The Peanuts, a female pair of Japanese twins (Emi and Yumi Ito), who were a major presence in the Japanese music world back in the ’60s, are planning to release a new album to mark the 50th anniversary of their debut back on 1959.

Here are a few of their better known songs in Japan.

If you are old enough, you might remember them as the duo who sang the original Mothra theme.

They even appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.

1966: Pipeline

1990: Various

2008: Nara TV Commercial

Since news is slow today, here is a video of what I think is probably one of the very best Japanese songs ever written: Koibito yo by Mayumi Itsuwa (1980).

If you want to see one person’s translation of the lyrics into English, check out this version.

A recent exchange about the meat content of processed food products reminded me of my first encounter with a Japanese hot dog back around 1969.

This was a time when imported food products were basically unavailable, and prohibitively expensive when they were. So imagine my surprise when one day shopping I came across a pack of moderately priced hot dogs!

They looked just like the red hots we had in Chicago, so I bought a pack, took them home, popped them into pot of boiling water for a few minutes, slipped one onto a slice of bread, hit it with a little mustard, bit into it and. . . As soon as the frank hit my tongue, the trusty old gag reflex took over, and before I knew it the vile thing that had been in my mouth was flying through the air and headed for the floor.

The Japanese person I was with (who kept saying things like “Are you sure you want to do that?” as she watched me prepare my tube steak) at that point kindly informed me that Japanese hot dogs were indeed made of 100% meat. . . fish meat, whale meat, shark meat, and all sorts of other dregs of the seas.

I think she was right.

Thanks to Mr. T for the photo.

Heard this on an oldies program this evening, and it reminded me just how great Ozaki Kiyohiko’s music sounds, even though this super hit (Mata Au Hi Made) is already 30 years old.

From the amazing and talented Koharu and friend comes the following video of their Tokyo street performance.

If you missed our past posts on Koharu, here is a blast from the past.

More here.

according to an article in the new york times online,written by norimitsu onishi, the ashes in a japanese urn are an apt metaphor for the future of the system of funeral buddhism in the country.

where as in the past, the japanese reliably counted on buddhist priest’s and their rituals as a source of comfort during the time surrounding the death of a loved one, many now are choosing to go with services provided funeral homes or cremations with no services at all (preferring instead to dump their loved one’s remains in the nearest ashtray and keep their kaimyo in the toilet in case they need something to aim at when they’re drunk).

photo of a priest staring disinterestedly at a wall, hat tip to the old grey lady

while there are a myriad of reasons for this shift in attitudes towards death and the proper place of religion during this time, to numerous to be discussed in detail here, there are a few notable trends listed in the articles.

1) the accelerated drop in religious belief in the cities combined with their ever increasing populations has led to a large group of people who have no religious belief whatsoever and see no need to start on the day of their death.

2) the rural demographic, where until recently buddhism was still strong, is aging and dying off as the younger generations move to cities and the birthrates are not enough to make up for the exodus of population and businesses. this leaves country temples serving an ever dwindling number of less affluent elderly to serve, thus making many temples financially insecure.

3) the sense of japanese that buddhism doesn’t cater to the needs of the living, thus making them more indifferent to what it teaches about what happens after death; and the lack of change in that area the clerics seem to want to make in this regard.

4) a lack of moral authority apparent in the buddhist temples since the end of wwii when they began to sell prestigious posthumous names to people who paid them enough money, thus denigrating names once reserved for revered buddhist adherents with strong moral characters to an indulgence of sorts. as appropriate in situations like these payments are usually made in unmarked in envelopes on a no receipt-cash only basis.

5) the general expense of traditional funerals combined with new rent a priests employed by funeral homes to provide services for people they most likely have never met before and willing to provide honest listings of fraudulent extravagant titles that can be attained at rock bottom prices and you get a receipt.

all these factors are combining together to create an a daunting challenge to the continuing existence of temples across the country. with funeral expenses being analogous in importance to these temples as tithing is to churches and synagogues in the west in terms of revenue sources, many priests face being the last generation of clerics ministering their religion in japan.

as a consequence many temples are expected to close their doors over the coming decades, taking with them (they claim) a major source of local history and sense of community and continuity in their local precincts. of course some of the major private and state sponsored temples and unesco tourists sites will be unaffected, but many charming repositories of small town rural culture will be disappearing. so if you always wanted to visit that one out of the way zen garden that somehow escaped being listed in the travel guides and is free of tourists, now might be a good time.

