Hiroshima Prefectural Police announced Mar 18 that their Bosozoku/Youth Crimes Division, which was responsible for controlling the activities of “Bosozoku” or Japanese youth biker gangs, would merge with the Youth Development Division on April 1 to become the new Youth Crimes Division. Most of the gangs have disbanded, creating less of a need to monitor them.
Since installing the Counter-Bosozoku Office in 1994, a Division with the word “Bosozoku” in it will disappear from the Prefectural Police after 11 years.
Bosozoku clashed with riot police in 1999’s Ebisu Matsuri (festival). Since then, a movement to eliminate the Bosozoku came into being, with a Bosozoku Banishment Ordinance and other measures. At the end of last year, membership in Bosozoku had decreased to under one third its peak number (in 1999), 119 people.
My Comment: I knew that Bosozoku were out of style, but at this rate maybe they’ll disappear entirely within a few years.
The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on March 18 that they will be providing 200 Judo uniforms to the Iraqi Judo Federation. Their stated purpose is:
to promote friendship with Iraqi people and to deepen their understanding about Japan and also strengthen their hope toward the future through Judo, which is one of the national sports of Japan that place importance on the spiritual side.
This is in addition to the $91,000 of judo and soccer (football for you non-Americans) equipment that they donated to Iraq just short of one year ago.
Apparently judo has a sizable presence in Iraq, with over 25,000 members in their national judo federation, and it seems that the sport is taken quite seriously there. According to this article on one Iraqi Olympic athlete (in another sport):
Iraq’s judo champion, who will carry the national flag at the opening ceremony, and his coach were once incarcerated in Uday’s private dungeons after performing below expectations.)
Japundit brings us a translation of a kooky ad I saw on my trip. It’s a clever ad in that it appears to invite people to imagine how great learning English could be while in reality doing the imagining for them:
If I could speak English, I would . . .
I would live in Hawaii with lots of dogs.
I would eat all the desserts in the world!
I would buy the materials for aroma therapy and mix them myself.
I would lecture the loud foreigners on the train.
I would raise my children in America: one artist, one computer programmer.
I would go work in a foreign marketing firm.
I would start a dental office for foreigners.
Read the rest over at Japundit or NEOMARXISME. We can’t make these up folks!
UPDATE: LOOK LIKE IT WONT COME OUT IN THE US UNTIL APRIL 2006 OR SO. RATS!
One of my favorite video games that was released semi-recently is Kingdom Hearts. It’s a Square-developed role-playing game based on the Disney universe. You play as a younger version of the typical Final Fantasy-type hero and team up with Donald and Goofy to save Mickey from The Darkness. That’s why I wait with eager anticipation for the American release of Kingdom Hearts II. Fanning the hype is gamesindustry.biz with its interview with producer Shinji Hashimoto:
Kingdom Hearts II
What are the major changes we can expect to see in the new Kingdom Hearts game?
One of the big changes you’ll see when you play the game is to the camera – we’ve changed how that works. Also, the levels now have more events in them, with mini-games and so on. We’re basically keeping the same concept and everything, but the changes are to the system of the game – we’ve made a massive block of changes that you will see.
After the success of the first game, do you think Disney trust you more with their characters and worlds now in the second game?
We definitely feel a new sense of trust from the Disney side. Based on that trust, we can make new developments – the kind of drastic changes, new discoveries and surprises that we couldn’t before. So yes, look out for that!
Kingdom Hearts 2 looks like it is a lot darker and more adventurous with its story and characters than the first game – is it aimed at a slightly older audience?
We’re still keeping a sort of balance, so that younger audiences can enjoy it as well. Certainly, at the top end, you’ll see some serious scenes and so on – but that’s not the main part. So, for example, even if the player is really young and doesn’t understand the serious parts, they can still enjoy it – we’ve kept that sort of playful element in the game.
There’s some cross-over with how Disney approaches things [to make their films appeal to all ages], of course, but we make the details quite different. We add more mysteries and so on, which appeal more to an older audience, maybe.
In light of the large number of visitors coming for the public execution video from North Korea, I thought I should point out the photos I have in my web gallery from my trip to the Korean DMZ (DeMilitiarized Zone). The explanation I put on my old blog when I first posted these photos is located in the Mutanfrog archives here.
The DMZ gallery is located here, or just click on one of the two sample thumbnails and navigate upwards.
border-zone/tunnel_interior
I love this picture I took inside the invasion tunnel when the guards weren’t looking.
Here’s a blog post from my old Adamu’s Jappanica (now continuing as DC Honyaku) that takes us back to the good old days of December 2004:
Nihao, everybody! I’m back from Thanksgiving break and don’t want to do any work, so I’m back blogging. This right here is the last sign I need to prove to me that the Chinese are taking over. We might as well just sign up for these classes now before it becomes mandatory. Here’s part of a Japanese report on it:
“Confucius Institute” aims to open 100 schools
China has embarked on a project to spread the Chinese language around the world. In cooperation with universities in various countries, they plan to open 100 “Confucius Institutes” specializing in Chinese education.
