40% of Niigata quake injuries caused by shitty Japanese interior decor
40% of injuries from Niigata quakes caused by falling objects
Japan Today, Nov 15
...Tokyo Fire Department ...is urging the public to take measures to fix furniture because a similarly large percentage of injuries was caused by such objects in major earthquakes in Miyagi Prefecture in July last year and in Hokkaido two months later.
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モ?ベッタ...

Posted by trek/taro at 4:44 PM JST
Updated: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 8:50 AM JST
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Tokyo Festa Freakshow
Metropolis / Nov 12

Art explosion.

Japan?s largest art event, Design Festa, marks its tenth anniversary.... an artistic frenzy of painters, poets, singers and creators will rush out to engulf the shopping and entertainment bastions of Odaiba. Marking its tenth year and 20th incarnation, Design Festa will converge with 5,000-plus exhibitors on Tokyo?s International Exhibition Center, more commonly known as Tokyo Big Sight.
This international art free-for-all is an un-judged and uncensored chance for artists of all ages and backgrounds...

Jpan: "Robots -r- us"

The key consideration is: Who is going to use these robots? The answer is obvious -- the swollen generation now nearing retirement age. These people are going to need help from wherever they can get it; their children will certainly not be up to the task of providing the needed amount of physical and medical care, as well as companionship, diversion and, yes, fun, in the home, in nursing-care facilities and in hospitals. As the developed world's populations age, the question of who is going to look after the growing ranks of elderly is no longer purely academic.
The way many researchers see it, robotics technology is nearing the point of genuinely popular usefulness just in time.

The Japan Times: Nov. 14, 2004
EDITORIAL
Robots and us

Green Ogre and Japanese Grudge

Is the Face of America That of a Green Ogre?
NYTimes.com 2004/Nov/14/
...American films spotlighted at the festival, whose chief purpose, it seemed, was to please the widest possible audience...
...Along with weapons, movies are among our most lucrative exports to a waiting world, and in the last seven years or so, it has become clear that the expected audience for nearly all American-made studio movies, the audience they are designed and created for, has shifted from the 50 states to the global marketplace. This change in perspective has, naturally, resulted in a change in content: nuances of language or the subtleties of comedy do not translate easily between cultures, but action or fantasy or animation is immediately comprehensible, even if you live in, say, Japan, which is the country that most big studios long to reach....
..In the past, cultures would influence one another through film. The sensibility of the French New Wave and the Hong Kong action picture affected countless young Americans. But that sort of broad foreign influence seems to be waning. As I write, the biggest hit in America is "The Grudge," which is a remake of a Tokyo horror film directed by Takashi Shimizu. He has already directed the original and three sequels in Japanese. Although it received poor reviews, "The Grudge" made nearly $40 million on its first weekend and will probably become a global sensation. In the late 60's and 70's, horror films had the scope of "Rosemary's Baby," which raised the genre to a meditation on urban anxiety and rampant ambition. It is doubtful that anyone harbors similar hopes for "The Grudge." If this is the new global cinema, it could give the term "horror film" new meaning.

Ya can't marry Japanese Princess Sayako anymore
Japanese Princess to marry, become a commoner
ABC
Princess Sayako, the 35-year-old daughter of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, is set to marry Yoshiki Kuroda, a Tokyo metropolitan government official.

With the marriage, Princess Nori will become a commoner.

"Japan Branded Thievish, Dizzy with Bulgarian Wine"
Japan Branded Thievish, Dizzy with Bulgarian Wine
Sofia News Agency, Bulgaria - 13 Nov
Japan's market is flooded by Bulgarian-made wine, labeled as a Japanese product, according to local reports.
A blend of 95 percent Bulgarian bulk wine and 5 percent of wine made in Japan from reconstituted Australian grape concentrate can, incredibly, be labeled as "100 percent Japanese Wine" ...

Believing in Shinto has become "almost meaningless" to Japanese
Japan's ancient religion struggles to adapt to modern times
Nov 13 The Associated Press / ISE, Japan----| The steady crowds cross an arched bridge and follow a pebbled path into a forest of towering cypress trees, bowing before a simple gate that stands between them and the holiest place in Japan ? the inner sanctuary of the Grand Shrines of Ise
....The masses who come to this [national shrine] city on Japan's central coast once would have been called pilgrims.
Today, they are mostly just tourists. They offer quick prayers, buy a pocket-sized charm or two and head off to their next destination.
Such is the heart of Shinto, Japan's native religion. As old perhaps as Japan itself, Shinto is a rich mixture of folklore, reverence for all things natural and the Japanese nation itself.
But to say one believes in Shinto has become almost meaningless: For most Japanese, the worshipping side of Shinto is relegated to a small cadre of priests and their helpers, most of whom inherited their jobs from ancestors. ...more----

Japan Sumo Asso. Chairman charged with sex assualt

Sumo boss Kitanoumi faces assault, sexual harassment charges
japantoday > crime /Saturday, November 13, 2004 at 07:40 JST
TOKYO -- A 28-year-old woman working at a Tokyo restaurant has reported to police that Japan Sumo Association Chairman Kitanoumi assaulted and sexually harassed her ...
....Kitanoumi was the youngest to be promoted to yokozuna in 1974 at 21 years and two months old. He won 24 Emperor's Cups before retiring in 1985 and created the Kitanoumi stable....became the association chairman in 2002.

"Pacific Overtures": First "Japanese" production on Broadway
Note the fake "gaijin" noses on the nearly all Chinese cast.Miyamoto makes Broadway debut
(Kyodo) - Nov 13, 11:13 am
Amon Miyamoto has become the first Japanese producer to make a foray into a Broadway musical with the New York launch of the preview of "Pacific Overtures" Friday night.

Genuinely Ugly Americans, as Viewed by the Japanese
NYTimes: July 11, 2002
The coming of Commodore Perry and his troops to the shores of Japan has always been a showstopper in Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's fable of gunboat diplomacy and cultural transformation. Those who saw the original Broadway production still marvel at the immense paper dragon of a ship created by the fabled designer Boris Aronson.
But Mr. Miyamoto and company have devised their own highly original coup de theatre for the occasion, and it, too, is sure to linger in the memory. The ships are seen only as fleeting, ambiguous shadows. But the Americans, whose grotesquely stylized appearances here were inspired by 19th-century Japanese poster art, are canopied by a vast American flag that shoots across the theater's ceiling amid a flash of eye-searing light.



キャスト Cast
B. D. Wong Reciter ＜語り＞
Michael K. Lee Kayama ＜香山＞
Paolo Montalban Manjiro ＜万次郎＞
Joseph Anthony Foronda Thief Councilor ＜首席老中＞ ・ Ming Lee Second Councillor ＜次席老中＞
Yoko Fumoto Tamate(Kayama's Wife)
Alvin Ing Old Man・Priest
Francis Jue Madam・
Dutch Admiral Eric Bondoc
Evan D'Angeles Observer・Warrior
Darren Lee American Admiral・Sailor
Hoon Lee Sailor
Telly Leung Boy・Observer

Posted by trek/taro at 3:37 PM JST
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