Mari - diary

Softbank and Pantone

I went to Ohanami with Tokyo Metbloggers James, Martin. Ueno Park was so crowded with drunk happy people. Under cherry blossom, people have to be crazy like that. It's ncie.

Softbank cell phone 812SH has 20 colors collaborated with PANTONE. Last week a fashion show Tokyo girsl collection was held. They also collaborated with the show, all model have one color of Panton (check link). It's pretty cute. Their tv ad is lovely. BGM is Nolans - "I'm In The Mood For Dancing". (なつかしーって書くと歳がばれるんだろうな)。 Softbank official site doesn't have it, but Cameron Diaz and Brad Pit appreares other softbank TV ad. Cameron is really cute. Check Youtube.

Sakura

Onitsuka Tiger is a kind of legendary old Japanese sports shoes brand. Their site r"made of Japan" is cool which displaying a mosaic shoe made of tiny images that links to something Japanese on the web.

There are small rivers near my house. Cherry blossoms bloom along the rivers. Beautiful, right? But maybe these are gone by this weekend. The cherry blossoms are so fugacious, we love them. I really love this TANKA. I thought I would write about it today, Actually I wrote about it last year.

Saigyo Hoshi who is famouse poet read this poet.
「願はくは　花の下にて　春死なむ そのきさらぎの　望月のころ」

If I have my wish
I will die beneath the boughs
laden with blossoms
Spring, the night of the full moon

I like this too, tanke of Onono Komachi who is said really beatutiful woman.
「花の色は 移りにけりな いたづらに 我が身世にふる ながめせし間に」

"The flowers withered,
Their color faded away,
While meaninglessly
I spent my days in the world
And the long rains were falling." (Donald Keene)

stuff I found on the Interenet today

Sorry, I don't have enough time to write long. I will link to things from the Internet I laughed to see. Sports moments: diving and figure skating. I love the figure skating one. The first one is Miki Ando: a training with an upward glance・type. The third one is Mao Asada: a trying to remember something・type. The Last one is Sasha Cohen: a sucking candy・type.

This is the Tear-Away-Suit making movie. He looks very serious. What's the purpose of this suit? Only for streakers?

This is cute, enjoy as many flies as you want from Mashica (a Spanish creative group or something?). Go to mosca and enter the number that you want.

Wow Nice rugs!!! I love these. Enter and go to the rug page and residential. The Big Track and Karesansui patterns are very cool

English woman was killed

This is tragedy. An English woman Lindsay Hawker was killed in Chiba pref. God...This murder remind me of Lucie Blackman murder of Joji Obara. Both are English ladies...orz. We didn't know the details of Lindsay case yet, some news said the suspectfled guy talked to her "Do you remember me?" in English at station. I suppose that guy would have interests to foreign woman like Obara case. Then I remember anothre crazy case, he is Issei Sagawa who is well know as a cannibal Killers. Sagawa describes himself as a "weak, ugly and small man" and claims that he wanted to "absorb her energy." Such crazy complex kill ladies? Well I really don't know what to say about this sad case.

anime movie topics

Ahhh, nothing special to write today. I will pick some entertainment topics.
Production IG is an animation company which is well known for Masamune Shiro's masterpiece "Ghost in the shell." I.G. has released they will make another Masamune work, "Ghost Hound." It will be aired on TV this autumn.

Another movie topic, Keinichi Mastuyama is getting popular after he acted L of "Death Note." Today there are two topics about him on Showbiz news. One is "Shindo" (The Prodigy). The original is a Japanese manga written by Sasou Sakira. Another one is the real story of the dolphin with an artificial fin, "Dolphin Blue." A dolpihin named Fuji lost 75% of his fin from this disease. A young doctor, a modeling artist and F1 tire maker Bridgestone collaborated to make an artificial fin for the dolpihin.

By the way, I want to buy a Nintendo DS Lite. I will give it to my parents to prevent dementia :-). BUT DS is sold out in every big store. On the internet, the price is higher than the maker-listed prices! Over one year has passed after they were released. Is this Nintendo's strategy? Many games of the DS look like regular games which we can play on the Internet without paying, or are low cost learning games like this (soak in English). Why is the DS so popular? Only in Japan?