soon places like this might be overgrown memories of a different age

few random closing thoughts…
a) what’s going to happen to all the libraries of coin lockers supposedly holding parishioners souls? talk about a crappy afterlife, you’re closed in a hole in the wall until the local priest can’t make ends meet and then bulldozed; lame.

b) i find it darkly humorous that the priests see many of the sources of their decline, recognize they are preventable, and then do nothing. this lethargy in response to their situation seems to come from a certain amount of apathy about their beliefs. they talk about how other religions provide sermons and community services outside of funerals to keep their faith relevant to their congregations as if it would be some theoretically nice thing to do, and then take no action to emulate. has buddhism in japan become this esoteric that it no longer has an application in people’s daily lives? i suspect that it’s just laziness on the part of the priests

c) perhaps this is just the logical conclusion to japan’s seeming cognitive dissonance on the issue of religion. after all if you don’t believe in it and didn’t live your life according to its precepts and went to your death this way, how would having an extravagant funeral change this? it you believe that human existence ends when the lungs stop breathing, the heart stops beating, and the neurons stop firing signals through their dendrites why waste your money to commemorate, dedicate, exalt, and provide a home for a soul you don’t even believe exists? and if you do believe in a deity or higher power of some sort exists, do you really think that a life spent living in sin and unbelief can be made up for by having a really cool name and a nice funeral? i guess these types of services are more for the living, but if that’s true why not remember the dead in your own way? it would be a lot more meaningful and cost effective than spending over ten thousand dollars for a piece of lacquered wood and empty platitudes from some guy who never even met the deceased.

d) think of the boon to the horror movie industry. decrepit buildings, abandoned alters, moss covered statues, rooms with soul lockers; this will be great!

A recent California Supreme Court ruling paved the way for gay marriage in the state. Many news outlets, including the BBC, are covering perhaps the most famous person to take advantage of the opportunity, Japanese-American actor George Takei, best known as Sulu from Star Trek. He obtained a marriage certificate and plans to wed his partner of 20-years, Brad Altman, in September. His official and unofficial biographies show a strong connection to his Japanese roots including speaking Japanese, studying at (Edward’s alma mater) Sophia University in Tokyo, and being involved in many Japanese organizations.  He was also one of the many Japanese and Japanese-Americans interned in the U.S. during WWII.

George is former president of Friends of Little Tokyo Arts, an organization that encourages and supports artists. In the international arena, George was appointed by President Clinton to the board of the Japan-United States Friendship Commission, where he served two terms.  He is a member of the board of directors of the U.S.-Japan Bridging Foundation. The Government of Japan recognized George’s contribution to the Japan-United States relationship by giving him the Order of the Rising Sun, gold Rays with Rosette. The decoration was conferred by His Majesty, Emperor Akihito, at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo in November, 2004.

Caught a TV show last night that featured Japanese R&B singer Masayuki Suzuki, and it reminded me of the big 1980 hit he had with his group called Chanels called Runaway.

I recently subscribed to a great podcast named Botar’s Old Time Radio, which plays episodes of old radio shows like Superman, Burns and Allen, Captain Midnight, Fibber McGee and Molly, etc.

The other day they played a 1941 episode from the Adventures of Superman called Dragons Teeth, which had Clark Kent going into the Chinatown district of Metropolis. The following is a transcript of the text of the story. . .

Narrator:
As our story opens today, Kent and his editor, Perry White, are on their way to the Chinese section of the city, in response to an urgent summons from Doctor Chi Wong, learned scholar and collector of Oriental art. Darkness has fallen, and the narrow winding streets are empty save for a few waif-like figures half hidden in shadowed doorways. Here and there a dim light burns in a store window piled high with bits of jade, lacquered boxes, and all manner of strange curios from a land beyond the sea.

The unearthly silence is broken only by the purr of a motorcar.

Listen

Kent:
Isn’t a little strange Dr. Wong didn’t tell you why he wanted to see you Mr. White?

White:
Well, you know Orientals, Kent. They don’t say much over the telephone. It’s an instrument of the devil and they don’t trust it.

Kent:
Oh, but surely Dr. Wong doesn’t feel that way. Wasn’t he educated here in the United States?

