[CLOSED] Another newbie reporter "discovers" Japan

[kotatsuneko]

if you dont want to risk crows feet due to cringeworthy writing, *dont* click here..

http://travel.guardian.co.uk/countries/story/0,7451,1117993,00.html

[Taro Toporific]

Describing the Burton film, THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, as being "a religion in Japan" which is sort like saying Vatican is famous for dead Popes..

2005 Preview, Upcoming Movies
....THE CORPSE BRIDE: I don't get obsessed by too many films (at least not by those that don't include sexual intercourse), but THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS is one of those movies that I can just watch over and over again, to the point of scaring people around me. Apparently, the film and its memorabilia has become a religion in Japan, and I have to say that I subscribe to a part of that movement. That said, this stop-animation "follow-up" by Tim Burton also stars the man of my heterosexual dreams, Jonathan Depp, and a pretty gothed-up storyline that is sure to please all those who adore Burton.
----JoBlo's 2005 Preview!! Aug. 19, 2004
Source: JoBlo.com's Upcoming Movies

[torasan]

Loose socks never made it out of Japan. A complete no no every where else on Planet Human. They are totally insular J girl phenom. Loose socks don't travel.

[Taro Toporific]

14-Apr-94 04/14/94 purchase via ZippyThePinhead.com
"Uzi In, Uzi Out"

[Taro Toporific]

Civilization is a Warm, Furry Pet
National Public Radio [USA] / All Things Considered audio
Sept. 9, 2004
Commentator Andrei Codrescu's girlfriend wants to play with small animals to relieve stress. They find a place to do so. He encourages more such places, as a way to keep us civilized. Andrei Codrescu whimsically CLAIMS that he has invented a entirely "new" business, RENT-a-PET(tm), and offers franchises.

See the old FG Forum thread:Rent-a-dog Odaiba
Also see NekkoTama, "cathouse" that's been in business for more the five years and the Dog's Town [sic] looking for franchisees.

[Captain Japan]

[Taro Toporific]

[Steve Bildermann]

Toeless cropped socks are "new", riiiiight, new for the past 15-20 years here in Japan.

hmmm sock styles are not somerhing I keep up on however *you* speak with such authority. Once again you impress me

[Taro Toporific]

Toeless cropped socks are "new", riiiiight, new for the past 15-20 years here in Japan.

hmmm sock styles are not somerhing I keep up on however *you* speak with such authority.

For my entire time in Japan, it has been like the early 80s and FLASHDANCE has never gone away. However, here in 'Hama, loose socks are R.I.P. for going to school since they're now strictly for "work."

[Mulboyne]

Roger Ebert is usually reliable. But not in this case. Here are a couple of comments from his review of "Zatoichi"

Toro-San, a sort of Japanese Jerry Lewis, was played by Kiyoshi Atsumi in no less than 48 films between 1969 and 1995

The movie devotes full time to the Ginzo boss (Ittoku Kishibe) and his auditions for a bodyguard, and establishes Aunt O-Ume (Michiyo Ogusu), who befriends the two geishas, O-Kinu (Yuko Daike) and O-Sei (the transvestite Daigoro Tachibana).

16-year old Daigoro Tachibana is Japan's new onnagata star. Performing mainly Japanese dance in Asakusa, photos of Tachibana out of make-up have been forbidden by his management
The Age: Teenage matinee idol with a twist

On a street in Tokyo's old entertainment district of Asakusa, the radiant figure in the white kimono is surrounded by adoring fans.
The matinee has just finished at the Taishokan Theatre, and the crowd of mainly middle-aged women gathers around the star, who is happily obliging with autographs. "Outrageously pretty!" declares one woman in her 50s. "He's also such a beautiful dancer."
The "he" is no misprint, for the beauty in the kimono is a teenage boy, 16-year-old Daigoro Tachibana. To his legion of fans, he is simply Daigoro, a rising young star of Japan, as the throng on the footpath this afternoon testifies.

