Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Wed Jan 17, 2007 9:57 am Post subject:
Keep out those filthy, f*ckin' foreigners!!!!! we hate them, those barbarians....subhumans who stain the land of the Yamato Race.
Nippon Ichi!!!!!! BANZAI!!!!!
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Kyushu town doesn't want Foreigners
Today's JT has a letter to the editor on Setaka town in Fukuoka Prefecture that wants a University and in a probably sensible move, voted (municipal assembly) to try to preclude FGs from attendance. Looks like the mothers and daughters will be safe! Score one for Blinky!
".....A group of residents submitted a deposition opposing a campus that did not reject foreign students. They were worried about the crime such students would bring. That's right -- the residents wanted a university as long as there were no foreign students. The town assembly voted to accept the proposal without debate...."
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Thu Jan 18, 2007 7:22 am Post subject:
Wynter wrote:
Goodness gracious. I can't believe the victims fell for that without even researching into the lawsuits.
it's a japanese cultural idiosyncrasy...avoid conflict, and public displays such as lawsuits that would invite criticism and harm reputations...so it's like paying hush money.
it's a japanese cultural idiosyncrasy...avoid conflict, and public displays such as lawsuits that would invite criticism and harm reputations...so it's like paying hush money.
Ahhhhh I see I see. So who ratted them out? _________________
Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 46182 Location: Los Skandolous, California Country:
Posted: Sat Jan 20, 2007 3:43 am Post subject:
Alcoholic bumbling a new birthright of the Yamato race. No wonder I luvs it.
Less public drunkenness belies spike in imbibing
By KEN KASAI
Kyodo News
The number intoxicated people spending the night with the police may be declining but Japan remains a country of drinkers, with overall alcohol consumption on the rise.
An official from the Metropolitan Police Department's Toriizaka Protection Center in Minato Ward, Tokyo, shows off the facility's sleeping pads. KYODO PHOTO
The Metropolitan Police Department's Toriizaka Protection Center in Minato Ward is the only drunk tank left in the country, where once there were four in Tokyo alone. This highlights the fact that public intoxication is less of a problem than it was.
Police bring people to the facility when they are too drunk to be held in police stations, and some who have been found passed out are brought in by ambulance.
The center has 15 "tora" (tiger) boxes, each about 4 meters square and furnished with a washable mattress and a clean blanket. Some of their occupants are indeed tigerlike -- tora is also slang for a drunkard -- behaving violently or hurling abusive language at staff before passing out. On average, the center takes in six to seven people every day.
When they wake up, the first question many ask is "Where am I?" Many think they are in a hospital because the staff wear white uniforms.
The number of intoxicated people taken into protective custody nationwide has fallen by more than half over the past three decades, to 68,500 in 2005 from about 145,800 in 1976, according to the National Police Agency. The decline has been even sharper in Tokyo, with the number falling by nearly three quarters to 9,600 from about 35,000 over the same period.
Kazumi Komuro, deputy chief of the MPD division responsible for taking intoxicated people into custody, pointed to an unlikely friend of (relative) sobriety: karaoke.
"People do not drink themselves sick, and can shake off the ill effects of alcohol by singing songs," Komuro said.
Experts also point to changes in alcohol consumption toward drinks with less of a kick, such as "chuhai" (distilled sprits and soda) and beer. Attitudes toward drunkenness have also shifted, with less tolerance shown toward those who habitually overindulge.
Cultural scholar Noritake Kanzaki pointed out that the way Japanese value alcoholic drinks has changed.
Alcoholic drinks, mainly sake, were once considered an offering to the gods and a luxury. It was almost taboo not to drain the cup if one was offered a drink. But the easier availability of alcohol and improvements in production and storage technology means alcohol is less luxury and more readily available.
But Shuta Toshida, director of the Shuai Toshida Clinic in Tokyo's Kita Ward, warns that fewer people passed out on the sidewalk doesn't mean there are fewer problem drinkers in Japan.
The National Tax Agency said the volume of alcoholic beverages consumed in 2004 has risen by some 50 percent compared with 30 years ago.
While drinking outdoors has declined, the number of people consuming large amounts of alcohol or binge-drinking at home is on the rise, including bored and lonely housewives who have become "kitchen drinkers," Toshida said.
Merging another group of threads which discuss Japanese culture, traditions, etc.
Excellent idea!
Does anyone know anything about an organization called NOVA where they send students to Japan to teach? Anyone been through this system? _________________
Japan has opened its largest art museum, a futuristic complex with no permanent collection that architect Kisho Kurokawa believes reflects a new 21st-century way of thinking.
