June 30, 2011

June 30, 2011

June 30, 2011

This week's required reading

By

Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on June 2011

STRANGE DAYS

  • The rainy season ended in Okinawa on June 9—the earliest date on record.
  • The meteorological agency says it will start issuing “heat advisories” on days when temperatures are due to rise to 35 degrees or above. The government hopes to avoid a repeat of last summer, when more than 1,700 people across the country died of heatstroke.
  • Paging Dr. Naruto: a university in Kyoto has announced that it will establish a PhD program in manga studies.
  • Meanwhile, Ogaki Women’s College in Gifu has entered into a “manga study partnership agreement” with Eurasiam, a Paris-based art school.
  • Two Chinese men were sentenced to six years in prison for robbing a pair of jewelry stores in Sapporo and Tokyo of ¥120 million last summer.

BREAK OUT THE PARTY HATS

  • A Guinness World Record was set in Toyama when 1,566 people got together to play a game of tag.
  • JAXA’s unmanned probe Hayabusa, which spent five years collecting samples from a space rock named Itokawa, has been certified by Guinness “as the first spacecraft to have brought back materials from an asteroid.”
  • Meanwhile, a team of researchers from Tohoku University and NEC Corp announced that they have developed the world’s first “large-scale integrated circuit that requires no standby power.”
  • Last year was the first time since 2001 that the number of suicides in Japan fell below 32,000, according to the National Police Agency.
  • People in their 70s killed themselves at a lower rate in 2010 compared to a year ago, but folks in their 20s and 30s committed suicide more frequently.
  • Former Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso joined Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing to kick off the inaugural Japanese Film and TV Week, which aims to “promote cultural exchanges between young people from the two countries.”
  • According to London-based human resources firm ECA, Tokyo is the most expensive city in the world for expats, followed by Oslo, Nagoya, Stavanger (Norway), Yokohama, Zurich, Luanda (Angola), Kobe and Bern.
  • The Japanese, apparently, have not been drowning their sorrows in booze following the March 11 quake: beer shipments in May were the lowest on record.
  • The Japan Sumo Association agreed to “provisionally pay a salary” to a wrestler named Sokokurai, who was implicated in the recent bout-fixing scandal. The thing we really like about this story is that the Chinese wrestler’s original name is Enhetubuxin.

ON THE CUTTING EDGE

  • An Osaka-based company has unveiled the Hatsuden-nabe, a stovetop pot that can charge cellphones while at the same time boiling water. It is hoped that the device will be “useful as a backup charger in case of natural disasters or other emergencies.”
  • The Lawson conbini chain has teamed up with Yahoo on “a joint shopping website for smartphone users” that should be up and running by December.
  • Brisk sales of the iPhone 4 are being credited with helping Softbank lead all mobile phone carriers in new subscriptions for the 14th consecutive month.
  • Mitsubishi was forced to recall 150,000 cars “due to insufficient strength of steering parts.”
  • The SDF said it was “greatly concerned” by the passage of 11 Chinese navy ships through waters near Okinawa last month.
  • In what may be a related development, the US aircraft carrier George Washington left its berth in Yokosuka “to take part in a joint multinational patrol of the western Pacific.”

THE NUTTY NORTH

  • Executives from Hokkaido Air System admitted that one of their passenger planes came within 4 seconds of hitting the ground while attempting a landing at Okushiri Island last month. (Uh, aren’t you supposed to hit the ground when you land?)
  • A Sapporo man in his 50s who complained of chest pains died after the ambulance transporting him was directed to the wrong hospital by an emergency center controller.
  • The Hokkaido Railway Co. is said to be “examining the working conditions” of a train driver who was captured dozing on the job by a passenger with a cellphone camera.

I CAN’T TAKE IT ANY MORE!

  • A dolphin at an aquarium in Nagoya was killed after leaping out of its pool and landing belly-first on a concrete floor.
  • It was reported that the government will begin a points system that awards special privileges to foreigners “who meet certain criteria concerning their educational background, work experience and annual income.”
  • Mitsui coughed up ¥5 billion to become the first Japanese company to participate in a European-based shale gas project. The development effort will take place in eastern Poland.
  • It was reported that employees of a Miyagi-based stonework company scavenged 45,000 slate tiles that were swept away in the March 11 tsunami. The tiles had been destined for use in the restoration of JR Tokyo station.
  • The farm ministry announced that the UN has designated the city of Sado in Niigata Prefecture and the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems.
  • A senior Tokyo government official says the city will make a bid to host the 2020 Olympics as a “goal to cheer itself up” following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

BY THE NUMBERS

  • The government announced that its “eco-point” program, which lasted from May 2009 until March 2011, generated ¥5 trillion and created 320,000 jobs.
  • The World Luxury Association says that China will overtake Japan as the world’s top consumer of high-end goods “as early as next year.”
  • Organizers of the Tokyo Marathon said they are boosting the number of entrants for the 2012 race to an eye-popping 35,500.
  • Bottom Story of the Week: “High School Girls Host Radio Program” (via The Daily Yomiuri)

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.