World records no joke to frustrated Pakistanis

Abstract: ISLAMABAD - One young contender created the world’s largest sequin mosaic using 325,000 of the sparkly discs. Two other youths achieved 123 consecutive badminton passes in one minute. And 1,450 participants broke the record for the most people arm wrestling. Such are the skills that Guinness World Records are made of in Pakistan, where thousands of young people are groomed to establish their unique feats for posterity. Last week, the contestants came together for the annual Punjab Youth Festival to show their stuff — many in athletics, but others in downright quirky displays, including one young boy who achieved fame by kicking 50 coconuts from on top of the heads of a row of people. It seems Pakistan has become a world record-creating machine, with the coordinated effort reaping an impressive 23 world records, event organizers boasted. The push for inclusion of Pakistanis in the venerable Guinness World Records entries (which began in book form in 1955) stems in part from festival organizers’ desire to boost the image of a country often associated with militancy, religious strife and economic decline. There is a patriotic element, as well: Last October, for instance, 42,813 Pakistanis got together in a Lahore hockey stadium to belt out the national anthem and create yet another world record for the most people singing their country’s anthem. Days later, another 24,200 people held green and white boxes — the colors of the national flag of Pakistan — to set the world record for creating the largest human flag. Although some of the records might seem amusing to others — coconut kicking champ Mohammad Rashid of Karachi last week claimed his fourth world record by breaking 34 pine boards in 32 seconds with his head — the competitions were no laughing matter to participants. Usman Anwar, director of the Punjab Youth Festival, explained that the kids have been training for eight months. “We started at the neighborhood and village level so that children could come out and participate,” said Anwar. “Our main objective was to inculcate interest for sports in the public.” Young people from over 55,000 neighborhood and village councils vied for a chance to compete in the games. “We were able to select the best of the best to train for the world records,” said Anwar. Because of terrorism, political upheaval and widespread unemployment, many young people appear to have little hope for the future, says Hafeez Rehman, a professor in the anthropology department at Quaid-i-Azam University in the capital, Islamabad. Sports competitions, Rehman said, create an opportunity for youth to excel personally and also to improve Pakistan’s image. “We have energetic youth. Pakistan has more than 55 million young people. It becomes an asset for the country,” he added. The festival itself has become part of the record-setting mania. It was recognized for having more participants — 3.3 million, most of whom registered online, according to Anwar — constituting a world record for sporting events.


Photo report: FOODEX Japan 2013

Abstract: FoodEx is the largest trade exhibition for food and drinks in Asia, with about 70,000 visitors checking out the products presented by hundreds of participating companies. I was lucky to enter as press; otherwise, visitors must be affiliated with the food industry — and pay ¥5,000 — to enter. The FoodEx menu is global, including everything from cherry beer from Germany and premium Mexican tequila to top-class French and Chinese dumplings. The event was a rare chance to try out both well-known and exotic foods and even see professionals making them. In addition to booths offering traditional Japanese favorites such as udon and maguro sashimi, there were plenty of innovative twists, such as dorayaki , a sweet snack made of two pancakes and a red-bean filling, that came in coffee and tomato flavors. While I was there I was lucky to catch the World Sushi Cup Japan 2013, where top chefs from around the world were competing … and presenting a wide range of styles that you would not normally see in Japan, like the flower makizushi above.


'Abenomists' beware: Rising prices just one pitfall of spiraling yen

Abstract: The Bank of Japan on Wednesday installed a new governor and two deputy governors who — in line with the wishes of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — are advocates of ultra-easy monetary policy. Attention is now focused on what specific policy actions the new central bank team will take. But while benefits, including a weaker yen and rising share prices, have materialized in anticipation of further easing, drawbacks are also starting to emerge — most notably in the form of rising prices. In a sign that a mini bubble may be at hand, condominiums in suburban Tokyo are being marketed for nearly ¥100 million per unit. Some may argue that rising prices are just part of the journey needed to end deflation. But while automakers may be offering higher bonuses to offset the rise in household expenses, employees at small and midsize companies who cannot harbor the same expectations as their bigger counterparts are going to suffer right along with those depending on pension benefits. Instead of simply raising salaries to reflect the benefits that the weak yen is bringing to their exports, automakers should try to pass along those benefits to their subcontractors — the same people they demanded price cuts from during the tough times when the currency was ascending — so the benefits of the yen’s fall can spread to wider segments of the economy. The yen was trading at ¥81.10 to the dollar when the Lower House was dissolved for the general election on Nov. 16, 2012. It has since fallen by about 20 percent, sending prices for imports, which until October had fallen for six consecutive months year on year, soaring. Import prices rose 13.2 percent in February alone. We need to realize that the falling yen is bringing both benefits — in the form of higher exports — and drawbacks, in the form of a higher cost of living. It is therefore essential that the pros and cons be weighed and compared. For households, which can’t realistically hope for substantial wage gains due to tough competition from overseas labor, the lower import prices caused by the strong yen were a blessing that strengthened their purchasing power. In macroeconomic terms, private-sector consumption and imports combined outweighed the value of exports. Failing to pay sufficient attention to the drawbacks of the yen’s fall might turn out to be the pitfall of “Abenomics.” It has to be noted that a weaker yen will also further worsen Japan’s trade balance. This is primarily because 61.6 percent of the nation’s export transactions and 77.1 percent of its import transactions were carried out in foreign currencies, according to Finance Ministry data as of January. The weaker the yen gets, the more Japan’s foreign currency-denominated trade deficits will continue to grow, prompting further outflows of Japanese income overseas. The high share of foreign currency-denominated transactions in Japan’s imports is mainly because international commodities, such as crude oil and wheat, are traded in dollars. Japanese demand in such products is reflected in international prices via the dollar. Commodity trade inside Japan is of course carried out in yen, but it has little international impact because foreign participation is so low. This situation must be quickly rectified. Other things needing rectification are the deep-rooted beliefs within the business community, especially among stockbrokers, that a lower yen automatically translates into higher share prices, or that a weak yen is good and a strong yen is bad. Right after Japan lost World War II, there was a time when we were unable to use yen to buy goods from overseas because the nation’s credibility was at rock bottom. It was crucial for Japan to accumulate dollars, which would be gladly accepted by anybody. When I landed my first job in 1956, Japan’s foreign currency reserves stood at roughly $2 billion. Earlier, they had dropped so sharply Japan could only pay for only three months’ worth of imports; they later grew to about $2 billion, thanks to special demand related to the Korean War. It was conditions like these in the postwar era that helped form Japan’s export-oriented policies and belief in the weak yen. Today, having undergone full economic development, Japan is awash in foreign currency reserves. In fact, a much of them have gone stale in the sense that the value of the dollar has shrunk from ¥360 in the early 1970s to around ¥90 now. While many people continue to believe in the benefits of a weak yen, they need to realize that under Japan’s current trade structure, its deficits increase the lower the yen drops against other currencies. What is needed is a change in mindset to the idea that both trade and overseas investment must be conducted on a yen-denominated basis. If import and export transactions are carried out in yen, there will be no need for Japan to worry about every little up and down in the exchange rates. Japan’s bid to drive the yen lower was one of the hot behind-the-scenes issues at the G-7 and G-20 meetings in Moscow in February. The G-20 statement issued on Feb. 16 made it clear that a currency depreciation war, in which countries compete to drive their own currencies lower, needs to be avoided, noting that the objective of monetary policy should be to improve economic growth. Such reactions seem natural, given that Abenomics will purportedly put an end to deflation and the strong yen. No such suspicions would emerge if Japan conducted all its trade in yen. It is essential for the government to recognize, in a balanced manner, the positive and negative effects of both a strong yen and a weak yen, and to flesh out Abenomics with concrete actions that can promote economic growth.


Google Street Views goes inside a Fukushima school

Abstract: As everyone knows, Google Street Views lets you wander around 3D visualations of remote locations, giving you that You Are There sort of experience. Last year, the Street Views team traveled to Fukushima’s Namie-machi, making it possible for everyone to experience Japan’s no-go zone. Straying from the usual Street View approach, the Google team actually went inside a building for this expedition. One of them is Ukedo Elementary School, and the images of its abandoned school rooms are heartbreaking. Namie-machi was evacuated right after the explosion of the Fukushima No. 1 power plant. The location, which suffered heavy damage from the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami, is now a ghost town. Fortunately, all 77 students Ukedo Elementary school, located 500 meters from the coastline of Fukushima, were evacuated safely. Messages, probably written by students or teachers before leaving the area, can be seen written on the school’s whiteboard. This last photo shows the school gym with a banner hung to to celebrate graduation day. If you want to explore the no-go zone yourself, head over to Google Street Views.

