within the Engaku-ji complex, is the Ryu-in-an temple. Any visitor who climbs the hill and rings the bell at the base of the temple’s teahouse will receive free green tea and snacks.

Spotlit liquor

One minute from Komagome station on the Yamanote is the amazing bar Slow Hand. Small and quaint, the real attraction is the illumination, done by converting used liquor bottles into spotlights. http://meturl.com/slowhand

Benjamin Boas www.mutantfrog.com

Go east

If you wanted to discover hidden vistas of eastern Tokyo, photographer Kyoichi Tsuzuki has already done it for you, and will be displaying his work at in Nadiff, Ebisu (listing)

Margarita

Courtesy of Wonder Japan

Pack your trunk

and head to Kagurazaka for the elephant slides in this secret playground http://meturl.com/elepark

Enter the warrior

Enter the body of Tokyo-wan Kannon in Chiba for an Inner Space moment. www.t-kannon.jp/about/index.html

Isamu Sekiguchi, Wonder Japan, www.sansaibooks.co.jp/wanderjapan.html

Wear and walk

Men and women can learn the ancient art of wearing kimono (kitsuke)—plus body care, detox and spa treatments—at Inspire Space Hiroo. All in English, reasonably priced, in a small house close to Hiroo station.
www.ishiroo.com

Fair game

Get region-specific info on your fave platform or game from Gaijin Gamers, a community for foreign gamers in Japan. Download lists of Japanese releases to check language support and negotiate any game superstore. www.gaijingamers.com

Jeff W. Richards

Spanish master

Step into a Gaudí masterpiece at Spain Tei in Kawagoe, Saitama, whose architecture and design evokes the Iberian artist’s work. Enjoy tapas and a wine cellar to enter and choose your bottle. http://spain-ichiba.p-kit.com

Mike DeJong

Tunnel vision

A strange, interesting day out can be had at Yoshimi Hyakuana in Saitama. Meaning “hundred holes,” this warren-like network of tunnels in the hillside was a burial site 1,300 years ago, and an underground munitions factory during WWII. www.town.yoshimi.saitama.jp/guide_hyakuana.html

Karl Doyle, photographer www.karldoyle.com

Ice Latte Revolver

is the thing to order in the chill atmosphere of Streamer Coffee. Between Shibuya and Harajuku, the free Wi-Fi café is owned and run by a World Champion latte artist. www.streamercoffee.com

Lisa Wallin http://ichigoichielove.blogspot.com

Wafu haven

Peaceful Toritsu Daigaku restaurant Higashiyama offers traditional wafu sweets with unique twists—excellent with a killer brew of matcha. Feel your soul sighing the city stress away.

Monday Michiru, musician www.mondaymichiru.com

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The Texas Sake Companyy

2011-12-15T21:10:00.001+09:00

http://www.txsake.com

That is right! There is a Texas Sake Company! It is using Texas rice to make the Sake. It uses the traditional ways of making sake. What that means is more flavor and no impurities, which means very little risk of a hangover. If you are truly into Japanese culture this is a must try.

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CrunchyRoll.com - Free Japanese TV and Movies online

2011-12-15T21:00:00.001+09:00

http://www.crunchyroll.com/culture-japan

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Watch the New Trailer For Jiro Dreams of Sushi

2011-12-10T20:33:00.001+09:00

http://eater.com/archives/2011/12/07/watch-the-new-trailer-for-jiro-dreams-of-sushi.php

Wednesday, December 7, 2011, by Raphael Brion

Here's the newly-released trailer for Jiro Dreams of Sushi, the documentary by David Gelb about 85-year old sushi chef Jiro Ono of Tokyo's three Michelin starred-restaurant Sukiyabashi Jiro (see the previous trailer here). The film, featuring some of the most ridiculous sushi porn out there, premiered in April at the Tribeca Film Festival; it hits theaters on March 9, 2012.

Video: Jiro Dreams of Sushi Trailer

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/magnolia/jirodreamsofsushi/

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High cesium level found in Date rice

2011-11-30T23:05:00.001+09:00

Government bans further shipments from two districts but 9 kg already sold, Fukushima says

High cesium level found in Date rice

By NATSUKO FUKUE

Staff writer - JapanTimes.com

The government on Tuesday ordered a ban on the shipment of rice harvested in two more districts in Fukushima Prefecture after tests detected dangerously high levels of radioactive cesium.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said the central government has instructed Fukushima Gov. Yuhei Sato to impose the ban on rice harvested this year in the Oguni district and the Tsukidate district, both in the city of Date.

On Monday, the Fukushima Prefectural Government announced that a combined 3,400 kg of unmilled rice harvested by two farms in the Oguni district and by one farm in the Tsukidate district contained between 580 and 1,050 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium. The government's limit is 500 becquerels.

One of the farms in the Oguni district already has sold 9 kg of the tainted rice, the prefectural government said, adding it has yet to establish the identity of the buyer. The remainder of the Oguni rice has not reached the market, it said.

None of the rice harvested by the farm in Tsukidate has been distributed, and all 1,500 kg are currently being stored by the Japan Agricultural Cooperatives.

It is the second ban on rice grown in Fukushima Prefecture in the last two weeks. On Nov. 17, the government banned rice in the Onami district of the city of Fukushima after high levels of cesium were detected.

The prefectural government also decided Tuesday to inspect rice from about 2,300 farms in certain districts of Nihonmatsu and Motomiya where high radiation levels have been recorded.

Date is located next to the city of Fukushima, and parts of it have been designated as radiation hot spots where the annual exposure could exceed the maximum 20-millisievert limit.

"While we carried out the best inspection process we could think of, we must take the fact (that contaminated rice has been found) seriously," agriculture minister Michihiko Kano, hinting it may be necessary to devise new processes for inspecting rice.

The government will do its best to identify the buyer of the contaminated Oguni rice, he said.

The tainted rice was detected in new tests the Fukushima Prefectural Government started conducting on rice harvested by about 1,500 farms in the cities of Fukushima and Date after the central government banned rice from the Onami district.

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Dog honored for keeping man, girl warm in wrecked car

2011-11-26T12:33:00.001+09:00

via japantimes.co.jp

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Dog honored for keeping man, girl warm in wrecked car

2011-11-26T12:28:00.001+09:00

,m Take a bow-wow: Asako Soma, whose 81-year-old husband, Yoshimasa, was rescued after spending a freezing night trapped in a wrecked car, receives an award on behalf of Junior, the couple's 7-year-old Labrador retriever that saved the day, in the town of Naie, Hokkaido, on Thursday. KYODO Dog honored for keeping man, girl warm in wrecked car Kyodo SAPPORO — The town of Naie, Hokkaido, rewarded a dog for keeping his 81-year-old owner and 3-year-old granddaughter warm as they survived a freezing winter night in an overturned car last week. Junior, a 7-year-old male Labrador retriever, was given a collar with a gold medal and some dog food during an award ceremony Thursday. Junior's master, Yoshimasa Soma, had taken his granddaughter, Sukai Kimura of Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, out for a ride in Naie on the evening of Nov. 15, saying he was taking Junior for a walk, police said. The girl was visiting Naie with her mother. While driving along a river in the neighboring town of Urausu, however, he accidentally drove off the road, sending the car rolling down an embankment. When the rolling stopped, the man and the girl found that they were unable to move. The car was found the following morning several meters below the road, resting on its side with a broken window. When they went down to check the car, police officers found Junior cuddled up to the girl and licking her cheek. The humans suffered only minor frostbite on their feet despite outside temperatures that plunged below zero during the night. Soma's son said it is unbelievable the two escaped death and expressed his gratitude to the faithful Lab. Labrador retrievers are often trained to serve as guide dogs because of their sophisticated behavior. But Junior had already earned a good reputation in his neighborhood. "Junior is a quiet, wise dog," a local resident said, adding that Soma and Junior had always been a perfect match.

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First use of iPS cells to cure illness eyed in '13

2011-11-21T01:09:00.001+09:00

A clinical study into the use of lab-grown retina cells to treat age-related macular degeneration has been slated for fiscal 2013, a senior staffer of the research body planning to undertake the project said Saturday.

The project might be the world's first to use induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, for the treatment of human diseases.

The Center for Developmental Biology of Riken will report its plan to the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry in fiscal 2012, which begins in April.

The study will initially target several patients with the eye disease whose vision cannot be sufficiently restored through existing medication. It will then be expanded to include earlier-stage patients once the safety of the iPS cell treatment can be determined.

Masayo Takahashi, who heads the project, unveiled the study at a symposium on regenerative medicine in Kyoto.

Following its establishment as a private research foundation in 1917, Riken was reorganized in 2003 into an independent administrative institution under the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry.

IPS cells have the potential to grow into any type of body tissue and are thus believed by scientists to hold great potential for regenerative medicine.

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Have a 3D TV? Sapporo Beer Commercial - Legendary Biru in 3D

2011-11-21T00:58:00.001+09:00

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House obliterated; bodies blown 100 meters away

2011-11-20T08:58:00.001+09:00

via japantimes.co.jp

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Japanese Onomatopoeia

2011-11-14T07:33:00.001+09:00

There are different types of Japanese onomatopoeia. Today we’re going to just focus on one of the onomatopoeia. I’ll do another post on the others later. Today’s onomatopoeia is giseigo (擬声語). Giseigo (擬声語) is the type of onomatopoeia that mimics actual sounds. You’ll actually see what I mean with the examples below. You can see a lot of onomatopoeia in Japanese manga (まんが) or comics. The words are sometimes written with the katakana (かたかな) for emphasis.

nyaa nyaa: (ニャーニャー) meow meow (the sound cats make)

goro goro: (ゴロゴロ) purr purr (the sound cats make)

wan wan: (ワンワン) woof woof (the sound a dog makes)

moo moo: (モーモー) muu muu (the sound that cows make)

mee mee: (メーメー) baa baa (the sound sheeps make)

hihiin: (ヒヒーン) neigh neigh (the sound horses make)

chuu chuu: (チューチュー) chirp chirp (the sound a bird makes)

kin kon (キンコン) ding dong (the sound of a door bell)

kushu (クシュ) achoo (the sound of a sneeze)

tsuu (ツー) buzzz (sound of insects, bees)

kero kero (ケロケロ) ribit ribit (sound of frogs croaking)

buu buu (ブーブー) oink oink (the sound of pigs)

kokekokkoo (コケコッコー) cockadoodle doo (sound of rooster)

Onomatopoeias differ by language and culture. I encourage you to post the onomatopoeias in your own language, using the katakana in the comment section.

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Morning Musume - FUN segment - a Funny video

2011-11-11T13:55:00.001+09:00

Morning Musume - FUN segment by Erikukun

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Glimpse into many-faceted Urasoe City

2011-11-11T13:46:00.001+09:00

By: By Jun Ikemura

Date Posted: 2011-09-30

How much do you know about Urasoe city?

For those who crisscross the island and don’t really know it, you’ve most likely been in the city often. It’s the 4th biggest city in Okinawa and is filled with sightseeing, shopping places and companies. Urasoe City is the second largest in terms of population density in Okinawa. The 1st is Naha City. Camp Kinser is a part of Urasoe and the American Consulate is located in Urasoe city too.

In old old times, according to historical literature, Urasoe was the capital of Okinawa. The origin of the word “Urasoe” is from “Uraosoi”; “ura” meaning bay and “osoi” meaning attack, thus “Uraosoi” means attack and reign over all bays in the world. The word and pronunciation has been changing with each era, and finally became “Urasoe”.

Okinawa means the same as the Ryukyu Kingdom, and has a lot of mythology stories of course, but reliable stories of the Ryukyu Kingdom start from Urasoe in the history books. According to a mythological story of Ryukyu Kingdom, the first king lived in the 13th century and built a castle in Urasoe on the site that is known as a Urasoe Castle Ruin Park now. The Urasoe Castle is speculated to have been about 380m wide and 80m depth, a really huge castle at the time. King Shunten was leader of the Ryukyu Kingdom at that time, and his reign is called “Shunten period”. Little exists, relatively speaking, of him. Actually, that’s why some archaeologists believe that the first king “Shunten” is still just mythology. But the second period story about “King Eiso” is different, reliability marked by his tomb existing in same area of Urasoe Castle ruin now. The tomb is called “Urasoe Youdore” and it was restored a decade ago the original being destroyed in World war II. You can visit to see it, but still only the exterior is accessible, not the insides of it, unless you go to see the mock interior in the Youdore Museum just next to the site. Also King Eiso is called “son of sun “ because his mother dreamed that the sun came into herself just before Eiso was born.

