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Wednesday, September 27, 2006

'Furoshiki' beats the usual wrap

"Furoshiki," the wrapping cloth used since ancient times, is increasingly being viewed as highly suitable for modern life, as more people become environmentally conscious and try to reduce the amount of waste related to use of paper and plastic bags.
Proving the old adage that anything old can be new again, clothing companies have modernized furoshiki patterns and are marketing their products even at railway station shops. Prices start at just a few hundred, yen attracting young and old alike.
A Yokohama woman in her 30s has long used furoshiki for wrapping clothing and undergarments in a bag when traveling, but she recently began using it for wrapping presents, in place of wrapping paper.
"With today's great patterns and materials, it's really a pleasure for me to use furoshiki. They can be very fashionable, and those who get them are pleased," she said.
Furoshiki can be used almost indefinitely and take up little space when folded.

A Tokyo woman in her 60s said, "It's convenient to always have a furoshiki with me because it can wrap things of many sizes."
Tokyo department store Printemps Ginza Co. held a furoshiki fair in early June, and sales have been favorable since. Before the fair, employees used furoshiki to wrap items for their daily commute and at the store to promote the product.
"Of course female employees were not hesitant, but even male employees said they have rediscovered many good points about furoshiki," a Printemps representative said.
Before the fair, only about 10 furoshiki were purchased per month. During the two-week event, however, 800 were sold, and since then the store is moving around 50 a month.
At Mitsukoshi's department store in the Ginza district, tourists often buy furoshiki just for display, prompting the store to promote the product also for a table covering or as a scarf.
"The number of people buying furoshiki as a gift has been increasing," Teppei Itawa, in charge of sales at Mitsukoshi, said. "This is no temporary boom . . . the use of furoshiki appears to be firmly in place."
The Japan Furoshiki Association, which is working to popularize the wrap, said inquiries from department stores and government bodies about holding wrapping lessons have been increasing since the start of the year.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20060928f3.html

TOKYO ROSE DEAD AT 90

Iva Toguri D’Aquino, the Japanese-American convicted of treason in 1949 for broadcasting propaganda from Japan to United States servicemen during World War II as the seductive but sinister Tokyo Rose, died Tuesday in Chicago. She was 90.
Her death, at a Chicago hospital, was confirmed by a nephew, William Toguri, who said only that Mrs. D’Aquino had died of natural causes, The Associated Press reported.
Tokyo Rose was a mythical figure. The persona, its origin murky, had been bestowed by American servicemen collectively on a dozen or so women who broadcast for Radio Tokyo, telling soldiers, sailors and marines in the Pacific that their cause was lost and that their sweethearts back home were betraying them.
The broadcasts did nothing to dim American morale. The servicemen enjoyed the recordings of American popular music, and the United States Navy bestowed a satirical citation on Tokyo Rose at war’s end for her entertainment value.
But the identity of Tokyo Rose became attached to Mrs. D’Aquino, a native of Southern California and the only woman broadcasting for Radio Tokyo known to be an American citizen. She emerged as an infamous figure in a rare treason trial.
Convicted by a federal jury in San Francisco on one of eight vaguely worded counts, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. She served 6 years and 2 months, then lived quietly in Chicago, running a family gift shop. On Jan. 19, 1977, she was pardoned, without comment, by President Gerald R. Ford on his last full day in office, and her citizenship was restored.
“A mere wartime myth, Tokyo Rose was to become a disgrace to American justice," Edwin O. Reischauer, the American Ambassador to Japan from 1961 to 1966 and a scholar at Harvard specializing in East Asian affairs, wrote in his introduction to “Tokyo Rose: Orphan of the Pacific,” by Masayo Duus. (Kodansha International, 1979)
The treason charges, Mr. Reischauer wrote, were “egged on by a public still much under the influence of traditional racial prejudices and far from free of the anti-Japanese hatreds of the recent war."
Iva Ikuko Toguri was born in Los Angeles on the Fourth of July 1916, a daughter of Japanese immigrants who owned a grocery store. She graduated from U.C.L.A. in 1940 with a degree in zoology, hoping to become a physician.
In the summer of 1941, she visited an ailing aunt in Tokyo at the request of her mother. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, she was stranded in Tokyo, knowing virtually no Japanese, deprived of a food ration card by the authorities after refusing to become a Japanese citizen and hard-pressed to find work.
In 1942, she obtained a job with Japan’s Domei news agency, monitoring American military broadcasts, and late in 1943 she became an announcer and disc jockey for Radio Tokyo’s propaganda broadcasts, playing American musical recordings on the “Zero Hour” program beamed to American servicemen. She called herself “Ann” or “Orphan Ann,” short for announcer and a play on the Orphan Annie character.
While continuing to work for Radio Tokyo in 1945, she married Felipe D’Aquino, a Domei news agency employee with Portuguese citizenship but Japanese ancestry.
When the war ended, several American reporters learned of Mrs. D’Aquino’s broadcasts and interviewed her in Japan. She said that she was Tokyo Rose, evidently presuming that no great notoriety would be attached to that and perhaps hoping to embellish an intriguing story for American readers, having been paid for her account in a magazine article. She subsequently denied ever having called herself Tokyo Rose in her broadcasts, and no evidence was produced to the contrary.
As an outgrowth of the publicity, Mrs. D’Aquino was arrested and questioned by American military occupation authorities and the F.B.I. The United Press quoted her at the time as saying, “I didn’t think I was doing anything disloyal to America.”
In the fall of 1946, Mrs. D’Aquino was released from custody in Japan after the Army and the Justice Department concluded that there were no grounds for prosecuting her. But the Justice Department reopened the case in 1948. Loyalty issues were becoming a national political flashpoint, although mainly in the context of the Cold War, and the American Legion and the powerful columnist and broadcaster Walter Winchell had spoken out against Mrs. D’Aquino.
Mrs. D’Aquino, who had unsuccessfully sought permission from American authorities to return to California, was arrested on charges of treason, transported to San Francisco, held in a county jail for a year, then put on trial in 1949.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/world/asia/28rose.html

