In Japan, a lot of the older generation has been reluctant to adopt Internet use. Not anymore. Recently, more people in their fifties and sixties are going on Match.com to find love. The guy in the picture is a 65-year old cab driver named Yoichi Kawamura. He has been divorced for twenty-some years, but now, he's dating three different women. "My horizons are wider and my life is richer," he told Reuters.
When hundreds of tulips in flower beds along the street were found headless in Gunma prefecture earlier this month, police looked back at surveillance tapes from the crime scenes. Today, they released these images of a middle-aged salaryman hacking at the flowers with his umbrella in front of a government building.
We don't know who he is yet, but I can make two immediate predictions about his motive: he was angry, or he hates tulips. Or both. At least he wasn't beheading dogs or little children.
Crocs + escalators = bad news.
Reports of over sixty instances of feet getting stuck on escalator grids since last summer led to an investigation into the safety of Crocs on escalators. Crocs are made of resin; they're soft, stretchy, and not very slippery on non-lubricated surfaces, like many escalators. And they're still relatively popular in Japan. One five year old girl broke her toe trying to get off of one when her foot got stuck in the side of it. Ouch.
Skye Lynn Budnick is an American college student from Connecticut with dark brown hair and a pretty bad case of depression. When she disappeared on April 1st, family member checked her email inbox and found evidence that she had bought a one-way ticket to Hokkaido. They also found a suicide note addressed to one of her friends, saved as a draft. They're pretty sure she went to Japan to die, because she had told her sister in the past that that was what she wanted to do.
Her parents and sister flew to Hokkaido, got the US embassy involved, held a press conference, and are launching a full-scale search.
I wonder why Skye chose Japan as her final destination. Maybe she's heard stories of all the various ways that people commit suicide there, and was intrigued. Or maybe she just wanted to see the cherry blossoms, which bloom later this month in Hokkaido. Maybe she just likes manga and anime and Japanese men. Who knows? I hope they find her.
An elementary school in Shinjuku ward hosted a Guinness World Record-breaking 118-legged walk today. Here's a picture of 117 people tied together by the ankles, about to start the "race." They comprised of students, teachers, and parents celebrating the centennial of Ushigome-Nakano Elementary School. The previous record was set by a bunch of consultants in the UK last September, and that was with 77 people.
Pretty awesome teamwork, I'd say.
Tsuneyo Toyonaga, 113 years old, died yesterday from old age. Born in August 1894, she was the oldest living person in Japan. The last 12 years of her live were spent in a nursing home in Kochi Prefecture.
Wow, 113 is really old. The lady had five children, and I don't know if they are still alive, but if they are, they're probably in their 80s and 90s. I would feel extremely lucky to live until I'm 90, and even luckier if my mom was still alive then.
Rest in peace, Mrs. Toyonaga!
Inside an unused bank vault under one of Tokyo's busiest bank districts is a square kilometer of subterranean farm growing rice and providing part-time jobs to dozens of jobless youth who'd rather be farming part-time than working for a big company that will own them forever.
Pasona O2, as this facility is called, was built as a training facility for kids who might want to consider agriculture as a career alternative. Hey, why not? Could be better than working at a combini.
The verdict's in: Americans living in Japan love Obama. For the first time ever this year, the primaries are being held globally. Obama won 83% of votes in Tokyo, 80% in Kyoto, and 70% in Nagoya. More votes are expected to come in via online and fax, but those won't be counted til Thursday.
The image on left is from Daily Portal Z, a creative online magazine owned by Nifty known for its creative, humorous, and not necessarily politically correct reporting. Here, a reporter goes to a town called Obama in his best Obama disguise.
The verdict's out: You can't get brain cancer from using cell phones. Scientists at Tokyo Women's Medical University did a study with brain cancer patients and healthy people, and ound out that regular cell phone use didn't have a major effect.
I still don't believe in sleeping with your cell phone next to your head, though. If only because I don't think sleep should be interrupted by people drunk texting you.