Urasoe is also connected with another word, “Tedako, which” means son “ko” of sun “Tida”. Tomb Youdore contains two big tombs, one for “King Eiso” and the other for “King Syo-nei” who was also one of the Kings of Ryukyu Kingdom and from Urasoe. King Syo-nei, who lived in the 3rd period of Ryukyu Kingdom, told a servant that he wanted his ashes to be placed in the Urasoe Youdore when he passed away. It was the time almost 300 years later from King Eis’s death. From the 3rd period of the Ryukyu Kingdom era called “King Syo” period, all Kings of Ryukyu Kingdom’s ashes are placed at “Tama Udun” in Shuri, within the same area as Shuri castle. Only King Sho-nei didn’t want his ashes there, and asked to be placed at Youdore. If you are interested in more of this story, just visit the Youdore Museum, where there are introductions in English.

The Youdore area is a part of Urasoe Daikouen (Urasoe Big Park), where there are many historical items and plenty of green fields, nature, athletic fields, a walking course, kids’ playground, and lot of observatories where one can see panoramic views of the city. It’s really a huge park; you can not walk around and see all sightseeing spots and items in one day. A baseball stadium, Urasoe Art Museum and the city gymnasium are next to the park too.

After a visit to the Urasoe Daikouen, Barclays Court shopping mall is waiting just next to the park. But be advised to travel by car, because the park is so huge, that kids don’t want walk such a long way. The Barclays Court shopping mall is on an area used by the U.S. military for a long time. After the land was returned, a multiple use shopping center was constructed there, but a small part of that area is still used vy theU.S., the American Consulate Naha is located there. That’s why there are many shops where staff can speak English, so it’s easy to go around and have fun there. There are many restaurants and Izakaya, electronic shops, sports shops, fashions, coffee shops, a grocery market, and a 100 yen shop. A huge free parking area is in the middle.

Early fall is probably the best time of the year to visit the park and the other areas as the weather is cool enough to walk around but not so cold that you’d need a jacket.

Of course all this is just a small part of Urasoe City, and there’s much more to explore.

To get to Urasoe Daikouen park take the Okinawa Expressway south and get off at Nishihara Exit. Continue on 330 towards Naha. After an overpass – U.S. Consulate and Barclay’s Court Mall are on the left – turn left. Continue the road downhill, and Daikouen is in front and left of you. There are several free parking areas around the park.

http://www.japanupdate.com/%253Fid%253D11469

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Sakura, Sakura: My ohanami (cherry blossom viewing) at Sankei-en, Yokohama

2011-11-11T13:33:00.001+09:00

I will get back to my Kyoto Postcards, but I wanted to talk a little about cherry blossoms first, before April ends.

I have written about the ohanami, or cherry blossom viewing, culture in Japan previously. As I wrote back then, one of the things I miss about not living in Japan is the cherry blossoms in the spring. For this trip back home, I wanted to be sure not to miss the cherry blossoms.

Cherry blossom trees, or sakura no ki, are everywhere in Japan. They are often planted in school yards and playgrounds, in Buddhist temple or shinto shrine grounds, in the corner of a garden, or along the side of a road. These old trees are growing on the grounds of an elementary school.

But there are certain places where the cherry trees are just that much more spectacular. One of those places is Sankei-en (三渓園), a beautiful garden in Yokohama. It was conceived and built by a rich silk merchant, Tomitaro Hara (who used the pseudonym Sankei Hara), a former teacher turned successful businessman (he married one of his former students and was adopted into her wealthy family to take over the family trade). Tomitaro apparently had an artistic side - he patronised many artists and his art collection was of great renown, though sadly it was lost during the chaos of the post-World War II period. For his gardens, he liked to collect beautiful old, historical buildings from around the country that were in various states of disrepair, and have them reassembled on his property. So, Sankei-en is a rich man’s indulgence, but executed with such taste. In 1906, he opened the gardens to the public for free, and even provided the visitors clean drinking water and firewood, so that they could enjoy a little picnic while appreciating his creation. Nowadays the gardens are run by a non-profit foundation, and the entrance fee for adults is 500 yen.

Sankei-en is one of the top places for ohanami (sakura or cherry blossom viewing) in the Tokyo metropolitan area - and tends to be a bit less crowded than the ones in central Tokyo such as Yoyogi Park and Shinjuku Gyoen. Plus, it’s fairly close to where my mother lives. The weather in the Tokyo area has been very temperamental, so it was difficult to gauge the right day to go. On the first day when it was not supposed to rain and even some sun was promised, I grabbed my camera and went to capture some sakura. Despite the overcast sky and the chilly temperatures, it was well worth it.

I did say that Sankei-en tends to be less crowded than other sakura viewing destinations. Still, this being Japan, and despite the weather, there were plenty of other people enjoying the blossoms.

These folks are determined to enjoy their bento lunches and do a proper ohanami under the cherry trees.

For people who forgot to bring a bento lunch, all cherry blossom viewing destinations have plenty of food stalls (yatai 屋台) set up, selling various snacks and beverages. Here they are selling yakisoba noodles, chicken karaage and hard boiled eggs.

Sankei-en even has a small ramen shop. There’s also a place to enjoy matcha tea and wagashi (Japanese sweets) in the small museum, where there is a small exhibit about the gardens and its creator, Tomitaro Hara.

Sankei-en also has a couple of tea houses (茶屋) that are used for tea ceremonies. Here are some girls dressed in kimonos, most likely making their way to one. They made me want to don a kimono myself the next time I come to these gardens.

These ladies were arriving a bit late for their tea ceremony.

Back to the more mundane world of snacks, these folks are lined up to buy odenand kushi dango (skewered rice dumplings). I joined them after taking this photo…

The mitarashi dango were okay - the sauce was a bit too sweet for my taste.

But the oroshi dango - the same rice dumplings served with a mound of grated daikon radish, a little soy sauce and a sprinkle of nori - were delicious. I had a glass cup of hot sake with my dango - after all, what is ohanami without a little tipple?

Practical details

Sankei-en is a little hard to get to, but well worth the effort. The easiest way is probably to take a Yokohama City bus (no. 8 or no. 148) from the no. 2 stop at the bus terminal at Yokohama Station. The bus terminal is at the Higashi or East entrance of the station, next to Sogo department store. The stop to get off at is Honmoku Sankeien-mae (本牧三渓園前). The fare is 210 yen one way for adults, less for children, and you can use your PASMO or SUICA card. The park is about a 5 minute walk from the bus stop. Plan on spending at least 3 to 4 hours in the park. Afterwards, you can take the no. 8 bus back towards Yokohama station and hop off at Chinatown for some good, cheap eats, if the hardboiled eggs and dumplings didn’t fill you up.

You can download an English brochure of Sankeien from this page on the official web site. The park is open from 9am to 5pm (during the season the park also opens at night, and the cherry trees are illuminated). Adult admission is 500 yen.

If you are planning a trip to Japan and are determined to catch the cherry blossoms in full bloom, it can be a bit tricky. Generally speaking, the cherry blossom season in the Tokyo (Kanto) and Kyoto-Osaka-Nagoya (Kansai) regions starts around the last week of March and lasts until the 2nd or 3rd week of April. This is when the somei yoshino variety of cherry tree is in full bloom; many people regard this variety as the most quintessential, and beautiful, of the flowering cherry trees. If you’re going to the southern part of mainland Japan, namely Kyushu, it’s fairly safe to assume that the season will start about a week earlier; to the north of Tokyo the season is a week to 2 weeks later. Okinawa is too tropical for the somei yoshino variety - their cherry trees have a deeper pink kind of flower.

In any case, if you can, please do try to see Japan during the ohanami season. You will never forget it.

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Top 10 Best-selling Singles in Japan 1968-2006

2011-11-11T13:22:00.001+09:00

Few Japanese music stars are known outside Japan or Asia, but Japan is the second largest music market in the world, so the best-selling music artists from Japan managed to sell an impressive number of records…

Consulting the Oricon chart of best-selling singles in Japan over the last 4 decades (more exactly 1968-2006), I was surprised to discover that the stars I was expecting to see are missing from the top 10 list. Yes, on the Top 10 Best-selling Singles in Japan you cannot find Ayumi Hamasaki, Koda Kumi, Utada Hikaru, Namie Amuro, Gackt or X Japan…

Here is a countdown of the songs and artists that managed to enter the top 10:

10. Dreams Come True - Love Love Love
From 1995, 2.48 million sales

In 2006, an Oricon survey declared Love Love Love the second most popular Valentine’s Day song in Japan, after the Sayuri Kokusho’s Valentine Kiss.

9. SMAP - Sekai ni Hitotsu dake no Hana
From 2003 2.57 million sales

Sekai ni Hitotsu dake no Hana (A Flower Unlike Any Other in the World), together with Utada Hikaru’s Colors were the only singles to sell over 1 million copies in 2003 - the year when the CD sales started to decline due to the Japanese economic downturn.

8. Kazumasa Oda - Oh! Yeah! / Love Story wa Totsuzen ni
From 1991, 2.58 million sales

Oh! Yeah! / Love Story wa Totsuzen ni was used during a TV commercial for the insurance company Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance.

7. Mr.Children - Tomorrow never knows
From 1994, 2.76 million sales

Tomorrow Never Knows was used as theme song for the Japanese TV drama Wakamono no Subete.

6. Chage & Aska - Say Yes
From 1991, 2.82 million sales

Say Yes was considered a “wedding song” and was used as a theme for the Japanese TV drama 101 kaime no Propose.

5. Kome Kome Club - Kimi ga Iru Dake de
From 1992, 2.89 million sales

Kimi ga Iru Dake de was the theme song of the Japanese TV drama Sugao no Mama de.

4. Kentarou Hayami, Ayumi Shigemori - Dango 3 Kyodai
From 1999, 2.91 million sales

Dango 3 Kyodai was composed for a TV program for children, a song about 3 dangobrothers.
The song was so successful that it became a social phenomenon in Japan.

3. Southern All Stars - Tsunami
From 2000, 2.93 million sales

The American band Allister made a cover version of this song in 2006.

2. Shiro Miya - Onna no Michi
From 1972, 3.25 million sales

Onna no Michi (The Way of a Woman) was the debut single of Shiro Miya and tells the story of a woman abandoned by her husband.

1. Masato Shimon - Oyoge! Taiyaki-kun
From 1975, 4.54 million sales

Oyoge! Taiyaki-kun, launched as a children’s song on a TV program, managed to surpassOnna no Michi and became the best-selling single in Japan (record certified by Guinness World Records).

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Ex-Tokyo cop speaks out on a life fighting gangs — and what you can do

2011-11-11T12:57:00.001+09:00

By EDAN CORKILL

Staff writer

Kiyoshi Nakabayashi well remembers how, when he was a high school student in the late 1950s and early '60s, newspapers were full of stories of violent gang wars being fought out openly on the streets of Tokyo.

Hands-on approach: Retired senior policeman Kiyoshi Nakabayashi discusses his career and Tokyo Metropolitan Government's new antigang ordinances at the office of the National Center for the Elimination of Boryokudan, where he is now an adviser. YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTO

Most Japanese reacted to those brazen displays of violence with mute fear or, perversely, thrilled admiration. Nakabayashi's reaction was different. "Like a doctor treats a sickness," he says, he wanted to cure society of its ills.

So, immediately after he graduated from high school in his native Nagano Prefecture, he went to Tokyo and signed up with the Metropolitan Police Department.

It was in 1963, a year after Nakabayashi joined the police force, that the gangs — known in popular culture as the yakuza, but to officialdom as bōryokudan(violent groups) — reached a peak in their combined membership. It's estimated they then numbered more than 184,000.

Since then, the officially estimated number of gang members nationwide has been in a more or less steady decline. In 2009, the last year for which figures are available, the total gang membership hit 80,900 — but that decrease has done little to slow the regular drumbeat of murders, robberies, extortion, blackmail, fraud and other crimes that at regular intervals explode into very public scandals and remind Japan's regular citizens of organized crime's continuing role in society.

Recently, however, efforts to curb gang activity have also made the headlines. One month ago, Tokyo and Okinawa became the last of Japan's 47 prefectures to enact ordinances prohibiting, among other things, the payment by companies or businesses of any monies or other remuneration to the gangs. It's always been illegal to extort. Now it's illegal to pay an extortionist, too.

One person who welcomes the new regulations is Nakabayashi, who never forgot that it was a desire to deal with the gangs that set the trajectory for his near half-century career in law enforcement.

Patrol officer, detective, sergeant: The physically imposing yet flawlessly professional Nakabayashi flew up the police ranks. By the age of 26 he had been transferred to the department responsible for dealing with organized crime. He retired from the force in 2003, having risen to be head of that department's division dealing with Japanese organized crime.

Nakabayashi agreed to talk to The Japan Times about his career because he believes passionately that the only true way to solve the problem of the gangs is to change the consciousness of the public.

