From the British Times website: Ochone! Japanese whisky is voted the best in world. I find that a bit hard to believe, but then I have never really been a big fan of whiskey. I remember on the ferry to China that a couple of Japanese backpackers, long-haired and already a little smelly had a large bottle of Nikka whiskey which they were sharing. Very kind of them. Anyway the Californian photographer who had the bed next to mine had a few too many and ended up passing out on the ferry’s helipad. It was a little disturbing when the ships stewards carried him in around 3 am. He wasn’t in good shape, but luckily he kept it all down.

The BBC news website has a story Japan PM’s party in poll defeat.

Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party has been defeated in a key by-election, dealing a fresh blow to the leadership of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

LDP candidate Shigetaro Yamamoto was easily defeated in the vote in Yamaguchi prefecture.

Senior opposition MP Kenji Yamaoka told Japanese media the result was “the beginning of the end of LDP rule”.

Hopefully this will mean a return to a Japan lead by people with interesting haircuts.

Japan detects bird flu in four wild swans from Reuters. I think I can discern the beginning of a newly revised Tchaikovsky ballet in this story. The swans were discovered near Lake Towadako which is in Akita, closish to where I used to live. Quite sad really.

Lastly the most disturbing of the stories: Japan: Where has all the butter gone?

No butter = no toast = no breakfast….

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Hir@gana Times is an English-Japanese bilingual monthly magazine published here in Japan. It costs 390 yen an issue and is available from all good bookstores. One great thing about the magazine is, if you are learning Japanese, the articles are translated into Japanese, and they have furigana (kanji readings), so it is a good way to develop your Japanese language skills.

Subscription information for the Hir@gana Times is available here.

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Will the People’s Republican Army be mobilised? Will there be an initial bamboo relief supply drop over Christchurch?

Panda impersonator sought after hit-and-run
By JO McKENZIE-McLEAN – The Press | Tuesday, 13 November 2007

Police are on the look-out for an injured panda impersonator who was involved in a hit-and-run in Christchurch.

A person dressed as a panda, hanging out a front passenger window, was one of up to four occupants of a car that ploughed into a pedestrian without stopping at 2.25am on Saturday in Riccarton.

Constable Moira Wyeth said the woman was getting into her white Toyota Vitz, which was parked on the west side of Riccarton Road beside a dairy near Wainui Street when she was struck from behind.

“As she partially opened her door she was hit in the back by a vehicle.”

The impact of being hit caused the woman to be thrown into the front seat and her front driver’s door was ripped off.

The woman, who was alone, sustained back injuries. A passerby waved police down.

The vehicle is described as a red, four-door sedan, mid-1990s and last seen heading west on Riccarton Road.

There was a blonde woman sitting in the back seat, and the panda possibly sustained upper body injuries, Wyeth said.

Anyone with information should contact Wyeth on (03) 3637400 or contact her via email: moira.wyeth@police.govt.nz

Photo taken from Cousin Bujur’s From America to Turkey Blog. The entry with the Panda costume photos is here. Çok teÅŸekkür ederim!

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The first story, Cash-strapped NOVA fails to honor contracts to public schools after teacher exodus, reveals how Nova has been unable to meet its’ contractual obligations to the Osaka Board of Education.

The Japanese Ministry of Education initially worked with CLAIR (the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations) to set up the JET Programme which gave a great number of boards of education throughout Japan the opportunity to hire foreign assistant language teachers (ALT’s) for their students.

At the beginning of the program, these instructors were often the first westerners to live in the town or village and the program provided many Japanese people with the chance to speak with a foreigner for the first time.

Generally the program was a success, and it is still in action today, however “market forces” in recent times have meant that a reasonable number of boards of education have outsourced the hiring of ALT’s to third parties at a lower cost. In most cases this is without problem, however there have been cases of unscrupulous companies and questionable business practices leaving the students in the lurch.

Cash-strapped NOVA fails to honor contracts to public schools after teacher exodus

OSAKA — Scandal-hit major English school operator NOVA failed to dispatch English teachers to local public schools after many teachers quit or took leave because they didn’t get paid, officials said.

By Monday, NOVA had cancelled its planned dispatch of English teachers to five municipal elementary schools and five municipal junior high schools at least once.

The education board is now considering canceling its contract with NOVA.

You can read the rest of the story here (Mainichi).

The second story is more straight-forward with 4 of Nova’s senior executives walking the plank after being unable to reach Nova President Sahashi (å…ƒSaruhashi):

Labor body hopes to grill Nova chief on pay missteps

OSAKA (Kyodo) An Osaka labor standards watchdog wants to question the president of scandal-hit English-language school chain Nova Corp. over delayed wage payments, but meanwhile four executives of the firm have resigned because they can’t get ahold of their boss, Nova said Wednesday.

The Osaka Central Labor Standards Supervision Office has quizzed foreign teachers and other Nova employees about the delays, and wants to hear from President Nozomu Sahashi, suspecting a violation of the Labor Standards Law.

A union representing Nova’s foreign teachers said the firm has failed to pay wages to some 2,000 Japanese employees since July and to about 4,000 foreign teachers since September, and wages that were supposed to have been paid on Oct. 15 are on indefinite hold.

You can read the rest of the story here (Japantimes).

One hopes for the sake of both the students and the staff that this matter is cleaned up in the not too distant future.

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I want to add some feeds for events in Tokyo – TokyoArtBeat has some good listings, but I would like to set it up on a daily basis, with things like movies and poetry readings, concerts and bands, dj’s as well.

