japan

A home of sorts, and even what could be deemed a driveway, but it’s hardly the kind of living conditions one expects to see in the world’s most expensive city.

Or there again, maybe it is.

I finally received my issue of the Monocle Mediterraneo summer newspaper today, but it wasn’t easy. I ordered it in early August, and after a month going by with still no paper in my mailbox (they promise delivery in two weeks) I finally decided to get in touch on Monday. To their credit, they immediately got back to me, and said that they would send me another copy using registered mail, and it has arrived today (although I suspect it may just be the original issue that was mailed out, which would mean it took 5 weeks for delivery).

The reason I bring this up is because from the feedback I’ve gotten through Twitter after I started wondering “out loud” where my issue was, I got quite a few responses from others having similar problems, so my example is far from being an isolated case. What’s to blame? Is it the UK mail service? It is rather disappointing to receive a copy of something that celebrates summer in September, a frustration compounded by the fact that a few weeks ago I stopped by the Monocle Shop in Aoyama and saw it sold for 500 yen — ordering it online costs 7 pounds, which is almost double. Quite surprising considering that the Japan cover price for regular issues of Monocle is 2310 yen (almost $30), which itself is ridiculous.

But despite these complaints, it really is a beautiful thing. The paper’s smell may have turned into a joke, but its pages really do have a great, almost nostalgic odor. I love the format and the size, and would really like to see more publications/magazines use it — and it sounds like we can already expect Monocle to repeat the experiment during the winter holidays.

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post on the use of test patterns as a graphical element, many people reminded me on Twitter that it’s still very much in use in the industry (video and TV production) or film school, and so a lot of people still deal with these quite regularly, so it’s not that far fetched to still be in use as a graphical association with the medium. I guess we should treat it the same way a film reel is still often used to represent anything that relates to movies.

Tis approaching the end of the Summer meaning Matsuri [祭り] or festival time in Japan. Many shrines have events and food stalls set up and the streets are lined with lanterns. Along those streets one would occasionally see a Mikoshi [神輿] being carried along. The honorific form of "Mikoshi" is "Omikoshi."

The Omikoshi is a portable Shinto shrine for the gods and spirits. It resembles a small building which is fixed to 4 poles. Omikoshi are usually very heavy and require many folks to carry it on their shoulders. The Omikoshi is usually bounced up and down to the rhythm of the chants as you can see from the video that wifey took below as I took the photos ^^;

Some more photos and video of some Omikoshi being carried through our neighborhood but this time with some drumming. I absolutely love how the Japanese have been keeping the tradition every year. Folks who are interested in keepinh that tradition can apply to help out at one of these festivals - the local town group will come round and drop off a form every year which you can fill in. This year I saw many gaijin joining in on the fun too.

Another great thing about Japan can be observed from the last photo of this post taken right after the event attended by thousands. Nobody had to go around sweeping or picking up rubbish because there wasn't any.

This festival took place on the 5th of September - come to Nishikoyama this time next year and you will be able join in on the fun. [gmap=35.61651,139.69892]

Got more festival coverage to come - filming for Culture:Japan at a huge one next week on the 17th at Himonya - Bushi Road will be coming along with me. Some photos in the Japanese Festivals post to keep you occupied in the meantime.

And this is the photo I was talking about - taken right after the festival with no rubbish in sight.

A commercial for Meiji’s Galpo Chips parodies American sitcoms:

The style of filming, the super-lame canned laughter, and the bad Japanese dubbing remind viewers of imported American TV shows. There is also a wacky fight between a couple over their preference for different flavors of Galpo Chips. It finishes with an American-style happy ending.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Ever wonder how much it would cost to win every prize at a pop gun carnival game? Fuji TV summoned Mamika Tsuruoka of the Japan National Rife Team to knock down all the prizes from a game booth:

It takes about 10 shots for Tsuruoka to figure that dead center hits on the targets won’t result in wins. A price has to fall off its ledge and onto the ground, and that requires a shot aimed at the edge of boxes.

After 62 shots, she has claimed 49 of the 50 prizes. The total cost of her ammo was 2,480 yen (40 yen per cork). The total cost of the prizes won was 3,940 yen. However, the remaining prize is a large box that cannot easily be knocked down. Single shots are too weak to move the box, so she gets her friends to help her fire volleys at the target. This tactic works, and after 9 volleys it falls to the ground. Unfortunately, that used a lot of corks, so the total price of knocking over all 50 targets ends up at 5,360 yen. The actual price of the prizes totaled to 4,535 yen, so the festival booth guy made a profit of 825 yen.

The conclusion is obvious: normal people who visit festivals and play the games there should be prepared to lose some money. [Unless they are skilled marksmen who only aim at small prizes.]

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

NTV news follows around a man who works as a problem-solver for landlords that have tenants who don’t pay rent and don’t answer phone calls or knocks at their doors:

He checks out two apartments. The first is under the name of a South Korean woman who is 5 months behind in paying rent. The electricity, water, and gas have been shut off. He gets permission to obtain a key and enter the apartment. There is some furniture, but no sign that any person is living there. It seems that the tenant left the apartment without notifying anyone. Actually removing the abandoned furniture is a legal issue that will take some time and some paperwork to resolve. [Although the report does not say so, this is one of the classic reasons why many landlords in Japan say that they refuse to rent to foreigners. A real estate agent once told me it was "not rare" for to have foreign tenants leave the country without properly paying final rent or cleaning out their apartments.]

The second apartment has a tenant who is two months behind in paying rent. There have been many attempts to contact the tenant by telephone and doorbell ringing, but all have failed. They also called his employer, and were told that the tenant had not been showing up for work lately. When the problem solver shows up and nobody answers the door, he calls the police. He tells them that he needs to confirm the safety of a person who may be sick or injured and unable to open the apartment door. It’s not a bluff: last month there was actually a case that ended with the discovery of a tenant’s corpse.

