Author: Adamu

Yomiuri and Asahi both Call for Moratorium on Implementation of PSE Mark Enforcement

Major Japanese dailies Asahi and Yomiuri, who rarely agree, have both come out in favor of postponing enforcement of the mandatory electrical safety testing of used electronics and appliances (known as the PSE Law and last mentioned on MF here). The Yomiuri is especially hard on METI, the government ministry responsible for the confusion:

Ministry to blame for PSE mark confusion

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The current confusion arising from the planned introduction of the product safety of electrical appliances and materials (PSE) mark must be dismissed as the result of the makeshift policy on the issue adopted by the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry. There are concerns that the confusion could worsen.

…

All this has caused the ministry to hurriedly reverse its policy, permitting the sale of vintage instruments and some other items without the PSE mark. The abrupt change indicates the ministry may be willing to acknowledge it has not properly prepared to introduce the PSE program.
Continue reading Yomiuri and Asahi both Call for Moratorium on Implementation of PSE Mark Enforcement

Japanese version of Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force Sentenced to Prison


Pervy pedagogue sent to prison after paying 15-year-old with fake cash

OKAYAMA — A high court on Wednesday ordered a former junior high school teacher to spend 30 months in prison for buying the sexual services of a junior high school girl using counterfeit money.

Toshihiro Takatsuki, 30, formerly a part-time teacher from Asaguchi, Okayama Prefecture, created 11 fake 10,000 yen notes using a color printer in February 2005, according to the ruling. A few weeks later, he paid a 15-year-old for sex using three of them.

The judge at the Hiroshima High Court’s Okayama branch told the man that buying the sexual services of a junior high school girl and the use of bogus notes were shameful crimes, and that he couldn’t avoid a prison term.

However, the judge handed down a sentence shorter than that previously given by the lower court, saying that Takatsuki had already reached an out-of-court settlement with the woman for using the counterfeit notes. (Mainichi)

March 22, 2006

Lame alliteration in the headline aside, it takes a lot of balls to try paying an underage hooker with fake money. Maybe he should have tried paying with pennies!

Also, the Japanese version of the story contains my new favorite yojijukugo (four-kanji phrase): 偽札売春 (にせさつばいしゅん） “Counterfeit bill prostitution.” Try and use it in a conversation some time this week.

Finally, what kind of “settlement” was reached over the counterfeit notes?! Did she sue him for the money he owed her for the sex? I couldn’t imagine the legal basis for a hooker to sue her john for using fake money. Can anyone explain that to me?

Another PSE Update – Asahi Apologistic in semi-anonymous column

In response to massive protest (including a petition drive with 75,000 signatures), the government has compromised to weaken the abonimable PSE Law (previous MF posts on the law that will end vintage electronics sales in Japan as we know it here, here, and here) to exempt vintage musical instruments and allow dealers to perform the required electrical safety tests themselves. The govt even intends to establish government-sponsored testing centers to facilitate implementation of the law. Furthermore, they have said that conducting the PSE test will not open the seller to liability for the product’s electrical safety. (Source: Nikkei March 21 Morning Edition – not online yet). Unfortunately, the government has only decided to exempt some products from the law etc, not exactly the acknowldgement of antique electronics sales that the Synthesizer Programmer Assoc. wanted.

Back on March 5, the very idea of a law that would needlessly outlaw vintage electronics had populist blogger Kikko angry. She made a very good point in her rant on the evils of the law (paraphrased because Kikko’s writing style is impossible to translate):
Continue reading Another PSE Update – Asahi Apologistic in semi-anonymous column

Sugimura Just Can’t Get it Right

ZAKZAK!

Taizo’s One-sided Date in Chinatown – 26-year-old Hot Secretary Tells All
“This is the last time, so let’s get together just the two of us,” No touching

Yukan Fuji has learned on March 16 that just before announcing his engagement, the “100% Koizumi Child” and self-described representative of the unemployed LDP Diet member Taizo Sugimura (PR, S. Kanto block, 26yo) was on a date with the ravishing private secretary (26) of former prime minister Tsutomu Hata. Sugimura (or “Taizo” as he is often called by his given name) had just announced his engagement the previous day. The act may be misinterpreted as “cheating,” but the woman, in an interview with Yukan Fuji, denied such allegations forcefully, remarking, “I am like his female friend (who doesn’t see him as a [dateable] man).”

