Let's retro 1979 happy!
Topic: Japanese Tech

Sony Walkman Museum

Posted by trek/taro at 11:09 AM KDT
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"You're too fat, your sugar level is high and you drink too much beer."
Topic: Japanese Tech
High-tech Japanese home of the future
Companies envision robots, high-tech toilets, personal jellyfish "agents."
April 6, 2004: 9:59 AM EDT
TOKYO (Reuters) - Imagine getting home from work to be greeted by the family robot, which recognizes your voice and reminds you that you've forgotten your spouse's birthday ...You go to the study and use a touch panel to activate your video messages on a display that takes up half the wall. A doctor appears: "I've been monitoring your urine on the Internet. You're too fat, your sugar level is high and you drink too much beer."

Get Geisha!
Topic: Japanese life
Via Metafilter check out...

Immortal Geisha

Mo' betta than Batboy. it's CARPMAN!
Topic: Media
Today on the front page of "Tokyo Sports" shimbun....
After 14 Years
In Korea
Fish With Human Face Re-Discovered!
See the weird, full-size JPEG picture of the front page and find the Japanese link at the Michael Schubart's Weblog.

Love doll

Morissette strips down to blast US 'censorship'
Mon Apr 05 2004 14:14:52 ET / Drudge
Not another wardrobe malfunction !! ... feisty rock singer Alanis Morissette poked fun at Janet Jackson's notorious breast-baring episode by stripping on stage to reveal cartoonish fake nipples and pubic hair.
Morissette, hosting Canada's annual music awards, said the stunt, in which she appeared in a provocative skin-hugging body-suit was intended to expose US "censorship."

Student Konglish VS engRish

Well this is good time to [url=http://wheresdrew.com/B1443844990/C303591547/E1188482182/index.html]plug this student enRish.[/url]

'Ganguro": Geisha in blackface?
Topic: Japanese life
Yikes! Now here's a damn smart pimpin' scam.
For Japanese Girls, Black Is Beautiful
New York Times / April 4, 2004
.....Since graduating from the M.F.A. program at Yale in 2002, Ms. Brown, who lives and works in Chillum, Md., has been included in almost two dozen group exhibitions. She has dealers in New York, Washington and Los Angeles, and in February received a grant to travel back to Asia.
"At the base of it, I'm intrigued by the global influence of hip-hop," she said. "I want to return to Japan to look for ganguro, , but also check out China and Korea, where I am told that hip-hop is big. The ganguro is just one idea, and I don't want to, you know, pimp it."

Missing Bach transexual found out after 80 years hidden in Japan
Topic: Japanese life
Missing Bach original piece found after 80 years
TACHIKAWA, Japan (Kyodo) April 4
....part of a musical score composed by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), which had been missing for about 80 years but has been found among the possessions of the late Japanese pianist Chieko Hara, at his school in Tachikawa, western Tokyo, on April 3.

The real news was uncovered by Kyodo Press, was that the "late Japanese pianist Chieko Hara" was actually a beguiling transexual.

GET GODZILLA GOOFY!
Topic: Japanese life

GET GODZILLA DRUNK!

See the full-size JPEG athttp://images.es-designs.com/stevenmendoza/IMG0874.jpg
http://www.eastasiacenter.net/stevenmendoza/pictures/viewer$77

'Japan became rich before it became old' China won't
Topic: Japanese life
Demographic obstacles in Asia's way
Straits Times / Fri April 2- - .....Japan is the worst example of an ageing Asian country. In 2025, 30 per cent of its population will be over 65. It will have 'nearly as many .... the economic consequences of Japan's ageing population may not be as dire as predicted... Greying Japan's economy is bound to slow, but that doesn't mean it won't grow at all....
.... that China may suffer worse economic consequences from its ageing population. Nearly 300 million Chinese, or 21.4 per cent of the population, will be over 60 in 2025. 'To put the matter bluntly, Japan became rich before it became old; China will do things the other way around.'
.....problems in China: a virtually non-functioning pension system; a one-child policy leaving a one-to-one ratio between elderly parents and the children obliged to support them; and the combination of relatively less healthy ageing and the relatively more arduous nature of work in the country leaving fewer older Chinese productive...

WTF with Japanese 'corokke' in Kenya?
Topic: Japanese life
1.) The average daily wage in Kenya is $1.75. 2.) Kenyans know how to spell, "croquette". 3.) Potatos are grown cheaply in the highlands of Kenya.

Japanese 'corokke' shop opens in Kenya Kyodo - Friday Apr 02 11:05 AM SGT
Africa's first Japanese "corokke" shop has opened in Nairobi, with the Japanese operator realizing a longtime goal of taking a step into the African market.... At the shop, one dumpling, which the company says is made only from premium Japanese potatoes, sells for 50 Kenyan shillings (less than US$1).

