· November, 2007

Stories about Japan from November, 2007

Japan: Environmentally-friendly coffin

  29 November 2007

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 necessary for cremation by 50% and shrorten the cremation time by 10 munites, according to the blogger.

Japan: Blog Queen takes a break

  27 November 2007

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: Kids these days

  23 November 2007

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: Introduction to the Social Web in Japanese

  21 November 2007

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 the Social Web (ソーシャル・ウェブ入門) and, according to Akimoto, it is easy to read even for beginners.

Japan: Buzzwords 2007

  21 November 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 select the top 10.

Japan: The Bully and the Bullied

  20 November 2007

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.

Japan:Travelogue from Georgia

  20 November 2007

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 experience in detail with photos. The blogger also expresses his concern about the current state of the country and worries...

Japan: Has Beaujolais Nouveau gone sour?

  19 November 2007

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 an annual event since the 1980s, the period when the country enjoyed its bubble economy. The tradition still carries on,...

Japan: Fingerprinting divides family

  17 November 2007

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 no one has yet raised the issue, he asks: “Is it too intimate in the age of no-privacy to think...

Japan: Yamanote Line Sprint

  15 November 2007

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.