Japanese fans to be allowed to watch World Cup Qualifier in Pyongyang

nk
From Daily Sports Online:
It came to light Feb. 22 that North Korea plans to allow Japanese supporters into the country for the World Cup final qualifying round between Japan and the DPRK to be held June 8 in Pyongyang. Japan Football Association Vice President Ogura Junji unveiled the news at a press conference in Tokyo. This is the first time North Korea has officially allowed Japanese sports fans into the country, in what promises to bring a large number of Japanese fans into a country with whom they do not have diplomatic ties.

According to those involved with Japan-DPRK relations, it is said that NK will allow from 2000-5000 Japanese supporters in the country. And NK has made promises to allow a 100-journalist, 50-cameraman media group to cover the Japan-DPRK match, however only on the condition that “coverage is limited to soccer.”

As this is an unprecedented number of Japanese traveling to the DPRK, there is expected to be some wrangling in finding accommodations and flights for all these people. Also, this plan may be affected by proposed sanctions on the country over the North’s kidnapping of Japanese nationals.

My Comment: Nice! This is bound to inspire more than a few interesting travelogues. Looks like the story’s already been covered in English. Oh well, I already translated it.

The obscene excesses of JASRAC

“We want to give lessons without worrying about royalties”
Self-made dance music CDs grow in popularity
Ole!

According to the royalty guidelines of the Japan Association of Recording Artists’ Copyrights (JASRAC) , royalties for music used in a social dance classroom vary based on the number of teachers and the lesson fee, but they can be assumed to reach the amount of 3,000-20,000 yen per month. However, many people have expressed dissatisfaction, wondering “Is it really necessary to collect fees even for music used to practice dancing?” According to JASRAC, of the 2500 classrooms nationwide about 40% are not paying.

In response to this non-payment, JASRAC sued 7 dance studios in Nagoya demanding royalties for the past 10 years in Nagoya Regional Court. Last September, the Supreme Court rejected the classrooms’ appeal and commanded them to pay the 46,360,000 yen that the Regional Court awarded JASRAC.

This is the story behing the self-made CD movement.
Continue reading The obscene excesses of JASRAC

Steven Seagal: This man is a pimp

Fuck Yeah!
Steven Seagal, action star, martial artist, soda salesman, but above all… pimp. Here are just a few reasons why we must all fear and admire Steven Seagal, king of all gaijin:

–He has been married three times and had 5 children with 2 women

–Despite being a Japanophile has three children with Kelly LeBrock

–Is an Aikido master AND a kendo master

–Is a vegetarian

–Doesn’t need an interpreter when making Japanese press conferences

–Plays Jamaican guitar

–Broke Sean Connery’s wrist

The impetus for this glowing post is his his son, Kentaro’s marriage. The actor, currently working in Japan, got married the other day to his father’s former assistant, Malaysian model Intz.
Picture of the son with his wife:
wow
And for good measure, here‘s a site by his ex-wife dedicated to his daughter. Here is a sample:
Jackie Chan
With Jackie Chan

You can see some montages of her commercials on the site.

OK, well that’s enough of that. Enjoy!

Japan Today: 9-13% of high school girls regret having sex: poll

I guess the lesson here is make sure you actually like the guy before you give it up! From Japan Today:

Sunday, February 20, 2005 at 17:27 JST
TOKYO — Some 9-13% of high school girls in Japan said they regret having sex for the first time, while nearly half of those polled said they are ambivalent, survey organizers said Saturday.

It is the first time a survey of this kind had been conducted, according to a federation of parent-teacher associations for high schools nationwide.

