Tag: Japan

Unclear on the concept

It was reported that cops in Fukuoka busted a 41-year-old woman for lending her Taspo cigarette ID card to her teenage son so that he could buy smokes from a vending machine.

A Saitama couple suffered serious burns while cleaning a remote-controlled toy car in their condo when the man lit a cigarette that ignited the flammable cleanser.

A reputed high-ranking member of the Inagawa-kai crime syndicate was arrested for fatally stabbing a member of his own organization with whom he’d been having “internal trouble.”

Gang ho!

A 62-year-old education counselor in Saitama who was arrested for fondling a 16-year-old high school student at a local fast food store said he “gave in to temptation.”

It was revealed that a repeat shoplifter who refused to give his name to authorities is being referred to as “No. 57, Gyotoku Police Station detention, Chiba Prefecture.”

A 25-year-old Sagawa Express deliveryman was busted for stealing an ¥18 million Bulgari watch after one of his co-workers became suspicious of the man’s new timepiece.

Here and there

In a story that made headlines around the world, an escaped pet parrot named Yosuke was plucked by police from a rooftop in Nagareyama. He apparently later told a vet, “I’m Mr Yosuke Nakamura,” before providing his home address.

Cheaters sometimes don’t prosper

Customs officials at Narita were left red-faced after one bonehead officer put $10,000 worth of weed in an unsuspecting passenger’s luggage to test out his drug-sniffing dog. Unfortunately, the mutt failed to detect the dope and his handler forgot which bag he put it in. As of press time, no one had returned the drugs, although one passenger bound for Vancouver reportedly ate seven meals on his flight home.

If you can’t do the time…

Police busted four foreigners, including a British employee of Merrill Lynch, and six Japanese, for possession and use of cocaine and cannabis after early-morning raids on Roppongi nightclubs DownTown and Odeon. Some suspects told police they bought the drugs from an “African guy” at various bars.

Two men who ran the Peach Girl hostess club in Kasai on the outskirts of Tokyo were arrested for violating the child welfare law after hiring a bunch of 14-year-olds to work as hostesses.

Ouch!

When is a raise not a raise? When you manage a McDonald’s burger joint in Japan, apparently. A new wage system to be implemented by the fast-food chain this summer will finally pay overtime to store managers, but it will also abolish an allowance previously paid to them, meaning their total wages will remain unchanged. Somebody call Mayor McCheese!

And, speaking of the Golden Arches, four people trying to surreptitiously film a porno flick in a Saitama McDonald’s were arrested and charged with indecent exposure and obstruction of business… or should that be doing the business?

According to the Shukan Post, a 37-year-old tattooed mama from Sakai was arrested for using a pair of scissors to try and cut off a man’s… uh, manhood, after claiming that said man tried to procure sex from her 17-year-old runaway daughter.

Oh, so that explains it

Odakyu Electric Railway officials said that a rush hour train which came to a sudden halt, stranding 560 passengers and affecting about 18,000 others, broke down “after the motors suddenly stopped.”

A 67-year-old Tokyo housewife who broke the leg of an elderly woman in a hit-and-run bicycle accident told police that she “was in a hurry to go to a karaoke bar.”

Oh, brother

A 35-year-old employee of food giant Ajinomoto was arrested for spraying pepper gas into the face of a 16-year-old high school girl from Saitama.

STATS

11,000

Cases of illegally parked motorcycles in 2005, according to the National Police Agency

521,000

Number of cases in 2007, thanks to the introduction of private-sector parking wardens

20,000

Number of bank transactions that failed due to a computer glitch on the first day of MUFJ’s highly touted new ATM system

13.5

Percent of Japanese people aged 14 or under as of April 1, a record low, according to the Internal Affairs Ministry

10,000+

People who have signed a condolence book at Ueno Zoo for recently deceased giant panda Ling Ling

Crash and burn

Giving new meaning to the term “drive-thru,” a van crashed into a McDonald’s fast-food joint in Miyazaki, injuring six kids and three adults inside.

That’s entertainment!

Who were those masked men? Two robbers worked over a 70-year-old employee and stole about ¥150,000 in cash from Puroresu Mania Kan, a pro wrestling merchandise store near Suidobashi Station, before fleeing on foot.

STATS

¥4 billion

Amount of money lost each year by 14 major bookstore chains due to shoplifting, according to a survey by the Japan Publishing Organization for Information Infrastructure Development

1,200

People who have contracted whooping cough so far this year, the fastest spread of the disease in Japan since the National Institute of Infectious Diseases started keeping stats

49

Percentage of respondents to a 2007 Asahi Shimbun survey who said that Article 9 of the Constitution, which renounces war and bans Japan from maintaining military forces, should not be revised

66

Percentage who said so this year

67

Percentage of American respondents to a Gallup Organization survey who said they view Japan as a “dependable country,” down 7 percentage points from a similar survey last year

I told you not to do that

A man in Gifu who was arrested for theft and traffic violations got himself into deeper trouble after setting fire to a futon at the police station where he was being held.