2007 new recruit type

This couple is now famous world wide. We'll see.

The Japan Productivity Center for Socio-Economic Development releases "This year's new recruit type" every year. It means JPC-SED makes up a pattern for new recruits. It's interesting because we can see how new recruits reflect current social conditions every year. I wrote about it in 2005. They said 2005's new man is a "light-emitting diode type." When you generate the electrical current (if you lead them), it will shine beautifully (they will work fine), but it will not have any heat (they are bloodless). I like the 2003 one, "cell-phone with camera type." It can capture information quickly, anywhere, anytime, and it has a good ability for handling a lot of information. However it can master neither knowledge nor experience. Sometimes older people cannot command it. Fun, but not user-friendly.

I did not write about this topic last year. 2006's type was a "blog type". He looks friendly, polite, obedient. But suddenly he may make statements on the Inernet via his blog diary. He may have delicate sensitivity and a community network on the Internet, but he might talk on the blog only.

Then 2007's type is a "day trader type." Because of an economic upturn, many companies took a bumper crop of college graduates, but graduates hunted jobs on their minor pluses and minuses, and short-term trading ( changing job) is expected. They have their own network via the Internet but they should have discreetness without being swayed by information.

Tokyo election

The cherry blossoms (Sakura) haven't bloomed yet, but I don't care! I am in a party mood in this season every year :-) My Hanami weeks started last weekend and I had two parties already. I am sleepy and still hung over a little. he he he This page has cherry blossom real cameras all over Japan. Maybe this week they will start to bloom.

I did not know that Japan is the largest producer of the sprout sprout "Moyashi" And International Sprouts Growers Association will have its world convention in Japan soon. However, on the Internet, people said they should change the moyashi character "moppy". Yes, I agree. By the way, I like moyashi very much. Fortunately, one big package costs around 20 yen, very cheap too. The easy way to eat is this sprout is boiling it lightly and mixing with soy sauce and sesame oil. Try it.

14 people are running in the Tokyo gubernatorial election. One is Ishihara, the most serious of the challengers will be Shiro Asano who was governor of Miyagi Prefecture. I was surprised to know an architect Kisho Kurokawa indicated he might run in the election. Actually the election will be a race of those three (or two, between Ishihara and Asano). By the way, other candidates are unique. One is a wacky inventor Dr.Nakamatsu who got the ig noble award in 2005. One is TV commedian Kinzo Sakura, one is a Japanese fortune teller, one is a female feng shui reader. On the Internet, everybody links to the street musician "Koichi Toyama"'s campaign broadcast. This is the first time to see a campaign say "fu** *ou"....orz

I don't need this

This weekend was pretty busy (for party and drinking). The useless (at least for me) stuff I found this weekend.

Banana carrying bag of Kitty and Cinamon. Who need it?

Obento cooling sheet. This sheet cools down your Obento in the morning before you go to work. So everything doesn't get too soft or rotten.

Fake desert Obento. An Obento made from sweets which looks like a real Obento. For example, the rice part is tiramisu. But if I wanted to eat tiramisu, I would just buy tiramisu itself. Not some fake version made to look like rice.

Japanese woman

I enjoyed this post. Two Americans and one French guy had a round-table talk about Japanese women. They said the annyoying part of Japanese women is they doesn’t make themselves clear. They don't say Yes or No clearly but they get angry if guys can't catch it. I heard it's very hard to know the real feelings of the Japanese. My American friend complained about this. He taught English at a private company. All students were friendly, they laughed in the class always. He said to students that they could tell anything about him and the class. However he heard from his boss, the company asked to change teachers. He really could not understand what was happening. Their friendly attitude was just their "Tatemae" and far from their real feeling "Honne". I am not sure what was real in that case, but I can say Japanese people tend to avoid hurting someone by refusal. Even in a case they don't like so much, they pretend to like it and avoid saying "No" in person. I won't say it is good or bad, but we have such a culture where we are vague in our responses, and so that we need to sense other's feelings or “catch wind.” We say "空気を読む" (to read air). Those are the ways of Japanese communication.

