I know only two things about him. One, that he wrote a thesis in 1920 entitled The educational principled and methods of the Philippine school system and their adaptability to the present needs of Siam and two, that he had an amazing name.
Category: Curiosities
For once, a Nikkei editorial I can really get behind!
Halloween in Tokyo
Apparently the Halloween party train on the Yamanote Line went off without a hitch:
This year’s story is rather interesting because of the crazy 2channeler element — check out the organizers’ assertion that the police showed up to protect the drunk foreigners from crazy organized otaku. Guess the latter get more scrutiny than the former these days.
“No photos please, this is a press conference”
Occasionally, I witness an event so disturbing I have to post it on this blog immediately. Here is just such an event:
I was on my way home from work when I noticed a press conference outside the office (covering the Tokyo police force’s anti-drunk driving campaign with guest star Aya Ueto) . “Stop drunk driving once and for all!” read the signs. When I happened by, some boys in what appeared to be boy scout uniforms were speechifying about how they pledged to campaign against this serious public concern. Directly in front of the stage stood a tightly squeezed group of TV cameras and photographers.
So far so good until I noticed a security guard holding another sign: “No photography from cameras or mobile phones. We will remove anyone taking pictures.” No sooner did I appreciate the irony of ordering no photography at a press conference than an onlooker in a suit reached for his camera, only to be immediately approached by another man. The other man reached out and physically covered the lens of the camera with his hand. He was polite but firm: “No photos please.” I looked on in disgust and headed home soon after.
What a sad display. Here was a government-sponsored press conference and the public was not permitted to record the festivities, lest it cost a TV station some viewers or Dentsu (I am assuming) a bit of marketing power. In the US the police would have a prior restraint lawsuit on their hands. But even without making a free speech argument, it is simply pathetic to suppress citizen camerawork in favor of a media cartel.
Not the most relaxing picnic
I spotted the following item in the Taipei Times Quick Take section earlier.
Barbecue at crematorium
The Taoyuan County Funeral Service Industry Association said that anyone interested in a free barbecue on Mid-Autumn Festival should head for the funeral home in Jhongli (中壢). Last year, the association organized a barbecue for more than 1,000 people at the funeral home, while all six cremation furnaces were working. Because of the smell emanating from the furnaces, very few people, aside from employees and their families, took part in the activity. This year, the furnaces will be closed in the afternoon during the barbecue, the association said. The barbecue will take place between 4pm and 10pm on Friday.
Needless to say, this is often the most entertaining section of the paper.
Don’t blame the hospital; blame the newswire
A baby with foreign nationality was left at Japan’s first “baby hatch” at a Kumamoto hospital, according to a report on Monday by a panel examining the practice.
A baby hatch, for those of you who don’t know, is a place where people can essentially drop off children who are unwanted or who cannot be cared for, no questions asked.
I was a bit curious when I read this story, asking one question: How do you know the baby is of foreign nationality when someone anonymously left it somewhere? It wouldn’t be right to judge that based solely on physical appearance. In fact, under Japanese law, if a child is born in Japan and the identity of both parents is unknown (or if both parents are stateless), the child is considered a Japanese national–the only way to acquire nationality by jus soli here.
Then Asahi Shimbun added some clarity to the story. According to their report, there are ten cases of baby drop-offs in which the source of the baby was clear. In two of those cases, the mother came by herself and dropped the baby off. There were also cases “where both parents were zainichi gaikokujin,” i.e. special permanent residents of Korean/Chinese descent who are largely indistinguishable from Japanese nationals, “and where grandparents and males deposited [the child].”
So Kyodo was being a bit too vague for information’s sake: the kid was not visibly foreign, but rather they deduced the kid’s foreignness from the nationality of the parents. Now let’s see what happens when a really foreign kid gets dropped in one of these hatches…
Could be called “10 places I’d like to visit”
I stumbled across a fantastic post on Oddee entitled “10 Most Amazing Ghost Towns“, all 10 of which are officially now on my list of places I’d like to go. My affection for ruins and abandoned places is well documented, so how could I resist places like this sand-drowned Numibian village?
As it so happens, I should actually be able to stop by one of these sites within the next month. The Sanzhi haunted retro-futuristic beachfront housing development is located on the north coast of Taipei County, not very far from Danshui. And I’m going to Taiwan next Wednesday for almost 3 weeks.
While Sanzhi may not exactly be a short walk from Danshui station, it looks like a very reasonable bike ride to me, and I’m fairly sure that Danshui is one of the MRT stations where loading/offloading of bicycles is allowed. Hopefully I’ll have some time to track down this place while I’m in Taiwan.
Ironic spam
As you probably know, blogs these days are constantly being bombarded with spam comments composed of text randomly chosen by spambot software. In clearing out the spam box here, I just spotted the following line in one blog spam comment:
Many blogs have stopped using trackbacks because dealing with spam became too burdensome.It has since been implemented in most other…
Clothing and nekkidness in the Meiji era
I am fascinated by this lengthy narrative of how Japan evolved from a nation where “scant clothing… was mainly an indication of manual labor” to one where “virtually all Japanese wear underwear.” (Warning: Most links in the article lead to old pictures of naked people which are likely to cause problems if viewed at the office.)
It’s an interesting story, not so much because of the scandalous bits (e.g. foreign journalists developing unhealthy fascinations with the neighborhood mixed-gender bathhouse), but also because of the government’s role in forcing these changes on the public as part of the general campaign to make Japan more European.
It isn’t too hard to see how this also helped usher in the current era of WaiWai and pornographic comic books. Standardizing fashion in a modest manner undoubtedly did wonders for the democratization and modernization of Japan, but it also seems to have led to a lot of the sexual repression that generates train groping and hidden camera fetishes today. (Not that I’m complaining: loincloths aren’t my style.)
By the way, there is a wealth of artificially-colorized old Japanese photographs available on Flickr courtesy of one “Okinawa Soba.” Among my favorites:
How does a samurai kill a duck?
I’m sure you can visualize many possibilities in your head, but if you go to Hamarikyu Gardens in Tokyo you can get an idea of how the shôgun did it back in the day. The general process sounds like it belongs in an ethnic joke book:
- Build a pond and a creek.
- Raise ducks in the pond.
- Hide an iron door and a giant net in the bottom of the creek.
- Lure the domesticated ducks into the creek using the sound of wooden boards. (I don’t know why ducks like this sound, but maybe that’s why we eat them, and not the other way around.)
- Wait for wild ducks to follow the domestic ducks into the creek.
- Pull up the door, scaring the bejeezus out of the ducks.
- Pull up the net, catching the ducks.
- Laugh heartily and retreat for wild escapades with concubines.
If you don’t believe me, check out the posted explanation in Japanese and Engrish:
This guy would not be amused.
