Blizzardboy | A Kiwi in Japan

I have noticed over the last couple of months a number of amusing stories coming out of the People’s Republik and have come to the conclusion that either Reuters must have a really bored reporter based in China, or that the bizarre stories are somehow a reflection of China’s growing power in the world. A complete derth in such stories from Japan would have to be put down to a recent lack of activity on the part of the Japanese rugby team.

from Reuters: But didn’t they used to call this torture?

BEIJING (Reuters) – China has warned image-conscious citizens against using the rack to lengthen their legs after several such operations went badly wrong, Xinhua news agency said.

Ten people were reported to have been disfigured after they underwent stretching surgery last year, it added.

The operation, which involves breaking the patient’s legs and then stretching them on a rack, has become popular among young professionals “desperate to climb up the ladder in the country’s height-conscious society,” Xinhua said, without trying to pull anyone’s leg.

“Leg-lengthening surgery is a clinical orthopaedic treatment, not cosmetic surgery,” ministry spokesman Mao Qunan was quoted as saying.

“Leg-lengthening surgery must only be carried out for strict medical reasons and performed in authorized hospitals.”

State media have said profit-obsessed small clinics sold the operation hardest to increasingly wealthy Chinese in the cities, who have taken to cosmetic surgery such as breast enlargements with enthusiasm.

Height is usually listed as a requirement for jobs or certain schools in China. Many employers require women to be over 1.65 meters (5 ft 5 in) and men over 1.70 meters.

It is also an important factor in courting, when many Chinese women expect their partners to be over 1.70 meters and men also care about their potential wives’ height to avoid short offspring.

As a result, calcium supplements and other “height-enhancing” medicines are always among the best sellers at Chinese pharmacies.

“It is very risky for healthy people who only complain about being short,” Mao was quoted by Health News as saying of the operation.

Photo credit: David Bjorgen from Wikipedia.

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Ni-Chaneru aka Two Channel in English, operator Hiroyuki Nishimura has apparently gone to ground as a result of mounting debts resulting from lost law suits. Ni-Chaneru is reportedly the worlds largest internet forum and, ranks number 218 on alexa.com’s traffic ranking.

What is special about Ni-Chaneru is its anonymous posting system. This both enables people to disclose information in a way that significantly promotes free speech, whilst allowing the promulgation of hate speech at the same time.

Despite its’ popularity, ni-chaneru remains something of an underground phenomena in Japan. Nishimura has been the subject of a large number of law suits as a result of the anonymous posting system – suits he refuses to appear for.

Operator of notorious bulletin board lost in cyber space (from Mainichi)

All sorts of mail is bulging out of the postbox, but the thick wads of legal letters stand out. A peep inside through the windows of the Tokyo apartment provides no hint that anybody has lived inside for a while.

=> Read more!

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The New York Times has an interesting article with some analysis into the actual size of the device tested by North Korea Monday. According to their report, the device was around 1 kiloton or one fifteenth the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.

North Korean Test Appears to Be Fairly Small

By WILLIAM J. BROAD and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: October 9, 2006

The North Korean test appears to have been a nuclear detonation but was fairly small by conventional standards, and possibly a failure or a partial success, federal and private analysts said today.

Throughout history, the first detonations of aspiring nuclear powers have tended to pack the destructive power of 10,000 to 60,000 tons — 10 to 60 kilotons — of conventional high explosives.

But the strength of the North Korean test appears to have been a small fraction of that: around a kiloton or less, according to scientists monitoring the global arrays of seismometers that detect faint trembles in the earth from distant blasts.

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There was just a news story on Terebi Asahi (ANN) reporting a tremor originating in North Korea. They didn’t confirm whether North Korea has tested a nuclear device, but they did say that the tremor didn’t appear to be an earthquake. The tremor registered 3.5 on the Japanese magnitude scale, and occured at 10:35am JST.

North Korea may have chosen today to test the nuclear device to coincide with 10 October being a national holiday to celebrate the Founding of the Korean Workers Party. This month is a busy month for holidays in East Asia, with October 1st being National Day (国庆节) in the PRC celebrating the Founding of PRC in 1949. It is also a public holiday – Health and Sports Day here in Japan. The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is also out of the country at the moment, visiting South Korea to discuss the issue with South Korean leaders.

Update: Found this up on a couple of blogs:
And Then There Were 8? ,
North Korea Conducts Nuclear Weapons Test,
and on Tammy Bruce’s blog – North Korea Conducts Nuke Test who suggests that the result of this will be a Japan with nuclear weapons.

Foxnews.com has a story up as well:

Report: North Korea Tests Nuclear Weapon

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea performed its first-ever nuclear weapons test Monday, Yonhap news agency reported, citing government officials.

South Korean officials couldn’t immediately confirm the report.

