Check out this great MSN Video: Top 10 Bizarre Phobias

Check out this great MSN Video: Top 10 Bizarre Phobias

Although this least mentions the fear of dance and the fear of flutes as the same thing, it is interesting. My favorite, Consecotalephobia, the fear of chopsticks. Yikes could't live in Japan with that.

how a Japanese man should dress

I was surprised when this guy got on the train, it is very rare when you will see a man dressed in full Kimono and he wasn't with anyone. It looked to be made of linen very dapper to say the least he was very put together. I think I could pull the look off it would be nice to wear at weddings, but don't get invited to lots of those.

scarry

This is the current add campaign for Winston cigarettes in Japan. I'm still looking for the poster with 3 of these guys lined up holding the same pose. I'm trying to figure out who their target audience is.

do it again

Latest in the Tokyo Metro poster series. Reminding people to be polite, reminding a fellow passenger that they have forgotten their umbrella.

I think I have 2 ideas for the series.

One would be along this line, waking the sleeping passenger that is still fast asleep as everyone gets off at the last station. I know that I have seen some people that have not gotten off and ended up riding back, who knows how many times.

The second would be entitled, "Do it in Bed" and it would show someone falling asleep on the shoulder of the perfect stranger sitting next to them, in this case the guy with no pupils.

In Perspective: Visualizing the BP Oil Disaster

Not much news here about the big oil spill in the gulf, but this is what it would look like over Tokyo.

Go here to see what it would look like over your city.

creative uses

Today the iPad was released here in Japan today, and you know with creative uses like this I think it could catch on quick.

iPad + Velcro from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

Corn chocolate?

Now I think I have seen everything. I know that Japanese love corn on everything, but this takes the cake. Now I know there is not actually corn inside, but I think it must be something to do with the look or the crunch of the product. Go figure.

Festivals and Involvement

The festival in Japan has always been of intrest to me. People come out in droves to see and participate in these events. I thought it would be a good picture chance so I headed out to fight the crowds, they say over a million people attend this every year. This one started in 1872. And of course the people that are most involved in festivals like this one are men. And I am always amazed that men will come out in droves for these. In doing a little research I found an article by Sarah Elizabeth Freeborn where she said, "They (matsuri or festival) allow community members, both past and present, a time of celebration and fun, and an opportunity to share experiences with one another, maintaining and strengthening bonds of friendship." I have had a friend tell me sort of the same thing that these festivals are really more about the bonding of community more than any religous meaning.
I also ran across something from Michael K. Roemer, in talking about the Gion Festival in Kyoto he states, "participants in this month of rites and festivities gain a sense of belonging and emotional support based on their roles in this historically and culturally significant shrine-related festival. Specifically, highly involved male participants form intimate and exclusive relationships and develop enduring networks that offer feelings of unity and spiritual guidance. With a combination of well-accepted "Western" theories and methods, and an understanding of distinct cultural differences." I guess you could say that these festivals are the ultimate male bonding experience for Japanese men.

Which leads me back to the Japanese church, what our the cultural events that will draw people in make them feel involved and give them a sense of beloning, foster deep relationships, and give them a feeling of unity and spiritual guidance? It is a very open ended question, but one that has plagued me for a long time.

Nature in heart of Tokyo

Had a drum preformance at Meijijingu kaikan yesterday and on the way back spotted this nice little river flowing through the shrine grounds. Should have pulled out my real camera to get a better shot, but hey.

funniest way to ride train

So I get on the train and am patiently waiting for the train to leave and this young guy gets on and tries to go through to the next car. He grabs the bar to open the sliding door between cars but doesn't realize that he is pulling on the hand rail. The old lady sitting in front of him motions to show him the handle is on the other side. He stops and angrily tries again at the same hand rail. He angrily gives up then walks over to the door right beside me and gets in this position on the floor in front of the door. The old ladies next to me and the guy standing on the other side of the car giggle and shake their heads, I say, "I think he is drunk." Another strange sighting on the train.

Sky Tree

View of Sky Tree from Asakusa, the red bull car in the foreground is just an unexpected surprise.

you see all kinds

Went into Asakusa today, and just happened upon a festival. Now this guy wasn't part of the festival but he was surely dressed for the occasion. Don't know if you can tell but he had little fish bowls hanging from his hat with gold fish and little crabs in them.

Random sightings

The front of this shirt said, "How's your boss?"

Oh for a simpler way.

So today I went to get my license renewed, which I thought would be an easy process. On the card they sent me they said I had two options; go to the test center, or go to the ward police station. I decided to go to the police station because it is much closer and I thought would be a much simpler process. I should have know things were not going to go well when I arrived to find that from the first of April they had moved locations. The map to the new station was behind a fence and not very legible. Luckily there was a man nearby that I asked and got directions. One problem down. Got to the new place and went in and asked what I had to do. The lady said that I could apply today but I would have to take an hour lecture also, ok I knew I would have to do that. The only problem was that she said the next lectured would be June 11th. I was like, "What?", and asked wasn't there a different day that I could go on. Well she couldn't answer that question and had to ask another lady. That later eventually came over to another counter, not directly to me and proceeded to say that if I applied today the license wouldn't be done till May 26th. I asked if there was a lecture in May, but she said that since the license wouldn't be processed and back to them I couldn't take the lecture. She also told me they only offer it once a month. So I asked about June. Her answer to that was, well that date is not decided, it will probably be on July 15th but she couldn't say for sure, so I didn't even have the option to ask for that day. No the problem with both the days and the times is that for either one I would have to take off work to do it. Then she said I can go directly to the testing center and get it all done in one day. So now I have to go to the test center and get it done. Well at least she said they are open on Sunday. Still that doesn't make me to thrilled because since they are only open during business hours during the week and closed on Sat. I'm sure the lines will be horrendous.

