Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2011

BLOOMIN’ GOOD IDEA

• The seeds of sunflowers, said to absorb radiation, are being collected from 13,000 locations throughout Japan so that they may be planted in areas affected by the crippled nuclear reactors in Fukushima.
• An ice cream shop from Fukushima reopened at the Takanawa Prince Hotel under a project spearheaded by writer Michiko Yoshinaga to help vendors from areas struck by the March 11 disasters.
• Environmental group Greenpeace said that fish caught at a port about 55 km from the Fukushima nuclear power plant “contained radioactive cesium at levels exceeding an allowable limit.”
• Some 370 “baby dance” schools have popped up throughout Japan where moms boogie with their offspring strapped to their chests.
• The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology will start a program to stop—or at least reduce—youth suicide. About 150 school kids a year take their own lives in Japan.
• A cat named Mokkun in Yamaguchi Prefecture has been making quite a name for himself by standing on his hind legs and drinking water from a can.

NOT COOL

• It was reported that some schools in Tohoku “forced students to clean radioactive dirt from swimming pools in locations with radiation levels four times Chernobyl evacuation limits… another propaganda show meant to convince the public there is no threat from radiation in Japan.”
• The government was pondering letting evacuees who lived within three clicks of the Fukushima nuclear power plant “visit their homes temporarily” in late August.
• From the Good Idea Dept comes this little gem: “Japanese Foreign Minister Takeaki Matsumoto has instructed his ministry to refrain from claiming the safety of Japanese foods, changing its stance after radiation-contaminated beef was found to have been sold to consumers in Japan.”
• The parents of four kindergarten students who died in the March 11 tsunami have sued the kindergarten for ¥266.8 million. The school in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, was located safely on high ground but staff sent the students home after the big quake in two school buses, one of which was overturned by the wave and burst into flames as it headed toward the coastline.
• A ceremonial bonfire that was part of an Obon festival in Iwate’s Rikuzen-Takata was fueled by wood from pine trees knocked down by the March 11 tsunami.
• The felled firewood was initially scheduled to be burned in Kyoto but locals scuttled that idea when rumors arose of radioactive contamination. The decision not to use the wood was then met with a barrage of criticism, leading officials there to reverse their decision and burn some of the tsunami wood after all. Ya can’t please everybody, as they say, but you certainly can try.
• The Asahi Shimbun uncovered US documents claiming the Americans were thinking of building a nuclear power plant in Hiroshima in 1953. Apparently President Eisenhower scrapped the plan because it might “indicate Washington’s sense of guilt over the atomic bombing of the city in 1945.”
• Jon Mitchell, a British journalist, told a symposium that the US military stored the toxic defoliant Agent Orange at its bases in Okinawa “and sprayed it as weed-killer at some of its facilities.”
• “It’s not like we did nothing for him,” the 39-year-old father of a two-year-old boy who starved to death in Chiba told police. Both the man and his wife were arrested on a charge of negligence as guardians causing death.

OF MONSTERS AND MASCOTS

• Trouble is brewing in the mascot kingdom. The web is abuzz, apparently, over the similarity of Ube City mascot Ekoha to much-loved character Pikachu from the Pokemon family.
• In other news from fantasyland, Japanese monsters known as yokai parade through the streets of Sakaiminato in Tottori Prefecture, the hometown of manga author Shigeru Mizuki, every Wednesday afternoon (weather permitting, of course, as monsters evidently don’t like to get wet).
• “Mudonna T Pig,” the St. Paul Saints minor-league baseball team mascot, will run in the Twin Cities Marathon in Minneapolis in October to raise money for areas hit by the March 11 earthquake. Seigo Masubuchi, an experienced marathon runner who has worked for the ballclub for 15 years, will don the pink suit for the run but, as the story points out, “this will be his first time to run a marathon in a pig suit.” Drink plenty of fluids, Seigo!
• A 20-member team of computer geeks from Japan made the finals at DefCon, “the world’s largest annual hacker convention held in Las Vegas.”
• Authorities in Fangzheng, China, removed a memorial recently put up to commemorate Japanese immigrants to China in the 1930s “in response to growing public criticism.” Since Japan invaded China around that time, some protesters said the memorial was “inappropriate.”

CLOSE, BUT STILL NO CIGAR…

• …which is probably a good thing as he’s still too young to legally smoke. Teenage golf sensation Ryo Ishikawa put in a fine effort but came up just short in his bid to win his first tournament on US soil when he tied for fourth at the Bridgestone Invitational in Akron, Ohio. Aussie Adam Scott took top honors.
• Headline of the Week: “Women urged not to copy men’s bad habits” (via The Asahi Shimbun). Refers to cheating and gamesmanship on the soccer pitch, not farting proudly in public, scratching your crotch or leaving the toilet seat up.
• It was a sad week for the sports world in Japan, with former MLB pitcher Hideki Irabu taking his own life in California at age 42 and ex-Japan national soccer team player Naoki Matsuda dying at age 34 from a heart attack a couple of days after collapsing during a training session in stifling heat.

Compiled from reports by AP, Japan Today, The Japan Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Asahi Shimbun, The Mainichi Daily News, Daily Yomiuri, AFP, Reuters and Kyodo.