But in relationships between a man and a woman, I can't imagine the Japanese are so different from other people. I want to ask foreign guys... For example, you ask your GF, "What do you want for your Birthday present?" She replies, "No, no, your warm feelings are enough." But if you don't give her anything, she might be in a bad mood...This might not happen to you? Okay, how about this: You ask your wife, "How about going to eat dinner at my friend’s house?" Your wife replies, "We went there two weeks ago, but if you want to…okay, let's go." In this case, you should sense her "okay level" from her way of talking and facial expression. I suppose you would do this with your GF or wife too. You call to her and ask, "Do you have time this weekend? How about dinner at the restaurant?" She says, "Ah well, I have a dentist appointment, I am not sure what time it will be done, I might have a pain killer shot too. So..." You ask, "Do you have a boyfriend? Or you don't want to go out with me?" She says, "No, no, I don't have any particular BF just right now and it would be nice to go to dinner with you, but I have no time this weekend. Sorry." This hasn't happened to you? I think I watched this kind of scene in Hollywood movies. Single women tend to be unclear always. :-) No?

Anyway, the interesting part is Japanese women's charm. They said Japanese women's charm is their open mind and their energy. The French guy said Japanese women are pleased to take on a new challenge, and actually most Japanese overseas students learning in France were female. He said Japanese women wouldn't care if they understood the language or not, they did what they wanted to do and were very active. An American guy agreed with him. He said young Americans seem not to have an interest in foreign countries and they don't have an interest in living overseas too. Hmm, I did not think like that. However when I come to think of it, all of my friends who went to study abroad were women. All international couples consist of a Japanese woman and a foreign guy.

However, of course it can't be completely agreed. They meet Japanese girls who work at such companies (that have foreign employees), have such friend networks (international), use such communications (English site or newspaper), etc. You know, they meet such girls, it is inevitable that they feel like that. You will meet your type of person in your society and your activities. This is the same rule as the issue of a hot topic "Kakusa shakai" (a society of disparity). Kakusa shakai is one of the 2006 word of the year.. Actually for the above-mentioned American teacher, things seem to be different. He says many Japanese women seem not so independent. Even though Japanese women stopped hoping for "Sanko"(ideal partner), they still expect to be housewives and stay in sweet homes. He said this because he teaches English to such housewives. He said also studying English is just a language interest for them, and they have no concern for other countries. (Of course, that’s better than no interest though).

By the way, another American said Japanese women give up their time and energy to their boyfriends and it's admirable, but also it’s too much if they go too far. I really agree with him. Do you like such devotion or not? It depends on you :)

a new eco movement

The convenience store chain Lawson will start a new eco campaign "Keitai Ohashi" (carring chopsticks). They will give original non-disposable chopsticks to Lawson members in exchange for their member's point. The chopsticks are made from unfit wood which is used for baseball bats. In 2005, Lawson used 500 million chopsticks at stores  (When we buy obento, they give disposable chopssticks together). They plan to reduce that by 20%, 400 million chopsticks.

This kind of movement will increase (I hope so). One reason is the Containers and Packaging recycling law will change from next month April 2009. The biggest change will be that formerly free polyvinyl bags from supermarkets will require a fee. Maybe it will be 5 yen or so. That's nice! 60% of waste in Japan consists of "containers" and "wrapping." I always hate too much wrapping.

For example, I bought a pair of short socks at a 100 yen shop. The one sock has a small hanger like this and four small silver clasps at the toe and top to combine two socks like this, and then the package is sealed with a paper tag. All of this is unnecessary and I have to throw it away before I wear the socks. I don't like the big size of game packages too. This is PSP, this is Gameboy. I need that video-game size package. Why does it have to be DVD size?? I wrote this post "Mottainai" two years ago, and finally the government will start doing something about the waste issue. It's too late, but of course welcome.

Anyway I found rahmen's crazy chopstick movie, Onigiri movie, Origami movie, and tea movie. related link : Rahmens movies, sushi, dogeza, relationship.