Japanese Snowboarder Missing In Whistler

[Mulboyne]

[floatl][/floatl]Canada.com: Rescuers search for snowboarder
Police, search and rescue staff and ski patrollers are combing Blackcomb Mountain in Whistler in search of a snowboarder who has been missing since Thursday. Police say Ai Ito, 25, of Japan, was last seen on the Seventh Heaven chairlift at about 11:30 a.m. that day. She was reported missing Sunday. The international student from Japan apparently attends an English school in the Whistler area, which was closed Friday so it wasn't immediately noticed that she was missing. Her home-stay family also didn't initially think she was missing because she sometimes stays over with friends on weekends. He said the air and ground search is continuing for the young woman...Ito is described as about 5 feet tall, slim, with dark brown hair and brown eyes...She was last seen wearing a white snowboarding jacket, teal colored snowboard pants and possibly a green toque...more...

I don't want to make light of a potentially tragic case but I'm reminded by that account of how difficult it is to give a distinctive description of someone Japanese to people who don't know Japanese people.

[Greji]

I don't want to make light of a potentially tragic case but I'm reminded by that account of how difficult it is to give a distinctive description of someone Japanese to people who don't know Japanese people.

Easy!

"Short, bow legged, black hair, tinted, slanted brown eyes, speaks Japanese"

[dimwit]

Whistler, while justly being a great ski resort has seen a number of people lose their lives, sometimes due to avalanches sometimes due to people overestimating their skills and underestimating the difficulty of some slopes. Snowboarders often looking for fresh snow go off trail and find themselves over their heads both figuratively and literally.

[kurohinge1]

...She was last seen wearing a white snowboarding jacket, teal colored snowboard pants and possibly a green toque

A reminder why some sports should never be done alone.

Just curious - does anyone outside of Canada call that a toque?

[Catoneinutica]

[floatl][/floatl]Canada.com: Rescuers search for snowboarder
Police, search and rescue staff and ski patrollers are combing Blackcomb Mountain in Whistler in search of a snowboarder who has been missing since Thursday. Police say Ai Ito, 25, of Japan, was last seen on the Seventh Heaven chairlift at about 11:30 a.m. that day. She was reported missing Sunday. The international student from Japan apparently attends an English school in the Whistler area, which was closed Friday so it wasn't immediately noticed that she was missing. Her home-stay family also didn't initially think she was missing because she sometimes stays over with friends on weekends. He said the air and ground search is continuing for the young woman...Ito is described as about 5 feet tall, slim, with dark brown hair and brown eyes...She was last seen wearing a white snowboarding jacket, teal colored snowboard pants and possibly a green toque...more...

I don't want to make light of a potentially tragic case but I'm reminded by that account of how difficult it is to give a distinctive description of someone Japanese to people who don't know Japanese people.

Well, the 5-ft-tall part is a good clue that you're talking Homo japoniensis (if not H. floresiensis - the most extreme case found to date of isolated-on-an-island-driven evolutionary dwarfism).

-catone

-look it up!
-she's in my basement, by the way
-sans "toque"

[Mike Oxlong]

The scale of Whistler is truely awe inspiring. Take large Japanese ski resorts, like Niseko, and then at least triple that. Sure seems that big. Folks get lost every year.

[ttjereth]

A reminder why some sports should never be done alone.

Just curious - does anyone outside of Canada call that a toque?

First time I've ever seen the word in my life.

[canman]

Then you have never taken a nap on a chesterfield either, have you.

[Catoneinutica]

The scale of Whistler is truely awe inspiring. Take large Japanese ski resorts, like Niseko, and then at least triple that. Sure seems that big. Folks get lost every year.

Folks get lost on the road from Vancouver to Whistler as well. A woman in our office back in Seattle slipped over the side and...well, never came back to work.

[Catoneinutica]

First time I've ever seen the word in my life.

Then you need to brush up on your Canuck Kulture literacy:

Old Testament: Strange Brew
New Testament: Trailer Park Boys

-catone
-yank, but grad school in Edmonton
-Jesus, it was cold

[ttjereth]

Then you have never taken a nap on a chesterfield either, have you.

I.... I don't know honestly I may have?

[ttjereth]

Then you need to brush up on your Canuck Kulture literacy:

Old Testament: Strange Brew
New Testament: Trailer Park Boys

-catone
-yank, but grad school in Edmonton
-Jesus, it was cold

I'm familiar with Strange Brew, but I don't recall hearing that particular word.

[dimwit]

catone
-yank, but grad school in Edmonton
-Jesus, it was cold

Was that BW or AW?

[Mike Oxlong]

To get an idea of the size of Whistler Blackcomb:

http://media.intrawest.com/whistler/flash/trailmap/compare.html

Compare to say, Shigakougen, with half the lifts and fewer than half the courses:

http://www.shigakogen.gr.jp/english/snow/ski.html

[joshuaism]

Jeez, everyone in this story sounds dumb and irresponsible. Why didn't the host family ask the girl where she was going for the weekend? Why didn't the girl tell her host family what she was up to?

But it sounds like the kanucks in that area are pretty careless when it comes to looking after visiting asians. From the same article:

Meanwhile, the body of a 30-year-old Asian hiker was found Monday morning near Whistler after he was reported missing the previous night by other members of his hiking party. Whistler RCMP said the man, whose name will be released when his family has been contacted, was hiking with a six-person group and became separated. He was found dead at 10:20 a.m. in the area of Rubble Creek, about one kilometre up a trail in Garibaldi Provincial Park, 19 kilometres south of Whistler.

