As everyone probably knows by now, American-born Japanese heartthrob Leah Dizon recently announced that she is both married and pregnant.

Instructive in this announcement is the childishness with which dating, male-female relationships, marriage, and pregnancy is treated in Japan.

Here is a video of Leah’s announcement at a recent concert. Note the screams of shock and disbelief that a young 22-year-old woman would do such things. At the end of her announcement, Dizon says she will take some time off to have the baby, after which she plans to start performing again. She ends with a plea to her fans not to “toss her aside.”

With attitudes like this, it is no surprise that young people in Japan are shying away from marriage and that the population of the country is declining.

And so we say farewell to yet another Minister of Agriculture. It’s often said there’s a revolving door at the Min of Ag., and it’s really been on a spin recently.

The Shinzo Abe administration saw 3 Ministers. You wouldn’t have thought there was time, but surely there was. Toshikatsu Matsuoka, who committed suicide in May of last year, was succeeded by Norihiko Akagi. He lasted all of 60 days but you’ll remember him as the chap who turned up at a press conference with an unshaven and bandaged face, looking like he’d taken the wrong route home.

Masatoshi Wakabayashi then warmed the Ministry seat for about three weeks before Takehiko Endo took over officially. Mr Endo then made Akagi look like a stayer by resigning after a mere 8 days in office. Mr Wakabayashi was called back for his second stint in a fortnight.

Seiichi Ota took over the reins at the beginning of August. And today he’s decided to take responsibility (as is the ministerly tradition) for the tainted rice scandal by buggering off and doing nothing at all to help clear up the mess. Very noble, I’m sure.

That’s 6 ministers in 16 months if you’ve lost count. At this rate, within a few years, we’ll all get a go at being the Agriculture Minister.

Akihabara maid cafe Hibaritei (where all of the maids are cross-dressing men) is always looking for new ways to push the envelope.

Their latest “game” is snorting various food products (wasabi powder, hot sauce, etc.) and enjoying the reactions of the snorters as the effects of the stuff they inhale has an effect.

Previously, they had challenges of eating food with a certain extremely spicy “Death Sauce” but that was probably not challenging enough so they resorted to sniffing it into their noses. The first item was wasabi powder. There is no effect when you eat it but you’ll get a headache if you sniff it. At first, you don’t feel anything but it hits you hard after awhile. The shop owners, staff and even customers were involved in this strange challenge. Later on, two more customers came in and were dragged into the third round of the challenge.

After the warm up came the real thing - the Death Sauce. One tiny drop of Death Sauce can numb your tongue so you can imagine the deadly effect it may have to your nose. Suddenly, the whole maid cafe was filled with strange noises as the other customers watched on amused by our strange customs. The boys’ face were all as red as tomatoes and their eyes were bloodshot. If a new customer enters the shop he may be wondering why is everyone crying. Later on, they resorted to using ice to soothe their noses which was a funny sight to watch.

And if a verbal description doesn’t do it for you, here is a video. . .

Via Akibanana

In case anyone is interested, gaijin-turned-Japanese gadabout Debito Arudou has published another piece in the Japan Times about the word “gaijin.”

Debito also recently did an online survey, which he reports on here.

Benjamin Fulford

Here’s a video of a guy who figure out how to get his Wii Balance Board to control the movements of his Roomba.

Of course, the next question is why anyone would want to, but. . .

Via The Raw Feed

British bank HSBC has been accused of the modern mortal sin of (Gasp!!)”cultural insensitivity” for an ad campaign that uses the image of a sumo wrestler in posters like the one shown below.

• A spokesman for the Japan Society, said: ‘My colleagues don’t like this advertisement, and you can understand how some Japanese people in the UK would find this ad offensive.’
• The head of the British Sumo Federation, said: ‘It looks terrible and it is insensitive to have made him up to look Japanese. It wouldn’t have been too difficult to get someone over from Japan who could adopt the proper athletic pose. I turn the page quite quickly when I see it. The whole thing is bloody awful. I’d like them to drop the advert. For a company that size, I would have thought they could use a little more judgment. They’ve shot themselves in the foot.’
• The director of the Anglo-Japanese Society of Wessex, said the advertisement ‘insulted the honour of a nation, ‘ and: ‘The fact that the picture depicts a sumo wrestler who is not actually a sumo wrestler but has been made up to look like one would be considered a high insult to the Japanese community. It is culturally insensitive.’

Mrs: JP says: “I don’t see anything wrong with it. If people are so small that they get upset over something like this, we’ll never make any progress in dealing with the larger problems of the world.” (She also made a remark about the people who complain about such things having size problems in certain parts of their anatomy, but we won’t go into that here.)