Japanese people, he says, have to shake off a mindset that tends toward resignation in the face of difficulties and a fear of being shamed, especially in public. This mindset, he believes, is the true lifeline of the gangs. But he thinks the new ordinances are a step in the right direction.

After retiring, Nakabayashi worked for several years at the government-mandated National Center for the Elimination of Bōryokudan ("Bōtsui Center"), which maintains a national network of facilities — at arm's length from the police force — aimed at encouraging people who have fallen victim to the gangs, or worry that they might, to seek help.

Strong arm of the law: Kiyoshi Nakabayashi's physical stature, which he honed through years of judo training in his teens and 20s (above), was one of the reasons he was transferred to the organized-crime department of the Tokyo police force. Below: He is seen standing outside the force's former headquarters in the central Kasumigasaki district around 1973. PHOTOS COURTESY OF KIYOSHI NAKABAYASHI

Now 67, Nakabayashi currently serves as an adviser to the Bōtsui Center. It was in their office in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward that he sat down last week to speak with The Japan Times.

Why did you want to join the police?

I was in high school during the postwar period of rapid economic development, around 1960. I thought a lot about what I should do, whether I should go to university or not.

The newspapers were full of stories of gang wars — shootouts in broad daylight and so on. We were told it was the period of "postwar peace," but domestically, Japan was at war, and that left a deep impression on me. I decided I wanted to do something to fix the illness that was afflicting society — like a doctor. I became interested in the police force and their gritty detectives who were standing up to the gangs.

At the same time, the student movements were beginning, so I didn't think I could learn anything at university. The police force, which in Tokyo was working to ensure the safety of that massive metropolis, was the "university" for me.

You graduated from high school in Kiso, Nagano Prefecture and then you came to Tokyo to join the force.

That's right. I went through the initial training and started working here.

Was the job what you expected it to be? You joined in 1962, two years before the Tokyo Olympics.

Yes, it was an extremely tense period. Establishing order in Tokyo was paramount. And of course, a key part of that was dealing with the gangs. They had taken advantage of the confused postwar situation and in 1963, a year before the Olympic Games, they hit the peak of their membership — about 184,200.

And yet there were problems in the police force, too. In 1963, there was the infamous "Yoshinobu Incident," in which a 4-year-old boy was abducted. The police messed up the early phases of the investigation and ended up going to pay the ransom — but then letting the criminal escape. They caught him two years later and discovered that the boy had actually been killed soon after being abducted. This was a huge scandal. Calls were made for the whole force to be overhauled and bolstered.

I was a new patrolman at the time, but as a result of that upheaval I was sent to detective school when I was just 22.

What did you learn there?

That the Yoshinobu Incident failures should never be repeated. They lectured us on carrying out investigations as part of a team; how to think as a team. They talked about developing an instinct for detective work; how to project authority; how to place yourself in a position of superiority over someone — and how dedication, sincerity and strength of will are essential. Those are the qualities you need when you confront a suspect or a bad person, and they are also essential in gaining the trust of a victim or an informant. If you can achieve that state of mind, then the details fall into place.

What was your first posting after you became a detective?

I went to a suburb out near Kichijoji, which at the time was like many developing areas in that it combined the elements of a dormitory town with an entertainment district near the train station.

We had to do everything, but the most common trouble was street violence — the bōryokudan were everywhere. Of course, there were also robberies, fraud, youth crimes and so on. But I came to realize that the people pulling the strings were the bōryokudan. They bought the stolen goods and they organized the youths into gangs.

You saw how their system worked?

That's right. And the next step in a police career is to become a sergeant. There was an exam, and I passed when I was 24. I was posted to a different station, and when I arrived there the chief of the detective section was waiting. "Oh, this guy's big, and he looks earnest and capable. He can do bōryokudan!" he said.

Sharing the load: "A healthy society is a safe society," Kiyoshi Nakabayashi says, explaining that the cooperation of all citizens is necessary to eliminate the yakuza. YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTO

And that was fine by me except that in this particular suburb, the bōryokudan were very powerful — they would march right into the police station and shout at the chief. I won't name the station now, but it was really rough.

We soon realized that the best weapon we had against the bōryokudan was to prosecute them for gambling (which is illegal in Japan except under highly restricted conditions).

Gravel-making was an important industry in that area. It was necessary for making concrete, and with the building boom the stuff was like diamonds. People were needed to make the gravel, as well as to be drivers, middlemen and dealers. And then there were executives from local companies and shop-owners, and every night they'd gamble at illegal dens. So we went after them.

Exactly how did you do that?

At the time, the usual approach was to try to catch people in the act of gambling, but we focused on past offences. The idea was to build up evidence, then obtain a warrant and make the arrests.

We'd identify the den operators — the bosses — and the fixers who set up the venues. We'd investigate the gambling clientele. And, to avoid prosecuting the wrong people, we'd check up on alibis, investigate movements of funds in bank accounts, identify the hotels and houses where gambling took place — all the details. The better the initial investigations, the easier it was to join the dots and make the arrests.

But, actually, in the middle of doing this kind of work I started pushing myself too hard and eventually got very sick, with a really high fever. My wife was so shocked that she insisted we went to a large hospital. They had an internal medicine specialist and he decided I should be hospitalized. It was a sudden inflammation of the kidneys, and if it had become chronic, I could have died. I was stunned, because I thought I was very healthy, doing judo and all.

They didn't have any medicine for it back then, so I just had to stop eating any kind of salt and rest. After a really tough month, my condition improved and I was moved into a large ward.

Action men: Police officers take part in a training exercise held to coincide with the Oct. 1, 2011, adoption by Tokyo Metropolitan Government of new antigang ordinances. KYODO PHOTO

I ended up becoming like the ringleader of the eight patients there, and I instituted a rule that we all laugh at least twice a day. Three months later the doctor congratulated me. Our ward had the highest recovery rate, he said, because I had made everyone laugh!

I've made a slight digression there, but I did that for a reason. I came to realize that an illness is not something a doctor fixes. First and foremost, patients themselves have to fix it. The key to a patient's success in doing this is the strength of their relationships — family, wife, children, parents, boss at work, seniors, colleagues. If you think a doctor and medicine alone will cure an illness, then you are making a big mistake.

So the most important "medicine" is the strength of your relationships and how you can draw on those, your mental state — the same qualities that make a good detective. For example, I think that experience taught me how to communicate with people in a way that encourages them to open up, and that was important.

How old were you when you got sick?

It was 1971. I was 26, and it was a year after I got married.

Did you return to the same police station after you left hospital?

Before getting sick, I had been going after the gamblers and so I had started working with key members of the police force's organized-crime department. After getting out of hospital, that was where I went back to.

Please describe the historical background of the bōryokudan.

The term "bōryokudan" itself didn't start being used until around 1960, but their DNA can be traced back to the end of the Edo Period (1603-1867) — the time of gambling and "heroes of the common people," like the famous (rice dealer turned gambling magnate) Shimizu Jirocho (1820-93).

Back then, power meant financial strength; the ability to command loyalty and settle disputes.

Gambling was permitted in shrine and temple grounds as long as a fee on winnings was paid to those shrines and temples. As the success of the silk industry introduced a cash economy into rural areas, it became more popular. Gambling operators established their own exclusive zones and hired thugs to keep rivals out. The gambling operators got rich and could start offering loans and, often, they presented themselves as saviors of the financially disadvantaged.

At the same time, a tradition was established at the start of the Edo Period by the first Tokugawa Shogun, Ieyasu, because he believed the best way to keep a lid on dissent was to use local strongmen. And so power gradually became concentrated in the hands of gambling operators. They even took on the role of law enforcement.

The other factor in the development of the gangs was the period of confusion after World War II, with the emergence of black markets and so on. That was when today's prominent groups all achieved their current states. Of course, the police force was under the control of the GHQ (the headquarters of the Allied Occupation from 1945 until it ended in 1952), so it was toothless.

And then the bōryokudan went and started having gang wars among themselves. And the more they did that, then the more their image of power and menace grew and, often, young people were attracted to that.

Describe the work involved in pursuing bōryokudan. What did you do in the organized-crime department?

It's 80 percent investigation, 20 percent arrests and prosecutions. An important thing is not to get too focused on just one aspect. You should have a broader approach and pursue about two or three angles at a time. And you need to work as a team, you need to build up a picture from what all the team members can see.

When an incident occurs and the whole team kicks into action, then you compress about a year's worth of a suspect group's activity into an hour. Nowadays there are computers, so you can input all the information you have — connections, the money trail, movements, cars, recordings of phone calls — into a database and then you can see the whole pattern of an individual's actions. That becomes the foundation, and then you can say: "OK, this is what we know now. This is what we need to find out."

When was the time you felt most afraid for your personal safety?

I never did. Even when I went into a situation where there were guns, where the boss might be crazed and on drugs, there was no fear. In those situations, you focus your whole mind on two things: ma'ai (spacing, or distance) and timing.

Not welcome: A sign on the perimeter of the Tokyo Sky Tree site advertises the commitment of all the construction companies involved to ensuring no yakuza involvement in the project. YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTO

Even after I started overseeing those kinds of operations, I remember that it was always the same. Once you've gained confidence with ma'ai and timing then the fear goes away.

Ma'ai is the distance, both physical and mental, between yourself and the other party. And then there is the timing — to make sure you don't unintentionally burst in on them. For the most part, bōryokudan members won't set out to do anything to a police officer. The cases where officers have been killed are generally when the bōryokudan members didn't intend it, but circumstances prompted desperate measures.

The situation where bōryokudan really are scary, however, is when they become what in medical terms you might call a cancer. When you can't see what they are doing, because they are using third parties and youths for their own gain; when they start to create systems that feed them funds indirectly, then that is dangerous.

What was the most satisfying moment in your career?

There was one incident, a really big incident that turned into a big scandal. I won't mention the names of the companies now, but it involved bid-rigging in the construction industry.

Bōryokudan and sōkaiya (people or groups paid to disrupt shareholder meetings, annual general meetings and suchlike) found out about the bid-rigging and the head of one company in particular, who was scared of them making that information public, paid them off. Of course, it just got bigger from there.

Next they came around threatening to reveal to shareholders that he had somehow generated funds to pay them off.

The deeper he was drawn in, the more difficult it became for him to talk. This is an example of how the Japanese culture of shame can really have a negative effect. Anyway, our aim was to pursue an extortion case against the bōryokudan and sōkaiya.

The problem was that in order to make a blackmail case in Japan, you need the victim to file a complaint. That meant that the bid-rigging and the payments would come to light. Public trust in the company will be jeopardized.

And so we had to convince the company heads to talk. Over and over again, we had to assure them that we would guarantee their safety, protect the witnesses, the individuals. Eventually, the top of one company made a brave decision — he filed the complaint — and thanks to that, we were able to take down the entire network.

The company head acknowledged that he had panicked when he initially gave in to the bōryokudan. So, the most satisfying moment for me was when he said to me: "We were totally under their spell. And because you gave us the courage to shake off that spell, our company exists to this day."

In that case, I got him to talk, but the problem remains: Without a complaint, the police can't make a case. But these new ordinances go a ways to rectifying that situation (because paying an extortionist is itself now punishable).

Tell me about the new antigang ordinances.

Well, as of now every prefecture has such ordinances. They essentially impose an obligation to make an effort. We detectives used to say, "Please do this. Please tell us if this or that happens. You're not allowed to do this."

Now the regulations are saying that this is what we are all going to do. And if you don't fulfill your obligation, and you permit some sort of benefit to accrue to a bōryokudan — if you sell them office space or something — then you are going to pay a penalty. You won't get fined immediately, but you will be warned, and if you don't heed the warning, then we will make it known publicly what you are doing.

Your company will then lose the trust of the public, banks won't lend you money, your company will go bankrupt. You will be punished.

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Japanese farmers mobilise against pact

2011-11-09T23:39:00.001+09:00

Farmers say opening up to Pacific region’s economies will hamper their agricultural sales.

Yoshihiko Noda, Japan's prime minister, will decide this week whether his country will join a free trade pact aimed at the further opening up to the Pacific region’s economies.

While Japanese exporters believe that the agreement would be good for business, thousands of farmers have started mobilising against it.

They argue that they will not be able to compete with giant food producers from the US.

Al Jazeera's Rob McBride reports from Tokyo.

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The most popular exhibition in the world

2011-11-07T12:26:00.001+09:00

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fa20111028r1.html (go here for the full article)

By EDAN CORKILL

Staff writer

Once upon a time, more than 1,000 years ago, there was a small island nation ruled over by an emperor and empress. Fascinated by what lay across the sea, the emperor sent out envoys to bring back treasures from afar — glittering glassware, lutes capable of talking with the gods, stunning ceramics and much, much more.

