This is an awesome video. Basically it’s a rap video about the top news stories of 2008. You can consider it a little pop quiz of your Japanese news, pop culture, and current events knowledge. How many of the images or stories in this do you remember? Enjoy this trip in the time machine courtesy…
Tsugeno High School in Aichi Prefecture is currently in the public eye because of reports that the school, which is designed to give a second chance to dropouts, provided students with “smoking” rooms. The school claims the rooms are part of an anti-smoking program the school is doing. The rooms are equipt with ashtrays, however teachers…
A British man living in Spain, visiting Japan with a group of eight people was arrested for swimming around in the moat at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, climbing some rock walls, as well as threatening and evading police. He was completely naked at the time. You can watch the video below… you have to…
Japanese Professional Baseball star Kiyohara of the Orix complained about being thrown a change-up by closer Micheal Nakamura of Nippon Ham.Kiyohara argued that Micheal, as the Japanese-Australian player is generally referred to in Japan, should have thrown a fastball instead of striking him out with a low-outside change-up. WITH VIDEO.
Sometimes things happen in movies and everyone in the audience just thinks, “No one would ever do anything like that in real life.” I think this is one of those things that’s hard to believe anyone would ever really do… So here’s the scene… It’s about 7:20am on August 6th in Saga Prefecture. Husband walks…
At about 5:35 pm, in Niigata a snake caused a black out in about 1,190 locations for as long as 2 hours in some places. The snake died of electrocution related injuries. A representative from the Tohoku Electric Company commented that the snake, which had worked its way into a plastic safety covering on the…
The article found here: Vice Principal Skips School to Play Pachinko in Hyogo gives us a good chance to talk about how the schools work in Japan (for those of you who are more unfamiliar). There is no “substitute teacher” system that most people in the U.S. are familiar with. If a teacher takes a…
Takaaki Obara, a 57 year old high school basketball coach was convicted of raping a member of the girls’ basketball at a hotel when the club was away for a tournament. He was also convicted of punching members of the team in another hotel. The english story on Mainichi points out that he was “highly…
A 53 year old teacher forced a girl to kneel on the floor and apologize in front of the class for having forgotten to give a notebook to one of her classmates. The teacher had asked the girl to deliver a notebook to a classmate who’d had to leave school early one day. This is…
There was another recent case of professor accepting bribes to give a good review to PhD students’ theses… (if anyone’s interested in the details I can dig them up) This time we have a case of a Chiba University professor threatened saying that she would never be able to graduate without his help. In return…
These guys are going to keep me busy posting! Karate DVD star teacher and a sixteen year old girl from his school. Article in English on Mainichi. Teacher Arrested for Having Sex with Student from his School Bonus: My guess is that the fact he’s been on “sick leave” since November means the school knew…
I don’t even know what to say about this article… I’m not about to start peeking over bathroom stall doors to satisfy your curiosity! A recent article in Mainichi reports that 40% of Japanese men sit down to pee. Has this kind of survey ever been done in the US? Isn’t it an insult to…