Stories about Japan from April, 2007
Japan: Fun With Japanese Characters
Pingmag has a feature story about the Dainippon Type Organization, an experimental typography unit founded by the two artists Tetsuya Tsukada and Hidechika in 1993. The group finds fun in breaking Japanese Katakana, Hiragana, and the alphabet into pieces to recompose the parts and produce new characters.
Japan
Debito picks up the story from Gyaku concerning the future of electronic surveillance of foreigners entering Japan: This means that Japan becomes the second country to institute one of these systems in the world, in a bid to get a toehold in Asia and profit from the fear of terrorism.
Japan and South Korea: Debate about Two Shootings
James from Japan Probe blogs about the Japan and Korean netizen debates (including hate speeches) over the Virginia Tech / Nagasaki shootings.
Japan: Foreign population in Tokyo
Adamu blogs about the details and implications of “population movement survey” conducted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government.
Japan: US$900 bid scandal
Gyaku has translated some news and documents on a huge scandal of Japanese government in contracting out a new biometric immigration system (finger print identification system) to Accenture Japan Ltd. The bid for this contract was awarded at a price of only 100,000 yen (maintenance services: 90,000 yen, product development...
Japan: Adult Woman
It is funny that the beauty of adult woman has to be reminded in a society: With nine-year old girls in thong bikinis currently leading the march of eroticism in Japan (or at least grabbing the most real estate in der Zeitgeist), refined culture magazine for urban professionals Brutus has...
Japan and China: Tea
Alexpappas in Japundit blogs a news report about Japanese merchants in taking tea back to China as it is the biggest potential market: Affluent Chinese are paying as much as 6,000-7,000 yen for 100 grams for the finest-grade longjing tea, often bought as gifts…
Japan: Will Day
Joe Jones blogs about the April 15 Will Day and Japanese Will Law in Japan Law Blog. The day is designated by the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.
China: Baidu JP blocked?
William long tries to investigate why mainland Chinese netizen can't visit Baidu again [zh]. The result showed that i.p from China are reset by Baidu japan site.
Japan: Number 1 Language of Bloggers Worldwide
It will likely come as quite a surprise to the English-speaking world that the number one language of bloggers worldwide, in terms of number of posts, is not the “language of international communication”, as English is typically regarded. Nor, before the Chinese chime in, is it the language of the...
Brunei: Anti-China Demonstration in Japan
The blogger at Daily Brunei Resources, currently on an official visit to Japan encounters demonstrators protesting against the visit of Chinese premier in Tokyo.
Japan: Chuoism
Late last year blogger Joi Ito brought us a post on the Chiba Newtown Chuo, a “designed from scratch community in the middle of nowhere near my house.” This week he brings us photos.
Japan: Ethnic Korean prefect candidate
Ongoing election bloggage from the eponymously-named debito blogger: “Read on to hear about a naturalized Korean-Japanese’s campaign for a prefectural seat in Osaka, campaigning his Korean roots overtly.“
Japan: New local law blog
As if the powerhouse China Law Blog weren't enough, now there's the new Japan Law Blog. Via gen at the Gen Kanai weblog.
Japan: Old pols, crimes and porn
Plenty of discussion on ComingAnarchy blogger Curzon's ‘Japan Roundup‘ post this week looking at three current stories: the fading popularity of Shintaro Ishihara, the recently-reelected governor of Tokyo, the hot-button issue of WWII comfort women, and navy officer's possible leak of information related to Japan's missile defense program.
Japan: Salarymen
In case you think a salaryman is the person in the accounting department on whose best side you want to be, the an englishman in osaka blogger brings us photos and metered prose that might clear things up.
China: Memedia Issue 3: New century for grassroots media
Another benchmark for the vibrant Chinese blogsphere, key bloggers and big names have come together to form Memedia, home to a collectively-written weekly roundup of the biggest stories from the Chinese blogsphere. Writes Virtual China's Lyn Jeffery: Coming from the combination of three terms, Me/Meme/Media. Memedia will provide interesting things,...
Japan: Ponyo on the Cliffs
Adamu reports that Hayao Miyazaki's new animation, “Ponyo on the Chiffs” is scheduled to be released in summer 2008. The production is completely hand-drawn, with no computers used whatsoever.
Japan: Oil Dream
Hisane Masaki from Ohmynews reports on the recent merge of two oil companies into Inpex Holdings to prepare for entering the global market.
Japan: Kickboxing Geishas
Marie Mockett from Japundit introduces a new book, Kickboxing Geishas, about contemporary Japanese women's role in changing the society.
Japan: surrogate mothers
Japan’s Supreme Court recently ruled that the woman giving birth, not the woman who contributed her DNA, is to be recognized as the legal mother. Joe Jones from Japan Law blog discussed the implication of the case.
