Hairy taste soy sauce for Japan

Chinese soy sauce from human hair leaves fatal aftertaste in Japan

MDNews / November 17, 2004 Chinese soy sauce made from human hair is cancer causing and restaurants throughout Japan could be using it.... ...Fears about Chinese soy sauce were sparked by a report on Chinese TV that noted local makers were using human hair to create their condiments. Japanese soy sauce makers used to use human hair, too. "During the Pacific War (World War II), food shortages meant that the soy beans used to make sauce instead became a foodstuff and hair was gathered from barbers and used to make ersatz soy sauce," Satoshi Noguchi, the boss of Noguchi Rihatsu barbershop in Kashiwa, Chiba

Shocked in Tokyo (PSP)

Shocked By PSP
SCE unleashes another strange marketing campaign for PSP.

November 18, 2004 , IGN -- Walk into a cafe in Tokyo later this month, and you may see a Western-looking mannequin holding a PSP unit and displaying an expression of shock. Don't fret -- this isn't the Japanese National Police Department's latest scheme at warning the Japanese public of the threat of foreign invaders. It's just Sony Computer Entertainment's new PSP campaign....more...
See also the Japanese mannequin company http://www.yamato-creation.com/

Walking, rolling and slithering Shape-shifting Robot

Shape-shifting robot shows off its moves

16:07 17 November 04 NewScientist.com news service
A shape-shifting robot comprised of many independently moving components has been demonstrated walking, rolling and slithering for the first time.
The prototype robot - called ATRON - demonstrated its various metamorphoses in Tokyo on Wednesday. For example, reconfiguring its many individual modules allows the robot to change its mode of locomotion on command.

LOVE YOUR CARP!
As mentioned before, Weds.....PETA Campaign Pitches Fish As Smart
Wed Nov 17, 1:18 AM ET, NEW YORK -
...Called the Fish Empathy Project... "Fish are so misunderstood because they're so far removed from our daily lives"....

LOVE YOUR CARP!
Airlift for earthquake-hit fish

BBC News, 19 Nov ---
Japanese ornamental fish fanciers have airlifted 450 koi carp from breeding grounds damaged by last month's earthquake in Niigata prefecture.
Local breeders chartered a helicopter to rescue the fish from damaged ponds in areas still cut off by road.
Niigata prefecture is famous for its ornamental koi - or "living jewels" - and fans of the fish have launched an international appeal to save them. ....more....

Posted by trek/taro at 1:19 PM JST
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Japanese cosmetics company offers chemo-castration as deodorant
Cosmetics & chemo-castration?

Lion Elucidates Mechanism of Androstenone, Male Body Odor Causative Factor
Tokyo (JCNN) Nov 19 -- On November 17, Japanese cosmetic and toiletries manufacturer Lion announced the findings of its latest research on male body odor. According to the research, androstenone, a kind of volatile steroid found in the underarms, causes body odor and make others, women in particular, feel uncomfortable.
When androstenone mixes with sweat, the body odor tends to be enhanced. Also, the company has confirmed that an extract derived from the apricot kernel can effectively inhibit the generation of androstenone.
----
What this press release does not say is that androstenone is thought of as a human sex phememone and the lack of it is found in castrated males.

Posted by trek/taro at 12:44 PM JST
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LOVE YOUR SUSHI! Fish-have-feelings-too campaign

PETA Campaign Pitches Fish As Smart

AP News / Wed Nov 17, 1:18 AM ET
...Called the Fish Empathy Project, the campaign reflects a strategy shift by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals... "Fish are so misunderstood because they're so far removed from our daily lives," said Karin Robertson, 24, the Empathy Project manager and daughter of an Indiana fisheries biologist. "They're such interesting, fascinating individuals, yet they're so incredibly abused."

Flipper gets a Formula-One fin...before the Japanese try to eat him

Dolphin Gets Rubber Fin
WJXX, FL - Nov 16
By First Coast News Staff. JAPAN -- A tire manufacturer has developed an artificial fin which will help dolphins who lose their fins.
The technology developed by tire manufacturer Bridgestone, better known for their involvement with Formula One auto racing, has saved a disabled dolphin allowing it to return to swimming freely in the water.... with her artificial tail fin made of sponge rubber and carbon fiber.... the tail for Fuji did not come cheap. Bridgestone spent about $95-thousand dollars on the project.
_________________
モ?ベッタ...

Bitch slap shtick

No laughing matter for Shimada

japantoday shukan post watcher / nov 16
TV comedian Shunsuke Shimada has gone into self-imposed exile after being accused of striking and injuring a female employee of his agency, Yoshimoto Kogyo Co...... he dragged her into a dressing room, grabbed her hair and slapped her head.
Shimada, whose real name is Kimihiko Hasegawa, told police he felt the woman "had a bad attitude" and wanted to "teach her to behave as a person belonging to the same agency."

voices.sirens.big eyes, makeup, chirpy little voices inside your head
Invite the voices.sirens. yes all them to dance with you on the Tokyo subway platform....


-crazed youths invade London station
The Register » Thursday 4th November 2004 12:34 GMT
It's 6:45 pm on a drizzly Wednesday evening at Waterloo Station. The main concourse is crowded more than usual due to train delays. Anxious faces stare at blue screens hoping for their cue to sprint to a platform in the hope of a seat. The middle aged lady with handbag in one hand and mobile phone in the other looks down for a second and stares in bemusement at two young ladies who begin dancing to the sound of their personal stereos. She shakes herself to check her senses are not playing tricks as a Conga line streams past behind her with 20 or 30 people listening to their own personal stereos. Other commuters look on dumbfounded.
Welcome to the world of Mobile Clubbing. Simply, mobile clubbing is turning up at a pre-arranged public place on mass where you begin to dance to the sound of your own personal stereo.....more...

starRing at coMputeRs a11 day m&ke5 u blind
Staring at computers may cause glaucoma
Independent, UK - 16 Nov

pending hours staring at a computer screen may raise the risk of glaucoma, a progressive eye disease that can lead to blindness, scientists believe.
The dramatic discovery contradicts years of advice which suggested that gazing at computers did not damage the optic nerve. Researchers aim to replicate the study to confirm the findings.
The results emerged from a study in Japan of 10,000 workers with an average age of 43. It found a statistical link between heavy computer use and eye problems that presage glaucoma. The problems were more common among staff with existing vision defects such as short-sight or long-sight.. ...

"LIES!" say the Japanese families of alien abductions


Whining more the Boeing 777, families of the alien abuductions are all over the NHK Morning News ...

Families of Kidnapped Japanese Say N. Korea Lying
TOKYO (Reuters) - The families of Japanese kidnapped decades ago by North Korean agents lashed out at the secretive communist state on Monday, saying it had Japanese team returns from North Korea with evidence...
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モ?ベッタ...

Posted by trek/taro at 8:54 AM JST
Updated: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 9:23 AM JST
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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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