Category: Curiosities

Man Convicted of Indecency Promises not to do it Again, Approaches the Same Victims the Very Next Day

Yukan Fuji learned on July 6 that a judge at the Sendai High Court ordered a man (66) of Kesennuma City, Miyagi Prefecture, to stop following 6 young girls and their parents and pay damages in a lawsuit against him brought by the parents of girl victims alleging that the man followed 3 girls the next day after receiving a guilty verdict for touching the same girls.

According to the July 4 appeal decision, the man was arrested in April 2005 for forced indecency for touching the bodies of 3 elementary school-aged girls, and in June the Sendai Regional Court sentenced the man to 2 years 6 months suspended for 5 years.

The man was released after promising in court that he would “no talk to them or anything anymore”, but he talked to 2 of the 3 girls the next day after the verdict and repeatedly followed the girls for 2.5 months.

The parents sued the man, demanding he cease following the girls and pay 6.6 million yen on allegations that “mental scars remain in our daughters that will last a lifetime.” In March 2006 the Sendai regional court fully accepted the accusations, ordering the man not to take any action that would cause grief to the girls or their parents, and the Sendai high court followed suit, ordering him to pay 5.1 million yen.

The man appealed, denying that he followed the girls.

ZAKZAK 2006/07/06

911 is a joke…to Koreans in the US

I was just watching Korean TV from my posh executive digs here in Washington and a fun ad for a Korean-language emergency hotline came on. I’ll describe it for you:

There’s been a car crash. A besuited Korean man, bleeding but coherent, has called 911 on his cell phone. The music is urgent and dramatic. He speaks in slightly halting but proficient English:

“Hello my name is Park and I’d like to report an accident… no Park is my name! I have a rent-a-car… Hello? No, there has been an accident!”

Then an announcer begins speaking in Korean. The only word I can pick up is “hangukeu” (Korean language). Then an 800-number appears on the screen with some Korean text. End of commercial.

I can’t tell if the hotline is at all government-sponsored, but if there’s a real need for such services maybe it should be. I hope the 800-number doesn’t connect you to an ambulance-chasing lawyer or something.

More than Half of Japanese Men Sit Down to Pee

I’m busy packing now, but I just wanted to direct you to this recent rant from Nikkan Gendai (a sensational tabloid that uber-commentator Naoki Inose has described as a good read on the ride home when you just want to say fuck you to the powers that be). According to the writer’s unscientific observations, more than half of Japanese men are now sitting down to pee.

Question to you: is this true? I’m not sure exactly how this guy was investigating men’s rooms, but find out!

At this one place where I worked (scanning Japanese medical journal articles for the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, MD) what pissed me off in the men’s room was noticing people purposely not flush the urinals, as if they were afraid of the germs contained in the flusher. There were days when I’d notice that none of the urinals were flushed. Granted, these are NIH contractors, so they know a lot we don’t. But that doesn’t give them some pass to “let it mellow” just because they think their immune systems can’t handle it! And anyway, isn’t leaving stagnant urine around a health risk of its own?

Business Proposal #433: Engrish Insurance

For a reasonable premium, Mutant Frog Capital Partners® will send its “adjusters” around Tokyo to clean up any sad English mistakes perpetrated by your own careless workers on posters, stationery, food packaging or wherever it creeps up. Will also provide referral service for responsible employees to MFCP affiliate “Copywriting Ga Tanoshiku Naru Eikaiwa,” located at the scenic Iwo Jima Commercial Park.

First potential client: the “Independent Insurance Agents of Japan, Inc.”

Sirs: We must sadly inform you that nothing makes you look less professional and more like pedophile hitmen than proclaiming “We Are the Professional” on your website.

JAPAN NEEDS TO GET LAID!

This did not come from The Onion:

More sex. That’s what one expert says is needed to solve Japan’s baby shortage.

“Japanese people simply aren’t having sex,” Dr. Kunio Kitamura, director of the Japan Family Planning Association, was quoted as saying by the Japan Times, an English language daily.

An association survey of 936 people between the ages of 16 and 49 showed 31 percent had not had sex for more than a month “for no particular reason” — a condition known as “sexless.” (Where I come from, we call it “NERD!”)

“As much as subsidies and welfare programs are important, sexlessness is also a critical issue in this problem.”

To which a friend of mine replied:

Seriously, what Japan are they surveying?

Obviously not Roppongi.

Things I wish happened: Masayoshi Son wrestles bears? Actually, no.

Look at this headline from May 4’s Mainichi online news:


Son scares off bear after elderly dad seriously injured in attack

At first, I thought this story was about Masayoshi Son, Japanese-Korean internet mogul and Japan’s richest man. But no, turns out it’s just some guy’s son who scared off the bear.

How cool would that have been if my first inclination had been true? He’d be a triple threat as the man who: a) Overcame his minority status to rise to the upper rank’s of Japan’s business elite; b) Helped introduce broadband Internet to Japanese households after years of lagging behind to the point where penetration has now outstripped the US; c) Can fend off any bears who threaten his elderly dad. Well, he got two out of three at least.

Rest of the story:

Son scares off bear after elderly dad seriously injured in attack

NIKAHO, Akita — An elderly man was seriously injured after being attacked by a bear while picking wild plants in the mountains here Thursday morning, police said.

At around 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, an adult bear attacked a 69-year-old pensioner who was picking edible wild plants with his son on a mountain in the Kisakata district of Nikaho, local police said. The man suffered serious wounds after the bear scratched his face and left arm.

The 37-year-old son fought back with a tree branch and managed to scare away the beast. The bear fled the scene and disappeared.

At the request of the local government, a local hunter was mobilized to search for the approximately 1.7-meter-long animal while police officers patrolled the neighborhood asking residents to exercise caution.

A residential area is located about 500 meters away from the scene of the attack. (Mainichi)

May 4, 2006