Immediate Threat of Tsunami Passes

Nations all over the Pacific region braced for the arrival of deadly tsunamis in the wake of the 8.8-magnitude earthquake that rocked Chile Saturday. In Japan alone about 640,000 families were evacuated from coastal regions due to the tsunami alert. The Japanese government also stopped rail operations and blocked highways that could possibly be affected by the arrival of tsunamis. Fortunately the prediction of 9-foot (3-meter) waves in the northeast coast has, so far, not materialized. Tsunami waves did hit coastal regions in Japan but compared to what they have prepared for the waves are considered inconsequential. However, the Japanese government are taking no chances and will wait a few more hours to observe what will happen before the Meteorological Agency will lower the warning.

Japan is no stranger to tsunamis and is obviously one of the countries most often affected by this natural disaster since the word tsunami itself is a Japanese term. Japan has a very good emergency system in place for events like earthquakes and tsunamis, being frequently affected by these. They were especially wary of the possible effects of the recent earthquake in Chile having suffered from lethal tsunamis generated by a 9.5-magnitude quake in Chile in the 1960s. The 1960 tsunami reached Japan 22 hours after the quake hit Chile and resulted in approximately 2800 homes destroyed and more than 140 dead and/or missing persons.

Other countries that issued major tsunami warnings but now are breathing sighs of relief include Hawaii, Australia, Russia, and Philippines.

Japanese Whalers And Activists Meet Again

The Japanese tradition of hunting whales commercially and all the controversy surrounding it is nothing new. Indeed, the friction between the Japanese whaling industry and activists who stand up for the whales has been going on for decades. Recently, the two parties clashed in another incident.

According to reports, a group of anti-whaling activists “attacked” a Japanese whaling ship in the Antarctic Ocean. The group supposedly threw butyric acid at the ship. They also fired paintball guns at the ship. In response, the ship used water cannons on them. By the way, butyric acid is a substance found in rotten food and vomit. You can just imagine how disgusting that is!

This is not the first time that anti-whaling activists and Japanese whalers have clashed physically. Indeed, this might just be tamer than other incidents.

The Institute of Cetacean Research, Japan’s government agency that is in charge of whaling, says that the group behind the attack is the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. These two parties have had a longstanding feud. According to the agency, the protesters endangered the lives of the crew of the whaling ship. It emphasized that those present in the ship were mainly researchers conducting studies legally. In international waters, whaling is permitted as long as the purpose is for research and not commercial.

There is no word as to what will happen as a result of this incident. The fact remains, however, that whaling is still a very sensitive issue for those involved.

Japanese Men Look To Ikebana For Stress Relief

What do you do when you feel that the stress of your every day life is getting to be too much? Some men turn to sports: basketball, soccer, football, etc. Others sit in front of the TV to watch shows, movies, or play video games. I know some men who would hit the gym. And there are those who go to the kitchen and cook up a storm.

In Japan, the trend is for men to do something quite different: ikebana. If you’re not familiar with this term, it is the Japanese word for flower arrangement. The literal English translation of ikebana is “the way of the flowers.” Obviously, this art has been dominated by women and dates back to more than half a century ago.

As with most everything, though, the tradition is slowly changing, and more and more Japanese men are turning to ikebana for some stress relief. Actually, let me correct myself – this art started with male artisans but became dominated by women. This new trend then is actually a going back to roots sort of thing.

The idea behind ikebana is simple: to establish harmony and the sense of being one with nature. The styles are minimalist and the activity itself is conducted in silence. You can easily see how stress-relieving the whole thing can be. It is thus no wonder that more Japanese men are practicing the traditional art of flower arrangement these days. And more than busting all that stress away, you get to have a beautiful home!

Japan To Give $5M To Haiti

Hearts are bleeding and tears are flowing all over the world. The quake that hit Haiti the other day is something that no one can ignore, and anyone who is able to help out in whatever way is doing something. Japan as a country has been quick to respond as well.

Yesterday, the Japanese government pledged the huge amount of five million dollars. With the help of the various agencies of the United Nations, Japan aims to be able to distribute the money properly in order to help out the victims of the quake, which is reported to have killed over a 100,000 people.