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Abe made prime minister

Newly elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe named his Cabinet on Tuesday, giving most of the posts to his close aides and the people who actively supported him during the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election.

The 52-year-old president of the ruling LDP is the youngest postwar prime minister and the first to be born after World War II.
Yasuhisa Shiozaki, Abe's longtime ally and a specialist in economic policy, was appointed chief Cabinet secretary. He will also handle issues pertaining to North Korea's past abductions of Japanese.
"I believe that (the Cabinet picks) have contributed with individuality in various fields," Shiozaki told reporters after announcing the rest of the Cabinet appointments.
Taro Aso, Abe's rival in the LDP presidential race, was reappointed foreign minister, where he will continue efforts to mend ties with China and South Korea.
The repeated visits by Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, to Yasukuni Shrine have chilled Japan's relations with the two Asian neighbors and they refused to hold summits with him.
Under Aso, diplomats have been working behind the scenes to arrange summits between Abe and the leaders of the two nations.
After his reappointment, Aso told reporters Japan has strengthened its presence in the international community during his first term as foreign minister.
"Diplomacy is one of the methods to minimize the crisis" over North Korea's July 5 missile tests, Aso said. I "believe that Japan was able to connect with other countries and that led to taking swift measures against the North Korean" tests.

click above for the whole article

Aum leader's trial finally ends


The long trial of Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara ended Sept. 15 when the Supreme Court rejected a special appeal by lawyers for Asahara. The top court's decision affirmed the February 2004 ruling of the Tokyo District Court, which found the cult leader guilty of 13 criminal counts, the most serious being the sarin gas poisoning on March 20, 1995, of a Tokyo subway that killed 12 people and seriously injured 14 others. Now the death sentence handed down to the mastermind behind that deadly nerve-gas attack has been finalized.
But the court proceedings were irregular: In neither of the two appellate trial stages -- one before the Tokyo High Court and the other before the Supreme Court -- did the defendant attend the hearings held. This irregularity has been extremely frustrating for the public, which should have been able to hear the full story behind Asahara's crimes. It has deprived the public of the chance to understand the philosophy and thinking that drove Asahara to orchestrate indiscriminate killings as well as the circumstances, including the early years of his life, that led him to become a religious "guru" and eventually a mass murderer.
A total of 27 people died and 4,000 to 5,000 others were injured as a result of Asahara's 13 crimes. Besides the Tokyo sarin-gas attack, he is responsible for killing seven people and injuring four others in a sarin-gas attack in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, on June 27, 1994, and for killing a Yokohama lawyer and his wife and son on Nov. 4, 1989.

click on the title above to read the complete editorial

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Japan's quiet successor vows to restore army


SHINZO Abe is planning a revolution in Japan which will see the return of a full-strength imperial army for the first time since the Second World War.
After securing the Liberal Democratic Party's presidency last week, he is now certain to succeed Junichiro Koizumi as prime minister, and he clearly has an eye on re-examining the post-war era.

