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I was intrigued to find this chart on Boing Boing this morning. It shows the respective amounts of space people have Japan, as well as countries such as Russia, Australia, China and Monaco. It is in square feet so divide by 3 to get a very rough square meter estimate.

Quite surprisingly, Japan has a lot of space per person. I guess all the mountainous regions and forest Japan has preserved add up to a bit more room than is imaginable when one is living in a city such as Tokyo.

You can read about how this was put together here: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/30/charts-3.html

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We have been having a few travellers staying with us recently here in Japan and it has been interesting to hear what they think about this country, and moreover, what their expectations were prior to arrival in these lands.

Any country is a “diverse beast” and Japan is no exception. Surfing the web this morning I came across the following articles which cover a couple of the multitudinous faces of Japan – technology, tradition and ecology.

So lets start with cute technology. Geekyblog has a post featuring a very cute robot: Postkun – Limited Edition Japanese Robot.

They have this to say about the robot:

This funky looking robot is the creation of Tokyo based company Kyosho, he is called Postkun, which means ‘Little Postman’ in Japan.

Postkun will be available in a limited edition of just 10 robots, and only available in Japan for about $3,500.

That price seems a bit steep, so I don’t think I will be getting one unless my boss starts paying me more – a lot more!

You can read more about Postkun here: Postkun – Limited Edition Japanese Robot.

Treehugger – a website I quite enjoy reading, has an interesting piece on Paco House. A long way from Le Corbusier, Paco House is an alternative to dome housing, offering the possibility of a second house that is just gorgeous.

Doesn’t that just look idyllic? Especially from the midst of winter in Tokyo.

They add:

Let’s say you needed a really small house, perhaps a Dome Home, to put on a secluded place on a beach, somewhere far off and away. Schemata Architecture Office Ltd. is a group of designers showing a concept small second house that you could build yourself, or perhaps help to develop. I like the freedom of this. You could put it anywhere. If no-one complains, you are ok to go. Are there laws against second house freedom?

Indeed, who would complain! You can read more about the Paco House, and see some more pictures here: Small House Design “Paco” From Japan.

And finally the traditional – Men at Work: Artisans of Old Japan. No not an Australian 80′s band trying to make music using the remains of last nights dinner, but a well researched article from Slate Magazine. There are three parts up at the moment, and it looks like more are on the way.

The writer June Thomas kicks off:

Every language attracts a special kind of student. Spanish speakers are lazy and charming. Those who have mastered French are sometimes chic and always sybaritic. Hebrew attracts the committed; Turkish, the committed and complicated. Adventurers are drawn to Arabic, and Mandarin is for brainiacs who love a challenge—so much so that they often abandon the language altogether once they’ve got it down. And Japanese? Japanese speakers are serious, serious people. Of course, all languages demand tedious, diligent study, but there’s something about Japanese that calls out to those who are quiet, kind, and, often, spiritual. People who would rather kneel on a tatami mat contemplating a calligraphy scroll than, say, slump on a sofa watching Gossip Girl.

I always fancied myself too frivolous for Japan. Going there would be like visiting a library—a quiet, orderly place where nothing much happens. A world unto itself with lovely things to look at but nothing much to do. I love libraries; I just didn’t want to spend my vacation in one. All that politeness stressed me out. There seemed to be a million rules—take your shoes off here, wear these slippers in the bathroom and nowhere else—and I didn’t understand any of them.

You can read the rest of the article here: Men at Work: Artisans of Old Japan. That should keep you going till lunchtime.

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This video of Japanese commuters on the Chuo Line which runs into Tokyo’s busiest station Shinjuku. Not sure which station this is but it looks like a feeder into Shinjuku which was used by an average of 3.52 million people per day in 2006. Watching it makes me feel really glad I live in central Tokyo, not out in the sprawling bed towns.

How to Load People on Trains in Japan – For more funny videos, click here

I have only ridden on trains that packed a couple of times, and yes, while the video is a bit old, people are still employed in the mornings to push people onto the trains. They make a little over $10 an hour for the pleasure.

Imagine if all these people decided to drive to work – wouldn’t that be even crazier. Not that there would be enough places for them to park. Japan’s public transport system is really great for the environment, especially if you don’t have to use it.