White:
Yes. But the Chinese have certain inborn superstitions that even education won’t eradicate. Once an Oriental, always an Oriental.

in january of this year, what is being called a “missing link” from the cretaceous period was discovered in iwate prefecture by one kazuhisa sasaki.

this specimen is the oldest praying mantis specimen to have legs with hair and spines.

interesting…

The other day we got email from renowned Dutch journalist, photographer, and producer Kjeld Duits letting us know that he is a regular reader of JAPUNDIT. He also took the opportunity to alert us to a new blog he has started that is dedicated to old photographs of Japan.

Old Photos of Japan is dedicated to photographs from Mr. Duits’ private collection of thousands of rare photographs, postcards, and maps of Japan. It is a multilingual photoblog with daily uploads of rare photographs and postcards of Japan between 1860 and the 1930’s.

What makes Old Photos of Japan especially interesting for Japundit readers are the Google Maps. They make it possible to find the exact location displayed in the image. Lots of fun if you know Japan well. Often, the entries also feature historical maps showing where the photographer stood some 100 years ago to make the shot.

These images display an abundance of information about the urban settings and customs of Japan. Well-researched articles accompany the images. Many of the articles contain maps and additional illustrations, making them a fun and useful resource on Meiji, Taisho and early Showa Japan.

The photographs can be searched by keyword, period, theme, location, photographer and medium.

Here is a Japanese TV commercial from the 1980’s for athlete’s food medication, which seems to be trying very hard to make the most of the “tentacle sex” theme that has been so prevelant in Japanese pornography over the centuries.

Via Pink Tentacle (of course!)

scattered around buddhist temples in the tohoku region of japan there are mummified bodies enshrined in . practitioners of an ancient set of rituals known as shugendô, these monks actually mummified themselves in a prolonged act of asceticism. believing that they could attain enlightenment in a mere ten thousand days (about 8 years, 2 months, and 19 days) by adhering to a strict diet, keeping a strict schedule of meditation and exercise, and slowly poisoning themselves.

From Popgadget comes news of a super-looking little digital camera - the Rolleiflex MiniDigi AF5.0. And the magpie in me is squawking “Want!”

Made by Komomura Corp., the MiniDigi AF5.0 is modelled on the original twin-lens 6×6 Rolleiflex, which debuted in 1929 and is still going.

This is a follow-up to the original MiniDigi, which was hugely popular with toy camera enthusiasts, with the resolution increased from 3.1 megapixels to 5.

The AF5.0 has definite retro chic, though the price is a thoroughly modern ¥41,000. For that price you don’t get much in the way of functions, but that’s unlikely to worry fans and gadget freaks.

according to an article released in february 21st by the economist, the magazine revisted an issue they first discussed in print a decade ago, namely “ japan’s amazing ability to disappoint.”

while the steady economic growth of the past few years has been an encouraging sign, there are major structural problems in the economy which threaten to relegate the japanese market to a decadent future where it would no longer be a “top-tier” economy, according to the economy minister, Hiroko Ota.

He made his only previous appearance in the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964 at the age of 22. You might expect 66-year-old Hiroshi Hoketsu to be looking forward to spectating at this year’s games, but remarkably, after a 44-year absence, he stands to make a record-breaking comeback when Japan officially announces its Olympic team next week.

Azusa Kitano of the Japan Equestrian Federation said of Hoketsu -

He will be in the team dressage. He hasn’t been at an Olympics since 1964, which was 44 years ago, but he has continued riding all this time. He’s up at 5 am every day. He’s what horse riding is all about. I want to congratulate him with all my heart.

Mr Hoketsu, who will almost certainly garner an enormous amount of media attention (he was all over the breakfast shows today), would not however be the oldest ever Olympic competitor. That record belongs to Sweden’s Oscar Swahn, who took part in the 1920 Antwerp Games aged 72.

Photo: Japan Equestrian Federation

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

The following is my personal favorite of all the TV commercials Arnold Schwarzenegger, current governor of California, did in Japan back in the 90s.

If you own a TV, the law requires payment of a fee to NHK (Japan’s Public TV broadcaster.)

And, that fee goes towards purchase of the best programs! I’ve been watching a lot of the original Charlie’s Angels TV series aired in the USA in the mid-1970’s. Farrah is awesome!

Other programs on NHK now: Full House, the ever-popular (here) original Bewitched , and Star Trek