In a race that was his to lose, Abe - who will be Japan's first prime minister born after the Second World War - avoided specific comments about how he would pursue economic changes or how he would repair Japan's strained relations with China and South Korea.
Instead, he spoke of revising the United States-imposed Constitution, which forbids Japan from having a full-fledged military, passing legislation to allow Japanese troops to be deployed overseas and making it possible for Japan to exercise the right to collective self-defence with the US.
He also wants to revise the other legal document of the post-war American occupation, the Fundamental Law of Education, and emphasise moral values, patriotism and tradition in schools.
"By entrusting our national security to another country and putting a priority on economic development, we were indeed able to make great material gains," Abe wrote of the post-war era in his campaign book, Toward A Beautiful Country. "But what we lost spiritually - that was also great."
Abe, who will turn 52 on Thursday, received two-thirds of the votes in the election for the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party last week. Because of the party's grip on the lower house of parliament, which chooses the prime minister, Abe is now assured of succeeding prime minister Junichiro Koizumi in a parliamentary session on Tuesday.
The emergence of a prime minister with no personal experience of the Second World War is considered a turning point in Japan, where the absence of a consensus on the war still troubles relations with the rest of Asia.
Considered politically inexperienced, Abe rose to political stardom by talking tough on North Korea, China and national security. In Japan and in the rest of Asia, Abe is regarded as even more hawkish and conservative than Koizumi.
To his supporters, Abe is a politician unburdened by Japan's past, capable of forging a newly independent and strong path for the nation. To critics, he is a potentially dangerous ideologue ready to jettison the post-war values that have brought stability, peace and wealth to Japan.


Click on the title for the rest of the story.........

Thursday, September 21, 2006

Black Ships & Samurai


The picture on the right is the "true portrait of Perry …envoy of the Republic of North America. The Commodore’s ferocious visage is mitigated by a sentimental poem … In contrast to the otherwise symphatetic portrayals of foreigners. Perry appears as a western stereotype: the "hairy barbarian" … even demonic.The picture on the left is "true portrait of Adams … second-in-command from the Republic of North America, echoes the companion image of Perry in a long-nosed, demonic caricature
The Black Ship Scroll is a 30-foot long scroll painted in Japan to mark the opening of Japan by Commodore Matthew Perry [wiki]
This article is thanks to Stephen Davidson of Nagoya and Nagoya International School
click on the title to go to the web site and read the rest of the story

Monday, September 18, 2006

Big-city land prices up for the first time since 1990


Average land prices in Japan's three largest metropolitan areas -- Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya -- are up for the first time since 1990, the government said Monday, providing further evidence the economy is picking up.
Average land prices in the three metropolitan areas as of July 1 had risen 0.4 percent in residential areas and 3.6 percent in commercial areas compared with the same period last year, according to an annual survey by the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Ministry.
Although prices nationwide for both residential and commercial land fell for the 15th straight year, they are declining more slowly, the survey found.Average land prices for all 47 prefectures were down 2.3 percent in residential areas and 2.1 percent in commercial areas, according to the survey. A year earlier, the price declines were 3.8 percent for residential land and 5.0 percent for commercial property.

to read the article in its entirety click on the title above

Sunday, September 17, 2006

More centenarians than ever in Japan


Japanese demographers say the country is home to a record number of centenarians.They predict that by the end of the month, there will be 28,395 Japanese who have celebrated their 100th birthday, Japan Today reported. More than 85 percent are women.The government has been tracking centenarians since 1963, when there were 153 in the country. The number passed 1,000 in 1981 and 10,000 in 1998.The Ministry of Health released information on centenarians Friday as the country prepared to celebrate Respect for the Aged Day next week.Yone Minagawa, who lives in Fukuchi, Fukuoka Prefecture, is the country's oldest person at 113. Tomoji Tanabe of Miyakonojo, Miyazaki Prefecture -- who celebrates is 111th birthday Monday -- is Japan's oldest man.Tanabe, who lives with a son and daughter-in-law, told Japan Today the secret of longevity is abstaining from tobacco and alcohol.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Study: green tea prevents heart disease