Off his face: A mask depicting the character of the "drunken Persian king" used in the 7th- and 8th-century theatrical art of gigaku, and a pair of short swords (below). NARA NATIONAL MUSIUM / SHOSOIN

All was well until one day the aging emperor became sick and died. Grief-stricken and surrounded by her husband's treasures, each of which triggered memories of their happy times together, the empress made a decision. She would pack up the mementos and send them all away to a temple, where her beloved would be commemorated for millennia.

A nice bedtime story? Perhaps, but it's also historical fact. And the treasures — collected by Emperor Shomu and then dedicated en masse to the Todaiji Temple in Nara by his wife, Empress Komyo, in 756 C.E. — exist to this day. From Oct. 29 through Nov. 14, some 62 of them will go on display at Nara National Museum. And if past experience is anything to go by, for those 17 days the exhibition of the Shosoin treasures, as they are known, will attract an average of 15,000 people per day, making it by far the most popular exhibition in Japan and, arguably, the world.

Empress Komyo's donation to Todaiji — which is famous for its giant statue of Buddha, which was in fact commissioned by her husband — consisted of more than 600 pieces from as far away as China, India, Persia and possibly beyond, and those were soon added to from other collections. In order to house what became a trove of 9,000 items, a wooden storeroom some 300 sq. meters in area was built on Todaiji grounds sometime before 759. And there the treasures stayed for over a millennium — somehow remaining almost unscathed by the ravages of war, tempests, earthquakes and the simple passage of time.

"We were told in school that the secret of the collection's posterity lay in the design of the storeroom itself," Kenichi Yuyama, the director of Nara National Museum, tells The Japan Times. "We were told that the wooden logs that make up its external walls contracted in the winter, thus providing ventilation during the dry months and expanded in the summer, thus keeping the storeroom protected from humidity in the hot months. But the fact is that it is airtight all year round."

These days though, Yuyama continues, it is generally accepted that the key to the treasures' longevity lies in the status of their owner.

"For most of that time, they were under the direct control of the Imperial family. That meant, to take them out of the storeroom, you had to actually obtain the seal of the current Emperor," he says.

The Emperor wasn't easy with his seal. The first time a significant number of the objects was displayed in Tokyo, Yuyama points out, was in 1940, when an exhibition of some 140 pieces was created to celebrate the 2,600th anniversary of the founding of the Empire.

"My aunt said she saw them then as a student," Yuyama says. "Apparently more than 400,000 people went to the exhibition."

But it wasn't long before the collection was on the move again — albeit a much shorter journey. Toward the end of World War II, as fears grew that the wooden storeroom might be bombed by the Allies, it was decided to move its contents to the nearby Nara National Museum, which had a state-of-the-art concrete storeroom.

After the war, the public asked for the collection to be put on display before it was returned to the storeroom — and thus the first large-scale Shosoin exhibition was held, in 1946.

A cut above: One of the highlights of this year's Shosoin exhibition is this Chinese-style sword with gilded silver fittings and inlay, which was owned by the 8th-century Emperor Shomu. NARA NATIONAL MUSIUM / SHOSOIN

"Japan had lost the war, lost its confidence and was, as a nation, utterly dejected. The show reminded the people what a wonderful culture the country had," Yuyama says, adding that some 150,000 people attended.

The collection was ultimately moved back to the wooden storeroom at Todaiji — and then to a new, dedicated concrete facility. Since then, for about three weeks every autumn, when the storeroom is traditionally opened for maintenance and conservation, a selection of roughly 60 items has been put on display at the Nara National Museum. This year's is the 63rd such show.

Yuyama says it is the Office of the Shosoin Treasure House, within the Imperial Household Agency, that chooses which treasures will be displayed. "Each time, a handful of the most famous treasures are included — but they rotate them so any one will only be shown once every decade or so, and each year they also include 10 or so pieces that have never been displayed before," he explains.

One of this year's highlights is thekingindenso no karatachi, which translates as a "Chinese-style sword with gilded silver fittings and inlay." The 99-cm ceremonial weapon, the sheath of which is in lacquerware decorated with colored glass and crystal, was kept in the North Room of the storeroom, meaning that it was one of the original pieces dedicated by Empress Komyo.

This will be the first time the sword, which was owned and perhaps even held by Emperor Shomu himself more than 12 centuries ago, will have been included in the Shosoin show since 1990.

Another highlight, Yuyama explains, will be a large piece of aromatic wood known as Ojukuko, from the Middle Room — meaning it came under the control of the Imperial family in the mid-Heian Period (794-1185). Measuring 1.5 meters in length, the wood is thought to be agarwood, a dark resinous heartwood that results when certain Southeast Asian trees become infected with mold.

So valued was the scent of this particular log that there are records of pieces being cut off by successive Ashikaga Shoguns during the Muromachi Period (14th-16th centuries), as well as by 16th-century warlord Oda Nobunaga and the Emperor Meiji during his reign from 1868 to 1912.

Like all the exhibits at the show, the wood will be exhibited within an airtight case, so visitors unfortunately won't be able to smell it. But, as Yuyama told a Tokyo audience recently, "One envies the curator who will open the box after the show is finished."

Other highlights will be three wooden masks that were used in gigaku, a form of dance drama that was imported from China in the 7th century and practiced at the Imperial court and in temples throughout the Nara Period (710 — 784). The masks, two of which have never been exhibited before, are considered some of the oldest masks of any kind in existence in the world.

There will also be many paper documents, including an 8th-century map of the Todaiji Temple complex. The map includes a drawing of the hall that houses the giant Buddha — looking surprisingly similar to how it looks now, despite being rebuilt at least twice.

Many items of fabric are included in the Shosoin collection, too, and this year a tie-dyed jacket decorated with bold diagonal blue stripes that was worn by court officials in the Nara Period will be displayed.

Yuyama explains that the Office of the Shosoin Treasure House is constantly conducting research projects into the various items in its collection. Himself a specialist in paper objects, Yuyama took part in a four-year research project that concluded last year. "We discovered for the first time that the plant kujin(Sophora flavescens), which is a well-known Chinese traditional medicinal plant, had been used in Nara Period paper manufacture," he says.

Such research often focuses on attempts to determine just how the objects in the collection were made — and that research, in turn, often involves recreating the objects as realistically as possible. This year, results of research into the karatachi sword were published.

Lacquerware artist and living national treasure Kazumi Murose led the research, recreating the sheath to determine, in particular, whether the variously sized gold specks visible on its lacquered surface were alluvial gold or gold filings. In the most recent Bulletin of the Office of the Shosoin Treasure House, published earlier this year, he reported that it was "clearly" the latter.

Pattern recognition: A tie-dyed jacket decorated with bold diagonal blue and red stripes that was worn by officials of the Todaiji construction bureau in the Nara Period (710 - 784). NARA NATIONAL MUSIUM / SHOSOIN

Murose's task was made easier by the fact that the Shosoin collection also includes a metal file that itself dates back to the Nara Period. Hence it was by making a file similar to the ones used when the sword was made that he was able to identify the gold specks as filings.

The variety and sheer number of objects in the Shosoin collection is one of the key reasons for its value.

"There are so many different types of things — from crafts, to paper items, dyed fabrics — there is no other collection that has such concentrations of these objects," Yuyama says.

"As a researcher, it is an absolutely essential resource for understanding Asian history. You could never get tired of looking at it."

The only problem is that having objects from such a rare collection displayed for just three weeks each year can result in huge crowds.

Every year, the Shosoin show tops rankings of average visitor numbers for exhibitions held in Japan, and if it was included in the U.K.-based Art Newspaper's rankings for shows held around the world it would easily top them, too.

Yuyama suggests Oct. 31 — the first Monday after opening — as the day least likely to be crowded. Miss that and this stunning collection might have to remain the stuff of bedtime stories, at least for another year.

"The 63rd Annual Exhibition of Shosoin Treasures" will be open daily at Nara National Museum from Oct. 29 through Nov.14. General admission is ¥1,000. For further information, see www.narahaku.go.jp.

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Japanese Movie Night in Houston at the Drafthouse - NIPPON Love and Laughter: TRAIN MAN(It's free)

2011-11-05T00:15:00.001+09:00

http://drafthouse.com/movies/nippon_love_and_laughter_train_man/houston

Showtimes in Houston

Thursday, November 10, 2011

West Oaks

Tickets:

7:00p

Director	Shôsuke Murakami
Year	2005
Starring	Takayuki Yamada, Miki Nakatani and Ryôko Kuninaka
Run Time	105min
Age Policy	18 and up; Children 6 and up will be allowed only with a parent guardian. No children under the age of 6 will be allowed.
More Info	IMDb

笑うNIPPON～Love and Laughter
Featuring films from Japan

Thursday, November 10th at 7pm: Train Man: The supposedly true story of a 23-year-old otaku (Japanese geek) who intervenes when a drunk man is harassing several women on a train. The otaku ultimately begins dating one of the women, and posts on a website asking for advice every step of the way.

FREE admission

In partnership with: The Consulate-General of Japan at Houston

Featuring Japanese/Hawaiian themed special menu!

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Gunkanjima: Ruins of a Forbidden Island

2011-11-04T13:15:00.001+09:00

http://www.gakuranman.com/gunkanjima-ruins-of-a-forbidden-island/

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Tree Houses by Takashi Kobayashi

2011-11-04T13:11:00.001+09:00

Takashi Kobayashi, a clothing buyer turned professional tree house builder, built his first tree house in 1993 on a piece of rented land in Tokyo. Since then, he has built tree houses all around Japan. Kobayashi sees himself not as an architect, but one of the "tree house people" who seek to coexist with nature through art and free expression.

What is it in tree houses that attracts anyone? I've come to think the answer lies in the vitality of the trees themselves. Everlasting life. ~ Takashi Kobayashi

via Takashi Kobayashi

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Japanese Ranting Slang

2011-11-04T13:07:00.001+09:00

aho! or baka!
translation: (you are really) stupid!

kuso!
translation: shit!/damn!

shitsukoi naa
translation:stop it! (that's so irritating!)

anta futottane
translation: whooooa. you've gotten so fat!

urusai yo! or shizukani shiteyo
translation:shut up!

bukkorosu!
translation: I'm gonna kill ya!

fuzaken jyane--yo nande sonna koto shitan dayo-?!?!
translation: damn! why the hell did you do that?

koro shite yaru-!
translation: Just another way of saying: I'm gonna kill ya!

a- mendokusai or kattari~ or dari~
translation: this sucks! (in the sense of: aaaauuw. why do we have to do this?!)

ge- hentai!
translation: feh! or weirdo!

nanda aitsu-
translation: what is wrong with her/him!

fuzaketeruyo
translation: this is so stupid! (in the sense of: aaaauuk. why are we doing this?!)

butsuyo
translation: I'm gonna hit ya!

acchi ikeyo-!
translation: back off!/go away!

kusaiyo~!
translation: that's so cheesy or you smell

kuruna!
translation: don't come near me!

namenn nayo
translation: are you tryin' to rip me off?

busu!
translation: bitch (or ugly girl)

maji mukatsuku
translation: I'm really p*ssed off!

teme--yarukika
translation: are you tryin' to p*ss me off?

saiaku
translation: this is rotten!

kittana-i (girl) kittane (guy)
translation: gross! (that is very unsanitary)

baka yaro-!
translation: you jerk/fool!

(from eclpi5e, in kansai dialect)
nandeyanen
translation: why/what the hell did you do that for?!

If you like this, you might want to go to the Japanese Slang metanode.

Or, would you like to the Ranting in Various Languages metanode?

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Amami-Oshima Island sees record downpour

2011-11-04T08:58:00.001+09:00

Thursday, Nov. 3, 2011

Water's way: A river in Amami, Kagoshima Prefecture, overflows onto a road as local officials look on after heavy rain hit the area Wednesday morning. KYODO

KAGOSHIMA — A record downpour Wednesday morning in the area of Setouchi on Amami-Oshima Island, Kagoshima Prefecture, prompted the city to recommend all of its 5,500 households — 10,000 residents — to evacuate.

No injuries had been reported, according to local police.

Rainfall measuring 143.5 mm per hour through 9:08 a.m. Wednesday was observed in the town, marking the ninth-largest recorded rainfall per hour in the nation's history.

Its neighboring municipalities, including the city of Amami, were also hit by heavy rains — more than 120 mm per hour, according to the Meteorological Agency.

The Kagoshima Prefectural Government said that by noon Wednesday, a total of 148 people in Setouchi and Amami had evacuated their homes.

According to local police, the rains also prompted a landslide in Setouchi around 8:30 a.m., pouring mud into a medical clinic in the town. Eighteen patients were in the clinic at the time, but no one was reported injured.