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun has convened a meeting of security advisers over the issue, Yonhap reported, and intelligence over the test has been exchanged between concerned countries.

RightVoice reports:

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said the test was conducted at 10:36 a.m. (9:36 p.m. EDT Sunday) in Hwaderi near Kilju city, citing defense officials.

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Japan’s Finacial Services Agency, which oversees good business practices in Japan has issued business improvement orders to 26 non-life insurance companies here in Japan. The orders were issued following the failure by the 26 nonlife insurance companies to pay promised insurance benefits in some 320,000 cases. Caveat emptor. Chooch got a payout from AIU (no English) with their travel insurance, but that was a long time ago now. Anyone with some recent experience? Who would you recommend for insurance in Japan?

Nonlife insurers’ nonpayment cases rise to 320,000
Kyodo News

Failure to pay promised insurance benefits by 26 nonlife insurance companies have been found in some 320,000 cases worth a combined 18.6 billion yen in value, according to the latest data.

The total includes 262,158 cases valued at more than 16 billion yen on the part of Japan’s top six property and casualty insurance companies, including industry leader Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co.

=> Read more!

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A colouring in book for executives. Amusing. Somehow the United States doesn’t seem that different to Japan.

I saw an interesting documentary the other day on reverse urban drift in Japan. It seems that it is becoming increasingly common for Japanese professionals to buy cheaper properties in the country side. Usually in their 40’s these people opt out of the crazy city lifestyle for the peace and tranquility of Japan’s rural areas.

With public transport so effective in Japan, and with a greater number of companies now vying to keep the cream of the crop on their payroles, getting ones’s company to fork out for a monthly bullet train pass is an option. This means that someone can be literally on the other side of Japan and still travel to work in a little over an hour.

Japanese business men who travel this way average about 4 newspapers a journey. Personally the idea of spending 3 hours or more a day on a train going to work doesnt really appeal to me. But it would be better than living in some of the more infamous bed towns.

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Undercover police in Nagoya recently arrested a woman for the theft of… an envelope.

Taking the law to new depths of inanity prosecutors have requested a five year sentence for the perpetrator, an unemployed 67 year old woman from the nearby prefecture of Gifu. The woman has previously been convicted of 14 charges of theft.

From the Mainichi newspaper: Habitual woman pickpocket faces 5 years behind bars for stealing envelope

“The defendant is a habitual pickpocket and highly likely to repeat a similar crime,” a prosecutor said during a hearing held at the Nagoya District Court on Tuesday.

Her defense lawyer argued that the demand is too severe in view of the amount that she stole.

Maeyama stole an envelope containing an invoice, worth only two yen, from a woman’s bag at a department store in Nakamura-ku, Nagoya, on the afternoon of Aug. 6, according to prosecutors.

Plainclothes police officers saw her steal the envelope even though she attempted to cover it with a paper fan, and arrested her red-handed.

I shudder to think what penalty I will face for stealing a sip of Chooch’s wine the other night.

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I found this delightful little video about an Alaskan’s first impressions of Tokyo. Great poetic narration with an almost Lost in Translation feel to it.

It isn’t very indepth, and the experiences he talks about works for pretty much any new city one visits. Tokyo is at once a very large city, one can take the train for hours. On a bicycle though Tokyo becomes much smaller, but it takes a long time to learn ones way around the city.

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Completely unrelated to Japan or China, I thought this clip was worth posting anyway.

When someone says that politicians say stupid things, then one immediately thinks of George Bush. And one isn’t wrong in this case. Bush’s latest gaffe is saying that the current Iraq war will become just a comma in the history books. That is possible – in perhaps 2000 years time. And the Freudian slip at the beginning confusing Iran with Iraq is both truly priceless and deeply worrying at the same time.

From the Cafferty File on CNN.

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Wednesday saw the election of Shinzo Abe as leader of Japan’s ruling LDP, and next week on the 26th, when the Lower House of Japan’s Diet convenes he will be elected as the new Prime Minister of Japan.

Abe will be Japan’s youngest post-war Prime Minister, although at 52 he is 10 years older than New Zealands youngest PM – the late, great David Lange. Abe is also significantly older than the worlds youngest ever Prime Minister – the Dominican Republic’s 34 year old Roosevelt Skerritt.

One area Abe has expressed interest in is revising the Japanese constitution. Moves in this area will provoke intense debate in the region.

I wont go into detail today, but I thought I would quote from the Japanese constitution – especially article 9 which deals with Japan’s military abilities (and one area I am sure Abe is considering significant changes to).

Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution is a “No War” clause. It dates from 1947 at the end of World War II.

ARTICLE 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

(from Wikipedia)

And just for a little contrast, a video of the Japanese Self Defense Forces from youtube:

Nice music.

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