According to the woman, she picked him up in a white Mercedes-Benz at his official residence in Sanda, Minato District, Tokyo, on the morning of March 12, whereupon he got in the passenger’s seat. After driving a few hundred meters, Taizo took the wheel and headed down the Metropolitan Expressway, finally arriving at a parking lot in Yokohama’s Chinatown. They ate lunch approximately 1.5 hours later and then returned to the official residence.

The woman denied a special relationship with Sugimura: “We went out to eat, but Representative Sugimura is a friend who I hang out with other friends my age. Even then, we didn’t make anything more than small talk.”

She is a private secretary working in the office of former prime minister Hata, and possesses good looks such that she appeared in a photo magazine’s “Beautiful Dietmembers’ Secretaries Special Feature.” Her style is in a class all its own, and she resembles actresses Akiko Yada and Uno Kanda. She is rumored to be dating a male corporate worker.
Continue reading Sugimura Just Can’t Get it Right

Japan’s Government Sells Out

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

LDP Panel Eyes Land Sale, Loan Securitization To Cut Govt Assets

TOKYO (Nikkei)–As part of efforts to pare down government assets, a subpanel of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s fiscal reform committee will recommend as early as Wednesday the creation of an independent institution to oversee the streamlining of publicly held property and the securitization of government-held loans, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun has learned.

“We will submit a proposal that prunes more than 100 trillion yen” from the government’s roughly 430 trillion yen in marketable assets, LDP Policy Research Council Chairman Hidenao Nakagawa said in a speech Tuesday. Nakagawa also heads the fiscal reform committee.

…

The subpanel will also propose plans to sell such holdings as civil servant dormitories and implement private-sector ideas for using government land more effectively. Development proposals would be solicited to compete with the land use plans of the pertinent government ministries and agencies. The new organization would oversee disclosure methods, as well as prioritize the government and private-sector proposals.

The subpanel will also recommend selling the naming rights to national stadiums and other facilities, as well as creating advertising space on government vehicles.

(The Nihon Keizai Shimbun Wednesday morning edition)

Ick!

Where are they Now? Nasubi edition

A commenter asked us whatever happened to Nasubi, the aspiring comedian who allowed Japanese TV to kidnap him and force him to survive by entering sweepstakes in 1998.

Well, as usual, Wikipedia has the answer (paraphrased):

Nasubi’s feature is, as noted by his stage name (Nasubi means “eggplant” in Japanese), his 30cm-long face. He has sought a dramatic acting career since he started, and is currently active mostly in stage productions. In 2002 he founded the “Eggplant Way” and serves as its chief.

Recently most of his television appearances have been on local programs in his native Fukushima, but in 2005 he appeared in national TV dramas “Train Man” and “Trick New Special.”

Looks like he survived his near-starvation experience to go on to moderate success as an actor. Good for him! Check Nasubi’s official website (Japanese only) for appearances. He also keeps a pretty regular diary (latest entry):

So, so strong!!

The World Baseball Classic semifinals… The overall game made me numb, but the third time’s the charm! This game showed us Japan’s sticktuitiveness? or its latent energy, it was 110% worth seeing (*^_^*)

Both teams…had very fine plays, also plays where they had to make up for mistakes, and I got the deep impression that we can be proud of Asia’s high level of baseball throughout the world!!

But truthfully? Don’t you feel kind of bad for Korea?

3/19/2006 (Sunday)

Umm, not really! I was just watching Japan trounce Cuba in the finals (right now it’s 6-3 in the bottom of the 8th). Once, when Ichiro was running home, he actually stopped the 3rd baseman from throwing home by intentionally blocking his line of vision. That’s some superhero shit, my man.

Government of Japan Places Full Names, Addresses of Newly Naturalized Citizens on Internet

As fellow Japan watchers, haven’t you ever wondered what kind of people decide to naturalize as Japanese citizens? Well, according to the Ministry of Justice, it’s vastly Chinese and Koreans followed by “Other.”

But let’s say you wanted a little more detail. In fact, let’s say you were so curious about what kind of people are deciding to become Japanese that you wanted to visit each of them personally and congratulate them? Sounds impossible, right?