Wednesday 13th September, 2006 (UPI) A Japanese study has suggested that green tea consumption can reduce the risk of heart disease.Researchers at the Tohoku University School of Public Policy in Sendai, Japan, said drinking five or more 3.4-ounce cups of green tea daily reduces the risk of heart disease by 31 percent in women and by 22 percent in men, WebMD reported Wednesday. The scientists said the reduced risk was compared to people who consume one or fewer 3.4-ounce cups of the beverage daily.Green tea may prolong your life through reducing heart disease and stroke, said researcher Shinichi Kuriyama. Our findings might explain the differences in mortality profile between Japan and the United States. The Japanese age-adjusted rate of mortality due to (heart disease and stroke) is about 30 percent lower than that of the United States.For the study, published in the Sept. 13 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers analyzed data collected from 40,000 healthy Japanese people aged 40 to 79 since 1994. More than 86 percent of the subjects were studied over the course of 11 years.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Want to slim: try kelp, say Japanese scientists


Japanese scientists have pinpointed an unlikely potential weapon in the war against obesity: seaweed. They found rats given fucoxanthin - a pigment in brown kelp - lost up to 10% of their body weight, mainly from around the gut.

They hope fucoxanthin can be developed into a slimming supplement or a drug that targets harmful fat.
The Hokkaido University research was presented to an American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco.

Brown kelp, Undaria pinnatifida, is a key ingredient of Japanese miso soup. But the researchers said drinking large quantities of the soup in an effort to lose weight would have little effect. Fucoxanthin is tightly bound to proteins in the seaweed and not easily absorbed in its natural form.

The researchers, led by Dr Kazuo Miyashita, said it might take another three to five years before a slimming pill based on fucoxanthin was available to the public.
The compound is found at high levels in several different types of brown seaweed. But it is absent from green and red seaweeds, which are also used in Asian cooking.

Dr Miyashita's team studied the effects of fucoxanthin on more than 200 rats and mice. They found it fought flab on two fronts and in obese animals the compound appeared to stimulate a protein called UCP1 which causes fat to be broken down.

The protein is found in a type of fat called white adipose tissue, which is responsible for the thickening of the girth dubbed "middle-age spread".

Research has shown that excess amounts of fat around the midriff are particularly linked to heart disease and diabetes. The pigment also caused the liver to produce a compound called docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which can help cut levels of "bad" cholesterol associated with obesity and heart disease.

No adverse side effects were seen in the animals used in the study.

Dr Ian Campbell, medical director of the charity Weight Concern, said a 5% to 10% weight loss was comparable with existing anti-obesity drugs. But he added: "We don't know in how many humans this would be achieved, nor for how long.

"The possibility of it being side-effect free is attractive but it is a long way away from being anything resembling an anti-obesity pill.

"The problem remains that medication, however good, will only ever plaster over the cracks; the hard fact is that only a significant change in lifestyle will ever achieve long-term meaningful weight loss and it is here that we should be focusing our effort”, he concluded.

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Newborn prince is named Hisahito


Prince Akishino, who is Emperor Akihito's second son, gave the name to the child in an afternoon ceremony at Aiiku Hospital in Minato Ward, Tokyo. Following tradition, it was held on the seventh day after his birth.
The newborn is the first heir born to the Imperial family in nearly 41 years, standing third in line to the Chrysanthemum Throne after Crown Prince Naruhito and Prince Akishino. Females are barred by law from ascending the throne.
Princess Kiko gave birth to the child at the hospital Sept. 6. The mother and Prince Hisahito are both in good health and will stay there for several more days.
In the naming ceremony, a court official put the new prince's name and his symbol, the umbrella pine, on "washi" paper in a paulownia box and it was placed next to the baby's pillow. The symbol will be used to mark the baby's belongings.

See related links:
Birth of a male has raised profile of 'second princess'
Emperor and Empress meet new grandson
Princess Kiko delivers a boy
Politicians happy to put off royal debate
Views on succession system remain split
Fans, patients, shop owners weigh in on Imperial birth
New prince becomes the third in line to assume Chrysanthemum Throne
Newborn prince to get 3 million yen stipend
Shares in baby goods take a dive after birth
Imperial rivalries are grist for media mill
Many pairs fancy sex selection over nature's course
Royal boy will put off succession crisis, not solve it

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Vernon says.....



Hey, Kenny!
Thanx for the link to Phil's tribute to Tommy. Sorry I haven't
responded to all the e-mails you've sent so far--I'm still basking in
the glow of the wonderful experience I had with all of you guys--that
was my Toronto blessing!
Okay, so I'll join you guys, but you've already got a sense as to how
long it takes me to respond, right? As long as you understand that and
are willing to put up with my less-than-nimble reflexes in communication.
Vern

Photo is courtesy of Roger Ridley in Basel, Switzerland

Between the Occident and the Orient


Thomas Yoshiro Blosser is a fellow many of us knew. Tom and his brother Phil are pictured here just hours after the two of them became brothers. 

