Author: Adamu

Tensei Jingo Reveals the Shocking Truth of Aichi Expo: No Awnings

Asahi’s venerable bottom-of-the-front-page anonymous column Tensei Jingo (“Vox Populi, Vox Dei” in Latin, I’ll be damned if I know what it means in English 😛 ) warns against waiting in line at the Aichi Expo in the hot summer sun:

I was told the waiting time for the Japan Pavilion was 90 minutes. Normally, I would give this a miss, but I decided I might as well give it a try.

As the queue crept forward, I waited in the direct sun for quite a while. I dampened my handkerchief with bottled water and covered my head with it.

The waiting came to an end after 75 minutes, but I was in the pavilion no longer than 15 minutes. It was still hot when I came out at 4 p.m. The temperature was over 30 degrees in the nearby city of Nagoya.

I could tell various measures were being taken to beat the heat. For instance, there was a long corridor where an artificial mist was generated to bring relief to many visitors. And throughout the Expo site, the extensive use of wood is apparently meant to tame the reflective heat. But the real summer heat has yet to hit, and I had to wonder if these measures were sufficient.

For instance, if long waiting lines are the norm, the Expo organizers should install more awnings and sun shades. Visitors themselves should bring fans or parasols or wear hats; make sure they have plenty to drink; and not force themselves to keep standing in line if it gets too uncomfortable.

The horror!

Try reading this story in a Russian accent


Be fit with the help of video-player

18:32 2005-07-14
Lots of people dream of becoming fit and slim. Some of them keep to various diets, others prefer to exhaust themselves with endless physical exercises.

But in Japan people lose weight by playing video games. Dance Dance Revolution, a popular Japanese video game makes players leap around on a platform as instructed by arrows – up, down, right or left – to a throbbing techno beat. The moves get faster and harder as players get better, making the game arduous, addictive and inadvertently aerobic.

Matt Keane, now 21, became addicted by Dance Dance Revolution less than a year ago. At the start his weight was 209 kilograms. Dancing at the game platform he lost 68 kilograms.

A recent Pennsylvania study of 35 adolescents found that, on average, Dance Dance Revolution elevated players’ heart rates to double their resting level over a 45-minute period, according to one of the study’s coordinators, Stephen Yang.

“There is no doubt the games are great exercise,” Yang said, “but first and foremost, they’re fun.”

Usually a sedentary activity, video games might seem an unlikely weapon in the battle of the bulge. Earlier video games were blamed even for mass suicides. But over the past few years “exertainment” – a merging of exercise and electronic entertainment – has helped the industry’s image as well as its profit margins, says the AP.

With dance simulation video games making exercise fun and hip, parents, teachers and doctors are starting to pay attention. And manufactures are hoping to capitalize.

Obesity is quite a problem for many societies. Experts differ in ways to struggle obesity. Some of them advise to drink milk, others suggest not to watch TV, but now we know the correct answer – Dance Dance Revolution is the answer to all the health problems.

Nikkei: How to sit on commuter trains


Nikkei offers some very specific tips from the pros on how to find a seat on Japan’s crowded commuter trains:

Before you get on the train:

  • Line up at worst 4th from the front (in cars with seven-person benches and 3 doors): The 5th in line may not be able to sit. In that case, wait for the next train!
  • Line up near the smoking area of the station: There are many who get on late because they are distracted by smoking. Few people will put out their cigarettes just to line up.
  • Line up behind the door second closest to the stairs: There are usually a lot of people getting off at the door nearest the stairs, so you may be held up getting on the train.
  • Line up near areas where stairs or offices make the waiting area smaller: It’s hard to line up there so there will be fewer people lined up.
  • Line up at the very end of the platform: There are simply fewer people there.
  • Do not line up behind couples: They move together, so if a couple is in front of you you can’t move quickly to grab a seat.

    • Once you are on the train:

  • Stand in front of the person who moves to sit on the end seat: The end seat on a bench is the most popular since you don’t have to deal with people sitting next to you on both sides. Once that seat opens, people who were sitting in other seats will often move to the end. You should stand in front of them because it is likely they’ve been riding for a while, increasing the likelihood that they’ll get off soon (leaving the seat for you!)
  • Look for indicative signs that people are about to get off: Looking out the window, putting away books or headphones, glancing at the tsurikawa (straps to hold on to to keep you from falling over), any signs that they might get off soon.
  • Judge from clothing or items in riders’ hands where they will get off: Check for school uniforms or company seals or envelopes to predict where they’ll get off. You can also tell from regular clothes, such as a housewife working part time or a student at a preparatory study school.
  • Remember the faces of people who always get off at the same station: Salarymen are the easiest to remember. It is also effective to write your own list of people’s features.
  • You can guess where someone will get off by what they’re reading: Hardcover readers are long commuters, while people reading paperbacks often have short commutes. You can also tell where someone will get off by labels indicating the libraries where the books came from. There are also theories that people who read sports newspapers tend to have long commutes.

    • The bulk of the story comes from interview with self-described experts on finding seats in crowded trains Hajime Yorozu, a worker at a publishing company who is such an expert he has his own mail magazine and book on the topic.

