Karaoke shops in Osaka are reporting that their shops are packed with students who are off school (and supposed to be at home studying) for the H1N1 influenza outbreak here. Some of the karaoke shop owners are troubled, saying they are concerned about the flu being passed on at these large gatherings, while other owners…
All schools from kindergarten to college level in Hyogo have been closed for the week. You have to feel bad for the kids who happened to be at schools for which this was just announced. Much of them went to school only to be sent home, and if Hyogo prefecture is trying to hold off…
At least one case (possibly 3 at the time of this writing) cases of H1N1 influenza have been verified in Kobe, Hyogo Prefecture. The significance of these cases is that none of the high school students involved have been abroad recently, thus the flu must have come through a source in Japan. (The other cases…
On January 21 this year, during a free study period at a junior high school in Ibaraki Prefecture, a teacher (and head of the grade level) walked into a classroom to yell at two kids for going home too late the previous day. The two students were in their third year and had just returned…
In a nutshell, a 67 year old Japanese man is suing his country because the weekend and holiday reduced tolls are only applicable to cars that pay by ETC (the Japanese equivalent to EZPass or other automatic toll paying systems). He claims it’s unfair that he has to pay full price on weekends just because…
CNN reports that American Poet and University of Wyoming Professor Craig Arnold is missing after setting out alone to climb a volcano known as Kuchinoerabujima. The CNN article above mentions that Arnold was on a fellowship in Japan doing research for a book on volcanoes. Not much is mentioned about Kuchinoerabujima (or Kuchinoerabu Island). The…
I love reading the little hints that float around that show the small but effective revolution Google is pulling off in Japan. If you follow the news, you know why Yahoo is bigger than Google in Japan, but I’ve also been writing about how Google has been gaining ground by approaching the Japanese market through…
I could have been way more creative with the title there, but this is the kind of story that people like to read. I’ll be very simple with it although I’m sure the story is much deeper than this… (it may not be though… it may just be the case of a bosozoku tough guy…
The title should say it all, but sadly it doesn’t. The teacher in question is a pregnant woman in her thirties. She works at a junior high school in Handa City in Aichi Prefecture. During the beginning of third term (January) this year she scolded some students in club. She also did a seating change…
OK, I know the title of this post is a little wacky, but have you ever lived here? If you live here or do business here you might be looking at that title and nodding your head slowly with a sad-but-true look on your face. Check out this interview with Sean McAllister, the director of…
I know, I know, I love these top 10 lists that come out. Even if they don’t mean anything they sure put a little spotlight on Japan for us. This poll is especially fun because if you’ve been here going on fifteen years like some newzjapan bloggers I know, you learned Japanese watching some of…
The reason I put “still” in the title of this post is because lately there’s been a sort of politically correct type of trend here. People don’t like people to talk about people being elite. They say that people should not talk about education and things like that… but the reality is this – Reuters…