[kotatsuneko]

out of curiosity, the way that pictures of artists/royal family etc in Japan are "forbidden" is that because of an actual law? If so is there an on-line explanation of it by any chance? I remember a couple of years ago I was filming a famous singer at the Sapporo Yukimatsuri and a copper in a rather brusque tone told me to stop filming, course I simply turned the monitor off and kept filming so we were both happy

[Taro Toporific]

[GuyJean]

The Worst Things About Tokyo

I was wearing sneakers and my feet felt like they were swollen and on fire after about the approximately, oh, two hours of constant walking and standing as we were going from place to place. (It helps if you're not an American hippo)

It might seem hard to believe, but many people in Japan prefer using these floor holes to a standard Western toilet... (rearry?)

Japan also has only six free Wi-fi hotspots in the country, according to the Wi-fi Hotspot Directory... (honto? I count over 170 in Tokyo alone.. No need to research before writing these days, ne)

Journalism is dead. Welcome to blogsterbationism; The I-can-put-three-fucking-sentences-together-about-anything-I-fucking-know-nothing-about era..

GJ

[Taro Toporific]

Living And Dying In Tokyo
VIEW FROM THE RIGHT
Adam Sparks, Special to SF Gate [San Francisco Chronicle portal site ] / Monday, October 4, 2004
....there are virtually no homeless people on the streets. Families will not tolerate it; nosy villagers would notify any kin, who would get their relatives off the streets. In the rare circumstances in which a homeless person has no family, the home village will take responsibility to make sure he or she has a home and any rehabilitation treatment he or she needs. That system works in Japan because of a strong sense of self-respect and self-worth, a strong moral upbringing and work ethic and a loving caring family and village unit.....
....Architecturally, it's as if the Japanese have given the world's most brilliant architects carte blanche. .... All this infrastructure, however, is set against a backdrop of a pure and ancient culture, where kimono-clad women still head off, giggling, to the temple to offer their obeisances."

[Caustic Saint]

Living And Dying In Tokyo
VIEW FROM THE RIGHT
Adam Sparks, Special to SF Gate [San Francisco Chronicle portal site ] / Monday, October 4, 2004

Ummm, which country did this guy visit to write this story? 'Cause it sure wasn't Japan....

[Captain Japan]

Ummm, which country did this guy visit to write this story? 'Cause it sure wasn't Japan....

For sure, nobody took him to Shinjuku.

I just read the article. There's some real honest to goodness barf in there.

They can trace their roots back some 3,000 years, compared to a mere 230 years for us cowboy Americans. And longevity matters: When a culture has stewed and simmered for that long, it tends to evolve into a very fine broth.

The few criminals the Japanese do have often turn themselves in within a week]they simply feel too guilty, and honor dictates that they face the music of justice rather than hide.[/b]

It's normal for an employee to be loyal to his first company from the time of his college graduation to his retirement.Loyalty and honor still matter. Ritual suicides for those who gravely dishonor family or company still occur: Now, that's accountability.

The Japanese have traded the bigger-is-better philosophy of the struggle for ever more material goods for a lifestyle of simplicity, meaningful relationships and societal harmony and security -- all of which they have in spades.

That last one almost killed me. And this sort of thing continues for a lot more paragraphs...
This is some kind of April Fools deal in October, right? That has to be it. I feel like a fool myself for falling for it.

Adam Sparks is a Bay Area writer. He can be reached at adamstyle@aol.com.

Adam, your satire is brilliant. Keep it coming, man.

[dimwit]

That article is a gold mine of irony.

Environmentally, too, the Japanese are far ahead of us.

Would that be in dioxin produced or illegal waste dumps?

Why does this social structure matter? It helps explain why there are virtually no homeless people on the streets.

He obviously never bothered to look under any bridges

The ritual of the long wake, in which the body is kept at home, seems at once primitive and cathartic: It offers the proper amount of time to mourn. American funerals, by contrast, are sterile. Often, the body is never seen again, or at any rate spends little time with the surviving family members.

If he means that American houses don't stink up for weeks afterwards I am inclined to agree, and having attended the funeral of my mother-in-law who died in heat of summer, it is an experience I would happy never to repeat.

[Taro Toporific]

Here's a fun quote...