fukushima
tsunami
earthquake
3.11
japan pulse


The 5 p.m. bell

Abstract: Dear Alice, I live in a medium-size city in Saitama Prefecture and am puzzled by a speaker system mounted on a huge pole right outside my apartment. Every evening at 5 p.m., music plays from the speakers for 20 or 30 seconds and then stops. It’s the same song every day, which I don’t recognize, and it’s really, really loud. Occasionally, there is also a public announcement from the speakers. Even if my Japanese was up to the challenge, which it’s not, I doubt I’d understand what they are saying because the sound quality is pretty bad. But it’s the music that’s really got me wondering because it comes at the same time every day, like clockwork. My Japanese coworker told me it’s so children know it’s time to stop playing and go home, but all the kids I know go to cram school and don’t head home until well after dark. So, what the heck is that music? Belinda, Saitama Prefecture Dear Belinda, What you’re hearing is colloquially referred to as the goji no chaimu (the 5 p.m. bell) but the proper term is more of a mouthful: shichōson bōsai gyōsei musen hōsō (local government disaster administration wireless broadcast), or bōsai musen (disaster wireless) for short. That naming alone should tip you off that there’s more to the music than your coworker seemed to realize. Your little evening concert is actually a daily test of an emergency broadcast system to alert citizens of dangers such as tsunamis and industrial accidents. More than 90 percent of cities, towns and villages in Japan have similar systems, but the timing of the daily test varies as does the music played. Many jurisdictions have one daily test at noon, for example, or run test broadcasts twice a day, at, say, noon and 6 p.m. in the evening. The thinking is that as long as there’s going to be a daily test, it may as well be timed so it serves some other purpose, and reminding kids to head home before dark is a popular one. In many localities the evening broadcast is timed to 5 p.m. in the winter months and 5:30 p.m. or 6 p.m. as the days get longer. The horn-shaped speakers may look low-tech, but in fact they are linked to a national system that can transmit warnings to local governments throughout the country in as little as seven seconds. The nationwide disaster-warning network was launched about 50 years ago, following a major earthquake in Niigata Prefecture in 1964, and has received changes and improvements over the years. The current focus is on upgrading equipment to newer digital systems. To find out more, I paid a visit to the headquarters of Fujitsu General, one of the largest manufacturers of bōsai musen systems. Sales director Tadashi Maekawa explained that the latest digital systems can do a great deal more than simply send broadcasts to speakers like the ones outside your apartment. They can also transmit simultaneous alerts to mobile phones, fax machines and devices for the hearing-impaired; insert messages into radio and television broadcasts, and even automatically post information on the local government’s Web page. Local systems can also be linked to the central government’s satellite-based J-Alert system, which was launched in 2007 to directly inform the public of various threats, including the launch of missiles by North Korea. “With the older analog systems, local governments can transmit but they can’t receive,” Maekawa explained. “But digital systems make it possible for citizens to report in via wireless telephones that are mounted on the speaker poles, for example. This can be a big help in accounting for people’s safety and directing emergency responses.” Yet only 30 percent of existing systems have been upgraded to digital, according to statistics from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. While emergency broadcasting is the raison d’être for bōsai musen, most local governments also use them for public announcements. Where I live we get occasional announcements such as reminders to vote on election days. But apparently some local governments overuse the systems, bombarding citizens with information they’d rather receive via quieter means. “The noise of the outdoor broadcasts is definitely an issue,” Maekawa told me. Complaints dropped off after the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011, when people were feeling the importance of emergency broadcasts, but the noise can be bothersome, particularly for people who work at night and sleep during the day. While researching your question, I stumbled onto a website operated by an irate citizen who is chronicling the broadcast’s overuse in the town of Anamizu in Ishikawa Prefecture (population: 9,700). Every morning at 7 a.m. the town plays the following announcement: “Ohayō! Kyō mo ichinichi ganbarimashō!” (“Good morning! Let’s do our best today too!). That alone would be enough to make me move, but the town also broadcasts reminders to dispose of garbage properly, sign up for health examinations and speak kindly to children. In some cases announcements are repeated as many as five times a day, according to the site owner, who complained, “Who said living in the countryside is peaceful?” But let’s get back to music. Fujitsu General offers 32 different standards, for which they pay appropriate royalties, and will load special music on request. Top favorites for bōsai musen include “Yuyake Koyake,” a Japanese folk song, but Western numbers also rank. The town of Amakusa in Kumamoto Prefecture, for example, plays “Go Tell Aunt Rhody.” (In case you’ve forgotten, the first stanza of that American folk song ends, “Her old gray goose is dead.”) Someday, the sounds of bōsai musen may be heard outside of Japan, as manufacturers and disaster-management experts are looking at its export potential. As we unfortunately learned in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, not all governments have the means to warn their citizens quickly,. Emergency broadcasting is one area in which Japan has special expertise. I think it would be nice if that could be made available to the world.


Disaster long lurked amid Japan's isolation

Abstract: “The evolution of political thought in this relatively isolated island nation during the period in question is unique to the point of being somewhat freakish.” This gives a reader pause. Freakish? The judgment is historian Hiroshi Watanabe’s in “A History of Japanese Political Thought, 1600-1901,” his 2010 book whose title defines “the period in question.” “Nor,” he adds, “did it (Japanese political thought) have much impact on thought outside the Japanese archipelago. In this sense, it may call to mind the strange animals of the Galapagos Islands, pursuing their own evolutionary path.” Japan, Galapagos: The association seems irresistible and recurs frequently, expressing bewilderment, frustration, amusement, sometimes admiration at Japan’s tendency, even today, to be startlingly different from other “Western” developed democracies. Early-modern Japan was truly a political and cultural Galapagos. Apart from a handful of Chinese and Dutch traders restricted to an island off Nagasaki, it was a “closed country”; Japanese could not leave, foreigners could not enter — on pain of death. Seventeenth- and 18th-century Japan to all intents and purposes was not part of the world. It was a world unto itself. The Tokugawa shoguns, its rulers from 1603 to 1867, were acting in self-defense against foreign powers they saw, reasonably enough, as predatory — not that Japan was a shining live-and-let-live exception, as its 1592 invasion of Korea showed; but the issue was practical, not moral. Isolation, deemed the best defense, was ruthlessly imposed. In a sense it came naturally. Geographical isolation helps explain why Japan circa A.D. 300 had barely graduated from the stone age to primitive agriculture. That might have sounded a warning, had the shoguns been historians. Isolation has a price: backwardness. Inevitably? Perhaps not. Was Tokugawa Japan backward? To U.S. sailors who came in “black ships” to pry it open in the 1850s, it seemed so; they vaunted their “triumphant revelation to a partially enlightened people of the success of science and enterprise.” On the other hand … there is always an “other hand.” Tokugawa Japan was in intellectual ferment, but one occurring in a vacuum. These years correspond to Europe’s Age of Reason, its Enlightenment. Fresh air! Experiment, observation, free thought. A thing was no longer true merely because Aristotle or the Church had said it. Philosophers began by doubting everything they thought they knew. They sought new knowledge. They went back to square one. They challenged each other, spurred each other on, built on each others’ findings. This was an intellectual, created “new world” to match the physical, discovered New World: America. All this Japan missed. “Ours is a world in which living things are confined and regimented as if dead things” — so wrote a despairing artist, scholar and samurai named Watanabe Kazan, one whose restlessness in the shuttered little world he was born into led to his suicide in 1841 at age 48. In 1821, while traveling on domain business, he stopped at the island of Enoshima off present-day Kanagawa Prefecture, and wrote in his diary: “How wonderful! How marvelous! From here to the southeast is what the Westerners call the Pacific Ocean and the American states! They must be very close!” Kazan was one of a coterie of “Dutch scholars” — so called because the Dutch traders and Dutch books were their prime sources — who congregated in Edo (now Tokyo) to share what little they knew of Western science, gunnery, medicine, history, geography and politics. Their talk was considered subversive by an absolutist regime determined at all costs to remain absolute. Watanabe barely escaped execution — he was rusticated instead. He and his friends of course represented the future, though few at the time would have seen that. To most of its subjects, Tokugawa rule must have seemed unshakable. What preoccupied the intellectual mainstream? This question in particular: Is the nation’s true path the Confucian Way, or the Japanese Way? Watanabe, the historian, has a beautiful passage about time machines: “Investigating the past, one is often seized with the desire to board a time machine to walk the city streets and meet the people of some specific period. … In fact we already have a highly advanced time machine: the written word.” Reading past thinkers’ works is a salutary reminder of how the world is subject to wildly varying interpretations. Was Confucius a fool, and his Tokugawa followers dupes for believing all problems were at bottom moral; that disasters natural, political and economic occurred only when sage-rulers failed to govern according to rites and music? Arai Hakuseki (1657-1725), a shogunal adviser and great Confucian thinker, wrote: “Rites and music are not properly practiced, and there are places where the qi (spirit) of heaven and earth is disturbed. Thus, without the assistance of the gods and spirits, it is possible that the principle of germination cannot be achieved” — an admonitory reference to Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune’s failure to produce an heir. But the swelling ranks of anti-Confucian nativist thinkers sneered at this Chinese frippery. One, Kaibara Ekiken (1630-1714), wrote, “The path of the soldier is a deceitful one. Depending upon the circumstances of the moment, one might trick or betray one’s allies, usurp the spoils won by others, or throw the land into turmoil and seize it from above: As a matter of military tactics, there is nothing wrong with this. It is the way of warfare in Japan. If one adopted the Chinese Way, it would be difficult to conduct warfare in the Japanese manner. Japan is a martial nation; it would be impossible to triumph here following the undissembling and soft customs of the Chinese.” So much for rites and music. The trouble was, Tokugawa Japan was a martial nation at peace . It’s an impossible contradiction. The looming crisis was unseen but inevitable.


J-blip: Taro Aso 'gang style' t-shirts

Abstract: When Finance Minister Taro Aso set off for a G20 meeting earlier this year, he did it in style, sporting a natty felt hat, pulled rakishly down over one eye. No sooner had he stepped out in public in this getup than Twitter was abuzz with comments celebrating the finance minister’s “gangster style.” Now the outfit has even been immortalized on “Gang Style” t-shirts , sold by Osaka-based brand t-shirts Trinity . The t-shirts have been a big hit, inspiring the company to bring out Taro Aso “gang style” sweatshirts and tote bags. The t-shirts are only ¥2,980, but if you’d like to get your hands on a hat similar to the one Aso wore, you’re going to have to shell out quite a bit more. Business Media reported that sources close to Aso have said that the hat is probably made by Italian brand Borsalino . The company itself says that a hat in a similar style to Aso’s retails for around ¥90,000. It seems that gangster style comes at a hefty price!