Check out this photo of a vehicle that belongs to a budget rental outfit in Cairns, Australia, named Wicked Campervans, a company that seems to get a real kick out of thumbing its nose at just about everyone.

Outraged cairns.com.au reader Mark sent a photograph of the van to us after his Japanese wife spotted it parked in their Bayview Heights street while driving their eight-year-old daughter to school.

“It’s terrible. If you walked around in a T-shirt with that written on it in English, you would be arrested,” he said.

His said he and his wife had tried to stop their daughter, who can read Japanese, from seeing the van, which was parked in the street for several days before leaving overnight.

Via cairns.com.au

If you have ever wondered what the notorious American-turned-Japanese (but still very much ugly gaijin) Debito Arudo actually looks like and sounds like, wonder no more for here he is, doing what he does best. . . bitching about Japan.

Via Matt at Occidentalism.

I am always amazed and amused by these things, no matter how many I see.

“Though the dog barks, the procession moves on!”

Caught the Japan-U.S. women’s soccer game yesterday, which the U.S. won 4-2.

The game was pretty good and both teams should be congratulated for giving their all and fighting it out right up until the final whistle.

Less than stellar, however, was the Japanese coverage both during the game and in the aftermath. As very often happens when Japan is beaten in an international sporting event, commentators spent most of their time serving up the same old tired litany of excuses of why the Japanese side fell to defeat.

Here are the ones I can remember off hand.

• The other team was physically bigger and stronger.
• The bad condition of the pitch.
• The heat and humidity.
• A schedule that had the Japanese team play two games with little rest.

What they always seem to forget is that, except for the first point, both teams are playing under the same conditions.

One particularly humorous remark I heard during the game was by one of the color commentators on the broadcast after the Japanese side went off side for about the fourth time in a row, “The fact that they keep jumping offside is testimony to the speed and agility of the Japanese team.”

We reported on this story the other day over at Japan News Junkie, but here is a follow up by the good folks over at ROK Drop who actually went out to check on the report on their own.

It seems that Dunkin Donuts in Korea is running a publicity campaign in which they are offereing Dokdo t-shirts to customers.

The publicity campaign was right in front of the store and could not be missed. If the store is trying to reach a western audience with these Dokdo shirts they are going to fail miserably in my opinion because these shirts are just plain dumb.

I think Koreans agree with this assessment because I sat in the shop for about 30 minutes and did not see one person pick up one of these shirts. I have yet to see anyone in Korea even wearing one of the shirts. Has anyone else seen anyone wearing these shirts?

To me it seems like a pretty dumb move for an international chain like Dunkin Donut to take a position on such a sensitive issue.

Nippon Television Network Corp. (NTV) has gotten into hot water for inflating the number of plates of food downed by “a celebrity known for her enormous appetite” during an NTV program.

According to NTV, the woman devoured “only” 39 plates of food, though it was reported on the program that she had eaten 48.

“We failed to accurately count the number of plates, and partially used an inappropriate method to make the segment,” the TV station said in an apology during the program on Friday.

NTV’s general public relations department explained, “We were vague about how we counted the plates and dishes, for instance, counting one plate with four pieces of the same dish as four dishes.”

On Monday, NTV gave severe warnings to Hisao Adachi, head of the news bureau, and other program staff, and terminated a contract with a production company in charge of shooting and making the problem segment.

Celebrity gluttons are really popular in Japan, which is why I guess something like this is being treated so seriously.

This news out of the U.K. is a bit off topic, but it is too good to pass up. . .

People labelled “idiots” and “lunatics” under archaic mental health laws could soon be allowed to stand for Parliament.

Thanks to remora, who said, “Why bother? the old laws never stopped them?”

Though I have been really critical of Michelle Wie in the past (here and here), I must admit that I ended feeling pretty sorry for the young girl after her most recent mishap on the golf course when she was disqualified from a golf tournament for signing her scorecard “too late.”

Wie said that after she finished her round on Friday, she left the tent where players sign their scorecards and was chased down by some of the volunteers working in the tent who pointed out she hadn’t signed.

Wie returned to the tent and signed the card.

“I thought it would be OK,” she said.

But Wie, according to Witters, had already walked outside the roped-off area around the tent. At that point, the mistake was final.

Witters said she and other tour officials didn’t learn about the error from volunteers until well after Wie teed off Saturday. They let her finish the round, then took her to the office where she and her caddy, Tim Vickers, were informed of the ruling.

