January 20, 2011

January 20, 2011

January 20, 2011

This week's required reading

By

Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on January 2011

Heating Up

  • Local retailers are reporting a spike in the number of men buying products that help keep their bodies warm. Among the items favored by these wuss-bags are “haramaki (belly warmers) and food products that use ginger and chili pepper.”
  • The Meteorological Agency said that between 2001 and 2010, there were 48 days during which the temperature in Tokyo exceeded 35 degrees. From 1901 to 1910, there was just a single such day.
  • After being criticized for shutting down their Hello Work facilities during the New Year holidays last year, officials in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Saitama kept the welfare centers open this time around.
  • Nintendo warned that 3D games on its soon-to-be-released 3DS handheld console “could [adversely] affect the development of vision in small children.”

By the Numbers

Illustration by Eparama Tuibenau

  • For the first time since recordkeeping began in 1968, the number of Japanese reaching the legal age of 20 last year represented less than 1 percent of the total population.
  • At the same time, Japan’s net population decreased by 123,000—the first decline of more than 100,000 people in the postwar era.
  • It was reported that membership of Japan’s top three SNS sites—Gree, DeNA and Mixi—jumped 40 percent during the past year, to 65 million.
  • Japanese courts gave the death sentence to 14 people in 2010, the first time in 11 years the number dropped below 20.
  • It was reported that approximately 300 wild rabbits are living on Okuno Island in the Seto Inland Sea, the site of a former chemical weapons facility.

Upward and Onward

  • For the second year in a row, Tsuyoshi Hamada, a 36-year-old associate professor at Nagasaki University, won the Gordon Bell Prize, which is “a kind of Nobel Prize for supercomputers.”
  • Japan’s digital publishers are set to get a boost when the international e-book format known as EPUB begins supporting Japanese text in May.
  • Researchers at Kyoto University said that they have synthesized an alloy that’s similar to palladium, which raises hopes “for a cheaper alternative for the key element used in fuel cell batteries and other environmental technologies.”
  • Elderly mah-jongg players are apparently seeking out health-oriented gaming parlors in which smoking, booze and betting are all verboten.

Something Fishy

  • An association of wholesalers at Tsukiji market is investigating claims that a fish dealer in Toyama “may have been mislabeling yellow tails it sold as locally caught fish.”
  • The National Tax Agency suspects that four Japanese fishery companies bribed Russian officials in exchange for being able to fish “for walleye pollack in excess of a catch quota.”
  • The health ministry has expressed concern about a new style of mortuary company that seems more concerned with extracting gold from corpses than disposing of their remains properly.
  • A Japanese insurance firm is offering to reimburse travelers if it rains during their vacation. The coverage is available for over 100 destinations worldwide.

Here & There

  • An 18-year-old high school student was swept out to sea by high waves while watching the first sunrise of the new year on a beach in Ibaraki.
  • A magazine survey revealed that moms of first-graders-to-be are more worried about their kids getting to and from school safely than they are about bullying.
  • A father and his 11-year-old son were found unharmed after getting lost and spending the night in minus-13 degree temperatures at a ski resort in Aomori.
  • The National Police Agency said that over half the traffic accidents that occurred around the country last year were caused by senior citizens.
  • It is feared that the rise of gated condominiums with private security arrangements “is undermining [residents’] will to be proactive and help contribute to community safety.”

Yeah, Good Luck With That

  • Teen golfing sensation Ryo Ishikawa said his goal is to win the prestigious Masters tournament in the US either this year or next.
  • Kyoto University said it intends to establish a graduate school next year for the purpose of “training global leaders.”
  • It was reported that apprentice sumo wrestlers in the bottom jonokuchi division receive a bimonthly stipend of just ¥70,000.
  • Police in Aichi Prefecture believe that four men who were arrested for stealing 36 vehicles used an over-the-counter electronic device to foil the cars’ anti-theft key systems.

Official Business

  • Surprising absolutely no one, the DPJ has indicated that it will retool its election manifesto and “scale back” popular programs like the “monthly child allowance and the elimination of expressway tolls.”
  • It was reported that Kota Matsuda of Your Party was the richest of the 121 legislators who won a seat in the July upper house elections. Matsuda, the founder of the Tully’s Coffee Japan chain, claims ¥486 million in assets.
  • Television stations around the country decided to extend the deadline for eliminating their analog broadcasts until late July. Which begs the questions: what’s analog TV?
  • The media flurry surrounding the successful Hayabusa mission wasn’t enough to save JAXAi, the Japan Space Agency’s information center, which shut its doors last month due to budget cuts.

Sic Transit

  • It was reported that officials at privately held expressways are mulling a plan to allow utility companies to install solar panels on their roads in exchange for a rental fee.
  • Toyota sold more than 315,000 hybrid Prius cars last year, breaking the record of 300,000 Corollas sold in 1990.
  • The National Police Agency said that the number of people killed in traffic accidents during the six-day New Year holiday period—56—was the lowest since recordkeeping began in 1970.
  • Kumamoto-based Amakusa Airlines scrubbed 18 flights after a hole was found in the stabilizer of one of its planes.
  • Bottom Story of the Week: “Railway Museum to Hold Calligraphy Event Using Ink made from Train Soot.” (via The Mainichi Daily News)

Compiled from reports by Bloomberg, Jiji, AP, Japan Today, The Japan Times, International Herald Tribune/The Asahi Shimbun, The Mainichi Daily News, The Tokyo Reporter, The Daily Yomiuri and Kyodo