Visit the web site to read the story of Tom's life; the life of one lived between North America and Japan or between the Occident and the Orient. 

Many of us understand the issues of identity and personhood since we live between two different realities. 

Thank you Lord for the life of this one who impacted the earth for your Kingdom.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

What it means to be Japanese



Ko Unoki FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2006-->Published: September 7, 2006TOKYO The other day I received the results of a DNA test administered by the Genographic Project, a joint project by the National Geographic Society and IBM, whose goal is to analyze human DNA samples and understand the route which mankind took in populating the world.
After submitting my DNA - obtained by simply swabbing the inside of my mouth - along with about $100, I received two months later information about my paternal ancestors.
I've always been interested in trying to find the origins of my ancestry. I am a Japanese male, born in Japan. Both of my parents are ethnically Japanese and as far as I know, all my recent ancestors for at least the past three centuries were born in Japan.
The Genographic Project, which I happened to stumble upon while surfing the Internet, gave me an opportunity to satiate my curiosity about my ancestral origins.

click on the title to read the rest of the article

New prime minister to be elected on Sept 26


Tokyo, September 7, 2006

Japan's ruling and opposition leaders agreed on Thursday to elect a new prime minister on Sept 26, Kyodo News agency reports.

Leaders of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the largest opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, on Thursday agreed to convene Parliament on September 26 to have a vote to elect a new leader to replace Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Kyodo said.Koizumi has said he will step down this month. Hawkish lawmaker Shinzo Abe, currently Chief Cabinet Spokesman in the Koizumi Cabinet, is considered the front-runner in the September 20 leadership election of the LDP.Whoever wins that race is expected to succeed Koizumi because the party holds the majority of seats in Parliament's powerful lower house.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

2,000 yen bills find few fans


Quite a few people may wonder where the 2,000 yen bank notes have gone since they came out in 2000.
"I've hardly ever seen a 2,000 yen note over the past six years," said Kyoko Kanda, 24, an office worker in Tokyo.
"I keep one as a keepsake, but that's all I need," she said. "I don't want to keep them in my wallet because they are not convenient, as there are so few vending machines or ATMs that will take them."
Kanda's opinion seems to represent the attitude of many other people who avoid using the so-called millennium bank notes.

Japanese princess gives birth to male heir

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Princess Kiko gave birth on Wednesday to a baby boy -- the first male heir to be born into the ancient imperial family in more than four decades.
The birth of a boy, who will be third in line after his uncle and his father, will likely dampen debate on letting women inherit the throne -- an idea opposed by conservatives eager to preserve a tradition they say stretches back more than 2,000 years.An Imperial Household Agency official told reporters Kiko had given birth by a Caesarean operation to the 2,558 gram (5 lb 10 ounce) boy at 8:27 a.m. (2327 GMT).

Monday, September 04, 2006

Effort to beef up overseas TV


A government panel Monday began discussing ways to increase government and business cooperation for enhancing Japan's international television broadcasting capabilities and its ability to send information abroad, the communications ministry said.
The advisory committee to the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry kicked off the series of meetings as part of a government plan to improve Japanese telecommunications and broadcasting sector operations, it said.The plan, announced Friday by communications minister Heizo Takenaka, urges public broadcaster NHK to strengthen its international TV broadcasting services.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Japanese engineers unveil robot sommelier

TSU, Japan -- The ability to discern good wine from bad, name the specific brand from a tiny sip and recommend a complementary cheese would seem to be about as human a skill as there is.
In Japan, robots are doing it.
Researchers at NEC System Technologies and Mie University have designed a robot that can taste--an electromechanical sommelier able to identify dozens of different wines, cheeses and hors d'oeuvres.
"There are all kinds of robots out there doing many different things," said Hideo Shimazu, director of the NEC System Technology Research Laboratory and a joint-leader of the robot project. "But we decided to focus on wine because that seemed like a real challenge."

Saturday, September 02, 2006

``The Tokyo Trial`` opens


BEIJING-- "The Tokyo Trial," a historical film recounting the trial of top Japanese war criminals at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East 60 years ago, opens nationwide Friday. At media previews this week in Shenzhen, Beijing and Shanghai, the film won high praise from both audiences and critics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Military_Tribunal_for_the_Far_East