The area also suffered heavy rain last year leading to flooding and the closure of a tunnel in Amami.

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15 Japanese Passions

2011-11-04T08:39:00.001+09:00

You might think that Japanese people are obsessed with Sumo and Cameras but these are not the real Japanese national passions. What are Japanese truly passionate about? After living in Japan for ten years I think I have a pretty good idea. Here is my ranking of the top fifteen Japanese passions:

15. Sex
A bit of a disclaimer about this one. Japanese have a reputation for perverted stuff. For the most part this is not true. Western media and entertainment has picked up on sensationalized stories from Japanese tabloid magazines such as used panties from vending machines or eating sushi from a naked woman. These are excessive stories that do not reflect everyday realities in Japan. Westerners are inclined to believe such stories because Japan seems so far away and exotic.

International sex surveys have indicated that Japan is amongst the least sexually active countries in the world. In many ways Japanese people are conservative about sex. Having said that, it is true that Japan is a sexually passionate place.

Firstly, Japanese are imaginative about sex as evidenced by Japanese pornography, manga and anime. Unlike much American pornography, Japanese pornography shows some creativity, often has elaborate plots and may take some time to get to the point.

Secondly, Love Hotels are everywhere in Japan. With over 500 million visits to Japanese love hotels every year it is clear that some Japanese people are having sex. In fact, when you break down the numbers this is equivalent to %14 of the Japanese population going to a love hotel every week!

14. Pachinko
Japanese people love gambling in the form of a uniquely Japanese game: Pachinko. Pachinko resembles an elaborate pinball machine with many small balls. Players buy buckets of balls to play with and may win or lose balls as the game proceeds.

Gambling is technically illegal in Japan (パチンコ) and Pachinko exploits some technicalities in the law. It works like this: within the Pachinko parlor the balls are virtually worthless and can only be exchanged for stuffed animals and nominal prizes. However, right outside the parlor (usually in a dark alley) there is a small shop that exchanges balls for cold hard cash. So technically there is no serious gambling within the Pachiko parlor itself. The police look the other way and likely have deals with the Pachinko industry (that is controlled by various organized crime groups) to look the other way.

How big is the Pachinko industry in Japan? Well, ever heard of a Japanese car? The Japanese Pachinko industry is bigger than the Japanese auto industry. Yearly sales are around US$160 billion a year. About one out of four Japanese people plays Pachiko and average spending per player is $7000 a year.

13. Travel
The Japanese love to travel. Japanese tourists can be found in every corner of the world. From Waikiki beach, to Banff hot springs, to Paris brand shops, to African safari Japanese tourists are everywhere. Japanese also frequently travel domestically and hotels in Japan are often geared to the domestic market rather than international travelers. For this reason it is hard to find English speaking staff in Japanese hotels.

In 2009 14 million Japanese people traveled abroad. Top destinations where Korea, China and the US.

12. Masks
Japan is one of the most highly urbanized countries in the world. Perhaps this is why Japanese people are passionate about cleanliness and avoiding germs. It is very common to see Japanese people wearing masks in public. Japanese people wear masks for three reasons:

a. to avoid getting a cold or flu.
b. when infected with a cold or flu (many companies and schools mandate that staff or students wear masks when sick).
c. to avoid air borne allergens (1 out of 10 Japanese people has a allergy)

11. Gossip
Japanese gossip magazines are just as bad, if not worse, than their American or European equivalents. In Japan, there are dozens of weekly tabloid magazines jam packed with sensational stories that are at most half true. Examples of stories include:

"Coffee pot tips seductress plucking schoolboy cherry"
"Depraved duo target pregnant women in terror rape spree"
"Quirky quacks prescribing sexual harassment"
"Intoxicated man assaults firefighter for entering his home without taking his shoes off"

Nobody in Japan seems to worry about the effects of these magazines. However, when Mainichi, a large Japanese newspaper with the fourth largest circulation in the world, started translating some gossip columns into English in a service they called "wai wai" there was a public outcry. Many right-wing Japanese felt the English version of the articles were embarrassing to Japan. Mainichi bowed to the pressure, shut down the service, fired some employees and issued a lengthy apology letter. As far as I know there has never been a public outcry about the dozens of Japanese language weeklies publishing the same pulp.

Some Japanese may have been sensitive about the English versions of the articles because the mainstream western media sometimes picks up an article from the Japanese tabloids. This would be equivalent to a national Japanese newspaper picking up articles from the National Enquirer in the US and publishing it as fact. In many cases, this has unfairly perpetuated the image that Japan is a wacky and perverted country.

10. Small things
Japanese people value small things. Japanese restaurants serve tiny portions and the better the restaurant the smaller the dishes. In the 1970s and 80s Japan helped to revolutionize electronics and cars by making them smaller, lighter and higher quality.

There are some notable exceptions to the Japanese passion for small things, Sumo comes to mind.

9. Fish
In Japan, the average person consumes 70 kilograms of fish a year. The global average consumption is just 13 kilograms a year and even developed countries such as America only eat about 20 kilograms a year per person. Japanese domestic catches have been in serious decline for many years and Japan sends large fleets all over the world to make up the gap. Many kinds of fish that are popular in Japan such as bluefin tuna are now in serious decline worldwide. Japan has from time to time ignored global fishing agreements such as the global ban on fishing whales. Whale meat such as dolphin can easily be purchased in Japan and is served to children as part of mandatory school lunch programs.

8. Aesthetics
Aesthetics is the philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty and taste. Japanese arts such as Ikebana, Bonsai, Architecture, Japanese Gardens, Calligraphy, and Tea Ceremony are all about the pursuit of a simple and beautiful aesthetic. Aesthetics are an important part of every facet of Japanese life from cuisine to electronics and the Japanese are world renown for their aesthetic sense.

7. Yelling
In many situations Japanese people are as quiet as can be. However, there is a real culture of yelling in Japan. When you go to a restaurant in Japan the staff will yell a welcome at you with a loud irasshaimase (いらっしゃいませ) and likely yell your order to the kitchen too. Yelling seems to be tied with with the Japanese concept of team. The staff of a restaurant are a team and as part of their teamwork they are expected to yell. Any team activities in Japan tend to get fairly loud.

6. Not wasting things
The Japanese word Mottainai (もったいない) means the sense of regret about wasting something. Japan is a small island nation with few natural resources and is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. Japanese people tend to be frugal and take care not to waste food and resources.

Japanese are known as major consumers of expensive brand goods such as Louis Vuitton. Despite this, the Japanese traditionally have a very high savings rate and tend to live well below their means. In Japan quality is respected and people take good care of their possessions.

5. Drinking
Drinking is the national past time of Japan. Tokyo restaurants and bars are jam packed seven days a week with salary men, office ladies and students relieving a little pressure.

Japanese varieties of alcohol such as Sake and Shōchū are popular but beer is hands down the most beloved beverage. Cocktails are also popular and some of them are incredibly weak with about 2% alcohol. Most Japanese people are strong drinkers but a minority of Japanese people seem incredibly sensitive to alcohol.

4. Manga
Japanese comic books (manga) are remarkably popular in Japan. They are popular with old and young, men and women. Manga have many types including highly sexualized stories specializing in every fetish you can imagine, sports, romance, animals, gambling, business, history, fantasy and crime. Internet cafes are abundant in Japan and they all have huge libraries of manga for customer use. People are not ashamed of their manga addiction and respectable looking business men are often spotted reading them on the morning trains.

3. Team
It is a stereotype that Japanese people value membership in the team while westerners value being individual. There are exceptions to every rule. However, for the most part this seems to be true. Western people will often consider themselves to be "special" while Japanese people will often consider themselves "normal". The well known Japanese saying that "the nail that sticks up will be hammered down" exemplifies a concept that is deeply ingrained in Japanese culture.

Japan was traditional a highly agricultural nation. Farming is a very organized activity that requires the coordinated efforts of the community. This is the context in which Japanese culture developed this strong sense of team.

2. Working
Here is another stereotype about Japan that is generally true. The Japanese are incredibly diligent workers and the quality and effort of their work is astounding.

In Japan it is bad manners to go home before your boss. Often the boss is a workaholic type that stays late. Employees may stay late even when there work is complete and they have nothing to do.

1. Onsen
Onsen is a Japanese hot spring bath that features geothermally heated spring water. Onsen may be communal or private; outside or indoors. Generally onsen is taken in the nude and bathing suits are not allowed. Usually, sexes are separated but there are some mixed-sex onsen in the countryside. Japan is very geothermally active and there are tens of thousands of onsen in Japan at hotels, ryokan, spas and public onsen. On holidays and weekends Japanese flock to the countryside craving a nice long soak in hot water. I have yet to meet a Japanese person who is not passionate about onsen.

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TODOROKIKEIKOKU, A NICE OASIS IN TOKYO

2011-11-03T12:19:00.001+09:00

Looking for green in Tokyo ? Not difficult actually, there are many parcs and even with a bit of train you are quickly in the mountains. For example Takao San is about 1h from Shinjuku... I don't even mention if you take the Shinkansen... (then it is not even a question of time and distance but more of money...)

Today I bring you to Todorokikeikoku just near Tokyo West part. It is just one stop after Jiyugaoka (on the Oimachi line) which is also on the Tokyu - Toyoko line that starts from Shibuya (and goes to Motomachi - Chukagai in Yokohama).

From the "outside" almost nothing reveals this place, even there is a huge road passing over it at some point. But once you walked down the river you are in a completely different mood, you can almost forget the city "up there".

It is not a long walk but it is a very nice path along the river borded by a luxuriant vegetation, and to finish with it, there's a temple at the end where you can enjoy a macha (green tea).

I totally recommend it. There was already some people last week-end, but not too many so we could enjoy the walk.

You'd better go for it before the summer because I suspect it will be quite crowded then. Well if there are too many people on the path you can still go directly in the river like this kids :)

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Japanese Ghouls ‘n Ghosts

2011-11-03T10:59:00.001+09:00

Japanese folklore has a rich and terrifying tradition of all sorts of zany ghosts, ghouls, monsters, and goblins. Japanese ghosts collectively known as yūrei (幽霊), and Japanese monsters collectively known as yōkai (妖怪) are arguably the most popular. But how many traditional Japanese spooks do you actually know anything about? Read on to see what you should really be afraid of this Halloween.

Traditional Japanese Ghosts

Traditional Japanese beliefs state that every human being has a soul called a reikon (霊魂). After death, the reikon exits the body and enters a temporal stage where it waits for the living to perform final rites and funeral rituals for them. If these are completed properly, the reikon is satisfied and it can be at peace in death, leaving spiritual limbo and continuing on to the afterlife. This sort of reikon will become a spiritual protector of its family, looking down on its ancestors with favor.

However, if a person dies an unnatural, traumatic death, or if their final rites aren’t properly performed, the reikon becomes a yūrei and starts wreaking havoc on everyone’s sanity. The yūrei wallows in temporal space, forever yearning for whatever needs to be done for it to finally achieve peace in the afterlife. If the yūrei has strong enough emotional ties to the physical world however, it can return as a ghost. A scary ghost. One that’s sure to give you the heebie-jeebies.

These ghosts dwell on Earth, haunting its fleshy inhabitants. While all Japanese ghosts are referred to as yūrei, there are a handful of specific types differentiated mostly by the circumstances surrounding their death.

Onryō – 怨霊

Onryō are female ghosts who were abused or neglected by their lovers in life. These ghosts dwell in the physical world seeking vengeance on those who wronged them. Strangely enough though, they rarely do actual harm to the lovers who hurt them. They are also the most common type of ghost seen in Japanese horror films. In the case of onryō, the emotions tying them to the land of the living are usually hatred or sorrow- sometimes both. So if you’re in Japan, be sure to not piss off any ladies because they might come back as onryō and ruin your life.

Ubume – 産女

Women who die in childbirth or without providing for their children before death are classified as ubume. The power of their motherly love allows them to remain in the physical world to attempt to help the children they failed in life. Usually they come back to help their child in a time of need or leave gifts for them mysteriously. A mother’s duty is very important in Japan, and the stories of ubume are many.

Appearing in the form common to most Japanese ghosts, ubume are clad in robes of white, have long, unbound, disheveled hair, and are creepier than your perverted uncle Mike. Given their grim origins, the stories revolving around ubume are more sorrowful than those of onryō and focus mainly on the mother’s quest to ensure her child’s continued safety.

There’s no haunting to be had in these stories; the mother’s spirit directly interacts with her child after death, serving as a sort of guardian angel. However, in her providing for the child, the mother inadvertently leaves clues that otherworldly devices are at work. The most common sign are coins and gifts left for the child that turn into dead leaves after they’ve been discovered. Worst. Birthday. Ever.