    The list in Japanese can be found at this blog in case you don’t believe me. The above image was ripped off from this blog that also covered the Nikkei story. Thanks again, Technorati!

    Correction: Government only sort of asking people to use their real names on the Internet

    Japan Media Review follows up on earlier Kyodo reports that the Japanese government was trying to end anonymity on the Internet by teaching them to use their real names on blogs from a young age, information that I passed along earlier.

    Turns out the government has a slightly more nuanced take on the situation:

    Later Monday, however, an anonymous blogger who calls his Weblog a “Diary of a Kasumigaseki Bureaucrat” (Kasumigaseki is the Tokyo district where most government offices are located) took the trouble of leafing through the panel’s draft report that had been published online earlier in the month and discovered that many of the Kyodo report’s descriptions didn’t match what the panel actually said in its report.

    For instance, the blogger noticed that nowhere in the report did the panel actually advocate calling on people to use their real names in cyberspace, or to drop using screen handles. Rather, it outlined a more subtle argument. It noted that the prevalence of anonymity in Japan has led to an atmosphere in which many feel that it doesn’t matter what they do or say in cyberspace so long as they are not caught. To that end, raising the credibility of the Internet in Japan will require an improvement of general public “morals” online. Consequently, the report said, “It is necessary to teach [children] how to interact naturally with each other in cyberspace, using either their real names or some kind of assumed name.” Thus, he noted, the Ministry accepts anonymity, so long as it is practiced with good “morals.”

    Moreover, business journalist Hiroyuki Fujishiro, writing his own column about the blogging world for Nikkei BP, checked the 86-page final draft of the panel’s report that appeared Tuesday. He noted that much of the rather inflammatory writing in the original Kyodo article, in which the Internet is called a “hotbed of evil” or “hotbed of dangerous information” and where anonymity is linked somehow to online suicide sites or to online information about bomb-making, does not appear in the report. He did find, however, that the panel displayed considerable concern about the “dark side” of the Internet, one feature of which was the irresponsible behavior that stems from anonymity.

    I highly suggest that you check out Japan Media Review if they’re at all interested in Japanese and wants to read news about Japan or in Japanese. Their analysis is great and they offer a good set of links as well. Especially now that I don’t have the time to exhaustively check Japan news myself, I may end up depending on their coverage to keep up with media happenings. Thank god they’re funded by the US government.

    Racist Korean Commercial


    When looking for an example of “krumping,” some kind of new dance style, I came across this interesting, if a little long, cell phone commercial from Korea (set in Australia apparently). While watching, try and notice:

    1. The cool dancing — there’s a lag in the middle but when they dance it’s good.
    2. The group of “black people” who try and shoplift merchandise from the supermarket where the heroine works and then later feebly chase and attack her for no reason (only to be heroicly rescued by the hero on a motorcycle — how daring!). Is black people stuffing duffel bags full of merchandise really a problem in Korean supermarkets in Australia? I was under the impression that there wasn’t even much of a black population there.
    3. The random panel of white people she’s auditioning for at the beginning and the end of the video. I guess auditioning for the white people makes it that much more dramatic than if she were trying to get in a Korean music video or something.

    I mean, I guess you can’t avoid the use of quick symbolism in a short, silent film such as this. But “blacks = thugs, whites = rich and powerful record executives” seems a little too convenient. (Thanks to Kancoma for the link)

    Guantanamo Bay better than my hometown, says Rep Simmons


    This is what my representative, Bill Simmons (R-CT) has to say about Guantanamo Bay:

    Simmons: Guantanamo conditions better than critics claim

    By RAY HACKETT
    Norwich Bulletin

    U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd District, said recent criticism of U.S. activities at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba are unfounded, based on his tour of the facility Monday.

    “My impression was that the military personnel there are highly professional, well-trained and very much in charge of the situation,” Simmons said Tuesday during a telephone conference call from his Washington office. “It appeared to be very professionally run and, from what I saw, very different than what I had expected.”

    Simmons and 10 other members of Congress toured the facility Monday, witnessing an interrogation of a detainee, eating a detainee-style lunch and visiting the base’s detainee hospital.

    …

    The treatment of prisoners from Afghanistan and Iraq has come under sharp criticism.

    But Simmons said conditions at Guantanamo are significantly better than most maximum security prisons in the United States, such as Somers in Connecticut.

    I’ve never been inside the prison, but they just killed a guy there and from what I hear it’s every bit as gruesome as Oz.

    DPJ’s Okada Has Big Aims for Next Election


    In a town meeting in Shinza City, Saitama Prefecture, Katsuya Okada (profile), president of the Democratic Party of Japan, Japan’s main opposition party, made a big claim among his usual policy statements: in the next election he thinks he can take the government.

    “Our goal is regime change. When we overtake the Liberal Democratic Party in the next elections and take over the government, then it will be time to celebrate.”

    On the recent [very close] passage of the postal privatization bills in the upper house, Okada said, “I was so excited.” He offered harsh criticism to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and LDP Secretary-General Tsutomu Takebe, calling their recent comments [threats to dissolve the Lower House] “incoherent.” He then restated his commitment that “the bills must not pass the Upper House [where they will enter deliberation next week].”

