Yakuza visibility

One of the distinctive characteristics of Japan’s yakuza, as compared with similar mafia type organizations in other countries around the world, is their sometimes incomprehensible blatantness. Where the American Mafia used to officially deny its own existence, Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest Yakuza “family”, has a sign outside their headquarters and a PR officer.

The other weekend Joe and I were in Osaka and happened to pass through the lobby of the Rihga Royal Hotel in Naka no Shima coming out of the subway and noticed that there were signs out advertising meeting places for two parties with rather unusual names:  昭成会 and 朝日会. 昭成会 (Shou-sei-kai) is obviously a reference to 昭和 (Showa) and　平成　(Heisei), the former and current Emperor/historical period of Japan, and 朝日会 (Asahi) just has a nationalistic ring but could mean almost anything. A quick mobile phone Google confirmed that 昭成会 is a known Yakuza group and Yamaguchi-gumi affiliate based in Ishikawa Prefecture. Asahi-kai is far less obvious. A few minutes of poking around just now showed a medical group and an Asahi newspaper distributor, but no obvious gangs of that name.

So basically, one confirmed Yakuza conference at the Righa Royal Hoten on January 24.

Have keitai novels gone the way of the maid cafe?

Update on keitai novels: they’re dead! At least, it looks that way in the publishing industry.

According to J-Cast, Kinokuniya rankings show that not a single keitai novel made an appearance in the top 100 sellers of 2008, despite ongoing heavy promotion of the genre.

One publisher blames the sluggish publishing sales on a lack of an impactful release during the year. That, and the fact that “keitai novel” releases went from 1 or two titles a a month in 2007 to around a dozen in 2008, reportedly resulting in a more dispersed readership. However, the drama and movie versions of “Red String” have expanded the genre’s fan base, as evidenced by growing traffic and registered users at major site Orion.

But given the originally non-commercial and independent nature of keitai novels (really, a form of fictionalized blogging), one view, backed up by an unnamed industry insider, notes that going mainstream made the genre less grassroots and thus less cool. As a result, writers/consumers may have lost interest as the “independent” feeling of community was lost. Indeed, popularity of select titles has meant stable fan bases for particular authors, making it harder for less established newcomers to make money on a book gig (sounds like the traditional publishing industry, no?).

So that means in 2008, as NHK, Japan bloggers, and even the New Yorker marveled at this new consumer development, the actual fad had already begun to fade. Doesn’t it feel kind of dirty to have been part of the dreaded “Newsweek effect.”

$20 laptop in the near future?

From Financial Times:

FT: India To Follow $2,000 Car With $20 Laptop

India is planning to produce a laptop computer for the knockdown price of about $20, having come up with the Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car at about $2,000.
…
India’s “Sakshat” laptop is intended to boost distance learning to help India fulfil its overwhelming educational needs… However, some analysts are sceptical that a $20 laptop would be commercially sustainable and the project has yet to attract a commercial partner.

A prototype will go on show at a National Mission on Education launch in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, tomorrow… the laptop has 2Gb Ram capacity and wireless connectivity.

R.P. Agrawal, secretary of secondary and higher education, said last week that the cost of the laptop was about $20 a unit, but he expected that to fall. He also said he expected the units to be commercially available in six months.

We will have to wait and see this prototype, but I am also pretty skeptical, especially considering the lack of details at this point. You have to wonder what features it could have for $20.

Clueless police

Pointless shaming of athletes for marijuana have made international headlines with the Phelps “scandal”, but the ongoing series of sumo related marijuana arrests here in Japan has hit a new low. According to today’s Japan Times:

Wakakirin has allegedly admitted possessing the marijuana with the intention of using it, though police said they doubted his explanation of how he smoked it.

He reportedly told investigators he hollowed out a cigar, blended the tobacco with marijuana and put the mixture back into the cigar and smoked it, but a senior prefectural police official said it isn’t normal to inhale cigars in the same way as smoking marijuana.

Really? A “senior prefectural police official” making public statements on a criminal drug investigation hasn’t heard of a blunt? Someone needs to get the Yokohama police a subscription to MTV so they can watch some hip hop videos. This would just be pure comedy if it didn’t imply that they were casting doubt on Wakakirin’s entire story in an attempt to frame him for the Japanese equivalent of “possession with intent to distribute”, whatever it may actually be called here.

