Latest posts by Chris Salzberg from November, 2007
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: 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 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: 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.
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 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
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: Panama, again?
Boguspokesman at Bogus News reports that conversations [ja] on Japanese forums about the sinking of a Panamanian freighter off the coast of Japan yesterday have been very critical of Panama. At 2-channel, one person blamed Panamanians for having “bad manners”, another wondered what the frieghter was even doing near Japan,...
Japan: Am I a Blogger?
Kikko, one of the most popular bloggers in Japan, questions whether what she writes is really a “blog” [ja]. When she was selected as one of Japan's “Alpha Bloggers” [ja] in 2005, she was asked what she thought of Web 2.0, to which she replied: “Web 2.0? What's that?” Is...
Japan: Pulling the Strings
While the world focused this week on the aftermath of negotiations between the leaders of Japan's two largest political parties, the behind-the-scenes mediator, Watanabe Tsuneo, celebrated winning this year's Media Person of the Year Award. Some bloggers, however, wondered what Japan's largest media baron was doing brokering backroom political deals. Was it just a coincidence that coverage differed so much between major newspapers?
Japan: itojun passes away
Gen Kanai reports that Jun-Ichiro “itojun” Hagino, one of the celebrated computer programmers of Japan and a key developer of IPv6 for BSD Unix, passed away on Oct. 29 at the age of 37.
Japan: Ozawa resigns, a new era begins
Observing Japan writes about the resignation of Ozawa Ichiro, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan, observing that while the party could benefit from Ozawa's departure, the event may also bring momentum to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
Japan: Dolphins and Heroes
In English-language media and blogs this week, everyone had something to say about the Japanese dolphin hunt in Taiji, Wakayama Prefecture. Footage of angry Japanese fishermen clashed with images of blonde-haired Western celebrities endeavouring to "share the water" with the soon-to-be slaughtered dolphins. While opinion on the issue in English-language blogs and forums for the most part supported the spirit of the protest, Japanese bloggers had differing things to say.
Japan: Two Degrees from Terror
These days, particularly since the events of 9/11, a latent fear of "terror" has come to lurk in the hearts of many a concerned citizen. But how far away are the terrorists, really? This week in Japan, they suddenly seemed to get a whole lot closer when Justice Minister Hatoyama Kunio, just recently appointed to his cabinet position, revealed in an off-hand comment that a "friend of a friend" of his belonged to al-Qaeda.
Japan: Hatoyama Kunio once an American spy
Rumor has it that Japanese Justice Minister Hatoyama Kunio made another slip-up after his recent admission that his friend's friend is an al-Qaeda member. In Japanese blogs, web news sites, and forums [Ja], people are now reporting that on Oct. 31st he declared that he once worked for the Pentagon...
