It used to be that you could smoke anywhere in Japan. Now, if you're a smoker, and you ride bullet train, you have to stand in this little glass box. I realize it's glass so that they can see when the train is coming, but it has this wonderful zoo animal on display effect that I found deeply entertaining as I waited for the shinkansen to Sendai a few weeks ago.
A Silicon Valley exec recently traveled to Japan for business. He took a Geiger counter with him and measured radiation throughout the trip--including on his flights to and from Asia. Steve Jurvetson posted a graph on his Flickr stream. He writes:
One of his destinations was 50 miles from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. As a precaution, a colleague gave him a Geiger Counter so he could make sure it wasn’t getting dangerous as he approached the plant.Maybe they assumed he would turn it on when he hit the ground… Instead, he logged the whole trip, and you can see the relative peaks of radioactivity.
Joi tweeted about this yesterday: an inspirational bullet train commercial has been going viral.
It's a 3-minute spot featuring a shinkansen making its debut trip across the southern island of Kyushu on March 12, just one day after the earthquake. The commercial was pulled from TV stations in the immediate aftermath, along with all other advertisements--the stations feared inundating people with commercialism after a tragedy would be inappropriate--and just appeared on air a couple of weeks ago. In it, you see school kids in uniforms, farmers, Power Rangers, cheerleaders, and costumed mascots all cheering the train on as it makes its way across the country.
I love this because it's really representative of Japanese solidarity. It's really unselfish, non-aggressive, and community-oriented. One of the YouTube comments points out that the conductor and the cameraperson were crying the whole time as people ran alongside the train.
I just got back from Portland, Oregon. If you've never been there, this will give you an idea of what it's like. It's a song from the hilarious new TV show Portlandia:
I spent the day with my college friend Naomi, who used to be a sushi chef and is now temporarily retired. As we walked into a bookstore a guy asked us to sign a petition to ban plastic bags, and then Naomi got in trouble with the bookstore owner because she had a Kindle. That night we went to a local Japanese-ish restaurant with really good burgers called Yakuza and then dropped by at a bar full of people who looked like they were straight out of the 90s.
My friend Jason Wishnow sent me this clip--also from Portlandia--featuring two shrinking Harajuku Girls obsessed with coffee and a dog named Hichiro. It's amazing, watch!
One more good reason to fly ANA! Starting this month, the airline will be offering draft beer on some domestic routes for $8-10. People always thought draft beer would be impossible to serve at high altitudes, but ANA has created a specialized keg that can do exactly that.
via Born Rich
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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