MOVIE REVIEW: 'Ghost' is pretty, pointless and disturbing
Mid Columbia Tri City Herald, WA - Oct 13Scripps Howard News Service - - It's not hard to see how admirers of Japanese anime could fall for "Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence." ...
... casual depiction of Japan's "lolicon," or Lolita complex, may be acceptable by that society's standards, but it's unconscionable in this country at a time when parents and law-enforcement officials are struggling to keep children safe from sexual predators. ...

[NeoNecroNomiCron]

While there's plenty of bloody, lifelike action and one interesting detour into a chain of realities (another "Matrix" nod), the film is jarringly verbose.

What a uninformed fool. The matrix was ispired from "Ghost in the Shell" The matrix is what is verbose if anything.






What a girl.

[Taro Toporific]

Sheeee-it, this Old Japan Hand is worse than ten Boeing 777s full of anime-freaks and n00b reporters landing in Narita. He ought to know better.


Contemporary Japan has few of the old charms for translator-author
October 24 2004 / Sun-Sentinel, FL
As a translator of classic Japanese literature, William Scott Wilson is no fan of the movie Lost in Translation -- not because he thought it was a bad movie, but because it's set in a contemporary Japan he finds disheartening.
"I was very depressed by the movie," Wilson says. "It saddened me to see that kind of depiction of the country I love so much. I can't tell you if it's accurate or not because I've never spent more than a day or two in Tokyo, but it does seem to be what's going on there. That's not the Japan I'm interested in"........more...

[Taro Toporific]

[Mulboyne]

Telegraph: Lifting the lid on a healthy, tasty lunch in Japan

I have been fascinated with bento boxes ever since I moved to Japan seven months ago. In many ways they denote so much of what we westerners perceive to be typical of Japan: delicacy, beauty and intrigue. .
...It's all about presentation, no matter where you go you can expect the highest of standards. The box can vary in size depending on the quantity of food that you want, but they are always divided into sections for each food type ensuring that the flavours do not run into each other. Fastidious as the Japanese people are, it is not surprising that such care is taken.
Essentially the aesthetic of food is more important that its taste, the delicate nature of the preparation calls for "smallness, separation and fragmentation". Colour, shape and texture are all important in the overall appreciation of the meal.
...When people think about the Japanese diet, they think about sushi and yakitori, but bento boxes too are very much a part of the daily culture of contemporary Japan. They are simply a Japanese manifestation of the British love for a square meal.

[yakinoumiso]

Telegraph: Lifting the lid on a healthy, tasty lunch in Japan

I have been fascinated with bento boxes ever since I moved to Japan seven months ago. In many ways they denote so much of what we westerners perceive to be typical of Japan: delicacy, beauty and intrigue. .

Yeah, whatever...but I've been interested in how my Japanese colleagues can spend up to five minutes washing their plastic, disposable bento boxes before tossing them into the rubbish bin. A couple of guys use more soap and water for one plastic tray than most restaurants use during their entire lunchtime rush.

Now that is what I call 'fastidious'.

[maraboutslim]

Living And Dying In Tokyo
VIEW FROM THE RIGHT
Adam Sparks, Special to SF Gate [San Francisco Chronicle portal site ] / Monday, October 4, 2004
....there are virtually no homeless people on the streets.

I emailed this guy to tell him how his story was inaccurate and that he should read fucked gaijin dot com. he replied:

"A site that has the word F*** in its name tells you much about it readers- losers."

To which I replied that the members are actually quite experienced and knowledgable about japan and that furthermore, the point is, his story just ain't right. to which he replied:

"In your dreams. The group, by your own admission, is a group of the dislocated and disgruntled. I recieved hundreds of emails confirming its accuracy. Go cry in your sake. Sorry."

Well, they just won't learn I guess. If you'd like to send him hundreds of emails confirming his unaccuracy, his address is adamstyle@aol.com

[Taro Toporific]

Telegraph: Lifting the lid on a healthy, tasty lunch in Japan

Yeah, whatever...but I've been interested in how my Japanese colleagues can spend up to five minutes washing their plastic, disposable bento boxes before tossing them into the rubbish bin. A couple of guys use more soap and water for one plastic tray than most restaurants use during their entire lunchtime rush.
Now that is what I call 'fastidious'.:

D'oh! I'm one of those 'fastidious' bento box washers.
The 'plastics recycling day" is only once every Thursday ---the bento boxes sit and STINK in the office all week which gets real funky in the summer. Still, I still feel very anal-retentive when I have to wash, flatten and bundle milk cartons to pass inspection by the "gomi police."

