Japan

No Halloween for “stupid foreigners”

Sophie Team Observers — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:27:49 +0100

Photo posted here.

For some years now expats and travellers in Tokyo have been piling into metro carriages on October 31 to celebrate Halloween. This year however, the masked partygoers were stopped in their tracks by groups of exasperated locals.

As has become the tradition, the event was advertised on an online forum, GaijinPot (gaijin means foreigner in Japanese). The open invitation asked participants to board the 21:06 train on the Yamanote line at Shinjuku station. The instructions are simple: "Wear a costume, sing, share booze, talk to strangers, dance and take photos".

When they arrived on Saturday night however, a group of nationalist activists were waiting to greet the "gaijin". Their message was clear. One board reads "Get out stupid foreigners". Others were even less polite and even more politically incorrect (see photos below). Their efforts seem to have worked. According to Japan Probe, no more than 15 dressed-up foreigners got on the train.

Pet dogs in Japan – love them and leave them… in a gas chamber

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:37:10 +0200

Japan's pets are the most spoilt in the world. They wear clothes, eat in restaurants, bathe in spas. But what happens to the two percent that find themselves homeless? Re-homing is unheard of in Japan, where only the latest creation (often inbred) will do. The answer, revealed in this video, is to gas them, en masse.

According to Japanese director Motoharu Iida, who's visited several "animal facilities" in researching his documentary Dogs, Cats and Humans, between 310,000 and 350,000 abandoned pets "disappear" in these chambers every year - that's almost 1,000 per day (other reports coming out of Japan have quoted up to 1,200 per day).

The use of gas chambers for unwanted pets is not limited to Japan. Although in Europe gassing is considered inhumane and the standard method of dog destruction is lethal injection, in the United States for example, carbon monoxide poisoning is still one of the methods practiced.

According to a 2008 report by the intergovernmental Terrestrial Animal Health Standards Commission, the use of gas is not recommended but "acceptable". Cited concerns include distress (convulsions, vocalization and agitation), anxiety, and severe pain. Other methods, comprising lethal injection, electrocution and shooting, are preferred.

The People’s Republic (nearly) perfect 60th anniversary ceremony

Team Observers — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:21:47 +0200

As expected, the parade organised to celebrate the People’s Republic of China’s 60th anniversary went extremely smoothly — thanks in part to the massive security lock-down weeks ahead of the show. There was one small hitch, however, as Chinese Web users were quick to see.

Seven thousand men paraded on Chang Avenue up to Tiananmen Square, along with an armada of tanks and missiles, military jets and 200,000 students. Only 400,000 people were authorised to attend the show. Even cats were banned from the parade’s perimeter.

So when a huge commercial for the Japanese brand Toshiba appeared behind the parade and was filmed at length for the millions of Chinese watching the ceremony on TV, patriotic viewers were quick to react.

Chinese Web users print-screened the commercial and promptly denounced the incompetence of state television CCTV online. According to them, Toshiba was the only brand visible during the entire ceremony.

Photo posted by "ken_tcheng". Written on the image: "Toshiba? They should have hidden that! What is CCTV doing?"

Here are just a few examples of reactions posted on the forum MOP.

"Why didn’t anyone check this sort of detail before the ceremony was broadcast live?"

"I demand that the person at CCTV in charge of broadcasting the ceremony resign and that Toshiba pay for the extra advertisement"

"I noticed it too, it's really awful!"

"They obviously didn’t film the brand on purpose. There are so many brands in China, they weren’t going to destroy the billboards just for the ceremony."

A glaring case of plagiarism on Chinese TV

Julien — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:40:32 +0200

Image posted here.

On August 22, Chinese broadcaster CCTV released “Soul’s Window”, a much-trumpeted “original production” aimed at a child audience. But Web users haven’t fallen for it.

Same set, same features, same hairstyles – manga fans were not fooled. Several scenes from the 52-episode cartoon were copied directly from "Byousoku" (Five Centimetres per Second), a popular Japanese animated film by Makoto Shinkai released in 2007.

CCTV, China’ state-owned television network, says it was not aware that the production violated copyright. China’s propaganda department, which co-produced the cartoon, had billed it as an educational programme. “Soul’s Window” was supposed to teach children a lesson in ethics.

Replying to the accusations, the cartoon’s producer, Lanhai, recognised that roughly 1 percent of the 2,500 scenes mirrored parts of “Byousoku” and offered an apology. The company said it would launch an inquiry in order to “identify those responsible and draw lessons from this case".

Japan’s new hit: "Mein Kampf", Manga-style

Team Observers — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:46:45 +0200

A Japanese publishing firm has re-edited a translation of Adolf Hitler’s ideological pamphlet, first published in 1924. But this edition has a new twist: it’s a manga-style comic. It’s made quite a splash in Japanese bookshops.