Team Abe's grand plan leaves ghosts in charge of a haunted house

Abstract: As I observe Team Abe in action at the helm of the Bank of Japan and elsewhere, a rather terrifying passage from a poem by William Hughes Mearns comes to mind: “Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn’t there. He wasn’t there again today. I wish, I wish he’d go away . . .” There were no surprises in the BOJ’s announcement last week about the new monetary policy package formed at its Policy Board meeting. Quantitative easing will be carried out on an unprecedented scale. Buying up of Japanese government bonds will also take place at record-breaking levels. That buying will find new focus on the longer end of the yield curve spectrum. For all intents and purposes this is no longer a central bank. This is an agent of the government studiously intent on securing its master’s approval. An additional worry in this context is that the BOJ Policy Board’s decision to go for Team Abe’s gung-ho approach to monetary management was apparently unanimous. Was there not one person among the policymaking body who felt inclined to contest the Team Abe approach? We do indeed live in sad and strange times if that was the case. The more we discover about Team Abe’s approach to economic management, the stronger my image grows of the man on the stairs who wasn’t there. For there is a curious touch of unreality in all of the measures and pronouncements that emanate from these people. They seem to have no feel for what is actually happening on the economic ground. All that they are concerned about is how to “regain” Japan. This is very backward-looking of them. The Japan that they seem to want to regain belongs in the 1960s. Thus preoccupied with the past, they are incapable of placing themselves in the here and now. Hence, they are the people on the stair who are not there. The “there” they occupy is not the same as ours. Because the people who are not there are out of touch with real people, their only partner in dialogue is the markets. No wonder the not-there people are so intent on appeasement. They seem to be confusing market-pleasing with policymaking. The markets know this and will always be clamoring for more. The more you give them, the greedier they get. The not-there people have allowed themselves to be taken hostage by the gluttonous. It is a frightening thing to have to place economic management in the hands of people who are not there. Not being there, they cannot know what people are really feeling, what their real problems are and how they are trying to deal with them. Not being there, they cannot feel other people’s pain. There is something altogether heartless in what they say and seem to want to do. Mindlessness has always been a problem with Japanese politics, and there is no reason to assume otherwise about this government. The almost automatic resort to Rip van Winkle economics testifies to that effect. To this great tradition has now been added the element of heartless unconcern that exhorts self-help and looks coldly on a caring society. Mindlessness is a misfortune but heartlessness is sin. To be saddled with a government that is equipped with both is sheer disaster for a nation. Yet what else can one expect from people who are not there? If only we could wish them away. William Hughes Mearns received inspiration for his piece from a reputedly haunted house where the man who wasn’t there was supposed to make his nonappearance. Japan is now that haunted house.

boj
bank of japan
abenomics
central bank


April Fool's in Japan — the joke's on you

Abstract: April Fool’s Day doesn’t have very deep roots in Japanese culture, but obviously branding creatives and open-minded corporations are seeing the potential benefits of making potential customers laugh. Rather than pulling a fast one, these pranks put their silliness up-front and center. > Introducing the iKA Organic Ebook from publisher Kodansha. Drawing its power from the squid’s natural bioenergy, there’s no need to recharge the batteries. The iKA’s long tentacles serve as a handy neck-strap, it glows in the dark and has endless supply of ink. The iKA is provided via a subscription service, which delivers a fresh squid each week (note: size and weight may vary). You get the added bonus of being able to cook and eat the old one (special squid dish recipe available to early buyers!). How’s that for eco-friendly technology? Don’t you hate how unwieldy pizzas can be? Dominos’s new canned pizza is not only compact, it’s long-lasting, so you can stock up your bomb shelter and never go without a slice! Need something with a bit more substance? How about Hanamaru Udon ‘s giant squid, caught daily by harpoon fishing and fried up as tempura, from That will be ¥87,000, please. Taking aim at Line, the runaway hit app of the past year, search site Goo offers Silky , the old favorite for free and simple communication. And you can send silly stamps too! And yes, it’s biodegradable tech, too? We have to give full props to Eiga.com , a movie info site, for its execution of Yoda’s account on Forcebook. They got every detail right … from George Lucas friending J.J. Abrams to Anakin Skywalker changing his account name to Darth Vader to R2D2 denial of Jar Jar Bink’s friend request. One ad shows has Imperial Storm Troopers raising funds to rebuild Death Star. May the forceful guffaw go with you. By the way, did you spot this one in The Japan Times . I mean we highly admire professor Mogura Tataki’s mission to eliminate society’s bias against lefties but something tells us we’re being pawned. (Research by Shinjin Ono and Kazuhiro Kobayashi)

smartphones
phones
au
pizza
ebooks
japan pulse
e-readers


Casting a little light on fireflies

Abstract: If dragonflies are the insects of Japan’s day, then the mysterious, magical fireflies are its bugs of the night. About now, firefly grubs will be emerging from rivers around the country. They’ve been living in the mud in larval form for the last year, and are ready to start the final, crucial part of their lives. They will pupate, and in June the chrysalis will split and the adult firefly — actually a beetle, because like all beetles they have a hard wing case while flies don’t — will emerge. Fireflies have an unmistakable and quite beautiful feature: They generate their own light source through a process known as bioluminescence. This phenomenon is actually a means of communication between male and female fireflies — but what no one knew until now was that, in Japan, it is the females who call the shots. In North American species, a male advertises for females by flashing his light on and off. However, in the case of the Asian firefly (Luciola parvula) — the one found in Japan — it is the females who do the advertising. It would be going too far to draw any parallels with human sexual behavior in North America and Japan, for instance, but it wouldn’t surprise me if someone does: Fireflies cause more buzz, much of it ill-informed, than most insects in Japan. The two main species here, known as the Genji firefly and the Heike firefly, are named after two clans (aka Minamoto and Taira, respectively) who fought the Battle of Dannoura at sea off the southern tip of Honshu in 1185. The souls of the dead samurai were supposed to have transmuted into fireflies of the two different species. Not a bad place to go, I suppose, and quite samurai-like, as the adults live brief lives of only two weeks or so. That they are deeply loved in Japan is nicely illustrated in a new study on firefly communication. The first author, Hideo Takatsu, is a member of the Aichi Fireflies Society — indeed, that’s the official affiliation given on the paper. His co-authors, more conventionally, are affiliated with Keio and Shizuoka universities. Takatsu and colleagues suspected that female Heike fireflies signal to males, and set about building an electronic firefly to test the idea. By mimicking female flashing behavior with their fake firefly, Takatsu’s team showed that females specifically flash to attract males (Journal of Ethology, DOI: 10.1007/s10164-012-0332-2). In other species of firefly, biologists know that females choose males on the basis of the signals the males send. This sets up opposing evolutionary pressures on the males. Natural selection acts to try to reduce the amount of light the males emit, as predators use the light to locate the insects and eat them. But sexual selection works in the other direction, to increase the light in order to attract more females, have more sex and sire more offspring. Sexual selection, in this case, turns out to be more powerful, and signaling by phosphorescent light has evolved despite the dangers of predation. Sexual selection usually acts strongly on males because they have more to gain from mating many times, whereas the benefits to females from multiple sexual partners are less obvious. In the famous example, it’s why male peacocks are colorful and elaborate but the females are drab. So what’s happening here? For one thing, the study shows the diversity of behavior in these Asian insects. Females seem to be actively encouraging males to approach. They can even mate without the male signaling in response. “Spontaneous female flashes can lead to copulation without male flashes,” Takatsu and colleagues write. Why would they do that? Could it be that they are more desperate to mate than other species of firefly? One reason may be food, or more precisely, resources. Fireflies sip dewdrops of water from plants but don’t eat for the short time they are adults, relying on the stores of fat they laid down when they were larvae. (Gruesome aside: The larvae feed on mud snails, biting the snails and injecting digestive juices.) Additionally, however, males offer some valuable victuals in the form of a nutritious protein capsule that they transfer along with their sperm when they mate. Females can turn the capsule into eggs, and increase their output by doing so. So females have good reason to want to attract males. It doesn’t take much energy to produce a flash of light — it’s made by a chemical in the abdomen called luciferin which is stored in cells lined with a reflective layer of crystals. And though there is the risk of attracting predators, there is the potential reward of a rich male. It’s no surprise that fireflies are so loved in Japan. There are firefly-watching events and, as we have seen, firefly societies. High school students sing “Hotaru no Hikari” (“Glow of a Firefly”) on graduation — to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne.” The words to “Hotaru no Hikari” relate how ultradiligent students work by the light of the firefly, but no doubt the ephemeral nature of the animal — burning bright for a short time before dying — also appeals to emotional teenagers. It certainly appeals to me. I once tried to learn a little of the language of the firefly — you could call it “fireflyese” — and shared a magical moment with some in the wilds of Ibaraki Prefecture. If come June you are lucky enough to see these most beguiling of insects, try “talking” to them with a small flashlight. Even without a dialogue, it’s a marvelous sight. How much more intriguing to imagine the evolutionary pressures and struggles — the romance and battling — behind the beautiful display. And as is so often the case in stories like this, it ends with a warning. Overuse of pesticides and herbicides and fertilizers, together with habitat loss, has hit populations of fireflies hard. They need clean water and undisturbed streams to live and grow. See them while you can.