Pickpocketing isn’t a problem that I have heard of, although groping is, and a number of lines now have women only cars at the front of the train to give Japanese women a bit of a break from the marauding hands of Japanese salarymen.

Interestingly there have been recent calls for mens only cars – this to stop men being accused of sexually harassing female passengers – here is an article from the Mainichi newspaper about this: Train companies close doors on men’s only carriages, giving free pass to groping scams. There have been quite a few cases of people being questionably arrested for groping. Some people will do anything for money!

And another news story I saw today that looked interesting: President of IT firm arrested for stripping on bullet train.

I don’t think stripping would be an option on the train shown in the video!

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Doing some gardening yesterday, and I was as surprised as ever at the diversity of life in amongst our collection of local flora. Upstairs for thinking found a similar spider I guess on his balcony – these are apparently found through Asia, and are very common in Japan, growing to quite respectable sizes.

We also have some great grasshoppers, lots of dragonflies and cicadas as well as a number of skinks living down the back of the house. No snakes yet though.

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Just read an interesting article translated from the Chinese – Former Chinese Restaurant Employee Tells All – from The Epoch Times. It gives an amazing insight into what really goes on in Chinese restaurants in China, and if true is almost as disturbing as the stories of baby soup being served in Xi’an restaurants a while back.

There is a saying about travelling to China – the Chinese will eat anything with legs except for tables and anything with wings except for airplanes – and this story… well, lets just say read the article and find out for yourself.

It makes me glad I am a vegetarian:

I remember the host on a program about animal rights saying, “Please take care of our animals. It will be good for everyone.” However, some Chinese don’t think about the animals when eating meat. They dare to eat anything but aren’t aware that what they are eating may actually be harmful to them.

Ah Chang, who has worked in the restaurant industry for many years in China, has witnessed the use of all kinds of tricks used to fool the public into buying inferior meat. The following is his experience as a kitchen helper in a restaurant in Guangdong Province.

Five years ago, I left Guangxi Province for the modernized Pearl River Delta in Guangdong province. With the help of a friend from my hometown, I was interviewed by restaurant owner Peng Da, and eventually hired as a kitchen helper. When the boss introduced me to the “Big Guy” – a popular name for a chef, I was shocked to see that the “Big Guy” was a female. Everyone called her Sister Rong. Sister Rong was in her 30s and was quite attractive. She told me that my responsibilities included killing animals, cutting and chopping various meats and bones, and preparing the meat before it was cooked.

On my second day at the restaurant, Rong pulled me over and said, “Ah Chang, since you are new to this field I will teach you a lesson: How to “use” the weigh scale. Our scale is accurate, but the displayed weights are not. Four hundred grams will show as 500 grams. This is not trickery but rather a common practice in this profession. All restaurants are doing this.”

Under Rong’s guidance, I quickly learned to use the scale. According to Wu Tian, when there were customers watching us, we should be careful not to let them see us exchanging bigger pieces of meat with smaller ones; or after killing a fish, cutting a section from it. Generally speaking, it was an open secret in this profession. Only when serving our friends would we not cheat, as our conscience’s wouldn’t allow it.

The Peng Da Restaurant was flourishing during the time I worked there. Every morning I had to kill many cats, sometimes five or six, and sometimes as many as ten. However, I didn’t see the cat meat sold in the restaurant. What happened to the meat? After thinking about it for a long time, I still couldn’t figure it out. Later, I paid more attention and found that some of the cat meat was stewed with medicinal herbs, and sold as stewed leopard meat with medicinal herbs for 198 yuan (approximately US$24.25) per dish. When Rong saw that I was confused, she said, “Leopard meat stewed with medicinal herbs is the signature soup of our restaurant. Cats are very common, so only by advertising the meat as being from a wild animal would it be attractive to diners. After removing the heads and claws and soaking the cat bodies in the herbs, even the smartest diner can’t discern that what they are eating is cat meat. Cat meat cost us 20 yuan (approximately US$2.50) for each carcass, but leopard meat cost 138 yuan (approximately US$17.25) per kilogram.”

You can read the rest of the article here.

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