Mari - diary

Japan in music

I complained :-) that R. Kelly's Video of "Thoia Thoing" has many mistakes about Japan. Well, I suppose maybe he basically did not have an interest in Japan. Some other bands have made music videos related to Japan too. Most of them are so funny and I like to see them because I can sense their interest in Japan, even though they show some strange images of Japan

A striking example will be weezer. In the music video "Hash Pipe," they sing with a Sumo Wrestler. In their "Dope Nose" video, they perform in front of a Japanese motorcycle gang or "bosozoku". Before making these videos, they showed their interest in Japan through their CD Jackets on the Lion and the witch and Pinkerton. Pet Shop Boys made a funny music video called Flamboyant with a Japanese costume play TV show. The Icelandic band Kimono made BW video of Japanese police man. I can tell they like Japanese animation and old TV shows because they tried to imitate the editing techniques of those types of shows. Yeah, I can't see the violent movie parts, but I think that the movie has a pretty good Japanese mood.

Talking about lyrics, many artists use Japanese words or sing in Japanese. Teo toriatte by Queen and Ai no Sono by Stevie Wonder are nice samples. Funny samples are here.

"Mr. Robot" by STYX. They sang 'Domo arigato Mr.Robot, Itsu no hinika' = Thank you Mr.Robot, in the future.

"Song for the Dumped" by Ben Folds Five. They sang 'Takai meshi**** da sono*** = Expensive food something.

In "The War Song", Boy George sang 'Senso Hantai Senso Hantai' =Against the war, against the war.

Worst one would be "Love Missile F1-11" by Sputnik.  They said 'Kagekina Boryoku, Tabemono wa oishi, mizu nondewa ikemasen' = Extreme violent, Foods are delicious,  but don't drink water............ha?

A crane is our fortune symbol.

This is today's news. A crane appears on a Japanese radish! Wow, it's almost the perfect shape. This news puts us Japanese in a rather nice mood because in Japan the crane is a symbol of fortune, long life, and loving couple. So we use the crane design and print for many things, especially in a matter calling for congratulations like marriage, new year's holiday, or other such happy occasion.

This is a traditional Japanese kite that we play with in New Year holidays.  This is a page showing many crane crests.  This is crane made using Mizuhiki : beautiful paper frame ribbon used for decorating a paper bag.  This is Goshugi bukuro : a special envelope for money.

You can find many SAKE (Nihonshu) brands with a Crane (tsuru) in its name.  When you visit a traditional type of Onsen Ryokan (even in hotels), they might have "Tsuru no ma" (Crane Room). You would see this Senbazuru (1000 paper crane figures) in some ceremonial events, people fold the cranes while making a wish on each one.

JAL (Japan Airlines) used this pattern for their company logo in the past. I like this Crane shoji screen painting by Okyo Maruyama. This is one of my favorite sites: Wa na Kurashi.  I thought to use this type of crane for my front page at first. (I choose a carp... Ah!! I want to change my front page!)

I have written about a cool Japanese band Tokyo Jihen. They use the crane as band logo and also have an album with this Jacket designed from a folktale "Tsuru no Ongaeshi (The Grateful Crane)." You can read this story in English on this page.

Yes, we Japanese like the crane as a fortune symbol, but I found in Northern Europe and Greece, people don't like the crane, seeing it as an ominous bird. The online encyclopedia wikipedia says "The Greek for crane is geranion, which gives us the Cranesbill, or hardy geranium. The crane was a bird of omen. In the tale of Ibycus and the cranes, a thief attacked Ibycus (a poet of the 6th century BCE) and left him for dead. Ibycus called to a flock of passing cranes, who followed the murderer to a theater and hovered over him until, stricken with guilt, he confessed to the crime." Hmm interesting, so if they found crane on a radish, they would be in bad mood. :-) 

He was stolen itmes on online game.

This is a little bit old, but Funny news.
Osaka prefectural police gave prosecutors the files on a 21 year old guy for a ppossible violation of the unauthorized computer access law.

The criminal guy gained illegal access to a very popular online adventure game called Lineage 2 at a manga cafe. He log ged on with victim's (31 year old guy) ID and played the victim's character and left protective equipment. Then he picked them up with his own character later. The criminal accidentally found the victim's ID and password because it was a name of popular manga character. :-o

The victim had spent 2 years gathering these items, sometimes he played 20 hours a day at most, so he was totally upset when he realized he had lost all his items while he napped for just one hour. So he filed a damage report with the police, then finally the police discovered the criminal guy. The criminal guy said he was too busy to play Lineage2.