Nekura VS Neo-masochists in Nippon
Topic: Japanese life


The Dark Subculture of Japanese Youth
Yo Yahata, Sekai (monthly magazine), Tokyo, Japan, February 2004; From the April 2004 issue of World Press Review (VOL. 51, No. 4)
Recently, there is a growing trend for some young people to lean toward a spirit of something we may call ?the dark.? ....the term ?gloomy old men? (nekura) gained popularity with stand-up comics, and the previously lauded workingmen with brows knit from their laborious efforts fell out of favor and were no longer respected. The worker?s masochism of people who used to believe that ?as long as I endure, someday I?ll be rewarded? has ceased, and I believe that in its place we now have the neo-masochism of young people who tend toward ?the dark.?
....working masochists think that they (the suffering workers) are nobler than those who relax and enjoy their lives. Neo-masochists think they (the innocents) are nobler than the sullied, worldly people.
But the elements they have in common end there. The endurance of the working masochists soon changes into resentment. The intensity of this identification as a victim tends to put distance between the masochists and the people around them.
The neo-masochists who expose their bleeding wrists in public are unlikely to ask, ?Who put me in this situation??

If you're at H-08, where are you in Tokyo?
Topic: Japanese life

Tokyo's subway revamped to make it more foreigner friendly
Thursday April 1, 6:05 PM
TOKYO (AFP) - Tokyo's subway network has had a spring makeover, receiving a new mapping system aimed at making it easier for foreign visitors to find their way around.
As of Thursday, the Teito Rapid Transit Authority which operates eight of 12 subway lines in the capital, has changed its name to Tokyo Metro Co., and has assigned a letter of the alphabet to each line and numbered each station in sequence.pan class="gensmall">

"Bodey" Style Water(tm)

Coca-Cola Japan and Shiseido to Jointly Launch New Brand "aroma works"
Tokyo (JCNN) - Coca-Cola Japan and Shiseido jointly announced on March 25 that the two companies will collaborate to promote a new brand focusing on fragrance "aroma works" starting in April.
As an initial step, Shiseido will introduce body lotion "Body Stylish Mist" while Coca-Cola will bring to market refreshing beverage "Body Style Water" on April 21.
Pix via here

Hey, where's the funeral? ( black-suited new hires)
Topic: Japanese life
The April Fools, Japan Inc's newly hired employees are out in force today in their black "recuit suits" (リクルートスーツ)



Osaka guidelines for new hires
The friend which is strong in job hunting
One body of handicapped person employment guidance

Second major (besides just studying Japanese)
Topic: adviceS
Question: I'm a Japanese major right now: Any suggestions on a second major that will open up more doors than my current major/minor?


Find and take one of the US Foreign Service Exam pre-tests. If you score reasonably well, start following the suggestions for working for the US State Dept who are hiring big-time right now and for the near future in asian languages. Damn, I wish the State Dept was hiring like that when I was in my early 20s (I scored above the 90 percental and still it wasn't good enough). In the same vein, Chinese or Arabic would be be a good 2nd major if you are really into language study.
If you're un-techie but into writing, language and Japan, maybe you might like taking coursework in "corporate communications", technical journalism, and the like. If you pass the official "Level 2 Japanese" test and have a tech. writing degree many Japanese companies will hire you (hell, if you pass Level 1 Japanese" and got a techical writing degree I'll hire ya).

Japan is a "Loser Dog Nation"
Topic: Japanese life
Junko Sakai--->
Junko Sakai is bigtime in Japan and now NEWSWEEK is featuring her in their April 5 edition, page 9.

Letter From Tokyo: Loser Dog Nation
By Kay Itoi / Newsweek International / April 5 issue
This may be the year of monkey, but Japanese will remember 2004 as the Year of Loser Dogs, thanks to an ongoing national debate.
It started with Junko Sakai's book, "Loser Dogs Barking," out since October. Single and childless women in their 30s or older are makeinu, the author declared. It doesn't matter how successful, beautiful or happy they might be. They're all "loser dogs."
...nearly a third of Tokyo's female thirtysomethings are single. But the figure is 44 percent for men. (Loser dawgs?) Yet nobody blames them.
...Sakai's book has sold 150,000 copies---a big hit
... that's why "Loser Dogs Barking" has sparked such an uproar. Just as loser dogs can't live up to what society expects of them, so Japan can't deliver what's expected of it...Call us Loser Dog Nation.

Japanese 'maneki-neko' , or beckoning cat is full of pooh
Topic: Japanese life

"An employee of Disney Store Japan shows off Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals dressed in 'maneki-neko', or beckoning cat"

taro friends
Topic: Me
My friends are more fun than this site....

Rob Pongi's lovechild, Mo Kin
If that don't float your boat, there's always....

Today is ARSON DAY!
Topic: Japanese life

LET'S BURN HAPPY!

You folks in the Real World you still have time to celebrate March 29th:
ARSON DAY! when my favorite J-babe of all time, Yaoya Oshichi, started the Great Fire at Sugamo Temple.