The National Art Center-Tokyo, located in the heart of the crowded metropolis, combines traditional Japanese elements with a glittering high-tech facade made entirely of glass.
The museum's main peculiarity is that it will hold no collection of its own, making it the world's largest art center living on temporary exhibitions that range from acclaimed foreign work to pieces by lesser-known emerging artists.
"We will be able to bring any collections from Japan or abroad that we want at any time -- that unpredictable quality, coupled with our mission to attract young, new artists of quality, is the museum's main originality," Kurokawa told AFP in an interview before Sunday's opening.
"This would be impossible with the Louvre museum, but is possible with the National Art Center. I think this is the 21st-century way of thinking," he said.
With 14,000 square meters (150,600 square feet) of exhibition space, the state-backed center, built at a cost of 35 billion yen (290 million dollars), will be part of a triangle in the glitzy Roppongi area with the Mori Art Museum and the renovated Suntory Museum.
It is across town from Tokyo's main art hub of Ueno, which already has some of the world's most visited museums.
While saving on the exorbitant expense of buying a permanent collection for the museum, Kurokawa also hopes that the National Art Center-Tokyo can eventually make do without physically bringing fragile artwork into Japan.
The 72-year-old architect's idea is that the museum can use cutting-edge technology to display photographs of artwork on walls equipped with flat-screen panels.
"If we try looking at the real Mona Lisa, it's really hard to see clearly. Now Japan excels in film technology, so with digital technology and the Internet, people will be able to see artwork more clearly than if they were in the actual museum," he said.
"If we can collect data from museums across the globe, then the National Art Center will be the world's first Internet technology museum," he said.
However, due to copyright hurdles, the museum will not attempt the idea in the immediate future, he said.
The museum's first exhibition, on loan from Paris's Pompidou Center, shows the work of foreign artists based in the French capital since 1900, and the walls are booked up for years to come.
Kurokawa -- whose projects have included Kuala Lumpur International Airport, the exhibition wing of Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum and the Melbourne Central commercial hub -- defines himself first as a philosopher.
He believes his latest work is true to his idea of achieving "symbiosis" between conflicting forces.
"One main coexistence is between localism and globalism," said Kurokawa.
"I express localism through the material I used: wood, concrete, steel, glass. But I have left them in their natural states, leaving their natural colors, which is a very Japanese concept.
"At the same time, the functionality of the museum is very global -- it has the ability to house any kind of artwork," he said, "with the right kind of security and technology."
The interior floor is made of ulin wood from Borneo that extends out of the museum onto the veranda.
"That way, the person will be confused whether he is inside or outside. I like startling people in many unexpected ways, stimulating their senses," Kurokawa, wearing dark sunglasses, said with laughter.
He said the museum, which features a library, cafes and a restaurant supervised by renowned French chef Paul Bocuse, maximizes free space in a bid to make it a hot spot for dates -- or chance encounters.
"Traditionally in Japan, people expressed interest or love through their eyes. Today, even if you are sitting next to someone you communicate behind cellphone text messages," Kurokawa said.
"So I'm trying to create a renaissance in eye communication, which I believe is a very good thing to do," he chuckled.
"I'm excited to watch people inject life into this museum, because without them, it will have no soul."
Tokyo has set a record for its longest snowless winter amid growing worldwide concerns about global warming, according to meteorologists.
The metropolitan area of the capital has not had snow this season, making it the longest snowless winter since statistics were first kept in 1876, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.
The previous record was set in 1960 when the season's first snowfall was observed on February 10.
"Since we do not forecast any snowfall in the Tokyo area at least over the next week, the record is likely to be extended further," an agency official said.
Tokyo has never had a winter without any snow, he said.
On Friday, the agency said Japan's average temperature in January was the fourth highest on record, at 1.44 degrees above normal. The record was in January 1989 when temperatures in Japan were 2.09 degrees Celsius higher.
The agency said that last month was the world's hottest January on record, with temperatures across the planet 0.45 degrees Celsius above average.
Earlier this month a UN report blamed human activities for global warming and predicted a rise in typhoons, droughts and other natural disasters.
The report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius by 2100.
I found the following article from the Japan Times oftentimes amusing, a little disturbing, and very insightful. It's about a Hide-and-Seek club at Waseda University (one of the most prestigious universities in Japan). This is so Japanese on so many levels. . .