The original fortune cookie

This may shock you, but fortune cookies are not Chinese food, nor are they really Chinese-American food. They started out as a Japanese product, and were copied by Chinese-Americans in San Francisco decades ago to form the dessert staple of cheap Chinese restaurants across the US. (This was detailed in a New York Times article last year, and linked by Roy in a post which I somehow missed; I learned of it from watching the author of said article, Jennifer Lee, give this fascinating presentation on the evolution of Chinese food outside China.)

The predecessor of the Chinese-American fortune cookie is the tsujiura senbei, a cookie made of flour, sugar and miso which is sold at certain shrines. According to Wikipedia, it comes from the Hokuriku region. But after some Googling, I found out that these are still made and sold at the Fushimi Inari Shrine in Kyoto, and since I was visiting the city anyway, I decided to track some down. Sure enough, they were being sold in a few shops near the shrine, including one shop where they were being hand-made by an old fellow with a cast iron machine (as per the NYT article, which I didn’t discover until later).

As you can see, it’s larger than a fortune cookie, and the fortune (omikuji, actually) is held by the cookie’s fold rather than inside the cookie itself. In fact, there’s another surprise inside the cookie:

Those are dried soybeans, which serve to give the cookie a pleasant rattle as you shake it around. Hence the alternative name suzu sembei or “bell cookie.” I’m sure this was intended to please a hard-of-hearing Shinto deity, or something like that, but to me it was just an interesting modification on the fortune cookie style I grew up with.

The actual fortune looks like this:

And I’m pretty sure that it’s funny when you add “in bed” to the end. Some things are simply constant across cultures…

[Updated by Roy]

Unfortunately I had forgotten to charge my camera battery that day, but I got a few shots of the cookie making process before it died. They aren’t great, but I think you can get a fair idea of it.

What Joe forgot to mention-and this is critical information-is that they are miso flavored! There was a sign in all the shop windows saying this, and advertising that no eggs are used. Trying for the vegan market?

Mass transit pleas sample letter

I’ve posted the sample latter I published here the other day on a few relevant Facebook groups to try and spread the word, but I want to remind any registered-to-vote American readers to follow up on this. I know everyone reading this is a train fan. You’ve either been to Japan or Taiwan or you want to go, and that means you appreciate what real mass transit infrastrucute can do for a county. If you decided to go ahead and send my letter or a modified version, great-and if you decided to write your own, send it to me or post it here to share.

Pizza by the slice coming back to Japan!

Great news: Sbarro will be opening in Tokyo (presumably) in the near future! Sbarro doesn’t exactly have the best reputation in the US, it is still entirely passable pizza-by-the-slice. Welcome back!

Though they did not announce exactly when the first store would open, their plans are to open 18 shops in rapid succession in their first year of business. That’s a thankful departure from the Cold Stone Creamery and Krispy Kreme Donuts strategies of pumping up excessive demand for a tiny amount of shops in an effort to generate buzz. So rather than the painfully annoying KK lines in Shinjuku and Yurakucho, here is hoping the Sbarro chains will be as accessible as they are back home.

clipped from www.nni.nikkei.co.jp
U.S. Pizza Chain Sbarro To Re-Enter Japan

TOKYO (Nikkei)–Sbarro Inc., a major U.S. pizza chain operator, will take another shot at the Japanese market, opening its first outlet as early as April in the Tokyo area, The Nikkei learned Friday.

Sbarro and consulting firm JCI Inc. are expected to set up a 50-50 venture capitalized at 10 million yen by the end of February. They plan to open 18 directly run restaurants by the end of next year and a total of 125 shops, including franchise outlets, in five years.

Founded in 1956 in New York, Sbarro has over 1,000 restaurants in 43 countries. It entered Japan under a franchise system in 1997 but pulled out in 2001.
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Mass transit plea

Having been rather frustrated by the lack of much serious discussion of guiding any of the so-called stimulus money towards investment in much needed mass transit infrastructure upgrades, I decided to compose a letter to my two Senators and one local Representative asking them to work towards this agenda. I’ve attached my text below, and I implore registered USA voters to send a similar letter to their own congressional delegation, and to pass along a request to potentially interested registered voters you know. So few people actually write politicians on these issues that a surprisingly small number of contacts can, on occasion, spur them to take at least a mild stand on an issue. This is the first time in many years that Congress has even considered taking an interest in mass transit/rail investment and we mustn’t let it pass Continue reading Mass transit plea