Goryō – 御霊

Goryō are malicious, vengeful spirits – martyred in life and returning for revenge in the form of widespread death and destruction. Usually these spirits were those of the ruling class (the more powerful the person, the more powerful the spirit). Out of all the yūrei, goryō are undoubtedly the most dangerous. They can be incredibly powerful. They are capable of everything from destroying crops to evoking widespread natural disasters.

In medieval Japan, it was a common belief that one’s social status carried over with them into the spirit world so goryō were almost always spirits of the aristocracy. The more powerful someone was, the more likely they would return as a ghost capable of great destruction, so naturally respecting the dead was very important. On the other hand, if some jerk assassinates you for no good reason, it doesn’t really matter if there’s a shrine built in your honor because you’re going to be mighty peeved regardless.

Goryō are vengeance ghosts similar to onryō. However, their destructive ways didn’t necessarily end with the death of those who had wronged them. Only the super-cool-mountain-powered yamabushi could put these spirits to rest for good.

Funayūrei – 船幽霊

Funayūrei (ship ghosts) are the ghosts of those who died at sea. They approach seafaring vessels and ask for a bucket or a ladle. If they are given one of these they will deviously scoop water into the ship so efficiently that it will sink (so if you’re driving a big boat, you’ll probably have the time to get to land first, I think).

Funayūrei are usually not the end result of military conflict at sea, however (those who die in battle or on a battlefield are considered separate spirits all their own). Just about any sort of general drowning will do the trick here. They’re simply upset that they died, and now they want to take everyone down with them. Hey, you’d be bummed out too if you drowned in a big puddle.

Their ghost ship will linger by the coast, waiting for fishing vessels to victimize. As one passes by, the ghost crew cries for help in repairing their woefully sinking ship. But if the passing fisherman are nice enough to help out the spirits, they’re screwed. What sort of ghost punishes those who are kind to them? A lousy one.

If the funayūrei are given a bucket or a ladle they will immediately use it to fill the fishing vessel with water and kill all those on board, ultimately creating more funayūrei and ruining a perfectly good boat. Funayūrei sound like a bunch of jerks to me. I don’t like ‘em.

Funayūrei are believed to look human, however some are said to take on a scaly sea-like appearance much like those under Davy Jones’ command. So much for helping out your fellow man at sea, eh?

Zashiki-warashi – 座敷童

Zashiki-warashi are child ghosts who dwell in large, well maintained, fancy houses. They’re a squirrely bunch and really enjoy playing pranks on their fleshy housemates. However, seeing a zashiki-warashi or having one in your home is considered very lucky and can even bring fantastical fortunes.

These spirits usually appear as five or six year old children with bobbed hair and red faces. Zashiki-warashi are unique in the fact that they aren’t hell-bent on murdering everyone or seeking vengeance on those who wronged them. Instead, these ghosts just act like trouble-making kids. They’re brats, but at least they aren’t trying to drown you, right?

Once they’ve decided to haunt your home, they will demand your attention much like any bratty child would. If you choose to ignore the spirit, it will then begin to play increasingly devilish pranks on you until you acknowledge its presence. If you still don’t learn to love your forcibly adopted ghost-child, it will cry its little ghost eyes out and run away from home forever. Congratulations. You’ve failed as a ghost parent. When you die you’ll become an ubume for sure.

Despite their somewhat annoying nature, zashiki-warashi are considered lucky and are capable of bringing riches to those whose homes they inhabit. Should the family successfully adopt and care for the ghost child, they will be rewarded financially. But keep in mind, these kids are no angels. If you want those riches, you’re gonna have to work for ‘em, girl.

Additional Links

Traditional Japanese Monsters

From the beginning of time, Japanese artwork and folklore has been littered with a baffling amount of unique goblins, ghouls, beasts, and demons. Known collectively as yōkai, these mythical monsters come in hundreds of recognized species complete with back stories, detailed strengths, weaknesses, hobbies, and favorite members of AKB48. A handful of the most famous and widely recognized yōkai are detailed below for your enjoyment.

Kappa – 河童

The kappa is easily one of the most famous creatures to come out of Japan. This angsty aquatic monster is a fusion of duck, frog, and turtle. By their powers combined, a kappa is born. A small pool of water atop the kappa’s head is its only means of functioning on land, and they have an unhealthy obsession with cucumbers. Why they like them so much I do not know.

Nowadays the kappa is loved by many and drawn up to be cute and marketable (even Hello Kitty has one among her diverse group of pals). In days past, however, the kappa was used by parents for psychological warfare against their children. Japanese tykes were warned that if they took a swim without adult supervision, a kappa would sneak up beneath them and suck out their insides through their anus like a hot bowl of ramen noodles. I’m serious. If you don’t believe me, just look at the above picture one more time. Go ahead. Look at it.

Tsukumo-gami – 付喪神

Tsukumo-gami is a yōkai subcategory comprised of inanimate objects that have sprung to life. Two of the most well-known tsukomo-gami are the Karakasa (umbrella ghost) and the Chochinobake (lantern ghost), but virtually any object is capable of transforming into a yōkai. The chances of this happening were said to increase with the object’s age, peaking around the 100 year mark. It was also essential that the object be somehow agitated. Most commonly this would be a result of abuse, neglect, or abandonment. Just remember that the next time you think about throwing your XBOX controller across the room in frustration, k?

Kitsune – 狐

We talked about kitsune before in an earlier post (check it out!) so I won’t go into too much detail here.

Stories depict kitsune as intelligent beings possessing magical abilities that increase with their age and wisdom. The most notable of these abilities is their adaptability to human form. While some folktales speak of kitsune employing this skill to trick folks, other stories portray them as faithful guardians, friends, lovers, and wives.

Foxes were a popular pet in ancient Japan and this gave rise to many a legend concerning them. Kitsune became closely associated with the Shinto spirit known as Inari, and served as its messengers. This role reinforced the fox’s already supernatural significance.

The more tails a kitsune has (up to nine) the older, wiser, and more powerful it is. Because of their potential power and influence, some people also make offerings to them as to a deity (much like weeaboos worship Naruto).

Tengu – 天狗

Tengu are incredibly popular supernatural creatures found in Japanese folklore, art, theater, and literature. They also continue to make appearances in present day media such as anime and movies. Tengu are one of the best known yōkai and are sometimes worshiped as Shinto kami. Although their name comes from a dog-like Chinese demon (Tiangou), the tengu were originally thought to be birdlike, and they are traditionally depicted with both human and avian characteristics.

The earliest tengu were pictured with beaks, but this feature has since modernized into an unnaturally long nose (did you know that Pinocchio is actually a tengu?!?!), which is undoubtedly their defining characteristic today.

Buddhist dogma long held that the tengu were disruptive demons who brought both violence and death. However, their image gradually softened into protective, if still dangerous, spirits of the mountains and forests. Tengu are also associated with the practice of Shugendō, and they are usually depicted in the distinctive garb of its followers, the yamabushi.

Enma Daiō – 閻魔大王

Enma Daiō is the Japanese lord of death. He’s so popular they even let him on a TV show called Dragon Ball Z. What more do you need to know?

Other Popular Demons Worth Checking Out

Nekomata (cat monster)

Here kitty kitty kitty~

Jorōgumo (lit. “whore spider”)

Yeah, she gets around.

Kubire-oni (strangler demon)

Another peeping Tom meets his end.

Rokurokubi (long-necked woman)

It is like, soooo hard to find clothes in my size you have like no idea.

Onmoraki (bird demon)

Fire! My only weakness!

Tenjo-sagari (ceiling dweller)

Ceiling cat would be pleased.

Baku (dream-eating chimera)

I’s in your dreams, eatin’ yo’ dreams.

Yamasei (mountain sprite)

Yama say whaaa?

Rashomon no oni (ogre of Rashomon Gate)

You shall not pass!

Waira (mountain-dwelling chimera)

gtfo my mountain, fool.

Japanese Monster Fun Facts!

Monsters are tied with robots as Japan’s #1 export! Cool!
Japan invented several full genres of monster-centric entertainment! Can you name them all?!
Some Japanese people are highly aroused by monsters! Are you!?

Additional Links

Want to know how to survive a yōkai attack? Check out this book!

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Will Japan build a backup Tokyo

2011-11-03T09:13:00.001+09:00

Onlookers get a panoramic view of the city of Tokyo from the first observatory deck during a media preview of the Tokyo Sky Tree tower this week. Some Japanese lawmakers have proposed constructing a "backup city" that could take on the capital's functions in the event of a catastrophe.

By Alan Boyle

It sounds like a story ripped from the parody-filled pages of The Onion, but some Japanese lawmakers really do want to build a "backup city" that would take over the functions of Tokyo, including tourism, in the event of a catastrophe.

The idea was floated last month at a Tokyo luncheon, with a follow-up in The Telegraph last week. "The idea of being able to have a backup, a spare battery for the functions of the nation ... isn't this really a good idea?" Hajime Ishii, a parliamentarian representing the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, was quoted as saying.

Support for creating an urban Plan B has grown in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan in March and led to the Fukushima nuclear crisis. "Preparations are already under way at various levels at various levels to find ways of mitigating possible far-reaching consequences of a much-expected earthquake striking Tokyo," the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan said.

The lawmakers' plan calls for building an urban center known as IRTBBC (Integrated Resort, Tourism, Business and Backup City) or NEMIC (National Emergency Management International City) on the 1,236-acre site currently occupied by Osaka International Airport at Itami. Today, Itami is used only as a secondary hub for domestic flights, operating in the shadow of the newer Kansai airport.

The new city would take on all the functions of the capital city in the event of an emergency. It would boast office complexes, resort facilities, parks and even casinos. The city's centerpiece would be a tower that would rank among the tallest in the world, coming in at just over 650 meters (2,133 feet). It'd be built to house 50,000 residents and accommodate a workday population of around 200,000 people from the Osaka region, The Telegraph reported.

If the plan goes forward, it would rank among history's most ambitious backup plans. The backers haven't calculated the cost of building the city. For now, Ishii and his fellow lawmakers — including the Democratic Party's Banri Kaieda, Shizuka Kamei of the People's New Party and Ichiro Aisawa of the Liberal Democrats — are merely seeking 14 million yen ($180,000) for a feasibility study.

So far, the reaction has been mixed: Osaka's governor, Toru Hashimoto, has been quoted as saying that his region is willing to accept the capital backup role, while Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara has voiced opposition. And he may not be the only one: It just seems to me that most emergency-management officials, if not most politicians, would prefer to fortify what they have rather than building a whole new complex someplace else.

Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding me to your Google+ circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

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Reformist Japan Farmers Urge Free Trade to Spur Change

2011-10-29T02:45:00.001+09:00

Like other farmers on this fertile, coastal plain in northeast Japan, where patchwork rice fields stretch to the mountains beyond, Kazushi Saito knows firsthand that the nation's shrinking agricultural sector is in dire straits.

Bloomberg | Getty Images

But unlike many, the 54-year-old rice farmer backs a controversial free trade deal that could remove a near 800 percent tariff on rice, aimed at excluding most imports of a staple that is ingrained in Japan's culture.

"Japan's agriculture is on the verge of collapse. If things go on this way, it can't last five years," Saito said.

Saito says the U.S.-led free trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), was "the last chance" to keep Japanese firms from falling further behind globally, spur agriculture reform - and help his farming business turn a profit.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has signalled he's keen to join talks on the trade deal, which has Japan's powerful farm lobby in a tizzy. The initiative would in principle remove all tariffs among participants, including on farm products, and set rules on trade in a wide range of other sectors.

Here in the town of Mikawa like elsewhere in Yamagata prefecture , pro-free trade farmers like Saito are a minority.

Most rice farmers fear - and rightfully so - that removing the 778 percent tariff shielding them from cheaper imports would be the death knell for their mostly miniscule farms.

Tariffs on fruit and vegetables are far lower so the impact of trade liberalisation would be much smaller.

"Japan is the land of 'Mizuho'," said farmer Shigeru Sato, using an ancient name for the country that means 'golden ears of rice'. "Rice is our culture. Without policies to protect rice, we cannot preserve local society."

But the 64-year-old Sato, who has been growing rice in the village of Nowara all his adult life and opposes the free trade pact , agrees something must change to keep farming alive, given falling prices as Japanese eat less rice, the high costs of fertiliser and other inputs and a maze of regulations.

Radiation Hotspots Discovered in Tokyo By Citizens’ Group

2011-10-18T01:46:00.001+09:00

Tokyo - Takeo Hayashida signed on with a citizens’ group to test for radiation near his son’s baseball field in Tokyo after government officials told him they had no plans to check for fallout from the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Like Japan’s s central government, local officials said there was nothing to fear in the capital, 160 miles from the disaster zone.

