These beautiful colored pencils are actually chocolates made by product design firm nendo in collaboration with Tsujiguchi Hironobu of Chocolat de H, a famous chocolatier in Tokyo. Each pencil is a different blend of chocolates, from mild to bitter. The kit even comes with a pencil sharpener that can be used to create shavings to decorate desserts with. Amazing!
This is a funny, horrifying clip of a Japanese game show featuring 30 hot girls in bikinis, one old man, and lots and lots of lotion. In the first challenge, called "lotion curling," they try to see how far the guy can slide across a row of bikini-ed, lotion-ed up girls. My thoughts as I watched this were:
- I would NEVER want some old dude sliding across my chest, especially if I was wearing a bikini.
- If I had to be in that row of girls, I would want to be towards the end of the row. Not the beginning.
- How much did they pay these girls to do this?
Internet bad boy Hiroyuki Nishimura, whom I wrote an article about in last June's WIRED, announced on his blog recently that he moved his notorious massive online bulletin 2-channel to Singapore. 2-channel, which was previously owned by Nishimura alone, is now owned by a Singaporean company called Packet Monster, Inc. What does this mean? It's probably part of his strategy to avoid the gazillions of yen he owes via libel suits against the site. Or, maybe the rumors are true that the site's existence is in serious jeopardy.
The newest instant noodle commercial celebrity is Ludwig van Beethoven. It's not nearly as hilarious as the series that the ones Arnold Schwarzenegger did years ago for Nissin Cup Noodle.
My toes are always cold. Especially when I'm skiing, but even when I'm just sitting at my desk or sleeping. This unique foot-warmer not only looks like a face with a giant gaping mouth, but it keeps your piggies warm without using any electricity or gas. Instead, it has these tiny beads that rub up against each other constantly and generate tiny amounts of heat that wrap your feet and keep them cozy. Get them for $60 at Tokyu Hands.
What did you dream about last night? Try to remember, because according to Japanese tradition, your "hatsuyume"—first night's dream—is a symbolic prophecy of the year to come. There are three lucky items that you want to appear in your hatsuyume—an eggplant, a hawk, and Mt. Fuji. So if you dreamt about any of those things last night—or even if they show up in your dream tonight—consider 2009 your lucky year.
About a year ago, I blogged about Nasubi, an aspiring comedian who took up the challenge of living in an empty room by himself, naked, for a year, relying only on magazine giveaways for food and sustenance on a national TV program called Denpa Shonen. It was a crazy, controversial, hilarious show. And now available in full episodes on Hulu!
Related story: Nasubi, the naked guy who lived on freebies for a year
Ken Alley, a book collector who found stashes of post-WW2 Occupation era letters by a 30-year old woman named Betty Ryan, sent me this rare piece of holiday memorabilia—it's a menu of what was served to the US Occupation forces and staff on New Years day dinner in Japan in 1948. Turkey and cranberry sauce. Yum. Must have been a rarity in the East back then.
Continue reading "Menu from 1948 US Occupation New Years day dinner" »
New Years is one of my favorite times in Japan. People party, of course, but it's a lot more than that. It's a time to reflect on the year past, and think ahead to the one in front of you; it's a time to get together with family and pray, not in a religious way, not even necessarily in a spiritual way, but by getting in touch with your most sincere wishes and desires for yourself and the world around you. And it's a time to eat.
I'm not in Tokyo this winter, and chances are you aren't either. But here are a few things you can do anywhere in the world to have a taste of a Japanese New Year:
1. Stick some bamboo in the bush in front of your house to create your very own kadomatsu—a traditional new year decoration.
2. Send nengajyo—postcards with well-wishes for the New Year—to all your friends, business contacts, and acquaintances. The Japanese post office works their ass off for the couple weeks before January 1 to make sure these get to their destinations on time, on the morning of the 1st. My dad gets hundreds every year!
Continue reading "5 ways to have a Japanese New Year anywhere in the world" »
If you are a Japanese flan—or purin fanatic, Giga Purin will be a great investment for you. It's basically a giant bucket-shaped mold that lets you create abnormally enormous Japanese purin. Check out their not very appetizing commercial above. The people in the commercial dig into the gigantic pudding with such happy gusto, I kind of feel like trying it. The moral of the video is: you can be one of those smiley people in the commercial if you eat puke-able amounts of purin.
I hung out in Shibuya a lot during middle and high school. It was just the place to be—cheap food, Tower Records, sticker pictures, karaoke, and yes, before any of that stuff existed, there were the video game arcades. My favorite was a five-story little building in the middle of Center-Gai on the left side. I don't remember what it was called. It was tiny and narrow and smoky but that was where most of my friends and I met, so that if somebody was late you could just play games until they showed up.
Fellow Wired writer Brian Ashcraft and blogger Jean Snow have a new book out called Arcade Mania: The Turbo-charged World of Japan's Game Centers
People always ask me where they can buy the quirky Japanese gadgetry that I feature on my blog. Like, the alarm clock that you have to shoot with a gun. Or the hungry piggy bank that eats your coins. Well, guess what guys. You can buy these and a whole bunch of other fun TokyoMango-esque toys at Gizmine, a new online shopping site reminiscent of the Rakuten back catalog, except it's in English and you can pay in dollars and they'll ship to the US, no hassle. Great place to buy yourself a belated Christmas present.
