Stories about Japan from November, 2007
Japan: Environmentally-friendly coffin
Blogger Kaz introduces and talks about environmentally-friendly paper coffins, which he found in an advertisement put by an ISO14001 certified funeral company. The paper coffins reduce the amount of fuel...
Japan: Robot Award
Edo from Pink Tentacle introduces the list of nominees for the 2007 robot award in Japan.
Japan: Blog Queen takes a break
Gravure idol, talento and blog queen Wakatsuki Chinatsu announced today that she would be taking time off from blogging. The final entry posted today at her official blog attracted thousands of comments from fans offering their support, a few of which are translated here.
Japan: Fingerprinting Illegal Immigrants
Apart from the official explanation on fingerprinting terrorists, the policy also targets at illegal immigrants — more from Jamie, Japan Probe.
Japan: Sumie Kawakami Interview
David Marx from Neojapanisme posts an interview with Sumie Kawakami, author of Goodbye Madame Butterfly: Sex, Marriage and the Modern Japanese Woman.
Japan: 5 Foreigners Kicked Out
James from Japan Probe has an update on the finger-printing immigration policy in Japan.
Japan: Kids these days
What do you do when you've had enough of young girls sitting on the floor of the train, talking on their phone and acting like it's their home, when meanwhile you've had a gruelling day at work and just want to get through? One 35-year-old man in Yokohama decided that he'd had enough and kicked the 17-year-old girl sitting and chatting with friends beside him. Bloggers had mixed opinions about the incident, but the majority seemed to be sympathetic.
Japan: Joi Ito on the Tokyo Metro
Joi Ito ponders about “train accident” suicides in Japan in a post entitled Life and death on the Tokyo metro.
Japan: Introduction to the Social Web in Japanese
Blogger Akimoto recommends a new book about social networking [ja] by Japanese writer/translator Namerikawa Umihiko (who blogs at Social Web Rambling [ja]). The title of the book is Introduction to...
Japan: Panties Pulling Game
Lee from Tokyo Times blogs about the panties pulling game.
Japan: Buzzwords 2007
Edo from Pink Tentacle blogs 60 buzzwords which has been nominated as Japanese buzzword of the year (2007) by local publishers. Among the 60 nominees, a panel of judges will...
Japan: Japanese loanwords and their meanings
John at J-Life writes about Japanese loandwords, noting that many such words narrow their meaning when they are imported into Japanese.
Japan: The Bully and the Bullied
The phenomenon of bullying in schools is a recurring theme in Japan. A government survey released last week, which found that that the number of cases of bullying has increased sixfold over the result of the year before, has driven up anxiety about the problem yet again. In this post, some of the thoughts of Japanese bloggers, a translated message from a victim, and the experience of one counselor in confronting the problem.
Israel: Lost Tribes in Japan
One of the questions that comes up every now and then in the Israeli-Japanese discourse is whether the Japanese are descendants of the Israelite Lost Tribes, reflects Sharvul, from Israel.
Japan：Travelogue from Georgia
Japanese blogger and blog journalism analyst Fujishiro Hiroyuki of Gatonews has posted a three-part travelogue, recording his trip to Georgia last month[Ja]. (1, 2, and 3) The series describes his...
Japan: Has Beaujolais Nouveau gone sour?
As the date changes at midnight on the third Thursday of November, corks come out of bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau and the celebration begins — in Japan. This has been...
Japan: Fingerprinting divides family
Blogger Lionel Dersot wonders what parents of mixed children should do when the family is split at the airport, the foreign parent subjected to Japan's new fingerprinting regulations. Remarking that...
Japan: NEC Fingerprinting Technology
Edo from Pink tentacle gives some technology background of the fingerprinting foreigners policy in Japan: NEC helps Big Brother watch foreigners in Japan.
Japan: Yamanote Line Sprint
Earlier this week, roughly 20,000 Tokyo commuters were forced to wait when a 40-year-old woman jumped onto the tracks of the Yamanote Line, one of the city's busiest train lines, and began to run. Reportedly triggered by trouble with an aquaintance, the woman's 1.5 km sprint was heralded by many as the first of its kind. Needless to say, many bloggers wondered what it was the woman was thinking.
Japan: Housing Discrimination
James from Japan Probe blogs about the issue of housing discrimination against foreigners in Japan.
Japan: Giant Jellyfish
Edo from Pink tentacle blogs photos of giant jellyfish found nearby the coast of Japan sea.