J-blip: The secret behind Disney + Gogo no Koucha

Abstract: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nf5kCEOYpg Kirin is currently collaborating with Disney to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disneyland. Not only are they giving away a grand prize of a 30-night stay for four at the DisneySea Hotel Miracosta, year-long passes to both parks and a resort giftcard worth a million yen, but each flavor of their popular Gogo no Koucha (“Afternoon Tea”) features a different character on the package: the straight tea has Mickey Mouse; lemon has Winnie the Pooh; and milk has Donald Duck. Recently, an observant fan noticed there are different numbers on each bottle and decided to investigate. To his delight he found 60 numbers on the the straight tea version and 18 on the lemon tea and milk tea. His interest piqued, he bought all of them and took photos of each in sequence. Although it is hinted at on Gogo no Koucha’s site , only a clever and dedicated tea drinker would go to all this trouble. By lining up each “frame” in video form, he revealed short animations of each character. While we’d like to praise this creative campaign, it’s a bit ironic considering Disney just laid off nine veteran hand-animators .

animation
disney
kirin
japan pulse
gogo no koucha


Yakuza links put nation at added nuclear risk

Abstract: On April 15, two alleged terrorists in Boston killed three people, injured more than 170 others and terrified a nation — for about $100 it cost them to modify pressure cookers into bombs. We should be glad they didn’t come to Japan, where they may have been able to explode a ready-made nuclear dirty bomb, kill untold thousands, render huge swaths of the country uninhabitable — and get paid by Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco) in the process. I wish I were kidding. Japan has more than 50 gigantic nuclear “pressure cookers” ripe for exploitation by terrorists. And they wouldn’t even have to lay siege to the facilities. Instead, they could just walk into a nuclear plant and leave with enough weapons-grade plutonium for a small atomic device — which later could be detonated wherever they chose. How? In Japan, getting access to a nuclear power plant is very simple: fill out a job application. It is now more than two years since the start of the nuclear crisis following the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011, and there are still no mandatory background checks for workers at its nuclear facilities. After the three reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear complex in March 2011, it became clear that Tepco, the plant’s operator, was allowing members of Japan’s organized crime groups, the yakuza, to staff the well-paid cleanup — just as they had been allowed into plants long before then. Indeed, members and associates of the Sumiyoshi-kai (Kanto) and Kudo-kai (Kyushu) mobs have been arrested for their roles supplying labor to Tepco and its Kansai cousin, Kepco. So the dirty secret that yakuza-linked workers and companies have long sustained Japan’s nuclear industry — along with yakuza members themselves, ex-convicts, wanted criminals, and drug addicts working there — is now public knowledge. Although many yakuza groups claim to have a protective role in society, most of their members are sociopathic felons who would commit theft, assault or murder to make a little money. And if you consider the black-market value of a little plutonium, you may feel a tad uneasy knowing such people have long had access to it — and can still get their hands on nuclear materials. Don’t worry, though: Last month the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) said a panel will be set up to discuss atomic energy security issues, and it will consider introducing a system to investigate the backgrounds of workers to avoid acts of terrorism at nuclear plants. Specifically, it seems the panel will examine ways to check whether nuclear facility employees are drug addicts or have a criminal record, among other issues, in order to screen out anyone who could potentially get involved in terrorism. The panel will comprise NRA Commissioner Kenzo Oshima and outside experts. However, one expert who will not be on the panel is Haruki Madarame, former chief of the now-dissolved Nuclear Safety Commission. He is currently being investigated by prosecutors for alleged criminal negligence. But hey, let’s not dwell on the past. The good news is that the NRA is thinking about making nuclear plants safer in the future. They may even reach the same conclusions that the Nuclear Security Expert Commission of the Atomic Energy Commission announced … in September 2011. Of course, why take action when you can spend more time debating about taking action? The AEC makes recommendations for nuclear energy policy. However, that 2011 report, titled “Basic Nuclear Security Assurance,” doesn’t give a positive view of Japan’s countermeasures. There, the words “internal threats” appear five times in 14 pages of attached materials. And, in a section headed “Lessons of Fukushima,” it notes: “It is clear there were defects in the management of those leaving and entering the site from the start of the accident. … Licensed (nuclear facility) operators need to first strictly enforce measures to keep suspicious persons from sneaking into the facilities and strengthen countermeasures against threats from within.” The report, without irony, also notes that criminal acts such as the theft of nuclear materials to build a dirty bomb, or the destruction of facilities, “should be detected, prevented, and stopped so as to cause as little negative impact as possible to life, physical health, property, society and the environment.” It also recommends that law enforcement, regulators and the power plant operators share information to make sure that thieves, saboteurs or criminals do not have access to the plants or related facilities. But it stops short of mandating background checks. The United States has long had a screening system in place, but Japan has delayed taking similar measures due to privacy concerns and “respect for human rights.” Meanwhile, Tepco is still unable to locate scores of workers who entered the disaster zone. Maybe, though, we shouldn’t worry so about criminals gaining access to nuclear plants. After all, the National Diet of Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission report in 2012 established Tepco’s responsibility for the triple meltdown. Then months later Tepco admitted it consciously ignored the threat of a tsunami-related disaster. So perhaps the lesson to be learned is that the greatest threat of “nuclear terrorism” Japan faces is from criminally negligent power companies and a government that fails to punish them. Come to think of it, maybe we shouldn’t worry at all about criminals gaining access to the nuclear power plants. As the Tokyo Prosecutor Office’s investigation into the top executives of Tepco for professional negligence resulting in injury and death grinds on, it seems more and more likely that criminals have been running the plants for a very long time — they just don’t all have tattoos. When it comes to the nuclear security in Japan, the U.S. comics “swamp critter” Pogo Possum would tell you: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” Let’s hope no other enemies decide to join the party — because if they do, Japan’s nuclear negligence may become the world’s problem as well.


Utility, ubiquity playing key roles in corrupting policymakers' thinking

Abstract: Two mind-sets seem to be catching on in Japan these days. They worry me. One is the notion that something has to be useful to be of value. The other is that anything is justifiable on the grounds that everybody else is doing it. The theory of usefulness is driving the Abe government’s promotion of better working conditions for women. They deserve longer maternity leave because they constitute an as yet inadequately utilized source of economic growth. To the extent that women are useful to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s new growth strategy, they will be placed at the center of the government’s concerns. But there might just possibly be an ulterior motive to all of this. Abe could well be looking at his extended maternity leave campaign as a useful way to keep women at home for longer parts of their lives. This government’s conservative heart yearns for the revival of traditional family values, and they might be hoping to make good strategic use of the let’s-be-nice-to-women campaign as a means to that end. Of even greater concern is that the utility theory appears to be putting pressure on people who are neither obsessed with grand growth strategies nor holders of sinister ulterior motives. I was recently asked by campaigners against Japanese constitutional reform whether an economic case could be made in support of retaining the pacifist Constitution as it is. The argument would be that a peaceful nation would have access to greater economic gain than an antagonistic one because the rest of the world would be more willing to trade with peaceable people who have vowed not to wage war against anybody. Thus, it could be said that abandoning war is useful to enhancing the welfare of the nation. “Would this logic hold water?” they asked. My heart goes out to those campaigners. They are facing an uphill job if they have to resort to notions of economic utility to convince people of the importance of remaining peaceful. You uphold peace because that’s the right thing to do. You secure better working conditions for women because they have a rightful claim to such treatment. No other reasoning or justification is necessary to do something that is decent and just. Yet it increasingly seems to be the fashion of the day to demand “results.” To weigh costs against benefits. To uphold usefulness as the ultimate source of legitimacy. The other idea — that if everybody else is doing it, you should, too — is often called upon to justify the Bank of Japan’s huge monetary easing. The Americans are doing it. The Europeans are doing it. Japan has been persistently falling behind. It’s time we caught up with everybody else. The BOJ is culpable for deflation. They should get on with the job of doing what everybody has been doing all this time. So goes the argument. There is not one iota of concern in this line of reasoning, however, over what central banks were made for in the first place. Their role as defender of the currency is being quite studiously ignored. As for the idea that the use of “comfort women” has always been standard practice in times of war and Japan should therefore not be singled out for bashing, the whole mind-set is beneath contempt. However widespread it may be, a despicable deed is ever a despicable deed. There is no strength in numbers where questions of human dignity are concerned. You do not violate human rights even if you are in a minority of one. However useless, you do what is right. However lonely, you keep away from indecency. End of story.

shinzo abe
ldp
abenomics
policymaking
japanese perspectives


How signs of a 'lost continent' came into JAMSTEC's underwater view

Abstract: The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and the Brazilian government recently announced the discovery of a large mass of granite on the seafloor off Rio de Janeiro — a landmark finding that suggests a continent may have once existed there because granite normally forms only on dry land. Experts say it’s far too early to conclude this is evidence that the legendary island of Atlantis existed. This is because the seabed where the granite mass was found is estimated to have sunk into the sea several tens of millions of years ago, much earlier than legend has the island disappearing beneath the sea. But how did the Japanese agency get involved in this intriguing discovery in the first place? Following are some facts regarding the organization and its activities: What is the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology? Headquartered in Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, the agency conducts research and development in marine sciences. Formerly known as the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center, JAMSTEC was launched in April 2004 as an independent administrative agency administered by the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry. What was JAMSTEC doing off the east coast of Brazil? The agency sent a mission to the area as part of its one-year around-the-world voyage project dubbed “QUELLE2013,” which stands for Quest for the Limit of Life. “Quelle” also means “roots” or “origin” in German. The yearlong mission involves exploring hydrothermal vent fields, submarine seepage sites, deep-sea trenches and other extreme environments to explore the habitable limits of life and its unique survival strategies. They set out Jan. 5 on the support vessel Yokosuka, heading for the Indian Ocean, the South Atlantic, the Caribbean Sea and the South Pacific Ocean. So was it just happenstance that JAMSTEC was involved in the recent discovery? According to a JAMSTEC official, the finding was “not totally a coincidence.” They had been aware that Brazilian scientists had collected what appeared to be granite in the area, but it remained a mystery whether the granite was intrinsic or whether it had been dropped by ships passing through, the official said. The discovery was made by a deep-submergence vehicle called the Shinkai 6500, owned by the agency. One researcher who had been aboard the sub was quoted by the official as saying they were admittedly “somewhat skeptical about granite being there.” What is the Shinkai 6500? The submersible was developed “to study seafloor topography and geology and research deep-sea organisms” in the sea not only around Japan but in the oceans around the world. As the name implies, the Shinkai 6500 can dive to depths of up to 6,500 meters with two pilots and one researcher aboard. It entered service in 1991 and had made 1,300 dives as of 2012. During the round-the-world project, the manned submersible is to be in the Caribbean Sea from June to August. After temporarily returning to Japan for a battery replacement from August to September, it is scheduled to travel to the Tonga and Kermadec trenches in the South Pacific and to finish the journey in December. What other kinds of research does the agency conduct? It has several institutes and projects. For example, the Research Institute for Global Change observes, analyzes and predicts global environmental changes, while the Institute for Research on Earth Evolution explores the interior of the Earth to develop a comprehensive understanding of our planet. The agency has also set up a project to do research on earthquakes and tsunami for disaster prevention. Who heads the agency, and how big is it? The president is Asahiko Taira, a former chairman of the Geological Society of Japan. Taira, whose field of research includes marine geology and plate tectonics, received the Japan Academy Prize in 2007 for research on the formation of the Japanese archipelago. The agency has a staff of 1,055, including 383 researchers. The initial budget for the current fiscal year stands at ¥40.2 billion.


