James's Feed - Page 4 of 47
Yu Darvish Arrives in America Wearing Marijuana Leaf Shirt
A couple days ago, pitcher Yu Darvish signed a $60 million deal with the Texas Rangers. When he arrived in in Texas, he was wearing a very strange shirt:
Darvish arrived about three hours earlier at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, where he was greeted by...
27.8% Decrease in Foreign Tourists Visiting Japan in 2011
2011 saw a gigantic decrease in the number of foreign tourists visiting Japan:
The number of foreign visitors to Japan in 2011 totaled an estimated 6,219,000, down 27.8 percent from the existing record of some 8,611,000 in 2010.
There was also a dro...
Christopher Johnson Under Fire For “Gaijin Gulag” Article
On January 18th, the Economist’s Banyan column copy-pasted Christopher Johnson’s sensational account his detention and deportation from Narita Airport. According to Johnson, immigration authorities may have singled him out unjustly because he was a...
Remember World War II: Sea Shepherd Depicts Japanese As Uniquely Cruel & Dishone...
In response to yesterday’s blog post about the existence of racism and prejudice among opponents of Japanese whaling, some readers complained that I was focusing too much on the words of a anonymous internet lunatics. Why should Sea Shepherd be ment...
Anti-Whaling Groups Display “Open Prejudice” Towards Japanese
The Australian has printed an excellent opinion piece by Brendan O’Neill (“Shades of open prejudice in war on whalers“). He argues that prejudice and racism are behind the views of some anti-whalers:
The attempt to transform Sea Shepherd’s cynical s...
Tommy Lee Jones to Play General Douglas MacArthur in New Film About US Occupatio...
Tommy Lee Jones has been cast as General Douglas MacArthur in an upcoming film about the American occupation of Japan:
“Tommy will bring strength, intelligence, and gravitas to the portrayal of, a legendary American hero,” producer Gary Foster (“Ghos...
American Man Missing After Trip to Mt. Fuji
A search is underway for Matt Johnson, an American man who disappeared after apparently going on a hiking/camping trip to Mt. Fuji:
Johnson has been an engineer in Eaton Corp.’s vehicle business unit in Galesburg since 2003, according to a company s...
Jizo For Tsunami Survivors
A news report about beautiful cloth Jizo figures that have been put on display at a Buddhist temple in Kesennuma:
They are on display at Jifuku-Ji, a temple that stands amid the rubble of a city that was devastated by the March 11th tsunami. A mark...
Professional Motorcycle Racer Hiromi Sakai Dies in Accident
Professional motorcyclist Hiromi Sakai has died in a speedway accident:
Sakai came off her motorcycle at about 4:20 p.m. on Jan. 15, and hit a fence. She died shortly afterward in a medical office at the venue. Officials said her cause of death was...
Korean Festival vs. Thai Festival (Fake Korean Wave?)
The following video is near the top of YouTube Japan’s most viewed ranking for today (with over 150,000 views):
The video compares footage from two events held in Tokyo: a Thai food festival and a Korean food festival. Apparently there were some pr...
18 Million Year Old Rhino Fossils Found in Japan
Video of fossils found in Nagasaki prefecture that are believed to be about 18 million years old:
The remains were found on the coast of Matsuura’s Takashimacho district, and are thought to be among the oldest of their kind in Japan.
There are five...
Paywall Blocks Access to Asahi Shimbun’s English Articles
Found this message popping up on my screen this morning when I tried to check some English language articles on the Asahi Shimbun’s website:
The Asahi recently scaled down the content on its regular English articles and started directing readers to...
Hollywood “Whitewashes” Japanese Films: Uses White American Actors Instead of As...
CNN’s InAmerica blog has an article that discusses the fact that upcoming American remakes of Japanese films are going to cast white American actors to play characters that were originally Japanese:
Tom Cruise is rumored to be in talks to play the le...
Escaped Convict Remains At Large
A 40-year-old Chinese inmate escaped from a prison in Hiroshima on Wednesday:
Li Guolin was sentenced to 23 years in prison after firing a handgun at a police officer after breaking into a house during an attempted burglary in 2005.
Elementary and j...
New Station on Tokyo’s Yamanote Line
Last week, the Yomiuri reported that JR was planning to open a new station on Tokyo’s Yamanote loop line. It would be the first new station on the line in 40 years, and would be combined with a redevelopment planned aimed at attracting international...
Sea Shepherd’s Idiotic Antics Cost Australian Taxpayers “Hundreds of Thousands o...
Here is a follow-up on the three animal rights activists who illegally boarded a Japanese whaling ship a few days ago. The Japanese have agreed to the Australian government’s request that the men be released, but an Australian customs vessel will ha...
Amazing Glass Balancing – Richardo From Sweden
Glass balancing expert Richardo performs on Japanese TV:
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Illustrated Diaries Chronicle 56 Years of Life in Japan – Now Available on Amazo...
Back in May of 2011 I blogged about Shouzou Takenami, a 93-year-old resident of Aomori prefecture who has kept an illustrated diary since 1955. In my post, I wrote that I hoped that the diaries would be published. It seems that a lot of Japanese tel...
