Stories about Japan from July, 2008
Formoz Festival 2008: Don't wanna say goodbye
Here is wikipedia's explanation of the annual Formoz Festival: The annual Formoz Festival, Spring Scream, and Gung-liao Ho-hai-yan Rock Festival are representative gatherings within Taiwan's indie scene. Of these, Formoz Festival is notable for its international draw. Facing the threat of typhoon Phoenix, lots of people still decided to attend...
Japan: Tokyo Street Performance
Edward from Japundit posts two youtube clips on Tokyo street performance by Koharu and friend.
Japan: Toyota's Just-In-Time System and the Akihabara Killings (Part 1)
When Tomohiro Kato killed 7 people and injured many more in Tokyo's Akihabara district last month, the details of his life became the talk of the Japanese blogging world. Among these conversations, the murders sparked a huge number of conversations on the country's temp worker industry, as Kato himself worked as a temp worker at a factory under Toyota. No single blog entry however attracted as much attention as did a post by blogger boiledema, published two days after the incident and bookmarked on Hatena by a staggering 1366 users. In this first part of a two-part series, we translate the first half of boiledema's original blog post.
Japan: Anti War Demonstration
Tokyo Reporter reports on the left wing groups’ plan for a peace demonstration in August near Yasukuni Shrine.
Japan: LGBT Youth Exchange Project
LGBT Youth Exchange [jp] is a joint project by the Center for Gender Studies at International Christian University in Tokyo and Youth and Play Services of the city council of Bristol to bring LGBT youth from England and Japan together. This year, young people from Bristol are invited to come...
Japan: Six Eco Cities
Martin J Frid from Kurashi blogs about Japan government's policy on eco model cities.
Japan and South Korea: Busan or Takeshima
Ampontan looks into the Japan and South Korea relation and summarizes it into two paradigms: Busan or Takeshima (or Dukto).
Japan: Communist Party gets boost from Nico Nico Douga
It is a long time since the Japanese Communist Party had any luck in Japanese politics, but with help from no other than Japan's popular video sharing site, Nico Nico Douga, this may be changing. A 51-minute video of a February 8th speech by Chairman Kazuo Shii of the JCP registered over ten thousand comments on the video sharing site, and there are now reports that interest in the party among people in their 20s and 30s is way up.
Japan: Ban on Daggers and Double-edged Knives
Esotericlarity from Japundit comments on the recent ban on daggers and double-edged knives to prevent assault incident such as Akihabara massacre. The blogger wonders if the ban would be effective as the problem is related to the society's mental health.
Japan: Why Expats Don't Speak Japanese?
Dann0 listed out 10 reasons on why expats in Japan don't speak Japanese.
South Korea: Dokdo Demonstrations
CINA collects local reports and photos on demonstrations against the Japanese textbook territorial claim over Dokdo islets.
Japan: Mainichi's “Foreign Staff”
In the latest step in a long and drawn out controversy, Mainichi newspaper has issued a 3-page official apology in response to the harsh backlash concerning its English-language WaiWai column. Blogger polimediauk responds to the news, questioning the tendency to divide foreign and Japanese staff at the English-language Mainichi site and treat them differently.
Japan: The Linguistics of Nico Nico Douga
Metagold is a research blog based out of a project at Goldsmiths College, University of London, focused exclusively on the video sharing web service Nico Nico Douga. In a July 15th post, Metagold takes up the story of a linguist at Kyoto University, Kanamaru-san (id:kana0355 [ja]), who “asks how the...
Japan: Is it all over for Mainichi?
Nobuo Ikeda writes in English and in Japanese about the latest step in the drawn-out WaiWai controversy: after a string of earlier statements, Mainichi has issued a 3-page-long official apology, in which it pledges “to rehabilitate [Mainichi Daily News] into a site that can dispatch information to the world that...
Korea: Chopsticks… Rather Complicated…
Why does Korea use iron for chopsticks while other chopsticks countries use wooden materials? What is the history of the use of chopsticks? When do kids learn how to use it? Hyejin Kim answer these and other questions about this ancient eating utensil.
Japan: Facebook Will Fail?
Akky Akimoto from Asiajin looks into the obstacle of facebook's development in Japan.
Japan: Chinese Novelist wins Akutagawa Award
On Tuesday, the Akutagawa Award for Fiction, considered the most prestigious literary prize in Japan, was awarded to Chinese novelist Yang Yi for her work, “Tokiga nijimu asa”. Yang, who was born in Harbin and whose native language is Chinese, learned Japanese after she came to Japan in 1987. In this post, reactions to the award in Japanese and Chinese media, blogs and forums.
Japan: Internet Trend
Peter Payne from Japundit blogs about the latest internet trend among young people in Japan.
Japan: Tokyo2point0
Serkan Toto from Asiajin reports on the two presentations in the Tokyo2point0 event. The first is about a Japan portal site Goo and the second is about Japan twitter.
Japan: Cultural Difference
Harvey from Japan Newsbie explains the graphic representation of cultural differences between East and West from the MountainRunner site.
Japan and South Korea: Dokdo
Matt from Gusts of popular feelings blogs on the reaction on the territorial debate between Japan and South Korea over Dokdo.
About our Japan coverage
Nevin Thompson is our Japan editor. Email him story ideas or volunteer to write.