On top of this pledged sum, the Japanese government is also planning on sending relief goods that are desperately needed by the people of Haiti. These good include food and tents and are estimated to be worth more than $300,000.

More than this, Japan also plans to send teams to assess the situation in terms of medical needs. If the plans were followed, there may very well be a Japanese team in Haiti as of this writing.

We all know how prone Japan is to earthquakes. In fact, of all the major earthquakes that occur in the world, Japan probably gets the largest number. As such, they have always been quick to lend a helping hand to those who are in need.

For those of you who want to help out, get in touch with your nearest Red Cross office and find out what you can do.

Hybrids Rule In 2009

Chinese astrology may have dubbed the year 2009 as the Year of the Cow, but it was something else in Japan. People have been calling last year as the Year of the Hybrids in the country. This is due to the fact that, for the first time, a hybrid car has gotten the distinction of being the bestselling car in the whole country.

I am talking about the Toyota Prius, of course. This car was launched with a lot of promises and much potential. It seems that it has lived up to its reputation – based on sales figures released in the past week, 208,879 units of the Prius were sold by Toyota in 2009. The figure makes the Prius the number one car in Japan. More than that, though, it is the number one hybrid car in the entire world!

Is the Prius as great as it seems or is there another reason for its success? Experts and consumers alike extol this hybrid’s virtues but there is another factor that has to be taken into consideration. The truth is that packages and incentives provided has made the price of the Prius so low that consumers are more attracted to it. With all the incentives, one might be able to save as much as 4,200 USD!

Aside from the Prius, another hybrid car sold really well in Japan last year: the Honda Insight. Compared to Toyota’s sales figures, Honda only had 93,283 – not even half. Still, overall sales figures support the fact that hybrids are very much on their way to being the standard.

Japanese Man Says I Do…With Video Game Character

Just the other week, some colleagues and I were discussing a woman who supposedly married the Eiffel Tower. Naturally, we were all bewildered by the whole thing. We just couldn’t fathom how a person could marry an inanimate object!

So when I read about a Japanese man marrying a video game character, I was not all that puzzled. In a news report published by Reuters, I learned about SAL9000 – that’s the Japanese guy’s online moniker – marrying Nene Anegasaki, a character in the video game Love Plus. I am not familiar with the video game, but from what I have been reading (and based on the name as well!), it is a dating simulation game.

SAL9000 says he is an “otaku,” which is the Japanese term for young adults who have an extreme passion (or even obsession) with video games and fantasy. I think it is also being considered as a sub-culture, and in their own world, it is acceptable to call characters their “wives.” SAL9000 says that since he has been calling and thinking of Nene Anegasaki as his “wife,” the logical thing to do was to marry her!

The couple exchanged “I do’s” several weeks ago, and they spent their honeymoon abroad – in Guam. They have been traveling the famous city of Tokyo as a couple, with SAL9000 documenting their dates diligently. As for the new husband, he says his wife can rest assured that he will never cheat. Ahh, where have I heard that before?

President Obama Bows To Japanese Emperor

Barack Obama is no stranger to controversy – his whole presidential campaign revolved around that, if you remember. More so, this is not the first time that the President of the United States has showed deference to a leader of another country. Remember him bowing to the King of Saudi? Now THAT irked a lot of Americans.

If you haven’t heard yet, President Obama did a repeat of the bowing thing. This time, he bowed before Emperor Akihito, again generating a lot of buzz. Of all the articles, blog posts, and commentaries that I have been reading on this event, I found Jake Tapper’s most interesting. He writes:

“This picture shows two things,” my friend writes.
“1) The ‘right’ is wrong about Obama’s bow.
“2) The ‘left’ is wrong about Obama’s bow.
“His bow is neither (1) unprecedented nor (2) a sign of cultural understanding.

“At their 1971 meeting in Alaska, the first visit of a Japanese Emperor to America, President Nixon bowed and referred to Emperor Hirohito and his wife repeatedly as ‘Your Imperial Majesties.’”

So what’s the difference between Obama’s bow and Nixon’s bow? The latter got it right – angle and all. Apparently, Obama’s angle was all wrong, and the addition of the hand shake was just NOT right. The overall effect?