I will call the police if I have something stolen at home, but I am not sure I will do the same for an online game. I would mail the Game provider, but to call the real police?? It's funny to me. I am not a game person, but sometimes I enjoy playing a light puzzle online game. I am out of the ranking list for the samegame now :-) but now I am enjoying spider solitaire. I like this English online game page and here is the Japanese site. Since there are many English games, please check it out.

Trains can't run for 24 hours.

Party season is coming! It is always fun to enjoy drinking with friends. But at any rate, I should get the last train at 24:10. The last train is really crowded and it's like hell, If I miss it, I need to take taxi to my home. From my favorite area Ebisu to my home, it would cost around 8000yen. Should I live in my home town Shibuya? But I like my apartment, it is quiet, has many greenries, it is big enough for me.

So what should be changed is not the location where I live, but the train should run all night. right? right? right? I heard subway in NY runs all night, and when I walk around Yamanote line, I noticed Yamanote train stop just 3-4 hours or so. Hmm at least trains in Tokyo area run all night, is it impossible? I tried to check why they can't. There are some explanations.

Noise and shaking problem : tolerance levels for noise standard are different between for night and day. If we can use rubber tire for trains, it would be okay. but of course it cost lot because in the Tokyo area, trains run among houses.

Maintenance : Thinking of traffic transportation condition in Tokyo. The capacity factor of trains are really high, it means they need maintenance.

Urban blight : Do you know that some elementary schools had to close in the Tokyo area. It's because of the bubble (people can't live in center of Tokyo, rent and price of land became so high) and the decrease in the number of children. At night, people go back to suburbs in Saitama, Chiba, Kanagawa and the population of Tokyo decreases greatkt. This means, if trains run inside Tokyo, many people can't reach home. trains might just be a kind of "moving Hotel".

Hmm thinking of employment cost, maintenance cost, energy cost, it might not be worth to do? I don't think we will have 24 hours service in the future now. So should I return to Shibuya?

Michael Jackson in Game

It's very unusual! I am sick today, I went to the hospital but had to wait for 2hours to talk to the doctor. The reason why It took so long was many people came to get Flu Shot. By the way I thought I got a food poisoning because I ate a piece of raw oyster, but the doctor said it would be gastritis and I have a fever too. I got antibiotics and some other tablet, Then it cost totally 1800yen. It's very cheap.

Ahh I will go to bed soon. But in such bad day, I will post something fun. Three Michael Jackson Flash. Michael Fantasy 18 ,  Michael Fantasy 17,  Super Mario Michael.  By the way he never stop entertains us. :-p

The taste of speeding ticket

This sounds like a joke to me.
To destroy evidence of speeding, some people "eat" the speeding ticket, it has happened several times--ten cases in a year. It is increasing yearly with the spiraling cost of fines. I remember we had a famous TV ad before made by the Osaka Prefectural Government. A middle aged man is getting a parking ticket from a policeman. But he eats the ticket in order to get out of paying it. That TV ad was made with mordant sarcasm to stop illegal parking. (Osaka always entertains me, please check these posts too: Difference between Osaka and Tokyo, Osaka is angry now, Ore Ore fraud.)

I've checked the price of fines. For speeding, you have to pay at least 50,000 yen, at most 100,000 yen. In Japan, driving while intoxicated is a serious violation. Irrespective of the amount of alcohol, you have to pay 200,000-300,000 yen. I won't eat a ticket, but it is actually very expensive. Of course even though he/she swallows it, their speeding record is not deleted. However, it does makes proceeding cumbersome and complicated, so police in the field have requested some preventative measure for ticket swallowing.

Then Japan National Police Agency decided to give taste to speeding tickets. The taste will be "poison slime," "dog's slobber," and "muddy water." If someone tries to swallow one, he will have to bring it up because it tastes toooo bad.

Well Okay. Sounds good. But who knows what the flavor of these things really are? Have they tasted them before? Maybe they use the same ingredients of those three, but does it means they have the same taste? I have never heard of "poison slime" have you?

Do you know Yahoo Japan avatar is so Japanese.

I've just found out that Japanese Yahoo avatars are so different from other countries. This is the U.S. one, Canada has the same one?, the UK, Spain, Italy maybe other Europe has that the U.S. type avatar. Maybe they have more eye colours, hair colours, skin colours.

The Yahoo Japan Avatar is here.  I write many times that the Japanese like characters, figure so much. So even yahoo Japan avatars,  we are so into making it!  Talking about eye and skin colour.  We have just a tanned skin colour, and just a few eye colours,  but there are many backgrounds, like shop, prefecture, town, weather, etc. And of course huge variation in clothes, hat, shoes, costumes, and even though we can't see them they have a wide variety of underwear. (why?) People can tell their hobby, their own interests, event by side items like music tools, sports, cooking, job, pet, etc.