When the cops show up, he uses the landlord’s key to enter the room and discovers that the tenant is alive and well. He is given some lame excuse about the man getting a new phone and ignoring calls from unknown numbers. It obviously doesn’t explain why the man refused to open his door earlier, but that isn’t an issue anymore. The problem solver’s job for that day was to notify the man about his failure to pay rent and get some sort of recognition that it would be paid, and it looks like he accomplished that goal.

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• Akihabara News – Gadgetry from Japan (Subscribe)
• Dannychoo.com – Your portal to Japan (Subscribe)

Teikyo University Hospital said Wednesday four more people have died among inpatients infected with Acinetobacter, an antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and it will not receive any new admissions for an indefinite period to prevent more infections. The hospital in Itabashi Ward, Tokyo, said 53 inpatients have been infected, seven more than the 46 already announced. The hospital is currently looking into the cause of the deaths to determine whether Acinetobacter was to blame.

MIYAZAKI (Kyodo) Cow auctions resumed Wednesday in the major livestock center of Miyakonojo, Miyazaki Prefecture, for the first time in about five months, after the prefecture declared late last month an end to the foot-and-mouth epidemic. The Miyakonojo livestock market shipped the third-most cows in fiscal 2009 among domestic markets and the production value of its beef and pork topped all municipalities in 2006.

McDonald's Holdings Co. (Japan) Ltd. says its sales in August hit the highest level for a single month since the company's founding in 1971, rising 5 percent from a year earlier to ¥51.39 billion. The introduction of new chicken dishes in July and a discount on Big Mac hamburgers as well as brisk sales of iced coffee and other drinks amid the scorching summer helped boost overall sales, the fast food chain said.

The land ministry will promote infrastructure investments in selected areas in a bid to enhance the international competitiveness of the nation's cities, according to officials. While 65 locations in Hokkaido, Miyagi, Tokyo, Aichi, Osaka, Hyogo, Fukuoka and 10 other prefectures are currently designated as areas for special urban redevelopment projects, the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry will narrow the number to less than half for the new investment program, the officials said.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa is seeking international support for his initiative to protect a national park in an oil-rich area of Ecuador's Amazon rain forest, saying coordinated action is needed to share the "public goods" of a clean environment. In a speech Tuesday at United Nations University in Tokyo, Correa issued a call for financial contributions to help leave untouched an estimated 850 million barrels of crude oil lying under the country's Yasuni National Park.

The head of the U.N. effort to deal with HIV and AIDS praises Japan for its commitment to the global battle against the pandemic but says domestic organizations need more support in raising awareness here. Michel Sidibe, executive director of the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), was in Japan last week to discuss the international and domestic situation surrounding HIV and AIDS with government officials and nongovernmental organizations.

Democratic Party of Japan heavyweight Ichiro Ozawa said Wednesday he will offer Prime Minister Naoto Kan a key Cabinet post if he is elected party leader and thus the next prime minister. During a news conference in Tokyo ahead of Tuesday's DPJ presidential election, Ozawa also noted that two of his key allies — former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Azuma Koshiishi, who heads the party's Upper House caucus — would also be given key posts to keep the party united after the poll, which many fear could deeply split the DPJ regardless of the result.

A Liberal Democratic Party panel on Wednesday thrashed out its own stimulus package, featuring a ¥5 trillion extra budget for this fiscal year to address the surging yen and falling stock prices, LDP lawmakers said. The package includes steps to front-load public works projects, expand employment adjustment subsidies for companies and extend the Eco-point subsidy program for environmentally friendly home appliances.

Japan-China diplomatic tensions threatened to boil over Wednesday over collisions between Japan Coast Guard patrol boats and a Chinese fishing vessel near the Senkaku Islands and the ensuing arrest of the trawler's captain. Both Beijing and Tokyo lodged protests over the incident. According to media reports, about 50 people staged a protest rally in front of the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, holding up banners, one of which read "Japan get out of Diaoyu Island," using the Chinese name for the disrupted territory.

BEIJING (Kyodo) Visiting Japanese business leaders urged China on Tuesday to drop plans for deep cuts in rare-earth export ceilings for the second half of this year, saying such cuts would have a global impact. The cuts "will also affect Chinese companies that import components and parts using rare earths (from Japan)," Mitsuo Ohashi, an adviser to Showa Denko K.K., said at a meeting with senior Chinese Industry Ministry officials in Beijing.

Typhoon Malou made landfall in Fukui Prefecture on Wednesday, bringing heavy rain to the central and eastern regions of the country, the Meteorological Agency said. The typhoon, which hit near Tsuruga on the Sea of Japan coast shortly after 11 a.m., was expected to barrel through eastern Japan on Thursday, with heavy rain likely mainly in the eastern and northeastern regions, it said, warning of possible landslides and strong winds.

Machinery orders and current account surplus figures released Wednesday exceeded forecasts in July even as the yen appreciated, supporting the Bank of Japan's decision to hold off from further monetary easing the previous day. Orders rose 8.8 percent from June, the biggest gain this year, the Cabinet Office said. July's current-account surplus widened 26 percent from a year earlier to ¥1.676 trillion, a separate report showed.

The yen rose to a new 15-year high against the dollar Wednesday as investors continued to buy the Japanese currency as a safe haven for their money amid uncertainty about the global economic recovery. The yen climbed to 83.32 in afternoon trading in Tokyo and rose to 83.79 overnight in New York trade. Last month, the yen tested the 83 range for the first time since June 1995.