Kyodo News is running his appropriate and reciprocated nod and shake with the Empress, certainly to show the president as dignified, and not in the form of a first year English teacher trying to impress with Karate Kid-level knowledge of Japanese customs.

The bow as he performed did not just display weakness in Red State terms, but evoked weakness in Japanese terms….The last thing the Japanese want or need is a weak looking American president and, again, in all ways, he unintentionally played that part.

I wonder what Obama thinks about the buzz that he has once again generated? What do YOU think about it?

Tokyo Pedestrian Crossing Adopted By Britain

Yesterday, Londoners were treated to a taste of what it’s like to cross the streets of Tokyo. Oxford Circus, which is considered to be the “heart of London’s West End shopping and entertainment district,” opened the first ever Tokyo-style pedestrian crossing in their part of the world. The style of this pedestrian crossing – as you can see from the photo, courtesy of Mirror.co.uk – allows people to cross the intersection diagonally, on top of being able to cross in straight lines. Obviously, in order for this scheme to work, traffic in all directions must be halted all at once to give way to the pedestrians.

According to a report by AFP, London authorities got the idea from the crossing in Shibuya, a well-known area in Tokyo. The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, was quoted as saying:

“This project is a triumph for British engineering, Japanese innovation and good old-fashioned common sense. The head-scratching frustration caused by the previous design is over and we’ve brought one of the world’s greatest crossroads into the 21st century. Being able to cross in an oblique rather than a perpendicular fashion will make Oxford Circus incredibly more efficient for the millions of pedestrians and road users that use the crossing every year.”

Indeed, why haven’t others thought of this before? Trust the Japanese to come up with such a simple solution to a simple problem!

So how much did the scheme cost the government? A whopping five million pounds, no less! We’ll see in the next few weeks – or months – if the scheme is worth it. I have a feeling it will be.

Feel Like A Japanese Olympics Experience?

If the Japanese government has its way, then we just might be treated to such an experience in about 6 years’ time! The news is that Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, the new Prime Minister of Japan, is pushing for Japan’s bid to host the 2016 Summer Olympics. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is holding a meeting in Copenhagen this week, and the Prime Minister’s spokesman announced that Hatoyama will be actively pushing for their bid.

The current contenders for the position of host for the 2016 Summer Olympics are Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo. The voting will be done on Friday by roundabouts 100 members of the IOC. As of now, not one of the cities has emerged as a clear favorite. As such, they are all doing their best to come up with the most attractive bid in an effort to get the votes from the IOC members.

So what’s Japan’s plan? The tagline is to host the “most compact, ecologically friendly, and athletes-focused” Olympics in history. It seems that the ecologically friendly aspect is the strongest point of Tokyo’s bid, with the Prime Minister promising to drastically cut back on the country’s carbon emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020. It is a very bold move, but I think that if any nation can do it, it is Japan.

An interesting piece of news: royalty and presidents (or the wife, in President Obama’s case) are going to Copenhagen to further their countries’ cause, but it seems that Crown Prince Naruhito is not going.

Japan “Dolphin Town” To Set Dolphins Free?

Remember that article I posted on the movie “The Cove?” It is a documentary about a practice in Japanese town, wherein fishermen annually catch dolphins. They then either sell the dolphins to aquariums and other similar establishments or slaughter them for meat. The documentary stars Ric O’Barry, erstwhile trainer of the TV series Flipper, which aired in the 1960s. Activists were quick to join O’Barry’s bandwagon, pushing the movie into the international limelight. As a result, the international community has created an outcry that no one can ignore.

The town of Taiji is an otherwise quiet town. Following the release of The Cove, however, its residents have experienced such intense scrutiny that it seems that they have no choice but to accept their “fame.” The international pressure on their tradition has reached such a point that the Taiji fisheries association has succumbed – even if only temporarily.

An unknown official of the organization has announced (anonymously, of course) that they will NOT be killing any of the dolphins in their first haul of the year. Instead, they will be picking out the best 50 of the lot and sell them to aquariums. The rest they will set free. He says, though, that they are still unsure as to what to do in the long term. On the one hand, the town’s residents “do not want any trouble.” On the other hand, they do not want to let go of tradition because of the pressure.

O’Barry and the rest of the people involved in the film are, naturally, elated at the news –even if it is not set in stone.