HIDE-AND-SEEK REUNION
Close your eyes, count to 10 . . . and play to your heart's content
By YUMI WIJERS-HASEGAWA
Staff writer
It seems only natural that everyone should have a wild time, at least once in their life, because for the most part our mortal span is occupied with studying, making a living or raising a family. All that, of course, can be fun -- but it tends to be rather serious stuff as well.
A member of Waseda University's Kakurembo Dousoukai club hides behind leaflets festooning a signboard in a corridor during an official hide-and-seek event in 2006. PHOTO COURTESY OF SETOUCHI JACKSON
For many people in Japan, their wild time comes during their student days. Although the nation's universities are sometimes dubbed as little more than "leisure centers," who can blame students there for wanting to let their hair down for those few years -- whether by throwing themselves into a theater group, windsurfing and working on their tans . . . or whatever.
After all, most of those students will have crammed like crazy to get into the best university possible, and when they leave the best that many can hope for is to face the prospect of a slavelike job in a Japanese company.
But as wild as some students may be, the sheer passion that members of Kakurembo Dousoukai put into their craziness is overwhelming.
Literally translated as "Hide-and-Seek Reunion," the members of this Waseda University club in Tokyo risk not only their reputations but even their graduation credits to -- wait for it -- play hide-and-seek to their hearts' content.
"People think hide-and-seek is for children," said 19-year-old Newton Hakushi-yaku. "I wanted to keep playing it, but there was no environment for me until I joined this club. It's too bad that once you've grown up, you have to take care of your public image."
Newton's is clearly a widely shared sentiment, since in spring 2006 some 140 freshmen applied to join Kakurembo Dousoukai -- of whom just 90 were accepted after completing severe oral and written tests. These included counting all the Chinese characters meaning "hide" in a University of Tokyo entrance exam paper, and writing an essay describing what a devastating inferno would be like.
There are currently 170 members in the club, and another 70 graduates who still attend its events.
Omoiyari, another 19-year-old member, recalled her experience during her exam.
"I had to start from looking for the right exam room out of more than 30 club rooms, as the exam was also 'hiding.' It had been a dream for me since high school to join the club, so I desperately wanted to pass," she said.
Hiding club members fall foul of a "seeker." YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTOS
To try to boost her chances, Omoiyari said that when she applied to join she even showed a hide-and-seek certificate she got in high school when she attended a Kakurembo Dousoukai event at a Waseda University festival.
Meanwhile, as perceptive readers may already have sensed, such names as Newton Hakushi-yaku and Omoiyari were never bestowed by their parents. In fact, club members are required to hide their real names, even from each other, and only ever use code names -- aliases that will be with them for life, and which are determined by club officials from their character.
In Newton Hakushi-yaku's case, his intriguing handle derived from the fact that he is a science and engineering student who likes to read the physics magazine Newton -- and also because he could not respond to any of the physics questions in a University of Tokyo exam, and handed in a hakushi (blank sheet).
Oh, and besides real names being kept hidden, a person's membership is as well, so neither family or friends are supposed to know someone belongs to Kakurembo Dousoukai.
Once all these hurdles are overcome, club membership opens up a broad array of activities.
To begin with, there's a hide-and-seek event every month, comprising two hourlong sessions in locations such as parks or department stores.
Then, every summer, there is a national hide-and seek championship in the town of Onsen-cho in Hyogo Prefecture. This event, joined by a dozen groups of students and working people from all over Japan, is "very important for the hide-and-seeking world," according to Setouchi Jackson, the club's 20-year-old representative and an advocate of hide-and-seek becoming an official Olympic sport.
But the most demanding challenge facing hide-and-seekers comes in December -- and it's called SENSO (WAR). In this, Kakurembo Dousoukai members must hide for one whole month, 24 hours a day except Wednesdays, when the club holds its working committee.
With the players divided into six teams of 13 members each, points are awarded depending on how many times other team members are touched (the more the better), where they are touched (the further away from the university the better), and when (the later in the day the better). To keep it sporting, however, tag-touches are banned during university lectures, or while players are working at their side jobs. But that's not to say a tagger might not be waiting right outside the classroom or workplace.
"In the end, we start skipping classes and quitting our side jobs. Flunking a year is common in this club . . . about 10 percent of members flunk each year for missing their credits," said Jackson.
Adding that during the WAR, families accuse members of acting ridiculously and landlords are likely to report them for suspicious conduct, he said, "Terrorism is also common during the WAR. If you don't like cucumbers, there may be a carpet of cucumbers in front of your home one morning.
"But that's more to provoke you than to catch you."
