When I wrote my open letter to Amazon Japan about the Kindle in Japan , we didn’t have a lot of options in Japan. If you live in Japan for any significant amount of time, you may end up accumulating books. Books are heavy and it means either abandoning them upon your return, or paying…
Sometimes I like to throw in some of these fun posts, like a recent poll of women in Japan about things that women do that turn men off. Anyway, on to the list: 10. Being too fickle about food. 9. Not making an effort to dress up. 8. When it comes time to pay, they…
I use google alerts as a great way to get news about certain specific topics that I have an interest in. I have a google alert for “kindle japan” because I’ve written about my what I want from the Kindle in the past, my wish that it would be able to handle manga, and that…
A 77 year old man in Kobe died today due to complications from H1N1, marking the second total death in Japan. Both deaths occurred in the last week, with both patients suffering other ailments in addition to the H1N1 flu. The Kobe man who died also reportedly had liver trouble, diabetes, high blood pressure, and…
Many years ago in Japan (old-timer ex-pats will remember it well) when Mr. Bean was very popular in Japan, and wanna-be tough guys in Japan would mutter “Mr. Bean” under their breath when they passed a non-Japanese person and felt a wave of insecurity. Students would call ALT’s (AET’s? I don’t remember what they call…
I’m not going to explain the obvious ones like and but I’ll go down a little list of some that I think people might find interesting or useful… refers to the Japanese version of the expression “see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil” good for “sorry” or “pretty please” (although it looks like…
A recent study by the Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare has shown marriages in which the couple is already expecting are currently 26.8% and seem to be on the rise. Some wedding planning companies are saying that number may be as high as 40%. There is a movement to rename the shotgun weddings…
As the iPhone went to Softbank (owned by Yahoo Japan), I was wondering if the Google Android phone would ever come to Japan. Well, the Google Android Phone Japan Version is here, and it went to Docomo. Other Docomo phones have gradually been increasing its compatibility with Google products such as YouTube and Google Maps…
A former truck driver who was promoted to a low level management position at the Sagawa Express package delivery company committed suicide recently. His wife is accusing Sagawa of bullying and power harassment which resulted in his suicide. After being promoted, the 42 year old man began working from before 6am until after 10:30pm every…
I thought my next update about this case would be some months down the line, however even at this early date the case has been settled. The victim has agreed to an undisclosed financial settlement with the six men sh accused of rape. The settlement seems to imply that the six Kyoto University of Education…
In a previous post I wrote about six Kyoto University of Education students who raped a girl at a party in February. The university never reported the incident to police until June. There were some pretty outrageous moral violations by the school, such things as refusing to report the incident to authorities, and the fact…
By now, I assume that the big gang rape incident at prestigious Kyoto University (link goes to news story in Japanese) is international news, and I would not like to go into the details of the incident. However, of interest to students of the media and society in Japan are the reasons that Kyoto University…