Last week, cops broke up a schoolgirl prostitution ring in Saitama and Tokyo, arresting at least five junior high and high school girls who were selling sex online via their cell phones. One was a sixth grader. About 80% of the customers were pedophiles.
The amazing thing is that everything, including detailed ads soliciting customers, was written in code.
Take this piece of seemingly benign code, for example:
IkebLURV1700Yukichi2JC1
Ikeb = Ikebukuro. The neighborhood that the girl is in.
LURV = "I will have sex with you."
1700 = Time: 5PM
Yukichi2 = Yukichi Fukuzawa, the guy whose face is on the 10,000 yen note x 2 = I cost 20,000 yen
JC = Joshi Chugakusei (Junior high school girl. JS would be elementary school girl, JK would be high school girl)
1 = Grade 1. In Japan, 1st year of junior high = 7th grade.
Parents are being warned to look out for code like this on their kids' cell phones. It's a sure sign that they're involved in the sex trade, too.
The Japanese like to throw things from space. First it was paper airplanes. Now it's boomerangs. Astronaut Takao Doi took a break from space travel to take boomerang-throwing lessons from a world champion. He's now ready to throw one down to earth from the Kibo testing room at the International Space Station in March to see what happens.
The fifty-something year old astronaut is doing this at the request of the thirty-something year old boomerang champ. Got anything else you want Doi to throw down from space? Maybe you should ask him.
The Origami Paper Airplane Association is sending a super-strong, heat-resistant paper airplane from the International Space Station to earth with a message of peace. Read more
It's official—former prime minister Shinzo Abe told the press that the main reason he resigned from his post last last year was because he had really bad diarrhea.
Abe has a condition called ulcerative colitis. It actually sounds really awful and painful—he's had it since the age of 17. Diplomatic trips to India, Malaysia, and Indonesia only worsened the condition, causing frequent urination and painful bleeding. Here it is in his own words:
To mention an indelicate matter, I rushed to the lavatory after having keen abdominal pains and saw the basin all red with tremendous bleeding. Bleeding causes slight anemia. More than anything else, though, you feel depressed as you see fresh blood every time you go to the toilet.
You can never get a good night's sleep as you shuttle between the bed and toilet.
The need to go to the toilet many times a day hampers election and other political activities very much.
Once ulcerative colitis worsens, I would need to go to the lavatory 30 times a day. It would be absolutely impossible to perform the heavy duties of prime minister.
His last straw was when he couldn't remember the lines of his parliament speech in September.
Some people think Tokyo is all high-tech and futuristic, but one very blatant way that this isn't so at all is the amount of people who ride mama-chari, or those housewife-y bicycles with baskets on them, around town. People use it to get to the train station in the morning, to pick up their kids from school (kids ride in a little booster seat in the front or back), and to go grocery shopping.
This year, after 30 years of lawlessness, the police department is cracking down on cyclists by banning cell phone use, headphone use, and "triple-riding"—carrying two kids, one in front, one in back, on your bicycle—nationwide. They're also trying to pass a law banning riding on sidewalks, although this is going to be markedly harder to enforce among car-fearing cyclists.
This year, Japanese cops are getting a major upgrade in their policing skills—they're going to get superhero power equipment to help them fight kidnappers.
The Metropolitan Police Department is buying a Wall Through Radar, which can detect objects on the other end of a solid wall, and 80 headsets with air-activated transmitters that can hear things way beyond the capability of the normal human ear. The MPD is citing a gangster hostage crisis last April as its incentive to amp up its gear.
Shu Uemura, the most famous Japanese name in makeup, died on December 29th. Ever since the nameless Hollywood beautician transformed Shirley MacLaine into a geisha for the 1962 flick My Geisha, the demand for Uemura's services skyrocketed. He started his cosmetics line shortly before that, in 1960, opened his first boutique in Tokyo in the 80s, and by now has shops all over London, New York, and Paris.