Members of Waseda University's Kakurembo Dousoukai, who only identify themselves as (L to R) Newton Hakushi-yaku, Setouchi Jackson and Omoiyari.
Trickery and intelligence-gathering activities are mandatory, and disguises can also be effective, he said.
"I once pretended to be a dead body, scattering fake blood and a toy knife around me. But that hiding technique was to get a laugh, of course," Jackson said.
On the other hand, Newton said that when a female student dressed up as a maid and walked graciously with a balloon down Nakano's Broadway (where there are many maid cafes), she blended into the scenery so well that she went unnoticed.
"Those who are good are really great hiders. They get our heartfelt respect," he said.
He also said that during the 2006 WAR, he detected that a member was planning to flee the country, so he raided Narita Airport with 10 others and caught the student right before immigration.
To really keep members on their toes, the club constantly comes up with new hide-and-seek rules across the range of its game levels, from level 1 to level 4. Apparently, Level 1 is the standard game for 3-year-olds and up, but others, such as "personality interchange hide-and-seek" or "Yamanote Line hide-and-seek" are ranked in Levels 3 and 4, with qualifying ages of 14 and 18 respectively.
But members are careful not to annoy others, especially when playing in public.
In a list of rules for a game in Ikebukuro's Seibu department store, for example, there is a caution about the 6th floor being "upmarket."
"We make sure not to cause annoyance to people. Being professionals, we can even hide without being detected by shop clerks," said Jackson.
But what makes hide-and-seek so addictive to these Waseda types?
One reason is certainly the penalty system awaiting losers.
After the 2005 WAR, the team that lost -- which was hiding in the hot-spring mountain resort of Hakone in Kanagawa Prefecture -- was made to run the 130 km back to their central Tokyo university.
Similarly, Omoiyari and Jackson, whose team lost the 2006 WAR, have just attended a camp in which they had to fast for three days while watching other members gulp down sumptuous meals.
On the other hand, each year's individual champion -- determined by the number of "dream points" (winning points) he or she accumulates -- gets one dream fulfilled by the rest of the members.
"One time, a member asked for a fancy-dress ball; another time, a real mud-play frolic in a rice field. Of course, all members joined to fulfill their dreams," said Jackson.
But is it because they are privileged students at the prestigious, private university of Waseda that hide-and- seekers can afford to flunk a year if they wish? Or could it be that they have some sort of Peter Pan complex, a wish to not grow up and join mainstream society?
Unfazed, members replied calmly to these barbed inquiries.
"I don't think that people flunk because they can afford to. I think it's just that the club is too much fun and so they happen to neglect to study," Jackson said.
"I don't think we have the desire to remain children," Newton said. "By adding new ideas to it, I believe what we play is adult hide-and-seek."
"Hobbies for adults are often expensive, and tend to be made by others -- so there's no independence. But we create rules from scratch and make it extremely flexible and creative . . . it's the roots of enjoyment.
"Even after I start working and have to wear a suit, I want to keep seeking such enjoyment and pass it on to my children.
It's about the palpitating feeling while hiding, the bitterness when found, the intense fulfillment when I get away until the end -- it's something that you can never truly experience in your everyday life."
A powerful, deadly earthquake struck Japan early Sunday, killing at least one person and injuring 110 others as it violently shook buildings and triggered a small tsunami that hit the coast, officials and media reports said.
The magnitude-7.1 quake struck at 9:42 a.m. local time off the north coast of Ishikawa prefecture (state), Japan's Meteorological Agency said, about 225 miles northwest of Tokyo. The agency issued a tsunami warning urging people near the sea to move to higher land.
A small tsunami measuring 6 inches hit shore about 40 minutes after the quake, the agency said. The warning was lifted about an hour later.
At least one person was killed and 80 others injured along the country's Sea of Japan coast, media reports said.
Television footage from the quake zone showed buildings shaking violently for about 30 seconds. Other shots showed collapsed buildings and shops with shattered windows, streets cluttered with roof tiles and roads with their pavement cracked.
Many of the injured people suffered burns or were hurt by falling objects and broken glass, media reports said.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki confirmed the death as a 52-year-old woman. Public broadcaster NHK said she was crushed by a falling stone lantern.
"We are doing our best to rescue the victims," he said. "We are also doing our best to assess the extent of the damage."
The government will dispatch police and defense forces to the quake zone to assist in disaster relief, Shiozaki said.
Calls to police and prefectural officials in the region were not immediately answered.
"We felt violent shaking. My colleagues say the insides of their houses are a mess, with everything smashed on the floor," Wataru Matsumoto, deputy mayor of the town of Anamizu near the epicenter, told NHK.