    He then set his sights on the weakened LDP: “Right now the Koizumi government can’t do anything big without the approval of the New Komeito. He won’t be able to dissolve the Lower House.” But he did not rule it out, saying “I don’t know what will happen. I can’t deny the possibility of dissolution and a general election.”

    About the DPJ’s prospects for the next election: “If we win in 170 single-member districts and combine those with proportional seats, we will be able to form a DPJ government.” When considering the prospects of a DPJ government, he added, “If we stayed in power for 2 terms (8 years) we could do quite a lot.”

    Besides his big election hopes, the town meeting gave him the chance to repeat the DPJ’s populist platform, including the “Japan isn’t 100% at fault, but then neither are Korea or China” stance on the recent diplomatic troubles in the region (he called Koizumi’s stance “narrow-minded nationalism”), his continued stance against raising taxes (including the consumption tax), a push to reform the national pension system and the highway system.

    Comment: That’s a tall order for the DPJ. They are now hurrying to prepare for the snap elections since they haven’t even fielded candidates in 42 of those districts. This meeting was likely an effort to promote DPJ Lower House candidate Hideo Kazuki and to accumulate election funds, an area in which the DPJ severely lags behind the LDP. But who knows, they might just be able to ride the anti-postal privatization sentiment to victory. 51 LDP members refused to side with the government out of fears that they would be voted out of office.

    The sad thing is postal privatization is a painful but necessary step for Japan to rebuild its economy. The DPJ is being short-sighted in opposing it, and I don’t see much of an alternative plan coming from them. My next post on the DPJ will take a closer look at their policies.

    Crazy — Namco and Bandai to Merge


    VS.

    I’m too tired to think of anything but postal privatization these days, but here you go:

    Japanese toy and game firms merge
    May 3, 2005

    By Shingo Ito

    Japan’s top toy maker, Bandai, known for its Gundam sci-fi robots, yesterday announced it would merge with Pac-Man maker Namco to survive tough competition in an ever tighter market of fewer and fewer children.

    The merger, which would create Japan’s second-largest toy and game firm after Sega Sammy Holdings, could take on the dominance of Walt Disney, Bandai president Takeo Takasu told a news conference.

    “It is the best match considering the characteristics and strengths of both companies,” Takasu said.

    “In terms of content, Disney may become our competitor and as for the location [of game arcades], we will compete with Sega.”

    The two companies said they needed to consolidate to face up to demographic realities in Japan, which has one of the world’s lowest birth rates as young people increasingly push back marriage, leaving the population ageing quickly.

    “Global competition is intensifying in the world’s entertainment industry as technological innovation has enhanced the networking environment,” the two companies said in a joint statement.

    “On the domestic market, we face the strong need to win customers with the number of children decreasing and hobbies and pastimes diversifying,” the statement said.

    What better way to celebrate the 25th birthday of Pacman, the character that built Namco into what it is today, than to destroy the company as it has always existed? Just for the hell of it, here are some reviews from some of both companies’ great products:

    Mobile Suit Gundam: Gundam vs. Zeta Gundam

    July 4, 2005 – I’m lazy, and I’m writing this review (if you even call it that) in an attempt to equalize the absolutely astoundingly high reviews some of you gave this game. Why not give the general public some respect. A good show does not reflect a good game, so use some common knowledge, and throw your fanboyism out the window. Here are some quotes by Ed in his recent mailbag that I would like you all to read:

    “Yeah, it’s obvious that this is a game for the fans. It has the word Gundam in the title three times over so that the idiots who like the series couldn’t miss it even if they tried. Seriously, who the hell has the franchise name done in triplicate? But as for the casual gamer who wants to jump into it, I couldn’t recommend it at all. The battles were boring, the controls pathetic and the graphics could barely hold up the meager attempt at any visual style they tried to project.

    As an overall experience, the game was just lacking in several ways. After hours of play I couldn’t see any reason to go on unless you really loved the sword-wielding bots.

    How about Namco?


    Namco Museum Volume 1

    PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A GOOD GAME
    I played this game and I hated it. The game isn”t even worth playing because it has so little to it. Its just the same boring games rereleased so namco could make a quick buck from an old classic. I wouldn”t even give this game 1star if I had the choice.

    Looks like they both suck. Case closed. Just kidding, they are two of the coolest companies ever.

    Ritsumeikan to Open Confucius Institute

    As I reported before, the Chinese government is set to open Chinese language schools called “Confucius Institutes” around the world. This just in from Xinhua tells us that the first such Institute to open in Japan will be at my alma mater, Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto:

    Confucian Academy to have 1st branch in Japan

    BEIJING, June 29 — China and Japan have agreed to establish the first branch of Confucian Academy in Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto.

    The Chinese ambassador to Japan, Wang Yi, hopes the academy will help improve understanding and friendship between Chinese and Japanese people.

    Confucian Academy is a non-profit institution, which is devoted to teaching Chinese language and culture.

    Calling it a non-profit institution is a little misleading, since it is, after all, funded and created by the Chinese government!