Sub discovers signs of legendary Atlantis

Abstract: RIO DE JANEIRO - A large mass of granite has been found on the seabed off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, suggesting a continent may have existed in the Atlantic Ocean, the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and the Brazilian government announced. A Brazilian official said the discovery of the granite — which normally forms only on dry land — is strong evidence that a continent used to exist in the area where the legendary island of Atlantis, mentioned in antiquity by Plato in his philosophical dialogues, was supposedly located. According to legend, the island, host to a highly developed civilization, sunk into the sea around 12,000 years ago. No trace of it has ever been found. The finding was made using a Shinkai 6500 manned submersible operated by the Japanese agency. The seabed where the granite mass was discovered is estimated to have sunk into the sea several tens of million years ago. No man-made structures have been found there. It is the first time such research using a manned submersible has been conducted in the South Atlantic. In late April, the agency used the device to explore the Rio Grande Rise, a seabed more than 1,000 km southeast of Rio de Janeiro. At a depth of 910 meters, it found a rock cliff around 10 meters in height and breadth. After analyzing video data, the agency concluded it was granite. Also discovered in the area around it was a large volume of quartz sand — which is also not formed in the sea. The bedrock is believed to consist mainly of basalt rock. The rise itself stretches around 1,000 km at the widest point, and is considered part of the continent left behind when South America and Africa split apart more than 100 million years ago. The agency said it assumes the area was above sea level until about 50 million years ago but became submerged over a period spanning several million years, based on fossils found in the nearby seabed and other data. According to the agency, the Rio Grande Rise is the only plausible area that could possibly have been dry land in the past. Despite the latest discovery, however, experts remained cautious about jumping to conclusions about Atlantis. Shinichi Kawakami, a professor at Gifu University versed in planetary sciences, said the granite could have been a part of a big continent before it separated into what is now Africa and South America. “South America and Africa used to be a huge, unified continent. The area in question may have been left in water as the continent was separated in line with the movements of plates,” he said. Kawakami said researchers must look further into the composition of the granite and see if it matches the granite now found in Africa or South America. “The concept of Atlantis came way before geology of the modern age was established. We should not jump to the Atlantis (conclusion) right away,” he said.

atlantic
continent
deep-sea probe
discovery
japanese scientists


Monju: Generating only misfortune

Abstract: The troubled Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor made headlines again when the Nuclear Regulation Authority said it apparently plans to ensure the facility remains idled after announcing that the Japan Atomic Energy Agency failed to properly inspect some 10,000 components, including critical ones. Following are questions and answers regarding the problem-plagued Monju program, which has so far cost some ¥1 trillion: Where is Monju located and when was it built? Monju is on the Sea of Japan coast in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture. Preparatory construction began in January 1983, and the site was completed in April 1991. The reactor reached initial criticality for the first time in April 1994, but the event was short-lived. What was Monju’s role? Monju was to serve as a research facility on so-called dream technology that was supposed to resolve Japan’s shortage of clean energy sources. The plan was for the fast-breeder reactor to use spent nuclear fuel from other atomic plants in the form of a plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel. “The basic principles of the Monju plant are very simple,” JAEA states on its website. If the recycling sequence goes as planned, it would mean “fast reactors could extend the energy output from the world’s uranium fuel reserves 25-fold.” MOX, however, which is used in nuclear weapons, is highly dangerous. How has Monju fared since the 1994 criticality test? Accidents, a coverup attempt and other woes and malfunctions have keet the reactor effectively idled since its initial tryout. A sodium coolant leak and fire in 1995 became a huge scandal after it was revealed that the operator tried to cover up details of the incident from the public. In 1996, an official appointed to the internal investigation of the case committed suicide. The official’s next of kin subsequently sued the operator for damages, claiming he killed himself after being pressured to lie to the media. The Supreme Court last year rejected the suit and ruled in JAEA’s favor. Fukui residents meanwhile sued the state, claiming the reactor is unsafe. The Supreme Court in 2005 overruled a lower court ruling and dismissed the suit. What happened after the sodium leak? Monju was suspended for 14 years and five months after the leak, until May 2010. The JAEA website states that Monju restarted its System Start-up Test on May 6, 2010, hoping to accomplish the program’s original mission of demonstrating the facility’s reliability and establishing sodium handling technology. It failed to do either. On Aug. 26 that year, a 3-ton fuel-loading device fell into the reactor vessel and caused operations to halt again. Recovery of the device proved time-consuming and was only completed in June 2011, 10 months after the incident and shortly into the biggest nuclear plant calamity to hit the world since Chernobyl, namely the triple-meltdown crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima No. 1 atomic plant. It cost more than ¥1.7 billion to repair the Monju damage. A JAEA official in charge of the recovery project committed suicide before the fuel-loading device was retrieved. What other troubles stand in Monju’s way? Like most nuclear plants in Japan, Monju is believed to be sitting on a fault, although JAEA in April sent a report to the NRA claiming the fault is inactive. The JAEA has also said the reactor can withstand the strongest temblor that could possibly hit the site, as well as tsunami of up to 21 meters. The NRA is expected to visit Fukui and survey the fault soon. What does “monju” mean? According to JAEA, Monju derives from the Japanese translation of bodhisattva Manjusri, which is associated with perfect enlightenment and wisdom. Buddhist temples, including Eiheiji in Fukui Prefecture, have protested the use of the holy name for such a tarnished project. What’s next for Monju? Reports say Monju costs ¥10 billion to ¥20 billion annually just to maintain even while idled. The government originally intended to start commercial use of the reactor by 2050, but the latest development will likely put the nuclear fuel-recycling goal on indefinite hold. Despite widespread public opposition to nuclear power since 2011 and calls by pundits that Monju be scrapped, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party appears reluctant to do this. How is JAEA reacting to the latest scandal? In a Chunichi Shimbun interview published on May 1, JAEA chief Hiroshi Hiroi acknowledged the agency failed to properly check some 10,000 components. “Due to a lack of communication between the managers and onsite workers, our revised rules weren’t completely followed, and we didn’t share a common understanding of when to start the checks,” he claimed. JAEA seeks to correct the problem by adding 13 more employees to the repair unit, creating better information management and educating its workers. “We will make a safe, rational maintenance program in about a year,” he told the newspaper.


Japan's Suzaku satellite shows how all bets are off around Cygnus X-1

Abstract: This month, the Vermillion bird of the South — which is currently flying 550 km above Earth — meets an astronomical swan some 6,000 light-years away. In Eastern mythology, the Vermillion bird of the South represents fire — it is a spirit creature renowned for its elegance and power. Its Japanese name, Suzaku, is also that of an X-ray-detecting satellite launched by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency in 2005. Now Suzaku’s eyes have been trained on one of the most famous objects in the galaxy — the black hole in the constellation Cygnus (meaning “Swan”), which is also sometimes known as the Northern Cross. What Suzaku has seen there is arguably more wondrous than the most fantastical mythological story: It has observed the swan at dinner; the black hole swallowing dead stars. Black holes are strongly embedded in our culture. We refer to them metaphorically (“that business was a black hole for money”), while the best-known of many mind-boggling facts about black holes — that nothing, not even light, can escape them — is probably familiar to most of us even if we don’t really understand what it means. All that is to say it’s easy to take black holes for granted. But in fact, while astronomers strongly suspect they must exist, that suspicion is maddeningly hard to prove. Strictly speaking, the things we think of as black holes are only black hole candidates . However, Suzaku is armed with telescopes that, instead of picking up visible light, detect X-rays, which are more powerful than visible light. And now, its observations have provided good evidence that these most mysterious of astronomical objects are real. Shin’ya Yamada and colleagues at the Riken Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science at Wako in Saitama Prefecture directed Suzaku’s telescopes at an enigmatic object named Cygnus X-1. Discovered in 1964, this is one of the strongest known sources of X-rays in our Milky Way galaxy, and has long been a suspected black hole. (It was the subject of one of the most famous bets in science, as we’ll see.) Cygnus X-1 is a remarkable object. Its mass is 15 times greater than that of our sun, but it is far more compact. The diameter of our sun is 1.4 million km, while that of Cygnus X-1 is only 52 km. Earth’s diameter is 12,700 km. So in Cygnus X-1, a gigantic amount of matter has been compacted down into an incredibly small space. The more massive an object, the stronger its gravitational pull, which means that Cygnus X-1 has irresistible suction power. Anything that gets close is sucked in. Black holes accumulate massive amounts of matter — dust, gas, rocks, even bits of planets and stars — in a huge disc that orbits the black hole, gradually getting closer. This is called the accretion disc, and it is from this that powerful X-rays are emitted as the gravity of the black hole crushes the matter in the disc. Once stuff gets too close, however, it can never break free. The point of no return is called the event horizon. What the Riken astronomers observed is gas being sucked across the event horizon and into oblivion. Suzaku measured the temperature of the gas as it fell into the black hole, and recorded a heat spike of more than 1 billion degrees Celsius in the last few milliseconds before it vanished. This, they report in Astrophysical Journal, is strong evidence that Cygnus X-1 is indeed a black hole (DOI reference: 10.1088/2041-8205/767/2/L34). For at least 20 years, most physicists have been happy to accept that Cygnus X-1 is a black hole. Indeed, that was what the bet was about. In 1974 the English cosmologist Stephen Hawking and his similarly renowned U.S. colleague and friend, Kip Thorne, were arguing about this faraway object. Hawking wagered that Cygnus X-1 was not a black hole — but in 1990, he finally conceded he was wrong. The Hawking-Thorne wager can be seen as the end point in a longer debate among scientists about black holes. Albert Einstein, whose work showed among other things that gravity could influence light (and even bend it), himself did not believe that black holes could exist. But theoretical work supporting the idea of a super-dense object that warps space-time continued to build, and by the 1960s it was generally accepted that black holes should exist. Some physicists credit the discovery of Cygnus X-1 as the first time a black hole was found. Incidentally, the terms of the Hawking-Thorne bet shed interesting light on the reading habits of these famous scientists. If Hawking had won, his reward would have been a four-year subscription to the fortnightly Private Eye, Britain’s foremost satirical magazine. Thorne requested, and hence received, a year’s subscription to Penthouse, a U.S. monthly that may euphemistically be termed a “men’s magazine.” (Hawking reported that Thorne’s wife was not happy with her husband’s winnings.) Meanwhile, Suzaku continues to look deep into the galaxy. Last year, after its X-ray scopes were directed at the constellation of Orion, it observed an usually bright patch of cosmic dust known as McNeil’s Nebula. This region turned out to be a protostar, a region of space where the magnetic fields are so intense that they are heating the surrounding area and emitting X-rays. Kenji Hamaguchi, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said he suspected that the protostar, which is still swaddled in its birthing cloud, is a mere baby in astronomical terms at younger than a million years old — but not the sort of babe Thorne was seeing when he won his bet.