Wie was in second place, only one shot back, when she was disqualified.

or yet another entry in my long series of crap that no one reads

in response to the horrible stabbing spree in akihabara, tokyo, japan a few weeks ago the japanese national police agency has once again shown why policy changes proposed during the height of public panic and tragedy have such a reputation for being well thought out, logically consistent, and effective in practice.

it has been decided that the most effective way to prevent such incidents from happening in the future is to help strengthen the familial and social bonds within japanese communities to reduce feelings of alienation and bitter isolation in the nation’s citizenry. to educate citizens on what to watch for in individuals that might indicate possible instability and what to do. to take steps to decrease the stigma associated with mental illness and the shame which prevents families and friends from reporting strange behavior to get counseling and medication for their loved ones. to increase the penalties for those who commit violent crime, and to revamp laws to favor self defense and empower people to stop criminals like this before hostile situations get further out of hand. all while recognizing that no matter what legislation is enacted, not all murders can be prevented or tragedies averted.

no, i’m just kidding, they want to ban double bladed knives and increase the restrictions on guns. to quote the article:

A panel of legal and other experts has submitted a report to the National Police Agency, saying daggers and other double-edged knives should be banned “to prevent their use in serious crimes. Such knives are “originally intended for stabbing and are highly dangerous…The panel…also recommends tightening laws on firearms

obviously all such incidents and stabbings could be prevented if only the authorities only took away every dagger, hunting, bowie, butterfly, switchblade, exacto and pocket knife, church key, and letter opener in the country. maybe they could melt them down into a healing image of hello kitty to commemorate the loss of lives in akihabara. i mean its not like people could find an alternative murder weapon. or that single edged knives could possibly hurt anybody. or that any of these blades have legitimate uses besides stabbing people. or that knives in japan are already regulated to help prevent crimes like this. or that those laws failed to prevent this massacre. or…

while they’re at it why not just outlaw the wedge? it is after all the most evil of the simple machines.

and i think we can all make the logical conclusion that a madman running down innocent people in a car, then getting out of the car and stabbing others with a knife until stopped by a heroic group of officers carrying firearms, is really an issue resulting from lax gun regulation and slap on the wrist gun crime laws. we all know that had hunting rifles been illegal the aum attack would never had happened. and if paintball guns didn’t exist, neither would takuma. seriously though, wtf?

i guess they’ll be coming after video games next. it would complete the trifecta of stupidity after all. if only children weren’t allowed to see violence they wouldn’t be violent, etc., etc.

but if japan wants to insist on banning items that can be used as weapons and strengthening laws on items already restricted then i’ll help them with my own non-comprehensive list of things to be banned.

i think this would be a good start, murder would probably vanish, and the ignored mentally ill would most likely join hands and sing songs under a rainbow.

We all have heard of how foot binding was (and apparently still is in some areas) practiced in China, but these are the first photos I have ever seen of this gruesome practice.

More here.

Koreans will not be seeing any Japanese condoms as they slip into the tube each morning now that Seoul Metro has decided to pull prophylactic posters for Okamoto condoms from its subway carriages.

The ads, 54 by 39 centimeters, were placed next to the train doors - one of the most eye-catching spots. They did not have a picture related to a condom, but had phrases such as “No. 1 in Japan.”

The subway operator, however, removed all the ads Tuesday even though the contract had not run out, saying they may be against “public sentiment.”

“Apart from the inappropriateness of condom ads inside subway cars, we thought it could run counter to public sentiment following the eruption of a fresh dispute over Dokdo,” a Seoul Metro official said.

She said the breach of contract and possible indemnity is a matter between Okamoto and the subway operator’s subcontractor in charge of ad management.

It’s official! Osaka prefecture has been declared the sexual assault capital of Japan according to statistics maintained by Japan’s National Police Agency.

According to the data, last year one in every 4,200 female residents of Osaka was raped or otherwise sexually assaulted. This compares to one in every 4,600 in Tokyo.

The Osaka rate is double that of Kanagawa Prefecture, which has a similar number of female residents, and nearly five times that of Yamagata Prefecture, which is the safest prefecture for women in Japan.

According to the police, many victims of rape or other sexual assault last year lived alone in apartments. Most of them were attacked from behind soon after opening the door of their apartment. Some offenders managed to enter buildings equipped with auto-lock systems by waiting for a resident to open the door, and then hid in stairwells until they found a target.

Many victims also were attacked on the street while talking on their cell phone, an activity police said can give people a false sense of security about their personal safety.

“People let their guard down when they are on their way home, or talking to people [who they feel close to]. It’s the most dangerous moment,” a police officer said.

So what steps has Osaka taken to deal with the situation? Well, the prefectural police force has assigned two full-time female police officers to a telephone consultation service called Woman Line.

Feel any safer?