Getty Images

Japanese policemen wearing a protective suits undergo testing for possible nuclear radiation at a screening center.

Then came the test result: the level of radioactive cesium in a patch of dirt just yards from where his 11-year-old son, Koshiro, played baseball was equal to those in some contaminated areas around Chernobyl.

The patch of ground was one of more than 20 spots in and around the nation’s capital that the citizens’ group, and the respected nuclear research center they worked with, found were contaminated with potentially harmful levels of radioactive cesium.

It has been clear since the early days of the nuclear accident, the world’s second worst after Chernobyl, that that the vagaries of wind and rain had scattered worrisome amounts of radioactive materials in unexpected patterns far outside the evacuation zone 12 miles around the stricken plant. But reports that substantial amounts of cesium had accumulated as far away as Tokyo have raised new concerns about how far the contamination had spread, possibly settling in areas where the government has not even considered looking.

The government’s failure to act quickly, a growing chorus of scientists say, may be exposing many more people than originally believed to potentially harmful radiation. It is also part of a pattern: Japan’s leaders have continually insisted that the fallout from Fukushima will not spread far, or pose a health threat to residents, or contaminate the food chain. And officials have repeatedly been proved wrong by independent experts and citizens’ groups that conduct testing on their own.

“Radioactive substances are entering people’s bodies from the air, from the food. It’s everywhere,” said Kiyoshi Toda, a radiation expert at Nagasaki University’s faculty of environmental studies and a medical doctor. “But the government doesn’t even try to inform the public how much radiation they’re exposed to.”

The reports of hot spots do not indicate how widespread contamination is in the capital; more sampling would be needed to determine that. But they raise the prospect that people living near concentrated amounts of cesium are being exposed to levels of radiation above accepted international standards meant to protect people from cancer and other illnesses.

Japanese nuclear experts and activists have begun agitating for more comprehensive testing in Tokyo and elsewhere, and a cleanup if necessary. Robert Alvarez, a nuclear expert and a former special assistant to the United States secretary of energy, echoed those calls, saying the citizens’ groups’ measurements “raise major and unprecedented concerns about the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster.”

The government has not ignored citizens’ pleas entirely; it recently completed aerial testing in eastern Japan, including Tokyo. But several experts and activists say the tests are unlikely to be sensitive enough to be useful in finding micro hot spots such as those found by the citizens’ group.

MORE FROM NYTIMES.COM

“These results are highly localized, so there is no cause for panic,” he said. “Still, there are steps the government could be taking, like decontaminating the highest spots.”

Since then, there have been other suggestions that hot spots were more widespread than originally imagined.

Last month, a local government in a Tokyo ward found a pile of composted leaves at a school that measured 849 becquerels per kilogram of cesium 137, over two times Japan’s legally permissible level for compost.

And on Wednesday, civilians who tested the roof of an apartment building in the nearby city of Yokohama — farther from Fukushima than Tokyo — found high quantities of radioactive strontium. (There was also one false alarm this week when sky-high readings were reported in the Setagaya ward in Tokyo; the government later said they were probably caused by bottles of radium, once widely used to make paint.)

The government’s own aerial testing showed that although almost all of Tokyo had relatively little contamination, two areas showed elevated readings. One was in a mountainous area at the western edge of the Tokyo metropolitan region, and the other was over three wards of the city — including the one where the baseball field is situated.

The metropolitan government said it had started preparations to begin monitoring food products from the nearby mountains, but acknowledged that food had been shipped from that area for months.

Mr. Hayashida, who discovered the high level at the baseball field, said that he was not waiting any longer for government assurances. He moved his family to Okayama, about 370 miles to the southwest.

“Perhaps we could have stayed in Tokyo with no problems,” he said. “But I choose a future with no radiation fears.”

Matthew L. Wald contributed reporting from Washington, and Kantaro Suzuki from Tokyo.

This story originally appeared in The New York Times

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Japanology - Japan culture, entertainment, and other resources

2011-10-16T01:32:00.001+09:00

http://www.japanology.com/

Posted via email from Kirin.co - The Japanese Culture Community

Uniqlo Opens in New York

2011-10-15T02:37:00.001+09:00

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Wasabi Fire Alarm?

2011-10-06T17:35:00.001+09:00

-- Makoto Imai, Naoki Urushihata, Hideki Tanemura, Yukinobu Tajima, Hideaki Goto, Koichiro Mizoguchi and Junichi Murakami of Japan for determining the ideal density of airborne wasabi -- a pungent horseradish -- to awaken sleeping people and for applying this knowledge to invent a wasabi fire alarm.

Posted via email from Kirin.co - The Japanese Culture Community

With 24 high-tech fingers, Japan robot washes hair

2011-10-06T17:19:00.001+09:00

With 24 high-tech fingers, Japan robot washes hair Wed Oct 5, 2011 11:23PM EDT TOKYO (Reuters) - It may look like a glorified salon chair, but a new Japanese hair-washing robot replicates the dexterous touch of a human hand to care for the locks of the elderly and the infirm. Its creators at electronics firm Panasonic say the machine features the latest robotic technology and could help replace human care-givers in this rapidly aging nation without degrading the quality of the service. "Using robotic hand technology and 24 robotic fingers, this robot can wash the hair or handicapped in the way human hands do in order to help them have better daily lives," said developer Tohru Nakamura. The customer leans back in what looks like a regular salon chair, over a sink, and the machine -- upgraded from a 16-fingered version -- shampoos, massages the scalp and rinses in about three minutes. Conditioning and a blow-dry add another five minutes. Nakamura said Japan's aging society supports a healthy market in care-giving robot technologies. "We will develop more care-giving technologies for the elderly or handicapped in Japan and will export those technologies to other aging societies, such as South Korea and China, in the future," Nakamura said. The hair-washing machine is not available to consumers at this point, and a price has yet to be set. Panasonic plans to start sales next year, targeting nursing homes and hospitals. (Reporting by Hyun Oh; editing by Elaine Lies)

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Outrageous 1 Day sale to Japan - Oct 1st!!!!!

2011-09-29T23:51:00.001+09:00

Important announcement - Outrageous 1 Day sale to Japan

画像の見えない方はこちらをご覧下さい。 here
Unable to see images? Please click here

旅マガ・秋冬版発行！　デジタル版は こちら からご覧いただけます。




お近くのIACE TRAVELはこちらをご覧下さい
Your nearest IACE TRAVEL...Click HERE!

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Japanese Elvis Impersonator Performing in DFW - Sendai Relief Fund Benefit Concert

2011-09-28T05:01:00.001+09:00

The King Is Back!
Toki Toyokazu, Elvis Impersonator from Sendai

October 6, 2011
Sendai Relief Fund Benefit Concert

Toki Toyokazu, a Japanese Elvis impersonator with 20 years of experience, is coming to DFW! Known for his charm on stage and his action-packed shows, Toki is an act not to be missed.

LOCATION:
Scat Jazz Lounge
111 West 4th Suite 11, Fort Worth, TX 76102 (map)

DATE:
October 6, 2011

TIME:
6:00 p.m. - Doors
7:00 - 9:00 p.m. - Performance

COST:
$15 at the door
$10 advance tickets for JASDFW members

BUY YOUR TICKETS HERE

Support the Sendai Relief Fund

A Sendai native, Toki is donating half the proceeds from the show to the Sendai Relief Fund to help those affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami.

For full details, visit our website or call 214-342-2022

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The Future of Japan's Nuclear Policy

2011-09-24T00:05:00.001+09:00

http://online.wsj.com/video/the-future-of-japan-nuclear-policy/C061BDA8-97E0-4B9F-AC28-4B4FEAF3E796.html

A local election in southern Japan pits a pro-nuclear-energy incumbent against an anti-nuclear-energy candidate in the first big electoral test for how far the country will go in pulling the plug on nuclear power. WSJ's James Simms explains.

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Meet Japan's New Prime Minister

2011-08-30T02:07:00.001+09:00

http://online.wsj.com/video/meet-japan-new-prime-minister/A2A50B42-0889-44BC-AED8-E2F20425DAB6.html

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1000匹が23区に　東京でタヌキが暮らせる理由大手町のオフィス街にも登場

2011-08-17T03:22:00.001+09:00

2011/8/16 7:00
ニュースソース: 日本経済新聞　電子版

大手町のビルで捕獲されたタヌキ(2010年11月５日、東京都千代田区の警視庁丸の内署)

　タヌキといえば、里山に暮らすイメージが強いが、東京23区内にも1000匹ほどが生息しているという。大手町のオフィスビルに夜間、自動ドアを開けて入ってくるなどの珍事も起きている。ライバルのキツネはもはや都心から撤退しているようだが、タヌキがしたたかに都会暮らしを続けられる理由はなんだろうか――。

　東京の上野動物園。クマ舎の脇の小さな獣舎で、メスのタヌキが１匹だけ飼育されている。名前は「しのっぴ」。数年前、近くの不忍池あたりで捕獲された。飼育担当の野島大貴さんは「正確な年齢は分からないが、まだ若くて動きが活発ですよ」と話す。顔つきは、よくある置物のような丸顔ではない。鼻が少々ツンとしていて面長な感じだ。夜行性なので昼間は寝ていることが多いが、食事のほかにたまにおやつとして昆虫を与えると、昼間でも興奮して走り回っている。そのスピードはネコほどではないが意外に早い。「この子はあまり人間を恐れない。人間たちの様子をじっと観察しているようなところがありますね」と野島さんは言う。

上野動物園の獣舎で元気に走り回るタヌキのしのっぴ

　この「しのっぴ」のほかにも、東京には、ひそかに人間を観察して生きているタヌキたちがいるようだ。2010年11月には夜間、大手町のＪＸビルに体長50センチほどのタヌキが１匹、地下の自動ドアから入ってきた。けがをしている様子もなかったので、捕獲後、警視庁丸の内署が都内の緑地に放している。09年には、竹橋のオフィスビルの地下駐車場に迷い込んだ子タヌキが保護され、衰弱していたのでミルクなどを与えられた。

　野生のタヌキが都会に出没するのはなぜだろうか。「タヌキたちのびっくり東京生活」などの著書がある動物ジャーナリストの宮本拓海さんは「都心には案外、タヌキが暮らせる緑地が残っているんですよ」と解説する。タヌキは、昆虫やムカデ、ミミズといった地表の小動物や、カキ、ムクノキ、ギンナンといった果実を食べるが、行動範囲は結構狭く、半径数百メートルほどに収まることが多い。東京には夜に閉鎖される緑地公園などがそこそこあるが、そうしたところがあれば暮らしていける。さらに東京には天敵の野良犬がほとんどいないのが好都合なのだという。

都内に暮らしているタヌキの子ども(左)とお父さん(宮本拓海さん提供)

　タヌキは春に巣穴で子どもを産み、夫婦で仲良く子育てする。子どもたちは晩秋に独立していく。里山ではほかの動物が掘った穴を巣穴として利用しているが、東京では、線路脇などの側溝や寺社の床下などを使っているという。昼間は巣穴で寝ており、夕方以降、人のいなくなった緑地公園や寺社などで活動し始める。警戒心が強いので、人の近くに来ることは少ない。万一遭遇しても、太ったネコと勘違いして、見過ごされることが多いという。

　宮本さんは1998年に世田谷区でタヌキを目撃してから、その生態に興味を持ち、調査を続けてきた。2006年ごろからは専用サイトの「東京タヌキ探検隊！」（http://tokyotanuki.jp/）などで広く目撃情報を募っている。これまでに収集した1600件を超える目撃情報をもとに、東京にはタヌキがおよそ1000匹いるという試算を出している。主な生息範囲と思われるのは次の８グループだ。

（１）荒川南岸グループ＝荒川河川敷から南は東武東上線を越えたあたりまで

（２）西武線グループ＝西武新宿線・池袋線の沿線

（３）京王線グループ＝京王線と井の頭線の沿線

（４）多摩川グループ＝多摩川とその支流一帯

（５）目白文京グループ＝山手通り以東で文京区全域、台東区、北区の一部も含む

（６）御所グループ＝皇居、赤坂御用地、新宿御苑、明治神宮とその周辺

（７）水元グループ＝葛飾区の水元公園周辺

（８）白金グループ＝白金にある国立科学博物館付属自然教育園の周辺

東京のタヌキを調査している宮本拓海さん

　この生息範囲を見ると、緑地の多い地域のほかに、鉄道の沿線が含まれているのが興味深い。「タヌキにとって線路は暮らしやすい場所なんです」と宮本さんは言う。高架された路線は別として、地上の線路脇にはたいてい側溝があり、雑草が生えていて昆虫もいる。深夜、電車が来なくなってからはタヌキの天国。西武線や京王線などは線路沿いに伝っていけば、車の多い大通りも突破できる。

　タヌキがこうして生き延びているのに、キツネがいなくなったのはなぜだろうか。明治初期には銀座あたりでもキツネが見かけられたという。彼らはタヌキより頭脳派のイメージがあり、都会のサバイバル競争に向いていそうだが、残念なことに、タヌキより少しだけ肉食系だったことが災いしたようだ。タヌキが果実や昆虫などを食べるのに対して、キツネはネズミなどの小動物を好む。その食生活を支えるためには、より広大な緑地が必要だった。英国の都市などでは今でもキツネを見かけるところもあるが、東京の緑地では、タヌキは養えても、キツネまでは養えなかったようだ。

　宮本さんは「タヌキもたらふく食べているわけではなく、東京でこれから急激に増えるようなことはない」と話す。そうしてひっそりと暮らすタヌキたちと万一、幸運にも出くわすことがあったら、どう接したらいいだろうか。いちばん避けたいのは、大騒ぎして追いかけ回すこと。野生動物とは一定の距離を保ち、見守るのが望ましい。「近づかない、騒がない、食べ物を与えない」。宮本さんは、この３原則を提案している。

（生活情報部　平田浩司）

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Taro Kono, LDP Rebel with A Cause

2011-08-12T23:30:00.001+09:00

By Cheng Herng Shinn

Taro Kono is a young Turk by the standards of Japanese politics.