Takeshi Hachimine, seismology and tsunami section chief at the Meteorological Agency, said the affected region was not considered a quake-prone area. The last major quake that caused deaths there was in 1933 when three people died.
He warned that after aftershocks are expected.
"After the powerful earthquake, aftershocks will continue," Hachimine said. "All residents, especially those who are near the hardest-hit areas, are advised to use extra caution. Aftershocks could further damage what's been already fragile."
Train service in Ishikawa and nearby Toyama prefecture was suspended and All Nippon Airways flights between Ishikawa and Tokyo were delayed, Kyodo News agency said.
Nuclear power plants owned by Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Kansai Electric Power Co. were operating normally in Niigata and Fukui prefectures, Kyodo said.
Japan sits atop four tectonic plates and is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. The last major quake to hit the capital of Tokyo killed some 142,000 people in 1923, and experts say the capital has a 90 percent chance of suffering a major quake in the next 50 years.
In October 2004, a magnitude-6.8 earthquake hit northern Japan, killing 40 people and damaging more than 6,000 homes. It was the deadliest to hit Japan since 1995, when a magnitude-7.2 quake killed 6,433 people in the western city of Kobe.
Joined: 07 Oct 2005 Posts: 9573 Location: �o�J�i�_ Country:
Posted: Tue Apr 17, 2007 12:33 am Post subject:
Uh oh... lots of heated debate coming ...again.
Documents show Japan directed sex slavery: historian
Monday April 16, 3:48 PM
A historian said Monday that newly discovered documents from post-World war II trials of Japanese war criminals offer fresh proof the military directly forced Asian women into sexual slavery.
The findings will likely cause a stir as conservative Prime Minister Shinzo Abe last month sparked controversy by saying there was no proof the imperial army directly coerced so-called "comfort women." Hirofumi Hayashi, a professor of history at Kanto Gakuin University, said he found seven items while combing through the massive storehouse of documents submitted during the 1946-1948 "Tokyo Trials" of war criminals.
One document, written by Dutch prosecutors and dated March 13, 1946, quoted a Japanese civilian employee of the Japanese army who said an officer made local women in occupied Borneo stand naked and slapped them in the face. "We detained them under orders of the chief security officer to find excuses to put them into brothels," the Japanese employee was quoted as saying, according to Hayashi. Another document also includes testimony by a Japanese lieutenant, who said the army forced women into sexual slavery on Indonesia's Moa island, he said.
"The document shows that he testified that the army forced local girls into brothels," the historian told AFP. "It says that it was in retaliation for local villagers who attacked the Japanese force," he said. "The army killed 40 villagers and put six of their daughters into brothels." "It says one of the six agreed to the demands that she work at a brothel, while five others refused" but were forced, he said.
Historians believe up to 200,000 women served in brothels for Japanese troops across Asia by the end of the war. Abe caused a stir last month when he said that no documents showed Japan "directly" enslaved women, such as by kidnapping them. However, Abe has repeatedly said that Japan was responsible in a broader sense and that he stood behind a landmark 1993 apology to former comfort women. Some conservative activists argue that evidence of direct involvement comes from the victims' side.
But Hayashi's documents take added significance as they were officially submitted during the Tokyo Trials, whose validity Japan accepted in the San Francisco treaty under which it regained sovereignty from US occupation in 1952. Hayashi, the chief researcher of the private Center for Research and Documentation on Japan's War Responsibility, plans to present his documents to the public on Tuesday. He will hold a press conference with fellow historian Yoshiaki Yoshimi, who heads the Tokyo-based institute of researchers and activists.
Yoshimi, a professor at Tokyo's Chuo University, earlier discovered documents that showed the Japanese military set up "comfort stations" to cut down on soldiers raping local women in occupied China. Yoshimi's revelations led to Japan's 1993 statement that voiced "sincere apologies and remorse" and acknowledging the imperial army was involved "directly or indirectly" in sexual slavery. Hayashi said documents similar to what he found had been individually uncovered in the past decade."But documents which other countries submitted to the Tokyo Trials have still not been thoroughly researched," Hayashi said.
Abe's government has responded furiously to a bill before the US Congress, seen as more likely to pass since the Democrats took over in January, that would demand Japan issue an unequivocal admission and apology to comfort women.
But the uproar over Abe's remarks has died down in recent weeks. Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao last week took a conciliatory tone on history during a visit to Japan and made no public mention of the comfort women issue.
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I can't believe the victims fell for that without even researching into the lawsuits.
