As 2007 draws to a close, all of us here at JAPUNDIT would like to say thank you to everyone for stopping by and taking part, and to wish everyone the best for 2008.
Taking us out are a couple of videos of mixed-race female entertainers in Japan, past and present. They will give you some idea of how Japanese pop music has changed over the years.
Then it was the Golden Half
Now it is Leah Dizon
Check out this 17-year-old who calls herself “America-jin Musume.”
Her hobby seems to be recording movies of herself doing Morning Musume dances and putting them up on YouTube.
Her real name is Chelsea, and she will soon be in Japan for three months to work as a model.
It’s New Year’s Eve! Hope all Japundit readers have a Happy and Prosperous New Year. There are lots of contests and lists and top tens around this time of year, so why not us too? What do you think was the best, most memorable, enlightening, funny, or inspiring post you saw on Japundit this year? Here are some I remember, but you all probably have different ideas:
You might also have a favorite devilishly clever title or witty comment. All the commenters and contributers keep Japundit alive by providing the content that we all come back for — but the editor Edward Chmura deserves a special vote of thanks for always filling in the gaps when commenters and contributors sometimes get busy, or tired, or lazy…
Well — who’s perfect? But all in all, looking back over a year of posts and comments here — there is a lot and a lot of it is really good. We are all to be congratulated! Yay!
The following is my personal favorite of all the TV commercials Arnold Schwarzenegger, current governor of California, did in Japan back in the 90s.
A recent incident in Osaka underscores a government-created medical emergency in Japan that most probably will only get worse.
Last week an 89-year-old woman whose family called an ambulance when she started experiencing vomiting and diarrhea died after she was rejected for admittance by thirty hospitals. The poor woman was finally admitted two hours after the family called the ambulance.
The hospitals rejected the woman because they claimed they were too full or that doctors were not available to treat her.
The latest case underscores Japan’s health care woes, in part created by a shortage of doctors in the country’s rapidly aging society. Critics say long working hours and a government policy change several years ago to keep the number of doctors down are to blame.
Faced with a rapidly aging society, the government implements a policy to limit the number of doctors in the country. . . Brilliant!
Thanks to Vin Alsace
Here is this weekend’s Open Thread in which readers are invited to let loose and discuss things that have been on their minds, regardless of whether or not they are on topic.
Rules are very loose for open thread posts, usual restrictions concerning topic matter do not apply. Feel free to sound off about anything you like.
Despite what the PR folks at National Police Agency would have everyone believe with their crimes solved stats, I have long contended that Japan is a paradise for crooks, conmen, murders, and other baddies. Sure, once you are caught the System is eerily efficient at securing a confession, convition, and incarceration (or execution), but the real question is one that is imposible to answer. . . How many people are committing crimes and not getting caught?
Once case in point in this regard comes out of Saitama Prefecture, just outside of Tokyo, where an unemployed homeless man was arrested for shop lifting. Police found out that he was able to live at a business hotel since January 2005 on money he got by selling CDs and DVDs that he pilfered and then sold to secondhand shops,
[Tsutomu] Shimizu lived in the business hotel in front of JR Kumagaya Station for 716 days until he was arrested Oct 25 this year, when he attempted to shoplift five CDs at a shop in the prefecture. He was found to have paid a total of 3.7 million yen for the accommodation, according to police. The man is believed to have stolen CDs and DVDs worth some 10 million yen, the police said.
The hotel did not find anything suspicious about Shimizu as he wore business suits when coming and going through the hotel, police added. The Kumagaya branch of the Saitama District Public Prosecutors Office has indicted Shimizu on charges of theft and attempted theft.
Perhaps sensing that they are finally reaching the end of their creative rope (I hope) or maybe feeling that women have had their fill of the mouthless wonder (I doubt it), Sanrio has decided for the first time to start producing T-shirts, bags, watches and other products that target young men.
“We think Hello Kitty is accepted by young men as a design statement in fashion,” [company spokesman Kazuo Tohmatsu] said.
The feline for-men products will go on sale in Japan next month, and will be sold soon in the U.S. and other Asian nations, according to Sanrio.
The shape of Hello Kitty was altered slightly to give her a more rugged and cool look that Sanrio hopes will appeal to teens and young adult men.
“Young men these days grew up with character goods,” said Tohmatsu. “That generation feels no embarrassment about wearing Hello Kitty.”
See JAPUNDIT posts on Hello Kitty here.
Thanks to Vin Alsace.
A man in police custody in Japan has been sentenced to one year in prison for stealing slot machine tokens worth 20,000 yen (gambling is illegal in Japan. . . cough. . . cough), even though authorities have no idea who he is.
The man — identified in court as “Detainee No. 11 of the Katsushika Police Station of the Metropolitan Police Department” — refused to state his name, address or nationality and remained silent on why he did not want to provide the information during hearings at the Tokyo District Court. His lawyer also said that the man had not revealed his name to him.
Check out this young lady’s hot licks on the accordian.
Koharu is 19 years old and is also a member of a street band named Minority Orchestra (Japanese page).
If you are lucky, you can catch her live at Tokyo’s Ueno Park.