Increased interest in learning Chinese as a result of China’s rapid development may behind this effort, but it is likely that far-reaching nationalist strategies to strengthen China’s global influence and presence may be afoot.
Before the opening, a National Chinese Language Guidance Group signed a pact with Washington, DC-area University of Maryland to open America’s first Confucius Institute in an effort to promote the Chinese language in America’s legal, financial, and government centers.
A representative of the Group, Vice Chairman Chang, said “Japan’s educational institutions are also cooperating on opening an Institute.” It has been reported that Sweden, Uzbekistan and other countries have also signed pacts to open schools. The Institutes work by the hosting institution providing the land and facilities for the schools while the Chinese government provides teachers and materials.
Why the choice of “Confucius” for the name of the front-line headquarters for Chinese language propagation? Experts say it’s because it’s not only well known but also easy to understand, making it perfect as China’s “unified brand.”
Chang pointed out that “there is a strong demand for the development of Chinese language guides in Africa and Egypt due to the rise in overseas tourism by Chinese people.”
Zhou Ji, Chinese minister of Education and Li Bin, Chinese ambassador to Republic of Korea attended the opening ceremony, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
Zhou said the Confucius Institute, as the school is called, is the first of its kind in a foreign country. He said his administration will spare no effort in promoting Chinese learning in the Republic of Korea by supporting the institute’s operations.
Students from the Republic of Korea are the largest overseas student source in China and vice versa.
The institute is seen as an effort to expand Chinese language in foreign countries, said Zhang Guoqiang, deputy director of National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (NOCFL), sponsor of the institute.
A rising number of international students are showing a keen desire to learn Chinese, he added.
Confucius institutes, which have been globally approved, will be established in Asia, Africa and Europe.
The video of the North Korean public executions has moved here.
UPDATE 2: PHOTIOS provides some explanation for what’s happening in the video for those who don’t speak Japanese:
The video shows two consecutive days. During the first day you see a group of people brought to watch the trial and execution. It occurs out at the execution ground with the posts prepared on the other side of a van. The trial takes about twenty minutes. The crowd is then led around the van and two of the prisoners are executed, the other nine sentenced to prison terms. The crime? Crossing into North Korea from China numerous times to help North Koreans escape and being paid by a broker in China to do it. Immediately after they are shot you can here a guard ask loudly “Are they dead?”.
On the second day the “trial” is even quicker, with the execution posts being put up during the trial. One man is executed for the same crime. Following the execution a guard loudly announces to the crowd, “this is what you get if you do not respect and work for Kim Jong Il Shogun”.
And here is a follow-up program from Japanese TV on the footage of public execution in the DPRK. The executions are reportedly part of the crackdown on defections that is taking place.
Stay tuned for a more detailed look at the videos.
Kawanishi, Hyogo’s Children’s Human Rights Ombudsperson, the first such 3rd-party moderator in Japan, will release its yearly reporton Mar 19 at 1:30 PM at its general office in Hidaka-cho.
According to the report, last year there were 179 complaints, and a total of 504 since the ombudsman was installed. The content of complaints was (in order from most to fewest cases): family, friends, mental-phyical health problems, bullying, teachers.
Ombudsperson Tanaka Fumiko, who reported to the Mayor Takashibau on Mar 10, said, “Since I am a third party, I would like to continue listening to children and think about their problems with them.”
An example of the very liberal local governing in Japan. Japan’s cities tend to be generous in offering socialized health care and living stipends for poor families due to their federal funding.
UPDATE: The video has moved here. And here‘s a follow-up story from Japanese TV. Stay tuned for a more detailed look at the video on this site.
UPDATE 2: PHOTIOS provides some explanation for what’s happening in the video:
The video shows two consecutive days. During the first day you see a group of people brought to watch the trial and execution. It occurs out at the execution ground with the posts prepared on the other side of a van. The trial takes about twenty minutes. The crowd is then led around the van and two of the prisoners are executed, the other nine sentenced to prison terms. The crime? Crossing into North Korea from China numerous times to help North Koreans escape and being paid by a broker in China to do it. Immediately after they are shot you can here a guard ask loudly “Are they dead?”.
On the second day the “trial” is even quicker, with the execution posts being put up during the trial. One man is executed for the same crime. Following the execution a guard loudly announces to the crowd, “this is what you get if you do not respect and work for Kim Jong Il Shogun”.
Here is video footage from Japanese TV of the public execution that went on in Korea (Click here and click on the WMV for the very last entry on the bottom if that doesn’t work). Kim Jong-il previously denied reports (from a defector) that there were public executions going on, but here is undeniable proof. Thanks to the Marmot for cluing me in on the story.