There are interesting items in collaboration with business as well:  This is a real menswear shop. We can use the shop inside as a background, and each item is a real product so that you can buy from Yahoo online. This one has Gundam items - Gundam is almost a religion for Japanese :-p. This is Microsoft, you would know this series of ads from MS.

You could see some avatar items have a price. Yes people will get these items even if they have to pay for them. Why? Hmm we just love our avatar-character and want to make it pretty, funny, real. We are really into characters. So as a presentation event, Yahoo Japan has the avatar contest every month.  The winner can get a red carpet background and the ring (even though you can't see ring on avatar, it's too small).  For example, this is the winner of autumn coordinate,  this is imitating an cherub. (right one is Puffy Ami-chan, left one is Yo Oizumi)

Now my avatar is Japanese garden version.  All my friends say my avatar is just me!  Hmm if they say so. maybe so.   

A cool figure bar was opened

II found this essay, "Persistence of a Genetic Scar", on the site "Little Boy: The Arts of Japan's Exploding Subculture." It's very difficult for me to read. She says that Japanese subculture has been influenced by the trauma from deadly images of World War 2. Hmm, interesting!

The exhibition has a collection of Japanese vintage toys. This is part of Teruhisa Kitahara's collection. He is an internationally recognized and respected collector, especially of tin toys. He has the Hakone Toy Museum, Tin Toy Museum (another link), and more. He appears on a famous TV antique show, Nandemo Kanteidan, as a professional appraiser and sometimes speaks with foreign media like The Herald Tribune. You can see his books on tin toy collectiing like this, this, this, and more.

Kitahara is known not only as an appraiser of antiques, but also for his ability to appreciate things of beauty. For example, Shinichi Yamashita is a well-known figure designer. Nowadays, his figures can bring a price of more than 2 million yen. I like his erotic and neo-futuristic mood. Kitahara bought his figures when he was just an obscure designer. Last month, Kitahara established and opened a figure theme bar, "FIGURE COMPLEX", in Nishi Azabu. There is a small gallery of Yamashita's figures there and you can enjoy the bar where waitresses wear costumes inspired by Yamashita's figures. Looks cool. I'm going!

I like Kitahara san because I can sense his adoration for toys and people. I suppose he is a warm-hearted guy, ne!

It is good because it's the Internet

I wrote about a university staff member of Tokyo Noko University, "Mr.Shiraishi", who works for the university co-op, and became a popular topic on the Internet because he makes quick-witted and kind replies to students' questions. I enjoyed to read their conversation on a message board and I agreed that his replies were nice, funny and kind. But I could not imagine that this would become such a big topic. Now the book "Shiraishi san in co-op" has been published, and he had a book signing at Tokyo Noko Univ and the university sent him a certificate of gratitude for making the university even more famous. What?? Is this such special? But the craze doesn't end just with book and certification, finally he appears TV ad for the CD of Gundam SEED. On the CM, Shiraishi-san answered to some question.

Q. I want a mobile suit! (movie)
A. Unfortunately our suppliers don't have it, they are sorry that suit can't be cleaned. I wanted to ask the suit will not have wrinkles, but I didn't, sorry for that.

Q. face of Gundam　(movie)
A. eeing the face, I suppose he is angry about something. I recommend him to eat fish for lunch at the canteen for Calcium intake.

They are okay, but it was funny and interesting as a small story on the Internet. I think Shiraishi-san doesn't to fit the TV ad at all. The Internet, especially blogs are a big entertainment resource. I think it has started with Train man. 2channel vs Avex records was big news just last month. I didn't write about it, but the diabolic wife story was made into TV drama too. But I love the sense of closure, personal, amateur, inside joke of the Internet. I get turned off seeing a "very Internet" topic on major mass media. What do you think?

Rice is hearing you

I wrote that Japanese say "words have power" (=kotodama) and we call it kotodama. Some people tried to prove it by an interesting experiment with an "Arigato" label.

"Weekly teinou bee woman" is a very interesting site which I am addicted to read, (is this serious? pocket chapel) she tries the same experiment in English! The title is "Can rice understand English?"

She talks to the rice: "I love you!" to one, "F**k You" to another one, and says nothing to a third one every morning and every evening. One month later... see? This is "I love you rice", it is very clean. The funny part is, the "f**k you rice" kept better than when saying nothing. Attention is better than ignorance?! Sounds like something deep for me, he he he.

Well rice understands words. We should not talk badly during eating. Please be careful when you eat sushi, they hear you.