Whenever Japan’s new prime minister, Taro Aso, is mentioned in English-language newspapers the phrases “right-winger” and “foreign policy hawk” occur with startling frequency. What has he done to deserve such infamy?
Well, Aso is a frequent visitor to Yasukuni, the shrine where many convicted Second World War war criminals are honoured, and he isn’t known for [...]
Despite my moaning about the general rubbishness of Japanese TV, the internet still manages to provide the odd gem from its “prank” heyday. One of my all-time favourites is the “100 man troop”:
I can’t imagine this kind of thing would ever be able to happen in the UK: the very idea of sending 100 screaming [...]
On Thursday morning we had to take part in an earthquake drill. With Japan being one of the most, if not the most, earthquake-prone country in the world, drills like this are routine. I had expected there to be a grand system set in place in order to swiftly whisk people out of their office [...]
In what has to be the best news story of the week, a Japanese high school student was accosted by a slow loris pygmy monkey while walking home. Even more intriguingly, the student in question looks remarkably like a species of monkey himself:
The student said: “Firstly, the monkey climbed up onto my back, and after [...]
Way back in November 2006 I wrote about Tommy Lee Jones advertising Boss Coffee (“Hollywood Celebrities and Japanese advertising”). We’re now up to episode 14 of this bizarre alien-in-Japan saga, and thankfully some kind soul has collected the first thirteen together into one YouTube compilation so you can catch up with the story so far:
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