Category: Japan

It’s not just for Catholics anymore

Zakzak reports:

At Nagata Jinja in Nagatu-ku in Kobe city it was learned on the 4th of this month that a male priest(30) at the Shinto shrine (shrine head: Masakatsu Fujiwara) had installed a hidden video camera in the dressing room used by the shrine’s Miko and recorded them changing clothes. The shrine then fired him. The Nagata office of the Hyogo Prefectural police then filed charges with the Kobe District Prosecutor on suspicion of the minor offense of peeping.

According to the investigation, when on February 14th a worker was cleaning the shrine, they discovered that a video camera had been installed in an unused locker inside the girl’s changing room. Fujiwara shrine manager, along with reporting this to the Nagata police, also asked the 11 male staff about the situation, and one of the lower ranking male shrine priests known as “Gonnegi”
confessed to the crime.
The man made a statement that he had “made recordings on several occasionas.” The girl’s changing room was normally used by two Miko.

The Nagata shrine is said to have been built in the year 201 A.D. by Goshintaku(御神託). It is counted as one of the representative Shinto shrines of Kobe, along with Ikuta(生田) Jinja and Minatogawa(湊川) Jinja.

Note: Miko are so-called “shrine maidens” who assist in rituals, somewhat like an altar boy in Catholicism, but often with more responsibility and a wider range of dutied. They can be aged anywhere from early teens to mid-twenties, and despite the name virginity, or even marital status, is not a consideration in modern times.

Watch who you talk to

From today’s NYT article on the contents of newly released documents on the Guantanama Bay prisoners.

Another Saudi, Mazin Salih Musaid al-Awfi, was one of at least half a dozen men against whom the “relevant data” considered by the annual review boards included the possession at the time of his capture of a Casio model F-91W watch. According to evidentiary summaries in those cases, such watches have “been used in bombings linked to Al Qaeda.”

“I am a bit surprised at this piece of evidence,” Mr. Awfi said. “If that is a crime, why doesn’t the United States arrest and sentence all the shops and people who own them?”

Another detainee whose evidence sheet also included a Casio F-91W, Abdullah Kamal, was an electrical engineer from Kuwait who once played on his country’s national volleyball team. He was also accused of being a leader of a Kuwaiti militant group that collected money for Mr. bin Laden.

As for the Casio allegation, Mr. Kamal said the watch was a common one in Kuwait and had a compass that could be used to find the direction of Mecca for his prayers. “We have four chaplains” at Guantánamo, he said. “All of them wear this watch.”

Obviously the real issue is not are any of these men innocent, but how long as Casio been in league with the terrorists.

Now You Can Listen to anti-Japanese Rap Song “Fuck Zapan” Courtesy Mutant Frog Travelogue

DJ Doc
One of my first posts for Mutant Frog Travelogue concerned the strange case of an anti-Japanese rap song from Korean rap group DJ Doc (pictured above). In my infinite magnanimity, I translated the unintentionally hilarious lyrics:

Are you going to lie about your own history?! (Hai!) Go ahead and lie, you deceitful pigfeet!
Pussies! How much will you lie, pigfeet?! Keep on lying, Japs!
Lie to your mom and dad! Lie to your mom and dad!
Will you eat your mom? (Hai!) Is that OK? Yeah, that’s fine! That’s just fine!
Retard bitches! Go and have a seizure!
You barbarian, epileptic Japanese!
Mouse-dicked Jeps “Japan is our toilet!”… FUCK!
Pucking nation.. Chapan is a Pucking nation*4 (repeat 2x)

The post proved to be one of our most popular and generated comments that ranged from the merely curious (“Can’t we ALL just get ALONG?!”) to the downright deranged (“You’ll never look as good as the white man. so go eat some kemchi or sushi or shrimp fried rice you slit/slant eyed freaks.”).

Unfortunately, the site I originally linked to took down the audio clip, and I accidentally deleted the MP3 I had. But now I’m feeling generous again, so here it is again in all its amateurish glory! I’ve saved the file here, so this song will never again be lost to history. Try singing along using my English version of the lyrics!

(Thanks to ZMPK for making the song available again and Saru for taking the time to search for it)

The most Japaneezy states in the Union

The U.S. states/wannabe states where you’re most likely to find Japanese people:

# Hawaii: 1.70% (20,590 / 1,211,537)
# California: 0.33% (112,212 / 33,871,648)
# Washington: 0.29% (16,396 / 5,894,121)
# Nevada: 0.20% (3,935 / 1,998,257)
# Oregon: 0.19% (6,351 / 3,421,399)
# New York: 0.17% (32,034 / 18,976,457)
# Massachusetts: 0.14% (8,682 / 6,349,097)
# New Jersey: 0.13% (11,245 / 8,414,350)
# District of Columbia: 0.13% (749 / 572,059)
# Maryland: 0.12% (5,354 / 4,296,486)

And the lowest? Puerto Rico, with only 183 Japanese people—0.004%. Pitiful.

Source: 2000 U.S. census data, translated by this dude, and brought to my attention by someone on the Philadelphia mixi board who was complaining about Pennsylvania being ranked 39. (Cross the river to Jersey and enjoy your shrimp chips, dang it.)

Energy Crisis SOLVED

Check this out!

Friday, March 3, 2006

Japanese Scientists Extract Gasoline From Cow Waste

TOKYO (Nikkei)–Once considered useful only for fertilizer, scientists are finding new uses for cow excrement as a result of technological developments.

Researchers at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have found a way to produce gasoline out of cow waste in a tie-up with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology.