Japanese recycling is a real pain in the ass because there's no place to store recycled items for pickup --- it's not like you can put trash in the garage till pickup day. In addition, the substandard housing conditions mean there's no garbage disposals and few dumpsters or cominity pickup bins.

[Mulboyne]

Living And Dying In Tokyo
VIEW FROM THE RIGHT
Adam Sparks, Special to SF Gate [San Francisco Chronicle portal site ] / Monday, October 4, 2004
....there are virtually no homeless people on the streets.

I emailed this guy to tell him how his story was inaccurate and that he should read fucked gaijin dot com.

His views on criminals giving themselves up out of guilt and the absence of homeless are pure fantasy. I admire your attempt to put him right but, if he claims hundreds of people feel he is right, then he is delusional or mistaking their interest for knowledge.

[Taro Toporific]

The activists trying to stop them are likely to be exclusively outsiders.
That is not necessarily because the Japanese support the trade. During the three weeks we were there, we found no one outside the dolphin hunting towns who even knew that dolphins were eaten.
So, perhaps the challenge is not to change minds, but to inform them.


Monday, 8 November, 2004, 00:54 GMT
Dining with the dolphin hunters
By Paul Kenyon
Director/producer/reporter, Dolphin Hunters Dolphin Hunters will be broadcast in the UK on BBC Two at 1930 GMT.

Although most Japanese have not eaten dolphin, NHK and the Japanese media covers the joys traditional cuisine of dolphin all the time. Most Japanese news outlets in Japan, cover those "pesty" foreigners causing trouble. If a Japanese person claims to not know that "dolphins were eaten", it's because they didn't want to start an argument with the BBC crew.

Japanese folks perfer to avoid conflicts with foreign "guests", especially the BBC. Certainly, on my farm on Shikoku island across the Wakayama dolphin kill area, the meat from the kill is available in the store. All the folks all know that the meat is coming from Wakayama and Kochi.

I've taken a couple of cub reporters from Norway to eat whale and dolphin in Tokyo. We got a cold reception until they learned the reporters were Norwegians who love eating cetaceans. Then EVERBODY started comparing the values of fresh raw dolphin from Wakayama, frozen whale, etc.

[Mulboyne]

[Samurai_Jerk]

Telegraph: Lifting the lid on a healthy, tasty lunch in Japan

I have been fascinated with bento boxes ever since I moved to Japan seven months ago. In many ways they denote so much of what we westerners perceive to be typical of Japan: delicacy, beauty and intrigue. .
...It's all about presentation, no matter where you go you can expect the highest of standards. The box can vary in size depending on the quantity of food that you want, but they are always divided into sections for each food type ensuring that the flavours do not run into each other. Fastidious as the Japanese people are, it is not surprising that such care is taken.
Essentially the aesthetic of food is more important that its taste, the delicate nature of the preparation calls for "smallness, separation and fragmentation". Colour, shape and texture are all important in the overall appreciation of the meal.
...When people think about the Japanese diet, they think about sushi and yakitori, but bento boxes too are very much a part of the daily culture of contemporary Japan. They are simply a Japanese manifestation of the British love for a square meal.

Holy crap. Highest of standards? I wonder if this guy has ever eaten a bento from 7-11 or Mini-Stop. And healthy!? Imagine if he actually learned enough Japanese to read the nutritional information.

[Taro Toporific]

THe NYTimes discovers RAMEN. W00t!

Here Comes Ramen, the Slurp Heard Round the World
--Japan's noodle passion lands in New York, in fresh, meaty glory. ---
NYTimes.com (DiningandWine) by Julia Moskin
2AM 10 Nov
... in the winter Japanese diners line up to indulge in the much-loved ramen ritual, wreathed in steam, salt and slurping.
It is fiercely beloved and bitterly missed by expats like Mr. Kamada, the musician, who owns Minca Ramen Factory in the East Village.
"I only started making ramen here because I needed some to eat," he said. "I can't live without it."