My friend Yuko is the editor on this awesome upcoming documentary about Keiko Fukuda, the only woman in the world to earn the highest ranking in judo. She's 98 years old now. Pretty amazing. The Kickstarter campaign is over (and funded - yay) but I'll keep you guys posted on when this comes out so we can all get excited about watching it!
What a game! Where did you watch? Who did you root for? I was at a friend's friend's house in Bernal Heights with a bunch of Americans and 10 puppies. The Americans were disappointed, but my friend Masami and I were so stoked. More deets on the game here.
Watch this video of Russian figure skating duo Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov, who won a silver medal at the World Figure Skating Championships this past weekend. The competition was supposed to take place in Japan, but it got moved to Russia after the earthquake.
(Thanks, Paul!)
I would really like to go to this new parkour facility in LA called the Tempest Freerunning Academy. Parkour is so amazing (I've trained a couple times with a Bay area group--so fun!); but perhaps the best thing about this place is that you can jump around in a real Mario World.
Contrary to what you might think based on the last few posts, this blog is not exclusively about Super Mario Brothers.
(Thanks, Jordan!)
Japan's spring sumo tournament was canceled this year because of allegations that 14 sumo wrestlers were fixing matches and arranging bribes via text message. This has never happened before. A few of the text messages negotiating fixing bouts leaked to the press--three wrestlers admitted to having sent and received them, the scandal snowballed, so the chairman of the Japan Sumo Association gave a tearful press conference (note: it is almost obligatory for a regretful head of anything to cry at these things) and called this "the darkest ever chapter in the long history of sumo."
Sumo matches, especially among the lower ranks, are highly susceptible to fixing because of the way the pay scale works--you get paid nothing unless you reach the rank of juryo, at which point you suddenly make $12,000 a month. So the juryo wrestlers conspire among themselves to make sure they all get to maintain status and earn income. Makes sense.
The last time a tournament was canceled was over 60 years ago, in 1946, because the sumo stadium was damaged by World War 2.
In 2008, Chronicle published my book: Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan.
I am also the founder of The Tofu Project, a boutique program that helps Japanese entrepreneurs and creators think deeper, tell better stories, and go out into the world in a much bigger way. We work with companies like Mixi, Japan Airlines, and Salesforce.com.
Sometimes I try to explain Japanese culture on CNN, BBC, CBC, WSJ, ABC (so many acronyms!) or in person at places like the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan, ETech, and Ignite!
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