In analyzing the survey results, Masako Kihara, an assistant professor of social epidemiology at Kyoto University, said the students may have felt regret or confusion as they engaged in sex for the first time because they were prodded by a deluge of information about sex. (Kyodo News)

The Strange Case of Abiru Yuu あびる優の窃盗事件(キャプ＋英語解説）

UPDATE：映像だ！映像きたー！Watch the video here!
テレビキャプチャー画像はこちら
She'd steal your heart without you even knowing it.
Blowing up the headlines at 2ch news is the case of Abiru Yuu (18), the Japanese idol who admitted to robbing a supermarket, leading to the store’s eventual bankruptcy. The admission came on a Feb. 15 broadcast of Nippon TV’s “Coming Doubt” where secrets are revealed about certain stars and other celebrities have to guess whether the allegations are true. You can see a screen capture (with convenient subtitles) here. Here is a translation of the captions:

(A still of Abiru smiling) Abiru Yuu once participated in a group theft that bankrupted a store.
Upper right caption: True or false? Abiru Yuu once participated in a group theft that bankrupted a store.
ABIRU: Well, it was a while ago… we took out whole boxes.. it went on for about 6 months…
SOMEONE ELSE: A BAND OF THIEVES?!
ABIRU: Oh, I guess (the shop) did close down… I can’t say for sure whether the place closed as a result of what we did…
(Still of Abiru) Is Abiru’s confession TRUE or FALSE???
(Abiru hangs head in shame and holds up a placard saying “True”)

What’s so offensive, apparently, is that she didn’t seem at all remorseful, laughing and joking about it the whole time. She has made a name for herself as a character who offends people, so she perhaps thought this was just a part of the act. (More background [Japanese] can be found here)
イメージ映像
Continue reading The Strange Case of Abiru Yuu あびる優の窃盗事件(キャプ＋英語解説）

Not Everybody’s Happy With the Bitches

Those of you who know me will know that I am currently in my last semester at Rutgers University, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. As one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the former colonies of North America, Rutgers has a long history of largely forgotten traditions; her many accomplishments range all the way from inventing the game of American Football to losing more matches of said game than almost any other school in the country. And now, one of the Raritan’s most noble traditions is under attack.

As the Rutgers student newspaper, The Daily Targum reported a week ago (2/11)

The Grease Trucks, a staple of University life, were forced to cover up several of the items on their menus last night in order to comply with University rules following complaints of harassment and inappropriate sandwich names.

The cluster of fast-food trucks – which open at 6 p.m. and close early in the morning – have been the source of food for Rutgers students, staff and faculty alike on College Avenue.

The complaints have mainly come from members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered community at the University, who said they have experienced a different side of the trucks – one they see as being homophobic and intolerant toward sexual minorities on campus.

Read rest of article here

Not all students are as joyous about the censorship as the complainers.

A Grease Truck worker – who wished to be identified as “Mr. C” – was visibly upset yesterday about covering up certain names on his truck.

“I’m very upset. We’re all very upset,” he said. “I’ve been selling [Fat] Bitches for 14 years.”

John Graney, assistant director of Operations at Parking and Transportation Services, asked Mr. C to cover up the names as soon as possible.

But Mr. C said he has never had a complaint about the menu names.

“Everybody’s happy with the Bitches,” he said.

Read rest of article here

This has apparently made its way into the ‘serious’ New York City area television broadcast news, so I’ve decided to provide some coverage of it myself, presented Masamania style.
Click below for a series of photographs.

The trucks.
Continue reading Not Everybody’s Happy With the Bitches

French lessons: French must sell arms to the Chinese now.. or else

Our good friend Saru the White Wizard recently had this to say about reports of French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie defending arms sales to China:

No time to write this up as a blog, so if any of you want to pick it
up, have at it.

I don’t think any of you know this, but I can speak a little bit of French. Or at least, I can understand a little bit of it. For example, I read in the FT this morning that the French Minister of Defense, one Michele Alliot-Marie (Condi, she ain’t) told an FT reporter:

“The lifting of the [EU arms] embargo could be a better protection forus than maintaining it… China is rapidly developing its industry, and today our experts say that in five years China could make exactly the same arms that we have today. And they will do it if they cannot
imports. So maybe if we can sell them arms, they will not make them. And in five years’ time, they will not have the technology to make them.”