Ever wish you could stroll into a bowling alley and not ever worry about waiting for a lane? This bowling alley in Aichi Prefecture is probably your best bet—it has 116 lanes, all on one floor, because the guy who runs it believes that bowling should be a unifying sport that everyone can do together. How lovely! If I had a space this big, though, I think I'd make it into a small dog run—that is, a giant dog run for small dogs, so Ruby and Malcolm can run around like crazy.
via Japan Probe
Educational publisher Shogakukan is slated to release an iPhone app that teaches people all about sushi. They already have a kanji app and a mushroom app (yes, there are many many kinds of mushrooms in Japan, and you can up your intelligence by knowing all of them).
I have a lot of trouble translating names of fish, so I may use this under the table to impress my friends when I take them out to a Japanese restaurant.
via Asiajin
Kisha clubs, or Japanese press clubs, are exclusive associations of Japanese journalists from various news organizations. A recent report by NPR's On The Media reveals the biases and restrictions of Japan's press clubs. Government entities and corporations have close affiliations with these kisha clubs, allowing members access to press conferences closed off to outsiders. This kind of stuff happens in many countries, but it's a little different here. For example, organizations have their very own kisha clubs installed right in their office buildings. One other unique characteristic is that members of the kisha club develop deep and interdependent relationships with political figures.
Takashi Uesugi, a former kisha club member, was interviewed in the segment, and I found some of his comments interesting:
Strangely enough, if a reporter started out covering Mr. Aso when he was Foreign Minister, basically the same reporter follows Mr. Aso for the rest of his life. As your pet politician rises up the food chain, so does the reporter who follows him.
If the reporter gets some information about this politician's rival scheming or something, he would warn him. You see? If your politician has a big downfall caused by a scandal, you have a downfall too, maybe getting assigned to some remote area. Then you can't write anything.
They like the convoy system; no one should stand out. If you are the only one who gets the scoop, you are given the cold shoulder. If you are the only one who doesn't write it, then you are condemned by your company.
The full transcript is available here. (by Emily Co)
Japan's one of the few countries that still allow smoking in restaurants. NYC city banned smoking in bars and restaurants a few years ago; even Paris no longer allows it! But in Tokyo, folks are still puffing away while you cook your okonomiyaki or slurp on ramen. A new survey, conducted by Pfizer, showed that 70% of Japanese are bothered by smoke in restaurants. Will this lead to a nationwide ban on smoking indoors? I don't know. I kinda doubt it. Especially not based on research conducted by a US big pharma company.
Interestingly, certain wards in Tokyo do ban smoking on the streets. My friend James got fined in Akihabara for it. And they're trying to tighten restrictions against underage smoking, too, with things like the ID and face scanner on cigarette vending machines.
Last month, McDonalds launched this cool viral marketing campaign for the debut of the Quarter Pounder in Japan. At one of the McDonald's chains in Osaka, 1,000+ customers were seen lined up in front of the store, some from midnight the night before opening. Well, we just learned that the crowd was also part of the fabrication. Apparently, McDonalds Japan had hired 1,000 part-time workers via a temp agency to kick off this line. The Mainichi says:
Fullcast recruited part-time workers on the Internet, describing the job with an hourly pay of 1,000 yen near Shinsaibashi Station as "Easy work, just waiting in line to buy a new product and eating it."
Lining up for openings is not uniquely Japanese, but something that instantly ups credibility of any store or restaurant—especially in Japan. If you want to see this in action, go to any major shopping district in Tokyo on the day after New Years, when they start Lucky Bag sales.
I just found this video from a variety show few years back in which Ai Iijima talks about a famous fortune teller she saw in Taiwan. The fortune teller told Iijima that she would disappear in three years. When Iijima asked what she mean, the fortune teller said: "When you die, you can't take anything with you," and started crying. Iijima tells the audience: Maybe you can use this video in three years. I'm curious to see what happens.
Iijima was found dead in her apartment in Shibuya on Christmas Eve.
The very elegant businessman Haruka Nishimatsu is the CEO of Japan Airlines. He was featured on CNN last month because his humble salary and way of living is in such stark contrast to the excesses enjoyed by his US counterparts. When the economy tanked, he cut his own luxuries and salary first. It's definitely true—in Japan, the companies themselves bear the brunt of hard times and try to cushion the employees from it as much as possible. That's just how Japanese employment law and corporate culture works.
I am shocked to hear about the sudden and mysterious death of 36-year old Ai Iijima, a former porn star-turned-activist celebrity who portrayed a type of resilience, boldness, and femininity that is rare among Japanese female celebrities.
Her cries of "Iku! Iku!" (I'm coming! I'm coming!) made her 80s porn videos famous, but it also let women know in a very public way that it was okay to feel good during sex. After leaving the adult video industry, she made it up the ranks of the Japanese celebrity scene and maintained a regal presence on many a variety show stage where she talked frankly and surely about issues like sex, AIDS, and women while other women celebrities just looked cute and giggled. She was an important icon for female empowerment in Japan, whether she meant to be or not.
Emily wrote this about the incident:
Continue reading "R.I.P. Ai Iijima, famed porn actress-turned-AIDS activist " »