"Mein Kampf" is the latest publication in a collection of historical comic books called "Manga de Dokuha" ("Learn with mangas") edited by the publishing firm East Press. The collection already includes manga versions of Karl Marx’s "Capital" and Tolstoy’s "War and Peace". These revamped classics usually sell around 35,000 copies nationwide.

The publishing rights for “Mein Kampf” have until now been held by the German region of Bavaria, which decided which firms were authorised to publish new editions of the text. But the copyright will expire in 2015 and the pamphlet will enter the public domain.

East Press explains that the manga is a "tool to study Hitler’s personality", to "understand the thoughts that generated such a tragedy".

Harley Davidson trying to cause offence?

Sophie Team Observers — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:10:07 +0200

One of our Observers in Japan, Lee Chapman, photographed this motorbike, complete with Swastika-shaped spokes, outside a Harley Davidson shop in Tokyo. Depending on how you look at it, it could represent the ancient Buddhist symbol for universal harmony, the infamous emblem of Nazi Germany, or, as Lee tells us, simply being "cool".

Lee has been living in Tokyo for ten years. He posted the photos on his blog, Tokyo Times, on Monday.

Since posting this on my blog a few people have left comments saying that it's actually the Buddhist symbol the manji rather than the Nazi swastika. The idea doesn't really work though as it appears on a motorbike wheel. For one, to see the manji you could only look at it from the left side, and secondly, I don't think many Buddhist priests drive Harley Davidsons.

I do think there's nothing nasty in it however. Although it would indeed be found extremely offensive in many other parts of the world, here it's just seen as something cool; Hell's Angels' style from the ‘60s. My boss drives a Harley Davidson and when I told him about the bike he replied ‘Yeh, I've seen them around'. Nothing along the lines of ‘I know, isn't that terrible?'!"

Bush in Japan: slow, stupid and dressed in a floral suit

Sophie Team Observers — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:41:40 +0200

An ad campaign for a tea-based drink that pokes fun of former US President George Bush, has been on the Japanese airwaves for over a month.

The ads for a flavoured tea-based drink called Herbal Clear promises to cleanse users of all "bad things". As an example of a "bad thing", the Japanese campaign presents former US President George W. Bush. Played by actor Brent Mendenhall, who on this occasion stars as the president of a company, not a country, Bush is depicted as stupid and ridiculous. A marketing strategy that doesn't seem to shock Japanese viewers...

China’s latest debate: the story of the Nanking massacre told by "Japanese Schindler"

Sophie Team Observers — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:15:39 +0200

Despite its popularity in Chinese cinemas, the director of a film which attempts to deal with "The Rape of Nanking" - the 1937 Japanese massacre in China's former capital - has come under fire on the Chinese web, for his apparent compassion with the Japanese soldiers.

With World War II well under way, on 13 December 1937 the Japanese army stormed the then capital of the Republic of China, Nanking. What followed was six weeks of horror for the defeated army and the civilian population. No less than 300,000 people, subjected to the cruelest atrocities, were killed.

It took four years, almost 80 million yuan (€8.8 million), and 20,000 unpaid extras for director Lu Chuan to bring this bloody episode to the big screen.

"City of Life and Death" (or "Nanking Nanking!" in Chinese) presents the story from the point of view of several characters including a Chinese soldier and a primary school teacher, but also a Japanese soldier consumed by guilt - a personality which web users have labelled the "Japanese Oskar Schindler".

Released a week ago in more than a third of Chinese theatres, the film has already raked in 7.5 million euros in just five days. Heeding to a few modification demands in advance (see third paragraph of this article), the film has also managed to benefit from advertising on the part of the government propaganda department: "Nanking Nanking!" has made it on to the top ten films listed to commemorate the republic's 60 year anniversary.

Tokyo plane crash

Sophie Team Observers — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:15:38 +0100

This CCTV footage shows the moment when a FedEx cargo plane burst into flames attempting to land at Tokyo's Narita airport. The plane, travelling from Guangzhou in China, is thought to have crashed because of high wind speeds of up to 72 kmh. Pilot and co-pilot, who were both American, died. The accident happened just before 7am on Monday morning (22.50 Sunday French time).

From YouTube to the art galleries of New York

Sophie Team Observers — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:41:14 +0100

Daito Manabe came up with the "face visualizer" idea in his Tokyo kitchen. Webcam on, he wired his face up to a series of electrodes, put on some music, and let his facial muscles move to the rhythm. He then posted the face dance on YouTube. A few months and over a million hits later, and Daito is an international star.

Seen over a million times on YouTube.