J-Blip: Mini kotatsu a cozy spot for singles

Abstract: The humble domestic kotatsu is enjoying something of a revival since the disaster at Fukushima made the nation painfully aware of the need to conserve energy. The device is a table with a heating element underneath and a warm blanket draped over it keep one’s legs nice and toasty; without using up excess energy, the kotatsu has been keeping families huddled together in the winter months since its charcoal forerunner first warmed feet in the 14th century. But what about those living alone, who want to bring down their electric bill but might not have room for a large kotatsu table? Enter the mini kotatsu heater from

power
winter
singles
setsuden
japan pulse


Abe's 15-month reversal budget fudges cost of swapping people and butter for concrete and guns

Abstract: The government of Shinzo Abe has just unveiled its budget for fiscal 2013 starting in April. Abe’s stated intention was to “radically reset” spending priorities. He is indeed a man of his word. For this is a budget that is truly awesome for its radical step backward into the past — a past where every public spending project would do wonders to boost economic growth. It is also a past where a cheaper yen would bring unmitigated benefits to Japan’s exporting industries. None of it is really true anymore. Public works do indeed do wonders in boosting growth when there is nothing there to begin with. But in a mature and well-developed economy like ours, which is already so well equipped with all the necessities of modern life, they can at best have only a one-off effect in creating jobs and demand. And in this globalized day and age, an exporting industry imports almost as much as it exports. No longer do we live in a world where a carmaker makes everything within the borderlines of its nationality. Abe’s radical reset has just as much to do with philosophy as with timelines. Three phrases come to mind as I try to put this budget in a nutshell. They are: “from people to concrete,” “from the regions to the center” and “from butter to guns.” The previous government led by the Democratic Party of Japan declared that it would put people before concrete. No more building of ever-empty concert halls and useless multiple amenity centers where nothing ever happens. More money would be spent on helping people escape their economic difficulties. They would give more power to the regions so they could decide for themselves what was really good and worked for the local community. Guns would most certainly not take precedence over butter. Or rather over the low-fat butter alternatives popular in these more health-conscious times. All of this has been completely reversed in Abe’s fiscal 2013 budget. Public works spending is scheduled to go up by more than 15 percent while subsistence payments for people on welfare will be thrashed to the tune of more than 7 percent. If implemented, this will be the largest cut ever in welfare assistance. The previous government set aside a lump sum to be transferred from the central government’s coffers to regional municipalities to be spent at their own discretion on local projects. This sum will now be clawed back into the central government’s own public works program. The planned increase in spending on guns is admittedly small: a 0.8 percent increase over the fiscal 2012 initial budget. It is nonetheless the first increase of its kind in 11 years. And given the thrashing being dealt to welfare spending, the shift in emphasis from butter to guns is clearly apparent. One of the Abe government’s boasts is that it will manage to hold down the overall size of the budget in comparison with fiscal 2012. The other one is that it will raise more revenues from taxes rather than borrowing. True enough on the face of it. But one has to remember the very big supplementary budget that the government intends to push through for the remainder of fiscal 2012. The money for that program will come mostly from borrowing. Since the government is talking about a “15-month budget” that “seamlessly links up” the fiscal 2012 supplementary and fiscal 2013 initial budgets, they should talk in the same vein about the size of their spending and the borrowing needed to accommodate the whole 15-month package. It will not do to smother the big reset with a big coverup.


Writer Donald Richie dies at 88

Abstract: Long-term Japan resident, writer and critic Donald Richie, who through dozens of books and articles published from the late 1940s until the last decade helped introduce Japanese film and culture to the world, passed away in Tokyo on Tuesday, according to his long-term editor, Leza Lowitz. He was 88. Richie, who was born in Lima, Ohio, on April 17, 1924, first came to Japan with the U.S. Occupation force in 1947. He soon began working for Pacific Stars and Stripes, where he gained a reputation as a prolific writer of film reviews. After a stint back in the United States, he returned to Japan and began writing regularly for The Japan Times in 1954. Richie wrote hundreds of articles for the newspaper, covering not only film, but his other passions of theater, literature and art. He continued to write for the newspaper through 2009. Richie also published many books, including “The Japanese Film: Art and Industry,” which he coauthored with Joseph Anderson in 1959. Between 1969 and 1972, Richie was in New York, working as a curator of film at the New York Museum of Modern Art. He is also known for his travel writing. “The Inland Sea,” a memoir of his journey to the Seto Inland Sea that was first published in 1971, is considered a classic of the genre. Richie suffered several heart attacks in the past decade. He is survived by his sister, Jean Reuther, who lives in the U.S. Below are interviews with Donald Richie over the years as well as Asian Bookshelf book reviews dating back to 2001. Life in the land where boredom is not an option Films, Zen, Japan Donald Richie offers history lesson A lifetime’s observations How Lon Chaney led to lifetime of Japanese film Archive of The Asian Bookshelf book review


Tokyo Station nears completion, Hitler lauds Japan, high-schools surge, Constitution to keep Article 9, PM declares

Abstract: 100 YEARS AGO Sunday, Feb. 2, 1913 Tokyo Central station nears completion The Tokyo Central Railway Station, now under construction at Eiraku-cho, Kojimachi Ward [a now-defunct ward spanning much of present-day Chiyoda Ward], will, when completed next year, make one of the finest structures of the metropolis. The station is expected to be ready for general use by June of next year. It is the authorities’ intention that the station, which is being constructed on a 65,300- tsubo (21-hectare) plot of land east of the Imperial Palace, will be made the terminus of the Tokaido Line and also that of the Central Eastern and Sobu lines. The new station building features state-of-the-art materials. It is hardened by concrete and the building itself is made of steel. Brick and stone are applied to cover the steel framework and the floor is built of fireproof ferroconcrete. The price of land in the neighborhood has risen considerably. Mitsubishi Co., a large landowner in that area, expects to take this opportunity to make a big fortune. It is its intention to make a couple of private roads off the grand highway that will be made leading westward from the station, and that the lands the company owns along these new roads will be let in not less than 600-tsubo (2,000-sq.-meter) plots. It is expected these plots will be occupied by large commercial and banking corporations, such as seen in the West and it is not difficult to predict there will be built a sort of “Imperial Bazaar” and “International Buildings.” There will also be put up various kinds of hotels, clubs and restaurants. 75 YEARS AGO Monday, Feb. 21, 1938 Hitler lauds Japan; hails Manchukuo Formal German recognition of Manchukuo [the Imperial Japanese puppet state established in 1932 in northeast China and Inner Mongolia] was announced by Reichsfuehrer Adolf Hitler in his much-awaited speech before the Reichstag this afternoon, declaring that whatever the outcome of the Sino-Japanese conflict may be, Germany regards Japan as the defender of Western civilization in the Far East. Openly supporting Japan for the first time since the start of the crisis, the Chancellor, in his 2 hr. 55-min. pronouncement of domestic and foreign policy, condemned the Soviet Union as the “incarnation of the urge to destruction.” Declaring that Germany does not want any international institution to impose upon her an attitude which does not resemble an attitude taken by reasonable persons, the Chancellor briefly stated that Germany will recognize Manchukuo. “I believe that defeat of Japan in the Far East would solely profit the U.S.S.R.,” he shouted, adding that “the greatest Japanese victory would be much less dangerous for world culture than a Bolshevik victory.” He also announced Germany’s decision never to return to the League of Nations, which, he said, always threatens to involve Germany in disputes in which she has no vital interests. The Chancellor’s speech was unprecedentedly violent. He repeatedly attacked the French and British press for hindering the peaceful German relations with neighboring countries. He warned that if ever international agitation against Germany manages to upset the European peace, that “iron and steel will speak.” 50 YEARS AGO Thursday, Feb. 7, 1963 High-schools surge Only a few prefectural governments will be able to meet the April deadline for expanding public high-school capacity in order to accommodate the large 1963 class, which is estimated to number 1.5 million students in comparison with the 1 million in 1960, it was learned recently. Tokyo is the best prepared, with figures from the Metropolitan Office of Education showing its public high schools will have to take 52,343 students in 1963. It will thus be necessary to add 341 more 50-student classes than in 1960. For this purpose, the office has decided to build 25 new high schools for 183 classes and to enlarge the existing 119 schools to handle the remaining 158 classes. All but one of the new schools is set to be finished by the start of the new academic year in April. In Kanagawa and Niigata prefectures, only two of seven new schools will be ready by April. Fukushima, Yamagata and Ibaraki prefectures are also behind schedule. Due to the shortfalls, officials are thinking of using gymnasiums and renting classrooms in junior high schools. Increasing class sizes from 50 to 55 is also part of the Education Ministry’s plan for coping with the situation. 25 YEARS AGO Tuesday, Feb. 2, 1988 Constitution to keep Article 9, PM declares Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita told the House of Representatives’ Budget Committee session Monday that his government would not propose to amend Japan’s four-decade-old Constitution. Noting that the Constitution, drawn up under U.S. Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the supreme commander of the allied powers occupying Japan, was once called a “translated Constitution,” Takeshita said, “As a young man, I had a sense of reservation toward (accepting) it. But I do not intend at all to put a Constitutional amendment on our political schedule.” He said “no one” would think of changing the war-renouncing Article 9 or the democratic principles. However, the party platform of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which he heads, aims to develop an “independent Constitution.” In the same session, Takeshita also confirmed that the “three non-nuclear principles” — of not making, not having and not introducing nuclear weapons into Japan — is a fundamental policy of his government. However, he refused demands from the floor for Japan to make a formal inquiry with the United States on the possible introduction of nuclear missiles into U.S. bases in the country.