Taiwanese Murder Suspect Commits Suicide
Japanese police found the Taiwanese student who was apparently responsible for the brutal murder of two of his classmates:
Chang Chih-yang, a student at a Japanese language school in Tokyo, is suspected of having killed Julia Chu, 25, and Lin Chih-yi...
Japan Society for the Study of Obesity: Women With Girth Over 80 Centimeters (3...
Japan may soon have a new definition of fatness:
The Japan Society for the Study of Obesity (JASSO) is considering including women with a body mass index (BMI)–a measure of weight relative to height–of below 25 but a waist circumference of above 80 c...
Australian Activists Illegally Board Japanese Whaling Ship
Three members of the radical animal rights groups Sea Shepherd and Forest Rescue Australia have been detained after illegally boarding a Japanese whaling ship. The incident took place 40 kilometers offshore, outside Australian territorial waters....
Firebomb Attack on Japanese Embassy in Seoul
South Korean police have detained a Chinese man who threw several Molotov cocktails at the Japanese embassy in Seoul:
The man from Guangzhou, who came to South Korea on a tourist visa on Dec. 26 via Japan, claimed he also set fire to Tokyo’s Yasukun...
Japanese Police Seek Taiwanese Student (Possible Suspect in Double Murder?)
Some new details have emerged regarding the murder of two Taiwanese women who were studying Japanese at the Intercultural Institute of Japan in Tokyo.
The Mainichi has provided some details on how the crime took place in the morning:
Lin last spoke...
Yoshiko Noda? International Media Still Screwing Up Japanese Prime Minister’s N...
When Yoshihiko Noda became Prime Minister of Japan in August of 2011, I made a blog post noting how many English language articles and tweets failed to properly spell his first name. For people unfamiliar with Japanese names, it can be hard to remem...
Family Torn Apart By Irrational Fear of Radiation
The Asahi reports about a German citizen who made his family flee Tokyo after the Fukushima nuclear accident. It would seem that, despite the overwhelming evidence that a radioactive doomsday never occurred, some people who fled are still afraid of...
Internet Poll: Japanese Select Ideal Leaders
The Sankei Shimbun recently published the results of an online poll that asked Japanese people to select who they thought would be great or terrible leaders.
I have translated the ranking into English and added Wikipedia links for reference:
Who w...
Taiwanese Students Murdered in Tokyo
The Japanese media is reporting that two Taiwanese women have been found stabbed to death at an apartment building in Tokyo.
The women, 21 and 23 years old, were students at the Intercultural Institute of Japan, a language school located in Tokyo’s...
Foreign Nurses Leave Japan: Literacy Requirement Made Japanese Nursing Exams Di...
The Yomiuri is reporting that over half of the first group of Indonesian nurses who came to Japan in 2008 as trainees have returned to their country. Many of the nurses were overwhelmed with Japanese literacy requirements:
Only 15 of the first group...
Police Failed to Recognize Most Wanted Criminal
For the past 16 years, Japanese police have been looking for Aum Shinrikyo member Makoto Hirata. Images of his face have appeared on thousands of wanted posters, but police failed to find Hirata.
All of that changed on the night of December 31st, wh...
Hiroshima Memorial Vandalized
Somebody has vandalized the cenotaph in the center of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park:
Paint was sprayed over part of the cenotaph’s inscription, which reads, “Let all souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil,” according to the p...
Cold Water Karate Training on Iwate Beach
A Karate dojo practices in the cold water at a beach in Miyako, a city in Iwate prefecture that was heavily damaged by the March 11th tsunami:
All of the men were residents of the disaster zone. They hold this event every year, but this year they a...
Dead Humpback Whale Washes Ashore in Kanagawa Prefecture
Video of a whale that washed ashore in Kanagawa prefecture this morning:
The whale, which was a male humpback, apparently died several days ago. The Odawara city government is looking in to disposal methods (which will probably not include eating t...
The Barehanded Beekeeper
Meet Hisaki Nasu, a 77-year-old farmer in Miyazaki prefecture with a hands-on approach to beekeeping:
This man sticks his bare hands inside the hive! He claims that they don’t sting him because he’s being gentle. (And the honey bees apparently do...
The Barehanded Beekeeper
Meet Hisaki Nasu, a 77-year-old farmer in Miyazaki prefecture with a hands-on approach to beekeeping:
This man sticks his bare hands inside the hive! He claims that they don’t sting him because he’s being gentle. (And the honey bees apparently do...
Video: Sledding Granny
An 86-year-old woman in Nagano prefecture who isn’t afraid to go sledding:
She has a job delivering mail for the local post office. In winter months it can be quite dangerous to walk down roads covered with snow and ice, so she uses a sled instead!...
American Parent Reunited With Abducted Daughter / Denounces BACHome
Last week, the American and Japanese press reported that a non-Japanese father had been reunited with his daughter, who had been taken to Japan from the U.S. by his Japanese ex-wife in violation of custody agreements:
The girl’s return also freed her...