Anyone know any good RSS feeds they can recommend for what is on in Tokyo?

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Who would do such a dastardly thing? I hope they catch the thief and make him (or her but lets face it, him) drink fosters for the rest of his life. That will serve as a stronger lesson than anything the courts can send down.

Sounds like a great reward – and I hope the Croucher Brewing Company of Rotorua get their laptop back!

Brewery offers lifetime supply of beer for laptop

A New Zealand brewery is reportedly offering a lifetime supply of beer for the return of a stolen laptop.

The laptop was allegedly stolen from the Croucher Brewing Company in Rotorua earlier this week.

Owners were desperate to retrieve the computer containing designs, contact details and financial information, the Rotorua Daily Post said.

They have offered free beer to anyone giving clues leading to its recovery.

Co-owner Paul Croucher said the company would provide a lifetime supply of about 12 bottles a month to anyone who could name the thief.

The company has back-up copies of the material stored on the laptop but these are not up to date, the newspaper said.

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The victim found it strange that he would turn up in places that she rarely, or had never, visited before and contacted the police. The police searched her car and found a global positioning device taped to the underside of her car. Using his mobile phone he was able to get updates on her position and stalk her. Each time he checked her position it cost him 200 yen and from what the report said he spent many tens of thousands of yen on checking up on his victim each month.

This isn’t the first case of stalking by GPS globally – boingboing.net reports a case from 2004 in Los Angeles where a Glendale businessman was charged with stalking his ex-girlfriend after doing the exact same thing.

Technology has its place and GPS is extremely useful for things like mountain safety. But one has to wonder when it is used in such a way. And this is certainly taking stalking to a new level of creepiness.

Oh, and don’t ask what boingboing means in Japanese…

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Japanese search engine and portal site goo (an off shoot of Japanese telecom giant NTT) provides monthly summary of popular search results for a wide range of topics. Featured here are the results they provide for environment related searches during August 2007 in Japan.

1. Global Warming – Global warming is up from number 2 last month, mainly as a result of Japan having one of the hottest August’s in recent times. With temperatures pushing 40 degrees celsius Japan saw more than 10 heat related deaths – including 2 in Japanese prisons.
2. Kyoto Protocol – Related to the top topic of global warming, the Kyoto Protocal remains an important tool in the worlds fight against environmental damage. America’s failure to ratify the protocol didn’t earn them any brownie points in Japan and we can expect Japanese delegates to lobby hard at the upcoming Apec Summit in Sydney in this area. Up from number 7 last month.
3. Extinction – Steady at number 3. The reported lack of sighting of the Chinese river dolphin kept extinction near the top again in August in Japan.
4. Garbage Problem – Up from number 6, problems with garbage disposal remain a tough nut to crack in Japan. Social ettiquette requires gifts be properly wrapped so even boxes of cookies in Japan come individually wrapped. And August’s heat wave meant that sales of PET bottle drinks boomed – further adding to Japan’s rubbish disposal problems. There are some signs that Japanese companies are waking up to the necessity of cutting down on packaging, but without government intervention don’t expect anything to happen in this area too quickly.
5. Recycling Labels – Products in Japan are labeled as either plastic or paper, but there has been discussion about adding extra label definitions to aid in recycling. The summer heat has dropped this topic down to number 5 from number 4 last week. 
6. Acid Rain – More commonly associated with Eastern Europe, acid rain and its effects on the East Asian region is a topic that has started to gain more attention in the region. Up to number 6 from number 8 in July.
7. El Nino – El Nino, with the severe heat and water shortages that it in known to bring to parts of Japan dropped 2 to number 7.
8. Community Business – New in at number 8 is community business. Since the 1970’s the trend has been away from the larger corporate style of business (especially in the countryside of Japan) and towards smaller family run businesses. The idea of community business includes companies offering support services to the elderly, as well as eduction to children. In recent years, companies that offer environmentally friendly alternatives have become more common.
9. Deforestation – If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there does it make a sound? An almost impossible question to ponder if you live in one of Japan’s megalopoli such as Tokyo, but in more rural areas of Japan there are some magnificent forested areas. This topic makes it at number 9 this month.
10. Ozone Layer Destruction – Another topic related to the problem of global warming, ozone layer destruction pops back in at number 10 this month as a result of the abnormally high temperatures experienced in Japan this month.

For a summary of March’s result you can check out whatjapanthinks.com post: Extinction, global warming, and desertification top Japanese environmental searches. 

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Read more…

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From the publishers description:

Experience the Olympic buzz around Beijing, take a slow boat through the spectacular Three Gorges, or soak up the surreal landscape of Everest Base Camp: it’s no wonder that China’s tourism market is a booming $70 billion industry and growing as the Olympics near. With more maps, a language guide, and in-depth illustrated features on local food, culture, and customs, our savvy coverage will enable travelers to unravel the mysteries of China.

• Brand new regional planning pages provide an overview of the best travel destinations and address the logistics of a visit
• Chinese character translations of every recommended restaurant, hotel and nightclub in the country
• Expanded restaurant and hotel coverage on all of the most visited regions
• Completely updated dining and lodging reviews
• Personal recommedations on the most reliable tour guides in the country, where to find them, and how to book them
• Handy mini-essays, maps and images that highlight China’s cultural diversity and historic importance.

You can pick up a copy from amazon or any good bookstore. Remember though that in the Peoples Republic of China, restaurants especially can be there one day and gone the next.

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