It is believed the man may have tried to cross Rubble Creek and was swept away by the rushing water, then died of hypothermia. He was visiting Canada and lived in an Asian country, police said. He was last seen by a member of the hiking party at about 4 p.m. Sunday on the opposite side of Rubble Creek from the rest of the group. The hikers were on their way back from a two-day excursion. Once at the trail-head, the group realized that the man was missing and, after waiting for about two hours, called Whistler RCMP at 6 p.m. Sunday.

[ttjereth]

Jeez, everyone in this story sounds dumb and irresponsible. Why didn't the host family ask the girl where she was going for the weekend? Why didn't the girl tell her host family what she was up to?

But it sounds like the kanucks in that area are pretty careless when it comes to looking after visiting asians. From the same article:

Yeah, why isn't everybody babysitting the 25 and 30 year old asian tourists!

...

[IkemenTommy]

Easy!

"Short, bow legged, black hair, tinted, slanted brown eyes, speaks Japanese"

And just look for anything with extremely "bad teeth."

But seriously, she has been missing since Thursday. What's the odd that she is still alive? Better luck sending out the search team in Spring when the snow already melted to find her body.

[Bucky]

It might be tough to find her if she fell into a tree well especially if 50 cm of new snow has fallen since Thursday.

I think it is pretty evident that an English school at Whistler should have an orientation session telling students they can not ski or snowboard alone. Now they have an example of what can happen to you to scare the shit out of new students.

[Mulboyne]

Canada.com: Body of missing Japanese snowboarder found

The body of missing Japanese snowboarder Ai Ito was found Sunday by the Blackcomb Ski Patrol and the Whistler Search and Rescue team. Ito, 25, was last seen on March 20 snowboarding in the 7th Heaven area of Blackcomb Mountain. She wasn't reported missing until three days later. Searchers found her snowboard downstream from the area where she was later found in what is described as the water basin beneath the 7th Heaven run. According to a release from Whistler RCMP media relations Const. Afzeel Yakub, it appeared that Ito fell "and succumbed to the cold weather before she had a chance to get up and out of the area where she landed." After she was reported missing family members came to Whistler from Japan while the search was underway.

[Greji]

Canada.com: Body of missing Japanese snowboarder found

This should make headlines, Nihonjin dies abroad. About time, so they can get rid of the coverage of the local dead gaijins.

[amdg]

Wait a minute, aren't missing foreigners supposed to turn up peice by peice after being dismembered by some psycho?

Oh, I see,... been in Japan too long...

[ttjereth]

At the risk of sounding like Jack,

I understand where you're coming from and everything, but damn guys, how do you come off any better than the society you are criticising when someone dies (or is confirmed dead in this case) and all you do is make snide, cold hearted remarks comparing it to completely unrelated cases?

I'm trying my best not to sound preachy here, but damn.

Attacking Japan/Japanese for glossing over or ignoring other cases is one thing, attacking them for mourning is another...

[IkemenTommy]

Ttjereth, it's Darwinism at its finest.

[amdg]

At the risk of sounding like Jack,

I understand where you're coming from and everything, but damn guys, how do you come off any better than the society you are criticising when someone dies (or is confirmed dead in this case) and all you do is make snide, cold hearted remarks comparing it to completely unrelated cases?

I'm trying my best not to sound preachy here, but damn.

Attacking Japan/Japanese for glossing over or ignoring other cases is one thing, attacking them for mourning is another...

Well, speaking for myself only, yeah, it is cold-hearted. I'm sorry for her family.

But in the end, it was a case of death by misadventure. She took a few (or at least one) risk she shouldn't have and paid the ultimate price. Unfortunate, but not a horror story like the recent bizarre killings that are happening in Japan against both Japanese and foreigners. Especially the recent (probable) murder and dismemberment of the Filipina in Japan.

So my post was a reaction to the news coverage I anticipated of the skiing accident of a Japanese abroad versus the news coverage of the brutal murders. One of them is newsworthy, the other, not so much. C'est la vie.

[ttjereth]

Well, speaking for myself only, yeah, it is cold-hearted. I'm sorry for her family.

But in the end, it was a case of death by misadventure. She took a few (or at least one) risk she shouldn't have and paid the ultimate price. Unfortunate, but not a horror story like the recent bizarre killings that are happening in Japan against both Japanese and foreigners. Especially the recent (probable) murder and dismemberment of the Filipina in Japan.

So my post was a reaction to the news coverage I anticipated of the skiing accident of a Japanese abroad versus the news coverage of the brutal murders. One of them is newsworthy, the other, not so much. C'est la vie.

I'm not familiar with the ski resort, so I'm not really sure how much of a risk is involved in skiing there, but whereas one could definitely say it's not as tragic as the recent murder, I don't think this ski incident is on quite the same level as someone who died doing something like cliff diving, or mountain climbing.

Or is skiing at this place really that big of a risk? I'm not terribly familiar with skiing in the first place, but for me the concept of "going skiing" doesn't really seem to involve any more risk than other simple sports like swimming etc.

Just overall starting to get a bad taste in my mouth with these threads, not necessarily your post or anyone elses post in particular, but this thread, the one about the Filipino woman, and the one about the American in the bar there always seems to be someone popping up saying either they "deserved" what happened, or pointing out how a particular case does/does not deserve to be talked about/shown on the news etc. because some other case was/wasn't.

People who didn't want or intend to died. Period. Full stop. It's horrible in all three cases and I just think maybe we all ought to count to 10 and take a deep breath before trying to use someone's death to prove a point/make a joke.

We all sit on here and bitch and complain and everything, but I dunno, these type of discussions just strike me as way too cold-hearted to be healthy.