TOKYOMANGO

Get your hand-printed limited edition TokyoMango t-shirt now (2 weeks only)

My friend Ben and I made a test run of TokyoMango t-shirts on Saturday. They're really nice, do you want one? If so, you can buy one here. Below are the details:

- All shirts are 100% cotton.
- Each t-shirt will be hand-silk screened by me and Ben on his Yudu machine. The shirt logo was custom-designed by Ben. Mango design courtesy of my web designer James.
- The Women's tees come in a t-shirt style (pistacio and white) and a spaghetti strap ribbed tank (yellow).
- The Men's tees come in orange and white. In the pic above, Ben is actually accidentally wearing a girl's tee, but you get the idea... the sleeves will be more manly on the one you get.
- You can choose a custom colored tee for $25. Just shoot me an email with your preference after you place the order.
- The sizes tend to run a little big (except for the tanktops). They might shrink in the wash.
- Some of you will receive a free surprise Japanese toy or gadget with your t-shirt! I'm just gonna randomly stick them into bags, so keep an eye out.
- We're taking orders over the next two weeks only, at least for this first printing. They'll ship at the end of those two weeks, when Ben & I will silkscreen them by hand.
- Last day to order is Monday, October 5th.

UPDATE: T-shirts are no longer for sale. Maybe we'll do another round sometime!

46 years ago today: a coal mining accident and train wreck kill 600

Wired.com spotlights two tragedies that happened on Nov 9, 1963: industrial accidents that killed more than 600 people in one day.

The first accident occurred at the Miike coal mine between Omuta and Arao. Ten mining carts loaded with coal were being hauled to the surface at around 3:12 in the afternoon. One of the chains linking the carts together severed and sent eight of them careening out of control to the bottom of mine. The carts traveled nearly 400 yards and hit speeds of 73 mph before crashing....As if that weren't enough, several hundred miles away in Yokohama, a deadly three-train railroad crash had occurred.

This day in tech [Wired.com]

Japanese full names used to be super long

My mother sent me an interesting article published in The Japan Times earlier this month that digs up the origins of Japanese first and last names. Japanese names used to be super long back in the pre-Meiji period, including clan name, birth order, two ancient titles, and a personal name. The first name-last name simplified combo is only a century or so old.

The story also comes with a fun sidebar that lists the 10 most common Japanese last names. Can you guess what they are? I'll post the answers on Monday.

Link

Space-age robot art from the 1950s

Life Magazine has a great collection of robot art from Japan in the 1950s. Space travel was becoming a hot topic, science fiction was picking up steam, and toy companies were making all kinds of robot and space age-themed trinkets. Here are a few examples, with more at the Life web site.

iPhone cases designed after famous samurai

These iPhone cases cost $1000 each and were designed after warlords and warriors from the samurai era. I just wrote about them on BBG.

Antique world map from Japan, circa 1850

A world map hand-drawn in Japan circa 1850, two years after the Meiji Revolution opened the nation's closed doors to the world.

Link

Designer Issey Miyake shares his experience as an atomic bomb survivor

Fashion designer Issey Miyake wrote an amazing op-ed in Monday's New York Times about having survived Hiroshima. I did not know he was a nuclear bomb survivor &mdash I don't think that many did, in fact, he says in his piece that he deliberately buried this part of his past because he didn't want to be remembered as the designer who survived the atomic bomb. He finally decided to come out in this op-ed to encourage President Obama to follow through on his pledge to rid the world of nuclear weapons:

I have never chosen to share my memories or thoughts of that day. I have tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to put them behind me, preferring to think of things that can be created, not destroyed, and that bring beauty and joy. I gravitated toward the field of clothing design, partly because it is a creative format that is modern and optimistic.

Link (Thanks, Gen!)

14-year old boy builds Jomon period home, hopes to live in it

Shogo Kasai is a cool 14-year old boy living in Yamanashi Prefecture. He's cool because he's really into archaeology, so much so that he dug a pit in his backyard and made a semi-subterranean straw house that resembled Jomon period architecture. He consulted archaeology books and museum officials and built it out of bamboo and rice straw. Then, in October, he gave up the comfort of his bedroom for a night and spent it in his hut, even cooking himself a eal of shiitake soup—a Jomon period dish—on a charcoal fire. His next step? To make some Jomon period clothes and actually start living in there, at least for several weeks at a time.

Link

List of nearly 6,000 dead POWs found in Washington

A research organization dedicated to honoring the Japanese war dead found a full list of Japanese POWs who died in captivity at the hands of Americans. The list included 5,979 soldiers and military workers; it was collecting dust at the National Archives in Washington, DC. The list, created in 1952, had each deceased's name, rank, prisoner number, date of death, cause of death, and place of burial. The organization hopes to recover the remains of the war dead, which are scattered all over the world (Hawaii, Indonesia, Okinawa, the Philippines) on US military territory, back to their families in Japan.

Link

Related stories:
Dear Miye: Radio show about a Nisei woman during WW2
Occupation-era letters found in Nebraska bookstore
Wings of Defeat: A documentary about living kamikaze pilots

(For more background on post-WW2 Japan, read Embracing Defeat, by MIT historian John Dower.)