Using metal catalysts, the partners have successfully produced 1.4 milliliters of gasoline out of 100 grams of such waste after applying 30 atmospheres of pressure on it and heating it to 300 C.

The research partners believe a large facility capable of converting cow excrement into a significant volume of gasoline will be in demand from livestock farmers, who have a hard time disposing of the waste. They hope to commercialize such a facility within five years.
Continue reading Energy Crisis SOLVED

Airlifting anime to starving Iraqis

Anyone out there remember Dave Chappelle’s “Black Bush” skit? With the scene that went like this:

BLACK BUSH: I got a coalition of the willing! I got 40 nations ready to roll, son!
REPORTER: Like who?
BLACK BUSH: Who the f— said that? Like who? Uh… England. Japan’s… sending Playstations…

Well, although I haven’t seen any Playstation stories yet, here’s the next best thing, which I swear I am not making up:

The Japan Foundation, with the cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Animation International Middle East, has decided to provide an Arabic-dubbed version of the soccer animation TV program “Captain Majed” (originally “Captain Tsubasa”) to the Iraq Media Network (IMN) as grant aid.

As soccer is a popular sport in Iraq, it is expected that the TV program will strengthen goodwill toward Japan on the Iraqi side. In particular, it may provide dreams and hopes for the children of Iraq, who will shoulder the future of the country.

The conclusion of the agreement for this grant aid took place on March 2 between the IMN and the Japan Foundation, and the program will be provided to the IMN within coming days.

Holy crap, can diplomats be any more irrelevant? Although I have to admit, if you dub this show in Arabic, it might seriously look like a show about Iraqi soccer players.

ア・ミリオン・リトル・ピーシーズ Japan Version?

I remember reading about this book when it first came out and I actually considered picking up a used copy.

From Chris Kohler’s GameLife column at Wired:

I just finished up reading Wrong About Japan, a travel memoir by novelist Peter Carey about a trip he took to Japan with his anime- and manga-obsessed son. It’s a short book, mixing the dubious results of Carey’s interviews with anime directors with the story of his ever-changing relationship with his oh-so-typically withdrawn and moody tween.

As it turns out, most of the story was fiction.

Carey told Seattle Weekly that the character Takashi, Charley’s similarly anime-obsessed Japanese friend, was invented. As the author put it, he “had to” make up a character to “get to” the conflict, which is what a phenomenally self-assured person says when they mean they “felt like” making up a character so they could “pretend there was” conflict.

Gaimusho fires back

This is a bit out of date, but I thought it was worth posting anyway.

Gaimusho’s response to the NYT 02/13/05 editorial (click here to read) criticizing Foreign Minister Aso Taro:

To the Editor:
Re “Japan’s Offensive Foreign Minister” (editorial, Feb. 13):

Foreign Minister Taro Aso has neither justified nor denied Japan’s past history of colonial rule or wartime aggression. His recent speech on Asia made this crystal-clear, and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s statements on the subject on numerous occasions have reflected this notion. History classes in Japan do as well.

Nor did Mr. Aso say the emperor ought to visit Yasukuni Shrine in the present circumstances. He simply pointed out the need to consider a way that government representatives, as well as the emperor, could naturally honor the Japanese war dead without causing discomfort to neighboring countries.

Japan, by adhering to strictly defensive security policy, has never posed any threat to any other countries, including China, for the past 60 years. Mr. Aso welcomes China as a responsible partner, and its rise as an opportunity. He simply referred to international concerns over China’s consistent and nontransparent military activities and buildup. Given the regrettable incident of the trespass of a submerged nuclear submarine into Japan’s territorial waters, China must strive to meet your criterion of “no recent record of threatening Japan.”

Japan continues to encourage China to improve transparency in its military affairs in accordance with the Japan-United States Joint Statement issued by our countries’ foreign and defense ministers in February 2005.

Hiroshi Sato
Acting Consul General of Japan
New York, Feb. 18, 2006

Koizumi vs. the idiot box

The next target of Koizumi’s Deadly Big Government Assassination Squad?

Domo-kun, of course.

NHK “has too many stations. If NHK is to focus on overseas broadcasting, it will have to reduce some of the existing” channels, Koizumi said of a request he made to Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Heizo Takenaka during their meeting earlier in the day.

Some background on this: NHK is currently contemplating setting up an English-language channel, an idea that Koizumi has been pushing. This channel would serve honkies living in Japan, and also be available on cable and satellite overseas, like a backwards version of CNN or the BBC. There are some obvious problems with the concept: not many people overseas are likely to need a Japanese channel in English, and the channel doesn’t address the growing number of non-English-speaking foreigners in Japan, but the idea has something of a cool factor going for it.

Of course, another problem is paying for this through the existing license fee system. Many Japanese people are likely to object to subsidizing the new Gaijin Channel, so NHK may actually end up funding its overseas programming through the demons of advertising.

Japan’s “travel deficit”

If you follow Japan, you probably know about the “Yokoso! Japan” tourism promotion campaign. There are awesome TV spots featuring Koizumi and posters of creepy-looking foreign people. Japan is desperate to get tourist dollars.

Why? Japan might have a big trade surplus, but in terms of tourism, it exports much, much more than it imports. In 2004, for instance, travel from Japan accounted for $38.3bn in expenditures, while travel to Japan accounted for just $11.3bn, a 3.4:1 ratio. A recent JETRO report characterized this as a “travel deficit.”

Travel to Japan has been increasing over the last few years, while travel from Japan has been stable or slightly decreasing. Deflation in Japan probably has much to do with this; also, Japan has been more permissive about visas in recent years, while other countries have gotten stingier. I wonder if we’ll actually see results from this promotion campaign. My guess is: probably not really.