The other day, Remora wrote in to alert us about a page he found that is selling a coffee cup that claims to be a “Japan Masturbation Day mug.”
According to the text on the page, the number version of the date July 21 (which is a Japanese holiday known as “Marine Day”) is written as 0721, which “by a quirk of the Japanese language” can be pronounced o-na-ni-i. . . a Japanese word for masturbation.
Is this just a stretch by someone out trying to sell mugs, or has anyone out there ever heard about this before?
In the wake of a shooting rampage that left two dead and six injured in his prefecture, the Governor of Nagasaki Genjiro Kaneko has declared that guns should be banned outright, without any concern for the rights of gunowners.
“I don’t think we need to consider human rights (of gun owners) very much in controlling guns and issuing permits. I want police to do all they can” to tighten the rules, Kaneko said.
Masayoshi Magome, the person responsible for the Nagasaki shootings, was licensed to own the guns he used. Police apparently kept renewing his permits despite the fact that his neighbors complained to police about his strange behavior.
“A gun is something that you should basically not possess. Therefore, authorities should not hesitate in controlling” gun ownership, the governor said, suggesting permits should be canceled if problems are found on the part of the gun owners.
Apparently the Governor Kaneko believes that it’s the means used to murder that really counts.
This is a video shot in Omotesando on Christmas Eve. Though the night was very cold, some henna gaijin* decided it was just the right time show Japan what he’s got, much to the amazement and amusement of those around him.
Sent in by The Hairy White Prince, a JAPUNDIT reader who maintains a blog called Rare Treats.
* “Henna gaijin” is Japanese for “strange foreigner.”
When I came to Japan in 1991, I was extremely motivated to learn Japanese, which was a good thing since the idea that you can learn a language through osmosis just by living in that country is flat wrong.
I took advantage of every opportunity to advance my studies, listening to JPOP music and watching anime and Japanese dramas, which helped me get lots of vocabulary input. When I encountered a Japanese person, I’d engage in a brief “language battle” with them to determine which of us had the higher language skills, and thus which language I’d speak with that person — and I hated to lose.
Then one day I was in Tokyo, looking for a coin locker to put my bags in, and a middle-aged salaryman who was clearing his out said “Please use this one” to me in English. I thanked him in fluent Japanese, but after that I realized that I’d done him a real disservice. This man would probably have only have a few chances to use his English each year, and yet I had stubbornly refused to oblige him.
Since that day, I’ve resolved to speak English to Japanese people more, which usually causes their face to brighten just a little. And if you really want to make a Japanese person’s day? Compliment them on their English and ask if they’ve studied in the U.S. or England. It’s usually pure B.S., but they’ll be happy all day long.
One thing gaijin who attain fluency in Japanese can attest to, though, is that the more you learn Japanese, the more some doors close. Japanese often think of foreigners as fun to be around, and part of that fun flows from both sides not being able to understand each other perfectly, which somehow makes us more “exotic.”
If you go out to karaoke with Japanese, they’ll enjoy themselves more if you sing a ridiculous version of “September” by Earth, Wind and Fire than if you’re able to belt out the latest enka hit by Daisuke Kitagawa. At bars and clubs, too, foreigners who don’t speak much Japanese can find themselves more popular with Japanese girls than gaijin who can read all 1945 characters of the joyo kanji (the characters designated for “general use” by Japan’s Ministry of Education, which defines what it is to be literate in the language).
Foreigners who learn too much Japanese might find the dating scene to be somewhat different, too, as some girls who might be interested in the exotic feel of a “real” gaijin might be turned off by our extensive knowledge of the late Edo and Meiji Restoration Periods (stuff that the average Japanese never cares about).
Of course, I wouldn’t want to go out with a girl who was turned off by me having too much interest in her country and language, and all people are different — my wife was interested in me specifically because of my fondness for memorizing odd Japanese proverbs.
As we have reported on JAPUNDIT here, here, and here, the Japanese government and media seem to have well-developed love-hate with the Tamiflu anti-flu drug. News stories seem to follow a never-ending cycle of reports about how the government does not have enough doses to go around, followed by reports about how Tamiflu is driving the nation’s youth into suicidal frenzy.
Now a Japanese government panel has released a study of 10,000 people that indicates no causal link between the drug and the abnormal behavior some claim it causes.
The panel’s research is drawing attention because of the large scale of its analysis — targeting around 10,000 people up to 18 years of age — after reported incidents of strange behavior, some fatal, observed in Tamiflu users, such as acting violently and uttering nonsensical words.
Yoshio Hirota, professor at Osaka City University, who leads the panel of researchers at the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, stressed that “not enough analyses have been conducted in order to draw a conclusion.” The survey covered physicians and relatives of 10,000 flu sufferers, asking them whether Tamiflu was prescribed to them and whether the recipients developed abnormal behaviors. Of the 10,000 flu patients, 79.3% were given Tamiflu. Symptoms of abnormal behavior were detected in 9.7% of those who were prescribed the drug, while 22% of those who did not take the drug showed abnormal behavior, the survey found.
So does this mean that Tamiflu actually reduced the incidence of abnormal behavior among Japanese people who took it?