English translation: “If we don’t hurry and sell the Chinese arms, think of all the business we’ll lose out on!”

Is this woman fucking serious? First of all, in what way does China threaten France such that it needs “better protection.” And who the hell is this “us” to whom she refers?

And isn’t her logic flawless? “If we sell them arms, they won’t make them. And, the won’t have the technology to make them” Great idea! Only one small problem – the technology won’t matter because they’ll already have the arms!

Maybe if the French had just given Sadam chemical, biological, or nuclear arms years ago, he wouldn’t have tried to make them, and then this whole nasty war could have been avoided.

Anyone who thought that absurdism died with Ionesco (and yes, I know he was Romanian, but the French at him up) has a lot to be excited about with someone like this making public statements.

I mean hey, don’t they say, “give a man a gun, he kills for a day, teach a man to make guns, he kills for a lifetime?” Makes perfect sense if you think in terms of axioms.
Continue reading French lessons: French must sell arms to the Chinese now.. or else

No beer and no gyudon make ossan go crazy!

Last year, after Yoshinoya ran out of its famous gyudon (see here for background), there were multiple cases of ossan (middle-aged men) getting violent and demanding their beef bowls. It seemed as though these men couldn’t understand just what was going on and were hurt by the change.

Well, last week those wounds were ripped open as Yoshinoya resurrected its long-absent gyudon — for one day only in commemoration of the first anniversary of the ban (一年ぶりに、一日だけ）. I don’t know where they got the beef, but it was a momentous day that brought people out of the woodwork to get their hands on that sweet beefy goodness. And right on cue, some people got way too excited about it and did stupid shit like this:
Car crash
The headline: Car crashes into Yoshinoya on “gyudon resurrection day”

The arrows point to people “still eating” despite the fact that they were almost killed by a runaway car. That’s dedication, folks.
Continue reading No beer and no gyudon make ossan go crazy!

Spam in Japanese part 2 いろんな迷惑メールその２

顔グロギャル
日本語の原稿をご覧いただくにはこちらをクリックしてください。

“Nice to meet you. I’m Yukari. You were looking for a sex friend, right? Mind if I apply? Umm, I have a boyfriend, but he’s not satisfying me, so please become my fuck buddy. It looks like we live close to each other, so first of all I’d like to confirm our sexual compatibility. Here’s a simple profile:
Sagara Yukari (My real name, but the kanji are secret for now lol, 24 years old, work as a telephone operator. My 3 sizes (bust, waist, hip?) are 92-61-88 (cm), and my breast are G-cup (about a D in American sizes). I’m kind of like an albino, so if you prefer tanned gyaru then you might not like me. Umm, I’m kind of a masochist when it comes to sexual habits… That’s why I’m a little unsatisfied when I have sex with my boyfriend. I’d like soft SM, like where you’d tease me by inserting from the back, or taking me on dates in a miniskirt with no panties, how about it?
Or are you looking for a normal sex friend who isn’t a masochist woman? Um, anyway I await your reply☆”

It’s written well enough so that someone with their guard down might actually respond. Click “Read the rest” to see the original Japanese.
Continue reading Spam in Japanese part 2 いろんな迷惑メールその２

CCCP Cola

Bringing together Adamu’s post on nostalgia and mine on the wide world of cola, I bring you CCCP Cola. I saw a bottle of this in the supermarket in Almaty, when I was in Kazakhstan, and just had to try it. I asked our local host about it and found that despite the name it was actually created after the fall of the USSR as a nostalgia product. For the curious, it certainly tastes as if it were brewed before Communism fell, perhaps when Stalin was still alive-and aged in Lenin’s formaldyde-preserved armpit. And no, it isn’t in the Cola Database. Maybe I should write them a review.
CCCP Cola

Also have a gander at this awesome Kazak bar that Curzon, Saru and I saw while we were there.

CCCP Bar