In the US, strippers dance on poles. In Japan, it's the firefighters. I must say I've never seen a stripper pull of moves as awesome as these, though.
The Primate Research Institute in Kyoto discovered that young chimps have a much better memory than humans. Wow.
There's a great special feature in the current issue of The Economist about how the business model in Japan is changing.
Every year, the Japanese language expands to include buzzwords and slogans that newscasters and gossipers haphazardly adopted. Check out Pink Tentacle's wonderful translation/explanation of the top 60:
6. Cabinet of friends [o-tomodachi naikaku - お友達内閣]: “Cabinet of friends” was used to describe former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s first Cabinet, which was criticized for being filled with old friends who were not seen as competent to serve as ministers. By the time Abe got around to reshuffling his Cabinet in August, three scandal-ridden buddies had been forced to resign and another had committed suicide before being questioned about financial irregularities. [More]
9. Madame Sushi [マダム・スシ]: When giving a lecture during a visit to Washington, former defense minister Yuriko Koike said to the audience: “Some people call me the ‘Japanese Rice’ after Madame Secretary Rice. Why don’t you call me ‘Madame Sushi’?” In Japan, ‘rice’ means ’sushi.’ [Video]
35. Tetsuko [鉄子]: The unhealthy obsession with trains has long been a predominantly male pursuit, but the numbers of female train otaku — known as “Tetsuko” — are on the rise. [More]
36. Disguised beef (disguised meat) [minchi gisou (gisou shokuniku)]: The Hokkaido-based Meat Hope Co. admitted to adding pork and chicken to its ground beef products to cut production costs. [More]
We all know that birth rates are falling and young Japanese parents are opting out of childbirth to raise puppies and kitties. But a recent trend takes pet parenthood to a whole new level—major pharmaceutical companies and pet food manufacturers are offering hard cash to help their pet-owner employees pay for the costs associated with having a furry child.
A couple examples: 1. Pharma co. Kyoritsu Seiyaku gives all its pet-owner employees a monthly 1000 yen pet allowance. 2. Hills Colgate, a pet food company, gives employees 10,000 for each dog or cat they own, plus a 10,000 yen condolence fee each time a pet dies.
There are no reports—yet—of conniving employees buying up cheap canines from abusive puppy mills and then "accidentally" killing them weeks later. But if you here anything, let me know.
When CC Land, Japan's first soapland for women, opened in Fukuoka in February, the ladies flew in from across the country to get their taste of paid, institutionalized sexual services from its male employees. Soaplands had been around for ages, but until then it was a men only affair. Clients would pay 30,000 yen for 90 minutes in a private room with a bed, a bathtub, and a woman who performed sexual services. Now, finally, women could do the same.
Most of CC Land's clients were thirty-somethings. There were some in their early twenties; others were well into their fifties. They came from Tokyo and Nagoya, even though Fukuoka's in the southernmost island of Kyushu. And the club's web site was getting tens of thousands of hits a day. Women were able to select their "host" for their visit on the site—though the ones in highest demand could only be booked on the spot. The employees were plucked from extant host clubs in the area. (If you don't know what a host club is, watch this documentary.) Drinks and food were provided free of charge.
CC Land was generating revenue of about 6 million yen a month, but its popularity tapered as the number of clients dropped. Unlike the men, who came week after week after week, the women seemed to just want to experience it once.
On September 28th, the owners announced that they would be closing the joint in a month. They offered a 10,000 yen discount to their customers, and made plans to reopen by year end as an escort service for men. The employees got their old jobs back as hosts at regular host clubs.
Why doesn't the soapland model work for women? Some speculate that it was because women seek a more emotional experience than men do, even from paid sexual services, and they weren't getting that here. (By contrast, the clientele at regular host clubs is booming—even though sex is in no way guaranteed at these expensive teaser joints.)
(Photo: Pink Box, Joan Sinclair)
