Tag: japan

Retiring in Prison

Why have so many otherwise law-abiding elderly women resorted to petty theft? Caring for Japanese seniors once fell to families and communities, but that’s changing. From 1980 to 2015, the number of seniors living alone increased more than 6x, to almost 6M. And a 2017 survey by Tokyo’s government found that more than half of seniors caught shoplifting live alone; 40% either don’t have family or rarely speak with relatives. They have no one to turn to when they need help.

Ramen Shirts

Are you so ramen-obsessed that you feel the need to publicly declare your allegiance to Menya Musashi’s tsukemen over rival Tokyo chain Setagaya’s? Of course you are. Now, Uniqlo has come to your rescue. The clothing chain just released a collection of tees with graphics honoring Japan’s top ramen shops, so you can now wear the logo of your favorite “world-renowned Japanese ramen shop” in a $15, 100% cotton design.

Ainu

For much of the 20th century, Japanese government officials and academics tried to hide the Ainu. They were an inconvenient culture at a time when the government was steadfastly creating a national myth of homogeneity. So officials tucked the Ainu into files marked “human migration mysteries,” or “aberrant hunter-gatherers of the modern age,” or “lost Caucasoid race,” or “enigma,” or “dying race,” or even “extinct.” But in 2006, under international pressure, the government finally recognized the Ainu as an Indigenous population. And today, the Japanese appear to be all in.

on the Ainu, which have been on the islands of japan for more than 10x as long as the japanese people, who came from korea 3 ka ago.

Sushi physics

Master sushi chefs in Japan spend years honing their skills in making rice, selecting and slicing fish, and other techniques. Expert chefs even form the sushi pieces in a different way than a novice does, resulting in a cohesive bite that doesn’t feel all mushed together. In this short video clip from a longer Japanology episode on sushi, they put pieces of sushi prepared by a novice and a master through a series of tests — a wind tunnel, a pressure test, and an MRI scan — to see just how different their techniques are. It sounds ridiculous and goofy (and it is!) but the results are actually interesting.

82 year old DJ

“She’s got this energy that goes beyond age, and that can equal any young person’s here”. Her sound is fundamentally techno music with jazz, French chanson and classical music mixed in. Ever curious and never one to give up her dreams, she hopes one day to debut on the New York club scene

The Cult Running Japan

the bad news is that these clowns won the election

Nippon Kaigi used neto-uyo (cyber right wingers who troll anyone on the internet they feel writes negatively of Japan), intellectuals, politicians, and closet sympathizers in mainstream media to exert considerable influence on policy and public opinion. That included getting the Japanese government to reinstitute the Imperial Calendar, which was banished by the US occupation government. Sugano also credits Nippon Kaigi with politically resurrecting Prime Minister Abe, whose political career was considered dead after his abrupt resignation as prime minister in 2007.