But with pedigree. Born in 1963, both his father and grandfather served as foreign ministers. Still, Mr. Kono has no use for establishment. In fact, he wants to get rid of it.

: European Pressphoto Agency; Taro Kono: Rebelling against Japan’s political establishment from within.

At a meeting with the foreign press in Tokyo this week, Mr. Kono lived up to his billing, criticizing what he thinks are elements that might cause Japan to extend its “lost decade,” referring to a failure to grapple with necessary reforms, to a “lost century.” His hit list included the power industry, Japanese media, the business lobby Keidanren, and even veteran politicians within his own Liberal Democratic Party, who he feels are too entrenched in vested interests to change for the better.

The thrust of his speech was directed at the nuclear power policy his party—in power for practically 54 years until 2009—has been championing all these decades.

A long-time proponent of getting rid of nuclear power plants, Mr. Kono has been fighting a lonely battle inside the LDP. He became an MP in 1996, and the Kyoto conference took place the following year. To reduce the carbon footprint, the LDP-led Japanese government proposed to increase the number of reactors by 20. Mr. Kono set up an independent group to look into the feasibility of that plan.

He said he found out that the LDP proposal was absurd: Japan has no way to process the nuclear waste. “Japan’s nuclear policy just doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Whenever I raised this issue with the LDP, they would say, ‘Are you a Communist?’”

Nuclear power produces nuclear waste, which has to be stored long-term somewhere, not just at current plant sites. Japan has an official deadline of 2028 to decide on the location. It is scheduled to actually start the long-term storage in 2038. In order to achieve those targets, Mr. Kono says the government should have finished testing the candidate sites by now. That’s not the case.

Mr. Kono’s efforts to change Japan’s pro-nuclear policy meets stiff resistance. He says the LDP is too closely aligned with the business lobby, including the power industry (while he says the now-governing Democratic Party of Japan is too close to labor unions). And Japan’s media wasn’t spared a Kono broadside: too close to the companies who pay for advertisements, he said.

Mr. Kono isn’t optimistic about change within his party—unless he takes control. And as it happens, Taro Kono will be running for the presidency of the LDP next year.

His sharp policy messages have ruffled the feathers of power brokers, and as a result, Mr. Kono is still considered an outside bet.

But if he were to rally enough broad-based support among the general public to influence the mood within the party and win, he’s out to get rid of the old guard within his party, lessen the influence of the power industry, and dispose of nuclear reactors altogether by 2050.

Mr. Kono’s remedies for Japan would shake things up, without doubt. What is less certain is whether he gets a chance to show he can make it happen, and then actually implement his radically different agenda.

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Sharpening the Mind With a Sword

2011-08-12T23:25:00.001+09:00

By Christopher Shay

Dressed in traditional Japanese robes, Richard Sung unsheathes his 550-year-old sword in a large industrial room in Hong Kong. The chief executive of gold mining company Sino Prosper has a look of intense concentration as he raises the sword above his head and then smoothly cuts downwards through the air.

: Christopher Shay for the Wall Street Journal; Mr. Sung practices a cut in front of old samurai armor.

Mr. Sung has been training in iaido, an ancient Japanese martial art based on the sword techniques of the samurai, for two years. Fascinated by Japanese history and ancient metallurgy, he initially just wanted to collect ancient swords. But when his sword dealer turned out to be an iaido sensei, or instructor, Mr. Sung, 40, jumped at the chance to learn how to wield his antique weapon.

Despite its age, Mr. Sung’s sword, for which he paid 110,000 Hong Kong dollars (US$14,100), is kept as sharp as it was centuries ago. Many swords made during the Edo period (1603- 1868) were tested on the corpses of executed criminals — the sharpest ones could split a person in two with a downward strike through the skull.

“One mistake,” he says, “and you’ll cut through your whole arm.”

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Kirin Takes Majority Stake in Brazil's Schincariol for $2.56 Billion

2011-08-03T07:46:00.001+09:00

By HIROYUKI KACHI And TOM MURPHY

Brazil's burgeoning beer market, long dominated by the a unit of global brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev, could get some serious competition.

Japan's Kirin Holdings Co. is making a push into the country by acquiring a controlling stake in family owned brewer Schincariol for $2.57 billion, in hopes of establishing a foothold in the fast-growing market.

Kirin President Senji Miyake seen at a news conference Tuesday in Tokyo.

The Tokyo-based company, which also owns brewing assets in Australia and the Philippines, said Tuesday it is buying slightly more than a 50% stake in Brazil's second-biggest beer brewer from brothers Alexandre Schincariol and Adriano Schincariol (pronounced SKIN-kah-ree-ALL).

But minority shareholders—three Schincariol cousins that own 49.55% of the company—called the sale illegitimate and promised to take the issue to court. The cousins said the company's bylaws require any shares put up for sale must first be offered to fellow shareholders.

The family dispute highlights the high stakes and great promise that some foreign firms see in Brazil. The country is the third-biggest beer market after China and the U.S. and nearly double the size of Japan.

Deal Journal: Japanese Drink Makers on M&A Trail

While the U.S. beer market is growing just 1% to 2% a year, Brazil's beer consumption jumped 11% in 2010 from the year before, according to the National Brewing Association, an industry trade group.

View Full Image

See 2011's top 10 global M&A transactions in the beverage sector.

"To find growth, the big global players have to look to emerging markets, and beer sales in Brazil are booming. This is where they can grow," said Renato Prado, an analyst at Sao Paulo's Fator brokerage.

Brazil's market, however, has long been dominated by AmBev, which merged with Belgian brewer Interbrew in 2005 and then swallowed Anheuser-Busch in 2008 to become the world's biggest maker of beer. In Brazil, AmBev has a 69% of market share.

Schincariol is second with 11%, leading a host of even smaller players. The company started out in 1939 as a soft drink vender. Its tutti-frutti-flavored soft drink Itubaina is still popular in the interior of Sao Paulo state, where Schincariol's headquarters is located.

In recent years, the company has advertised more aggressively, but every time it claws a bit more market share, AmBev strikes back. In 2004, Schincariol hired popular singer Zeca Pagodinho to tout Nova Schin, its new brew. But six months later, Mr. Pagodinho shocked Brazilians by turning coats and starring in an ad for Ambev's Brahma, long his favorite brew.

While AmBev dominates most of Brazil, Schincariol is stronger in parts of the Northeast, which are faster growing, said Ana Carolina Boyadjian. "Schincariol practically owns the annual Carnival celebration in Bahia," said Ms. Boyadjian. Bahia's Carnival is challenged only by Rio de Janeiro's for popularity.

"This is a rare opportunity to buy an influential company," Kirin President Senji Miyake said of Schincariol.

The Schincariol brothers have been talking to potential bidders for several months, according to analysts and industry observers. A person familiar with the matter said Kirin beat competing offers from SABMiller PLC and Heineken NV, helped by the strength of the yen.

Representatives for SABMiller and Heineken declined to comment.

Japanese brewers have been among the world's most acquisitive companies, according to data provider Dealogic, snapping up about $4 billion in deals so far this year. More broadly, Japanese companies' purchases of overseas assets are running at $46.7 billion, a high for the period, Dealogic said.

"Japanese acquisitions abroad are growing in number and diversity," said Colin Banfield, head of mergers and acquisitions for Asia Pacific at Citigroup Inc.

Mr. Banfield said that since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, Japanese companies' appetite to diversify overseas has sharpened. The investment bank's discussions with Japanese corporate clients suggest there are more outbound deals in the pipeline, he added.

Analysts say deals offer a way for Japan's cash-rich food and beverage companies to expand. But Japanese companies still need to find partners that can cater to local tastes.

Japan's brewers are ramping up their overseas operations amid a shrinking population and a gradual shift away from beer drinking in the country. Beer shipments in Japan fell 3.5% to about 200 million cases in the first half of the year, according to Japanese beer makers.

"It will have to grow its volumes and hopefully its share in a market, which already has a dominant player," Mr. Williams said.

The deal is the third-biggest acquisition of foreign companies by Japanese firms announced this year after Takeda Pharmaceutical Co.'s $14 billion purchase of Nycomed, and Terumo Corp.'s acquisition of CaridianBCT, valued at $2.6 billion, according to Dealogic.

—Alison Tudor contributed to this article.

Write to Hiroyuki Kachi at hiroyuki.kachi@wsj.com and Tom Murphy at tom.murphy@dowjones.com

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Oni-con is coming to Galveston at the end of October

2011-07-28T21:23:00.001+09:00

http://www.oni-con.com - Oni-Con : An Annual Japanese Pop Culture and Multi-Genre Fan Expo

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Funimation.com

2011-07-18T22:53:00.001+09:00

http://www.funimation.com/ is the online destination for the latest and best Anime titles. Visitors can interact with their favorite shows, share cosplay, watch video, chat in forums, or just browse. Come back daily for the latest news, read reviews, or invite friends to check out your blog. We’re constantly making upgrades to the website. Be sure to stop by often and let us know what you would like to see. To become a free member, sign up here.

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Japan Acknowledges Radioactive Beef Sold to Markets, Restaurants

2011-07-15T01:32:00.001+09:00

Photo: Reuters

A worker operates a forklift, carrying a container loaded with a pile of bones of beef, at a wholesale meat market in Tokyo, July 12, 2011

Japan's government says it is a serious matter that beef contaminated with radioactive cesium has reached the domestic market.

But officials are also calling it an isolated incident, while vowing to increase inspections of food in wake of the country's nuclear crisis.

Officials in Fukushima prefecture, where three reactors crippled by the March 11th earthquake and tsunami suffered meltdowns, are now acknowledging they are unable to totally prevent potentially contaminated food from reaching the marketplace.

That comes after confirmation by the central government that some beef from contaminated cattle in Fukushima has apparently been consumed.

Officials say inspections prevented some radioactive meat from reaching the market. But Noriyuki Shikata, a spokesman for the prime minister's office, acknowledges that other contaminated cuts of beef slipped through.

"The fact that these contaminated meats that exceeded our regulation limit was distributed to the market was very unfortunate," said Shikata. "And from the government point of view we will be working on strengthening the monitoring in close collaboration with the municipalities and, of course, the government ministries in charge."

A senior technical officer at the health ministry, Toshitaka Higashira, told reporters Wednesday the contaminated beef that was sold to shoppers and restaurants originated from six cattle on one farm in Fukushima prefecture.

"The beef has been shipped to 11 prefectures throughout Japan and the total amount distributed on the market was 1,400 kilograms," said Higashira.

The contaminated beef that was intercepted measured six times the allowable limit of radioactive cesium. Authorities say they presume the beef that was sold had the same radiation levels, which they say is not dangerous because only small portions would have been consumed.

Officials blame a single rancher who ignored orders not to feed cattle rice straw which may have been exposed to radiation following explosions at the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant in March.

The damaged reactors have yet to be brought to a cold shutdown state. They continue to spew radiation into the atmosphere. Government officials say the levels detected continue to be relatively high to the northwest of the nuclear facility, but levels have remained steady since mid-April.

Since the natural disaster four months ago, which severely damaged the nuclear plant, a number of food products in northeastern Japan have been contaminated with levels exceeding legal limits. Beef is the newest item on the list which also includes milk, vegetables, fish and tea leaves.

At supermarkets here in Tokyo where items from the affected region are carried and certified safe to eat, they have been discounted but do not appear to be selling well.

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