All this to say, why can't they make the process easier? In this land where everyone is tied up with their work, why not open the test center on Saturdays or in the evenings. Same for the lecture at the police station. Given the amount of people that have to go through this process you think they would offer the lectures more than once a month and not just during the weekdays during the middle of the day. Wish someone would think these things through.

So any way this is what I have to look forward to, but actually this picture looks fairly uncrowded.

Divorce Ceremony?

As I was watching the news this morning I was surprised to hear that divorce ceremonies are becoming popular in Japan. So when I got to school and tried to find something on it in the the Japanese newspaper I didn't really find anything but I ran across an article from 2008 on CNN.

If just discussing divorce in public seemed taboo a few years ago, the growing trend of divorce celebrations is helping lessen the stigma surrounding the end of marriage.

"Yes, it's sad and it's painful, but it's not failure," says Christine Gallagher, the owner of Los Angeles event company The Divorce Party Planner and the author of a book by the same name. "It's part of life, and yet it's the only major event for which we have no ritual.

Full article here.
Yes it may be the only major event for which we have no ritual, but do we need one? One of the commentators on the news today said basically, if they can get along well enough to throw a party, is there need for a divorce. I think the major difference with the celebrations here was that they may involve both parties. They mentioned a part of the ceremony where they take imitation wedding rings and the couple destroys them with a hammer. I think it might be something that is actually helpful but the most disturbing fact from the article was this, "A celebration communicates that divorce is OK -- life-affirming, even.". I so don't agree with that statement.

Proof read?

Thanks to Sayaka for alerting me of McDonalds failure to do some checking before they print out their advertising.

Dissapointment in a California Burger

This is the advertised product.

And this is reality.

My motto at McDonalds has always been, "Never try the new stuff." Today with the 4th in this new series my thinking has been further reinforced. Dry, bland, the only thing that differentiated it from the New York Burger was the sauce, which you couldn't even taste. They are billing the sauce as a California wine sauce, but like I said you barely knew that anything was on it. I thought that they might throw on maybe some avocado, I mean it is popular, it wouldn't be hard to come by or anything. But I assume that it would be a bit of a job for them to cut up fresh avocado, so why not guacamole, then in place of the tomato salsa. Everyone knows this is the new condiment of choice. And if they really wanted to give it some zing, throw on some jalapenos. Anyway to the exec's at McDonalds in Japan, any new ideas run them by me first.

Shocking News in Japan

This has been in the news the last couple of days, and the details were rather shocking as I listened to it on the news this morning.

Nara couple held after son starves to death
The Yomiuri Shimbun

NARA--A husband and wife were arrested Wednesday on suspicion of starving their 5-year-old son to death.

Hiroshi Yoshida, 35, a company employee of Sakurai, Nara Prefecture, and his wife, Mami, 26, a part-time worker, reportedly admitted the allegations to the Nara prefectural police. They also were quoted by the police as saying they had no affection for the boy.

The mother said she abused the boy because he looked like her husband, whom she did not get along with, the police said. Meanwhile, Yoshida was quoted by police as saying that he knew the boy was not being fed, but did not do anything about it.

According to the police, Tomoki Yoshida weighed only 6.2 kilograms, about one-third of the average weight of a 5-year-old child, and less than the average 1-year-old. He was 85 centimeters tall, which is the average height of a 2-year-old and 25 centimeters shorter than an average 5-year-old.
full story here

I know that this is terrible news and I wonder what could have been done. One of the things that stood out in this news was that this family of 4 were living in a one room apartment. For those of you who are not familiar with what that works out to a room measuring roughly 8'x11'. Now they probably had a small kitchen to go with that, but I'm sure it wasn't even half the size the main room. Not a very big space to do all of your living in. And I started to wonder why in Japan do people live in such conditions. I'm sure that cost was one big reason. Cost of housing is outrageous in Japan. I know that Japan is limited when it comes to space but I think there needs to be some serious reform in housing. I remember when I moved into Tokyo and was shocked when I had to pay the equivalent of 5 months of rent just to get into my apartment. Then add the first months rent and I was staring at about $8,000. Luckily I had the funds to do this, but if by chance you are just starting out or have a family to take care of, it probably is not that easy. There are public housing projects in Japan that are very nice, and you can get escape paying some of the start up fees by getting into one of these developments, but at the same time the new ones that I have seen have not been cheap at all. One of the reasons for this is that there is this thing called "Amakudari" where gov't officials retire and get put in charge of such projets and these projects pay out huge salaries to these officials. They are taken care of for life, but it drives the housing costs out of this world. I think it is about time for some change. Who know maybe if this family of 4 had had a decent living condition this tradegy possibly could have been avoided. I know there are som many more details, but for Japan one of the richest nations in the world this is pretty sad.

Just love The Tunnels