Fugu reveals its simple gender switch

Abstract: It’s the most celebrated and notorious fish in the world, certainly in culinary circles. Now the puffer fish — one of Japan’s most enigmatic creatures — meets some of biology’s deepest questions: Why did sex evolve? Why are there two sexes? Why is the male sex chromosome such a puny little thing? I’ll admit right away that the puffer fish, better known in Japan as fugu, won’t provide answers to these questions. But just the story of why an animal usually discussed in sushi shops is the subject of research by a Nobel Prize-winner and scientists at the University of Tokyo is interesting enough, without having to solve deep evolutionary problems. Kiyoshi Kikuchi at the Fisheries Laboratory in the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences works on the tiger puffer fish (torafugu; Takifugu rubripes) . This, among several species of fugu, is the one most often eaten, and most often used by scientists. The tiger fugu, as we’ll call it (“fugu” literally means “river pig,” which seems an inelegant name for such a graceful, maneuverable animal), is loved by researchers because it has a small genome — its total amount of DNA is unusually little. This means it’s relatively easy to use the tiger fugu to identify important genes. Its genome was the second vertebrate genome to be sequenced, after that of humans. Like almost all fugu, the tiger puffer fish is chock full of a poison that is one of the most potent found in nature. Tetradoxin is hundreds of times more deadly than the equivalent amount of cyanide, and the average puffer fish contains enough to kill 30 adults. Almost as famous as the fish are the requirements chefs must fulfil to be able to prepare it. It takes two years of training, and an exam that a third of chefs apparently fail, to gain a license to prepare fugu. Not to diminish their skill, but most of the poison is contained in the gonads, the liver, the skin and the intestines, so it’s largely just a question of removing those bits safely. Part of the thrill in eating the fish is that small amounts of toxin remain in the flesh, and you may be able to feel a tingling on your lips as you consume it. If the tingling gets too much, you could be in trouble. And if the tingling thrill isn’t enough, you may be tempted to eat more dangerously. In 2011, a woman in a restaurant in Tokyo’s upscale Ginza district demanded to be served fugu liver. The chef — in defiance of strict regulations — complied, and a few hours later the woman was hospitalized with tetradoxin poisoning. She was lucky — she survived. Less fortunate was Bando Mitsugoro VIII, a famous kabuki actor who, in 1975, demanded four fugu livers, no less, in a Kyoto restaurant. He died as a result. Anyway, Kikuchi’s team has studied fugu more even than the most diligent sushi chef. Their interest concerns the sex chromosomes of the fish, which, as with humans, come in two forms: X and Y. Fish (and people) with two X chromosomes are female, those with an X and a Y are male. In humans and most other mammals, the Y chromosome is a sorry chap, a diminutive stump of DNA in comparison with the mighty X. The Y is just one-third the length of the X chromosome, but it punches above its weight: It carries the all-important gender-determining genes. Fugu have the same X-Y arrangement, but Kikuchi’s team found a crucial difference. Rather than having lots of DNA in the form of genes that need to switch on to determine gender, as in humans, the gender of a fugu is determined by the simplest possible DNA difference between X and Y — such that only one “letter” of DNA is different. Each chromosome is made of 15 million letters of DNA called nucleotides, and in fugu just one change in that 15-million-letter sequence makes the difference between male and female. “We have provided evidence showing that the gender of fugu is most likely determined by a one-nucleotide difference between the X and Y chromosome,” said Kikuchi. The result is significant because it shows an extremely simple example of genetic gender determination. When animals began having sex, they used an environmental method to make males and females. Eggs incubated at a warm temperature might become females, and those kept slightly cooler might become males, for example. That’s all very well, but if you want to be able to retain more control over the gender of your offspring, it’s better to have a genetic switch. The fugu has the simplest possible genetic switch. It represents the starting point on the evolutionary trail that led to the human situation of a specialized Y chromosome. The results are published in the journal PLoS Genetics (DOI reference: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1002798). As well as being of evolutionary interest, the authors say that the finding may provide a simple way of determining a fugu’s gender. That might help protect them in the wild. One of the co-authors on Kikuchi’s paper is Nobel Prize-winner Sydney Brenner. He won his gong for work on something called programmed cell death — which is the regulated, genetically programmed death of cells. In the 1950s, he was working at the University of Oxford, and was one of the first people to see Watson and Crick’s model of the structure of DNA. I could not confirm whether Brenner enjoys fugu in the dining room as well as in the lab.

genetics
fugu
blowfish
x chromosome
y chromosome


Nori

Abstract: Dear Alice, I was out for a walk with my camera the other day and came across a puzzling scene. I saw people putting what I thought were squares of dark paper onto easels in the sun, as if to dry. But when I went closer, the squares actually seemed to be nori seaweed sheets, the type used to make sushi rolls. Can you find out what the heck I saw? I eat sushi all the time but I realize I have no idea how nori is made. It would be great if you could explain that too. Duncan L., Tokyo Dear Duncan, By plugging the date and coordinates of your walk into my secret decoder ring, I was able to deduce that you stumbled onto a noritsuke taiken , a make-your-own nori workshop at the Omori Nori Museum. This relatively new educational facility, which opened in Tokyo’s Ota Ward in 2008, runs nori-making workshops on some weekends from January to April. The purpose is to share a fascinating piece of local history, which is that for about 200 years, until the early 1960s, Omori was a thriving center of nori cultivation and manufacture. “Nori” is the Japanese name for a group of edible algae that grows naturally on rocks in shallow areas of cold-water oceans. In English, this type of seaweed is called laver, and it is collected and eaten in some coastal parts of the British Isles. (In Wales, you can still get breakfasts featuring laver bread.) But most English-speakers know this seaweed first and foremost because of sushi, and they are much more likely to understand “nori” than “laver.” In Japan, people have gathered the wild plant off rocks for thousands of years, using it for both food and fertilizer. When Edo (present-day Tokyo) was settled, it was discovered that the tasty sea plant grew in abundance in the nearby bay and up the mouths of rivers that connected to it. In Edo, this seaweed was called “Asakusa” nori, for the place along the Sumida River where it was often collected. Edo fisherman noticed that nori reproduced well around the stakes they drove into the shallows to hold their nets, and by the early 18th century a primitive method of cultivating the seaweed had been devised. Cultivators drove the ends of bamboo sticks into the seabeds at the mouths of rivers near the bay, creating production beds with tidy rows of upright stakes on which the algae could attach and reproduce. To harvest, growers would row out to the beds and laboriously pull the nori off the stakes and into their boats. After a while, it was discovered that the spores did their best reproducing in salty waters, yet bloomed better in water with lower salinity. So villages around the bay began to cooperate to seed stakes in places with salty water and then transplant them to mixed-water shallows near river mouths. Nori had always been eaten wet in Japan, but as cultivation methods improved growers wanted a way to preserve their production. Some clever person, whose identity has unfortunately been lost to history, drew on techniques used in traditional paper-making to come up with nori as we know it today — paper-thin dried sheets that keep well and are perfect for wrapping around rice. From 1894 to 1939, Tokyo was the number-one nori-producing area in Japan, ahead of competitors such as Chiba, Aichi and Hiroshima prefectures. But Tokyo’s industry gradually fell victim to land-reclamation, dredging and pollution. In 1962, the national government offered compensation to fishing cooperatives and nori cultivators to give up their rights in the bay, opening the way for further port development. Today, nori is still cultivated on the far side of Tokyo Bay in Chiba Prefecture, but the most important production areas in Japan are in Kyushu, around the Ariake Sea; in Mie and Aichi prefectures around Ise Bay, and in the Seto Inland Sea. By this point in my research I wanted to see for myself how nori is made, so I signed up for a workshop. Volunteers who had grown up in nori-making households were on hand to take us through the traditional process, showing us how nori was chopped, by hand or using a meat grinder, then mixed with water to make a kind of slurry. Then we got to step up and make sheets for ourselves, which is done by pouring a measure of the slurry into a mold held over a woven, slatted mat. The water drains away, the mold is removed, and what’s left on the mat is a thin layer of chopped seaweed. We then hung our mats on easels in the sun to dry, which is the point in the process at which you must have wandered by. Another interesting fact I picked up is that virtually all nori cultivators in Japan now grow the same variety, a hardy transplant from Hokkaido called susabinori ( Porphyra yezoensis ). Even so, the taste, color and texture of the finished sheets varies widely, depending not on differences in production but rather on the temperature and salinity of the seawater in which it is grown. The sheets of nori you get in stores have been crisped over heat to bring out the flavor, and are called yakinori (“ yaki ” in this case means “toasted”). You can also buy ajitsukenori (flavored nori), which is spiced up with soy sauce, sugar and other seasonings, although I personally prefer the plain. And while I will say that it was interesting to eat nori I made myself, in the future I’m leaving it to the pros. In fact, I’m all fired up to sample products from various regions and explore the differences. Fortunately, nori is an affordable, healthy food, loaded with protein, fiber and beneficial nutrients, including calcium, beta carotene and folate. All that and hardly any calories! Or as an expression I found on a nori wholesaler’s website put it: “ Ichinichi nimai isha irazu ” (“Two sheets a day keeps the doctor away.”)