Wrong! As I was digging through some government regulations today, I noticed that the government of Japan publishes the full names, addresses, and birthdates of every single naturalized citizen on the Internet via the online version of its Government Gazette (“kanpo” in Japanese), the official public registry for new laws, regulations etc. You can even see who celebrated a very lucky St. Patrick’s Day with their official acceptance into Japanese society. Or you can check out the online archives going back 1 year at the Prime Minister’s Office website. And I am sure if you took a trip down to the Diet Library the nice librarians would be happy to allow you to peruse the Kanpo archives.

With the Japanese people in an uproar over leaks of personal information, often to unscrupulous scam artists, it should come as nothing less than a slap in the face that the government is publishing their fellow citizens’ home addresses. I’m just a curious nerd, but what’s to stop some right wing group from harassing new citizens for tainting Japan’s supposedly sacred and pure bloodline? (Of course, they’d have to go looking for it at a relatively obscure and boring government website, but gosh darnit, it’s just like that Clint Eastwood movie where all the celebrities get put on a hit list!)
Continue reading Government of Japan Places Full Names, Addresses of Newly Naturalized Citizens on Internet

Scary: New Taste Analyzer Mimics Human Perception Of Flavors

From Nikkei:

Friday, March 10, 2006

New Taste Analyzer Mimics Human Perception Of Flavors

KYOTO (Nikkei)–A Keio University research group led by chemistry professor Koji Suzuki has developed a taste analyzer that can evaluate beverages quickly and with high precision, identifying flavors in a humanlike way that includes the ability to detect sweet-sour and bitter-but-tasty flavors.
Continue reading Scary: New Taste Analyzer Mimics Human Perception Of Flavors

Saipan, Desperate for Japanese Tourist “reparations,” Offers to Open its Own Version of Yasukuni

The governor of Saipan has made a morbidly cynical offer to the Japanese families of those who died in the bloody Battle of Saipan:

Banzai Cliff as cemetery for Japanese war dead?

By Agnes Donato
Reporter

Monday, March 13, 2006

The Banzai Cliff in Marpi could soon turn into a cemetery for the Japanese war dead, with the governor offering the property to the families of World War II soldiers who lost their lives on Saipan.

Gov. Benigno R. Fitial announced Friday that he had received two pledges of donation amounting 10 million Japan yen (about $84,000) each for the planned cemetery.

A separate offer of $100,000 has also been made for the sole benefit of the Public School System, he said.

“I am making land available at Banzai Cliff for Japanese groups to build a temple. This temple will be a token of our appreciation for the Japanese people visiting Saipan. I am also offering the same property to all the families and relatives of 47,000 war heroes who lost their lives here on Saipan to come and erect monuments,” Fitial said during his weekly press conference.

I can’t think of a more depressing idea. The Banzai Cliff was what hundreds of Japanese civilians jumped from in the aftermath of the battle. They chose to end it all rather than be raped and tortured by the Americans (UPDATE: …or so they may have believed. Another blogger, objecting to this “spin” – though it was unintentional – helpfully pointed out some of the sacrifices US soldiers made to save Japanese civilians in Saipan. Take a look.). I remember seeing on the History Channel a mother jump with her child no more than 50 feet from the American soldiers who looked on with a video camera rolling.

But will this save Saipan’s embattled tourist industry? It remains to be seen:

Tourist arrivals from Japan continue to drop as a result of Japan Airlines’ decision to cease all regular, scheduled flights to Saipan in October 2005.

Data from the Marianas Visitors Authority showed that the CNMI received only 25,555 visitors from Japan in January 2006. This represents a 29-percent decline compared with the 35,795 Japanese who came to the islands in January 2005.

But MVA is hopeful that the Japan market would recover when Northwest Airlines increases the frequency of its Tokyo flights beginning next month.

Northwest, which currently operates seven weekly flights between Saipan and Narita, will have 10 flights a week between the two points starting April 24, 2006.

The new service will operate a second Boeing 747 jumbo jet from Tokyo, flying three times a week. The aircraft will carry 400 economy and 30 business class passengers.

Homework assignment: Does anything similar exist in the world? There are certainly things like the Normandy memorial or Auschwitz, but are there any war memorials designed almost purely as tourist traps? I’m kind of offended — maybe Saipan does suck!