Stories about Japan from July, 2008
Japan: Door of the Year
The englishman shows some photos on the nominations for the Japan's Door of the Year award.
Japan: View from Ecuador on WaiWai “Child Hunt”
WaiWai was a column in Japan's fourth largest newspaper Mainichi, published for years in the English version of their website and featuring some of the most scandalous (and mostly fabricated) articles from Japan's weekly tabloids, translated to English with added “embellishments”. In recent weeks, the story of WaiWai erupted on the Japanese Internet, users reacting to WaiWai's negative depiction of Japan. One Japanese blogger living in Ecuador wrote a blog post expressing outrage at a WaiWai article about Japanese supposedly "hunting" for children in Ecuador.
China and Japan: Support to Earthquake Orphans
Martin J Frid from Kurashi blogs about a Japanese non-profitable group, Ashinaga's initiative in helping earthquake Orphans. Recently the group helped bring Japanese earthquake orphans to Sichuan.
Japan: Apologize for Graffiti in Florence
James from Japan Probe wrote a sum-up on the Graffiti scandal in Japan: A Japanese teenager who was caught on video daubing graffiti on the Duomo in Florence flew back to the Renaissance city at her own expense to apologise.
Japan: Bloggers on food crisis feast, G8 over Skype?
The G8 Summit at Toyako, Hokkaido, ended on June 9th after three days of meetings, leaving a bitter aftertaste for some bloggers in Japan. Many questioned the high cost of the event, pointing out how environmentally unfriendly it was, and one even proposed that the meeting could be better carried out over Skype.
G8 Summit expensive menu
Cambodia Calling is “disgusted” by the expensive menu in the G8 Summit in Japan
Children in the G8 summit website
The G8 summit website in Hokkaido, Japan features an image of a globe being carried by four children. Filipino politician and blogger Peter Lavina comments: “The children used in the website were mere decorations to lull us into believing that the world’s rich nations look after their care.”
Japan: Comment about abductions sparks harsh reactions
LDP member Koichi Kato has sparked harsh reactions from bloggers with a comment he made on July 7th. In the comment, Kato connected the stagnation of Japanese-Korea negotiations with the government decision in 2002 not to return 5 Japanese abductees to North Korea after they had been delivered to Japan by North Korea for what was expected to be a short time. The abductees were among a group of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Japan: Cup Sake
Ad Blankestijn from Japan Navigator writes about the history and culture of Japan cup sake.
Global Lives Project: Recording the lives of 10 people for 1 day
The Global Lives Project is a global initiative created to showcase the lives of 10 different people from all over the world by following them and recording 24 hours of their day in video. These 240 hours of material will be shown at the same time in an installation where a person will be able to walk through 10 different rooms projecting each one of their lives, and a central hub where the 10 screens will be seen simultaneously.
China: Shanghai Police Assault Incident
For Chinese legal development posted in chinacourt.org about the recent Shanghai police assault incident (6 policemen were killed by Yeung Jia). Yeung were abused by the polices last October and decided to take revenge after reading about the Akiba Massacre in Japan.
Taiwan: Conflict over Diaoyutai Islands
On June 11, a Taiwanese recreational fishing boat United(聯合號) sank following a collision with a Japanese coastguard vessel 11km off the disputed Diaoyutai(釣魚台) (Japan: Senkaku) islands, an island chain simultaneously claimed by Taiwan, Japan and China. Passengers and crew on the sinking boat were picked up by Japan. Shortly after,...
Japan: 2ch and Waiwai
W. David MARX at META no TAME writes about the flaming of Mainichi's “WaiWai” column on 2channel, Japan's largest internet forum. Mainichi announced late last month that the column had been discontinued due to a harsh reaction from Japanese audiences, upset at the often sensational choice of topics covered in...