Chinese smog bomb floats toward Japan

Abstract: OSAKA - Smog in China has reached alarming levels as its rapid industrialization spews ever-more toxic particles into the air. Over the past month or so, the problem has become particularly acute, raising health concerns in neighboring parts of Asia, including Japan. Following are questions and answers about China’s smog problem and its possible effects on Japan. How and when did China’s smog problem begin? The beginning of China’s current air pollution problem that affects Japan has been traced back to early January and centers on Beijing and areas east of the capital. As smoke from coal-burning power plants combines with vehicle exhaust and factory emissions, it produces a toxic smog that can become especially bad in winter. In recent years, the smog has been getting worse because of the rising popularity of driving in China, which is adding about 15 million cars to its roads each year. In a normal winter, smog would usually be dissipated by the prevailing winds. This year, however, the winds haven’t been as strong, allowing a huge toxic cloud to form. This cloud is now drifting slowly over much of eastern and southeastern China, and is even encroaching on parts of western Japan. I often see the term “PM2.5” used in reports about air pollution. What does it mean? PM stands for “particulate matter,” and 2.5 refers to particles in the air that are 2.5 microns in diameter — about 1/30th the diameter of a human hair. Particles of this size can only be seen through an electron microscope and are easily absorbed by the lungs. PM2.5 particles are generated by burning fossil fuels, wood, and using pesticides. They contain nitrates, sulfates, organic chemicals, metals, soil and dust particles, as well as pollen fragments and mold spores. There is a significant association between exposure to PM2.5 particles and premature death from heart or lung disease. They also can increase the risk of heart attacks, asthma attacks and bronchitis. What are the environmental standards for PM2.5 particles? Different countries have different standards. In 2009, Japan declared that the annual average concentration of PM2.5 particles in air must be less than 15 micrograms per cubic meter, and that the daily average concentration must be less than 35 micrograms/cu. meter. In the United States, the annual and daily standards are the same as Japan’s. In the European Union, however, new PM2.5 regulations were put into force in 2010 that limit the annual mean concentration to 25 micrograms per cubic meter, with no daily standard. What about China? China’s national standard for PM2.5 is 75 micrograms per cu. meter daily and the government is aiming to establish an average of 35 micrograms annually. In heavily polluted Beijing, which far exceeds these levels, efforts are under way to reduce annual PM2.5 concentrations to 60 micrograms per cu. meter by 2015 and 50 micrograms by 2020 in order to meet the national standard by 2030. On Jan. 12, Beijing recorded PM2.5 levels of more than 900 micrograms/cu. meter. What effect has China’s pollution had on Japan? So far, western Japan has taken the brunt of the pollution. Fukuoka has reported that PM2.5 levels exceeded the daily maximum of 35 micrograms/cu. meter on three days in January. Western Honshu, including Hiroshima, Okayama and the Kansai region, also saw raised PM2.5 levels last month. In late January, parts of the city of Osaka logged a daily average of 63 micrograms and Kobe saw 41 micrograms. The Tokai and Hokuriku regions have also reported fairly high PM2.5 levels, as has the Tokyo metropolis. Chinese pollution in Japan is hardly a new phenomenon. Why is it now suddenly an issue? Attention is higher partly because of the severity of the cloud thoroughly engulfing Beijing this time. There is also more information on what’s happening now since the Chinese have recently stepped up their PM2.5 monitoring efforts. But in western Japan, many people believe attention is high because the smog has finally reached Tokyo, drawing the attention of national politicians and the media, unlike past instances where Chinese smog was restricted mostly to Kyushu and western Honshu, How is Japan attempting to deal with the problem? PM2.5 concentrations are likely to remain high going into March, just when the pollen season hits, the government warns. But there is little China’s neighbors can do besides monitor the air quality and issue public health advisories. At the same time, howver, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government is sending out contradictory messages on the issue. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters last week that the Environment Ministry would conduct an investigation yet was quick to add that “no immediate effects” on health were likely — at least at this point. Media pundits, however, noted that this Japanese expression was exactly the one used by the government when the Fukushima nuclear crisis erupted, and was unlikely to reassure the public.


Sales surge for men's fashion magazines

Abstract: An unexpected surge in sales of fashion magazines aimed at men in their 30s and 40s has taken the magazine industry by surprise. Bucking the general downward trend in sales for print magazines, titles like Leon have been getting snapped up by style-conscious guys over the past two years. According to the National Publication Association’ s Publishing Research Institute, sales of men’s magazines for the 30-40 age bracket began to rise around 2010. Sales of these magazines were up a whopping 38.3% from Jan. to Nov. in 2012 compared to the same period the previous year, climbing from 2.66 million copies sold in 2011 to 3.68 in 2012. Just five magazines fit into this niche market, with Leon taking the largest slice of the market share, accounting for a third of sales. The other magazines are Oceans , Uomo , Men’s Ex , and 2nd . Though Leon was responsible for creating the concept of the “ choi waru oyaji ” — which roughly translates as “bad-ass middle-aged dude” — personified by fashionable middle-aged guys like Italian heartthrob Panzetta Girolamo , this does not appear to have been the trigger for the trend. It’s more likely that the recent women’s magazine concept of the “ ikedan ,” or cool husband, has inspired women to buy men’s magazines for their husbands in an effort to get them to improve their appearance. For single men in their 30s and 40s, it may have been the explosion in en masse dating activities, such as machi kon events, that drove them to the magazine racks for tips on sharpening up their looks, making them better equipped to duel it out with younger, more fashionable rivals. According to J-Cast , these guys aren’t a bunch of aging rams dressed up as lamb, they’re simply men who would like to take care of their looks, whether to score a date or simply to score brownie points with the wife. The trend has, of course, had a positive impact on the clothing industry. Yano Research Institute reports that in 2011, sales for menswear (including suits, western clothing, and accessories) were up 2% on the previous year. Meanwhile, the Japan Department Stores Association reported a 1.7% rise in the sale of men’s suits in 2011 compared to the previous year. Furthermore, the men’s department of Isetan in Shinjuku reported that sales of suits and western clothes were up 2% for the period between April and September in 2012. The growing market has inspired Hankyu department store, which previously concentrated on women’s clothing, to open up Hankyu Men’s Tokyo in Yurakucho in Oct 2011. Since then, they’ve clocked in impressive sales of over 12 billion yen. We expect to see other department stores follow their lead.

fashion
men
publishing
magazines
japan pulse
oyaji


More businesses admit misrepresenting menu items

Abstract: Major department store chains Takashimaya Co. and Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores Co. separately said Tuesday that some of their restaurants and stores misrepresented items on their menus, becoming the latest in a string of companies to own up to food fraud. Takashimaya said the misrepresentations involved 62 menu items at five of its department stores and a shopping center, including those in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi and Shinjuku districts, Yokohama, and the city of Okayama. Mislabeled items included black tiger shrimp passed off as Japanese “kuruma” shrimp and “steak” that was actually processed meat with beef fat added. Separately, Daimaru Matsuzakaya announced the same day that “osechi” traditional boxed food for New Year’s it sold last year in Aichi and Fukuoka prefectures actually contained black tiger shrimp labeled as kuruma shrimp. At a news conference in Tokyo, Yutaka Masuyama, a Takashimaya executive, apologized “from the bottom of my heart” for misrepresenting the ingredients but denied it was intentional, claiming it was due to “lack of proper attention, and that’s what we need to remedy.” Takashimaya will refund customers confirmed to have consumed the food. The incident follows recent revelations of false menu descriptions across the country, involving Hankyu Hanshin Hotels Co., the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Osaka, which is under the umbrella of Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Inc., and the Renaissance Sapporo Hotel in Hokkaido. Masuyama said the black tiger shrimp labeled as kuruma shrimp resulted from staff failing to change the package labels after the latter ingredient was replaced with the former in sold products. “It slipped their mind,” said Masuyama. “The price tag was lowered, and there was no intention on our part to make extra money out of this.” The company also has admitted to using processed meat without properly labeling it even though the staff actually knew it was, but Masuyama said they “didn’t know doing so was necessary.” Later in the day, more businesses spilled the beans. Tokyu Hotels Co. reported false labeling of shrimp and beef steak at restaurants and banquet halls at 20 of its hotels. Hotel Keihan Co. said Hotel Keihan Universal Tower and two others in Osaka among its hotels in Japan failed to authentically describe steak made from processed meat with added beef fat. Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise, an aquarium, reported that its restaurant had sold processed meat with beef fat as steak.

food scandal hotels takashimaya hanshin mislabeling hankyu menu


Chef declines 'role model' medal

Abstract: In light of the food mislabeling scandal at Hankyu Hanshin Hotels Co., the head chef of the company’s Chinese food division declined a Medal of Honor from the government he was soon to receive, company sources said. The sources quoted Seiji Oishi, 63, as saying he declined the Medal with Yellow Ribbon “because I disturbed the public.” The Medals of Honor conferred in the fall, including the Yellow Ribbon, were awarded Sunday. The sources said Oishi was to receive the medal, which, according to the Cabinet Office, is “awarded to individuals who, through their diligence and perseverance, became public role models.” Oishi notified the Cabinet Office of his intention two days after the firm announced Oct. 22 that its hotels had served food different from what was boasted on their menus. One item, Vannamei shrimp, was falsely touted as more upmarket Shiba shrimp. At a news conference Oct. 28, at which President Hiroshi Desaki expressed his intention to step down, Oishi explained, “Our understanding was that in Chinese cooking Shiba shrimp was a general term referring to small shrimp types.” It is unclear if the top chef had played any role in the mislabelings. The hotelier has so far only blamed lower-ranking employees.