A 41-year-old Tochigi man was arrested for making some 8,000 “silent phone calls” to his 30-year-old ex-girlfriend after she broke up with him last July.

What’s the kanji for “Wear goggles, you idiot!”?

Ikea Japan has agreed to modify its instruction manuals after a Chiba man suffered a serious eye injury from a cracked screw while assembling a chest of drawers.

It was revealed that the Japan Swimming Federation is in a “crisis” over a new brand of Speedo that it says gives foreign competitors an unfair advantage.

Off the rails

Service was disrupted after a passenger was spotted jumping off a speeding bullet train between Hamamatsu and Kakegawa stations in Shizuoka Prefecture.

A drunken man injured his leg after being hit by a train while staggering on the edge of a platform at Tokyo’s Okachimachi Station.

STATS

62

Lawmakers who paid their respects at Yasukuni Shrine, one day after leaders of Japan and South Korea urged to end their disputes over historical issues

3,119

Traffic accidents caused by drunk drivers across Japan for the six-month period from Sep 19, a drop of 22.5 percent from a year before, according to the National Police Agency

First, please take a moment to reflect on the cyclone in Burma, which the AP estimates has killed over 14,000 people. The military junta in Burma has been roundly criticized for failing to enact an early warning system that could have saved lives:

The government had apparently taken few efforts to prepare for the storm, which came bearing down on the country from the Bay of Bengal late Friday. Weather warnings broadcast on television would have been largely useless for the worst-hit rural areas where electricity supply is spotty and television a rarity.

“The government misled people,” said Thin Thin, a grocery story owner in Yangon. “They could have warned us about the severity of the coming cyclone so we could be better prepared.”

snip

Some in Yangon complained that the 400,000-strong military was only clearing streets where the ruling elite resided but leaving residents, including Buddhist monks, to cope on their own in most other areas.

link: http://ap.google.com/article/A…

The AP reports that the UN and aid organizations are mobilizing supplies, and that the EU has committed $3 million in humanitarian aid, the Chinese government stands ready with $1 million in cash and supplies, and the US is giving an intial $250,000 in aid with more to come if a disaster team is allowed inside the country.

UPDATE  The BBC is now reporting that the death toll has reached 22,000:

The death toll from Burma’s devastating cyclone has now risen to more than 22,000, state media say.

Some 41,000 people were also missing, three days after Cyclone Nargis hit the country on Saturday, state radio said.

link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asi…

Ashes to ashes, crest to crest — cremation cruises offer new wave of eternal rest

Growing numbers of Japanese are taking a leaf out of the books of ancient Vikings, choosing to cremate their departed loved ones on crematorium ships — and getting a cruise out of it, to boot, according to Sunday Mainichi (4/27).

Cramped living conditions, huge waiting lists for graves and increasingly high burial costs have made death a real pain in the ass for a lot of Japanese.

Get this party started

Passengers on a Nagoya subway line hit the jackpot when a ticket vending machine spat out ¥5,000 and ¥10,000 notes instead of ¥1,000 bills as change. The error ended up costing the station ¥252,000.

 It’s the sort of wee hours in Old Bombay (now known as Mumbai) as I write this.  I’m at the Taj Majal Hotel business center (google it) and can look out the window to my left and see the Gateway of India (google it).  I’m about 30 minutes this side of 3 hours at Leopold’s in Mumbai (google it).

I was in Japan three days ago.  Returning from India Monday late night (mumbai to Newark, Newark to Birmingham).

So, here’s the deal:  

  *  Bush is a fool, or worse, but Americans are good eggs, all in all (but damn shame they put/allowed an idiot in charge of their country.

  *  China will soon rule the world, but the Americans, Japanese, Koreans, Indians, Russians and South Americans will . . . eventually, be able to effectively push back.

  More. . .

It’s not like there’s nothing happening on the Olympic torch front. There are already protests in Australia as the torch heads toward that country: http://www.news.com.au/heralds…

Lin Hatfield Dobbs, a social justice campaigner, has pulled out of the Olympic torch relay in Australia, saying of the torch, “For a lot of people it still carries the meaning of harmony but for an increasing number of the global community watching it’s carrying a lot of meaning around human rights.” link: http://afp.google.com/article/…

And the International Herald-Tribune reports that in Japan, instead of the torch relay starting at the enigmatic Zenkoji Temple, it will begin in a parking lot: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap…

But all of that really pales in comparison to an event happening right now, involving multiple countries, including the United States and China. It includes an act of non-cooperation by trade union workers. A political party has spoken out, expressing fears that its members would become the victims of violence.

And yet we are treated to the same response by the Chinese government, that this event shouldn’t be “politicized”.