This is not yet the time at AsiaPundit when we dance. This is the time at AsiaPundit when we again pause to appreciate the weirdness of Japanese television.:

Cohost Tamura Atsushi set about to help one of the show’s regulars, former-gravure- idol-turned-short-lived-80s-pop-star Aota Noriko (pictured), achieve her dream of reviving her singing career.

To accomplish this, Tamura went to famed music producer Komuro Tetsuya and received an unproduced single from his back catalogue. He then went to one of Komuro’s most successful acts, pop/ dance group TRF, for help with choreographing. After nearly a month of voice training, dance lessons and intense exercise, Aota — performing under the stage name of Bubble Aota — gave a live concert before 2,500-strong audience, including Japanese impersonators of Madonna, Michael Jackson and Robert De Niro (Teru from comedy duo Doyo).

Sounds pretty uninteresting, right?

…consider the title of the song: ‘Jesus‘. No, it isn’t a religious hymn praising the Lord and Savior of Christianity or whatever; it’s actually bumping dance track about seduction and the bearded fellow from Nazareth, with a nutty chorus of “I wanna kiss Jesus power and soul.”

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia

Bingfeng asked where the FLG get their money. AsiaPundit has no idea. But it seems another Far Eastern spiritual movement cult sect get a significant chunk of change from running a near monopoly on US sushi restaurants.:

Adhering to a plan Moon spelled out more than three decades ago in a series of sermons, members of his movement managed to integrate virtually every facet of the highly competitive seafood industry. The Moon followers’ seafood operation is driven by a commercial powerhouse, known as True World Group. It builds fleets of boats, runs dozens of distribution centers and, each day, supplies most of the nation’s estimated 9,000 sushi restaurants.

Although few seafood lovers may consider they’re indirectly supporting Moon’s religious movement, they do just that when they eat a buttery slice of tuna or munch on a morsel of eel in many restaurants. True World is so ubiquitous that 14 of 17 prominent Chicago sushi restaurants surveyed by the Tribune said they were supplied by the company. [Chicago Tribune]

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, korea, sushi, south korea

As bad as Hu Jintao’s visit to Washington may have seemed from a diplomatic perspective, it is hardly the worst incident recently.:

Every time I think I’ve seen the most exasperating demonstration of Korean grudge-holding and hostility towards the Japanese yet, I’m trumped by the discovery of another even more outstanding gem of idiocy. This time, it’s a TV event, amongst whose participants is Japan’s ambassador to Korea, Shotaro Oshima, the recipient of a rather special sort of attention. Pay particular heed to the closing portion of this clip and listen carefully: even if you don’t understand a word of Korean, you ought to be able to recognize at least one word there.

Yes folks, if you were listening carefully, what you heard was indeed a head of beer foam being compared to the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima, right in front of Japan’s ambassador, and very clearly for his particular consumption (that’s why the camera repeatedly returns to his face). To his credit, he gave this rude, childish display the response it deserved - silence - but I think it, along with the never-ending bellicose rhetoric over Dokdo - says a great deal about why all the goodwill built up in Japan towards Korea over the last few years is now quickly slipping away.

You Tube . This translation via Occidentalism.:

“Recently Japanese illegal trespassing on Dokdo (Takeshima) has been increasing frictions”

“OK, lets quickly change the subject! Putting aside ‘Poktanju’ (note: Koreans call a mixture of beer and soju ‘Poktanju’ - bomb wine) for a moment. From the Ambassadors facial expression”

“It seems like he does not like this Poktanju”

“For him, the Poktanju”

“Is like a flash and explosion of bubbles”

“Like the moment of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima”

“It resembles a mushroom cloud”

“For this reason, we will call this ‘atomic bomb wine’!”

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, korea, northeast asia, south korea

Via Boing Boing, AsiaPundit offers this splendid Engrish education video for Japanese men seeking lessons on how to talk dirty. Not safe for work.:

AP can’t quite place the accent suspects that the ‘native’ speakers are Russian or from elsewhere outside of the Anglosphere.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia, puppy

According to a study by the University of Chicago, Asians - and Asian women in particular - are not as happy as Westerners with their sex lives.:

The survey published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior looked at how they viewed their sex lives, their health, and their happiness.

It found that a greater proportion of people in Europe, North America, and Australia, where men and women have more or less equal relations, enjoyed sex physically and emotionally, Laumann said.

A smaller percentage of people reported satisfying sex lives in male-dominated cultures in poorer countries, the research showed.

But the gender gap persisted around the world.

“There’s a systematic disparity between men and women, where men are on the average substantially — or about 10 points — higher in their levels of satisfaction as women in that country,” he said.

Most of those surveyed at random were married, though there was an obvious bias toward participants who were willing to talk about sex, and toward urban populations in less-developed nations.

“Pleasure is not part of the story” in sexually conservative cultures in the Far East — China, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand, Laumann said. “Procreation is the rationale for sex. Many women … characterize sex as dirty, as a duty, something they endure” — and often stop having it after age 50…..

In Japan, by contrast, just 18 percent of the men and 10 percent of the women answered positively about their sex lives. And in Taiwan, only 7 percent of the women said sex was very important in their lives.

There is likely a great deal of untruthful answers in a survey like this, given the taboo nature of the subject, but it is almost certainly more reliable than the Durex survey,

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, indonesia, northeast asia, southeast asia, taiwan, thailand

The Leaky Pen, having ventured into a Taichung book store to discover that students were most interested in porn and video games, writes a lament on the demise of Taiwan’s comic culture.:

Unlike Hong, the comic book artists of post-WWII era were not so funny. By far the most famous and influential comic book artist of the 1950s was the pseudonymous writer named “Brother Cow,” 牛哥 (1925-1997), whose real name was Lee Fei-meng (李費蒙). Lee was a mainlander who escaped from China and came to Taiwan with the KMT in 1949. His anti-Communist strips were characterized by stupid, Ah-Q looking Chinese characters with buck teeth and bald heads and evil Communist overlords (some of it displaying a very weird sense of ’self-racism’).

In 1966, the same year that the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution” began in China, a draconian policy of comics censorship was put in place in Taiwan called the “comics censorship law” 《漫畫審查辦法》. According to this policy, the National Editorial Bureau (i.e., the national censorship board) could filter anything and everything, especially anything critical of the Nationalist government. This was the heyday of the anti-Communist comics when everything was propaganda and propaganda was everything. The “local” comics produced during this era were of a uniformly bad quality–much like the socialist realist novels being produced in China–and failed to capture the interest of young readers. Consequently, sales of local comics declined rapidly.

Technorati Tags: asia, censorship, east asia, northeast asia, taiwan

It is very important to be aware of your surroundings during an earthquake - and you should pay particularly attention to what the black man is doing.:

Check out this website of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, which provides information to gaijin (foreigners) about what they need to in case of an earthquake.

Stay close to black men in areas where walls might fall. They will hold up the wall and allow you escape.

Black men tend to spread rumours but become quite contrite when yelled at.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia

Via Sparkplugged, news that Japanese filmgoers will soon be treated to smell-o-vision.:

TOKYO — A theater audience in Japan will be sniffing their noses at a new Hollywood adventure film when it opens here this month.

A new service from a major telecommunications company, NTT Communications Corp., will synchronize seven different smells to parts of “The New World,” starring Colin Farrell.

A floral scent accompanies a love scene, while a mix of peppermint and rosemary is emitted during a tear-jerking scene. Joy is a citrus mix of orange and grapefruit, while anger is enhanced by a herb-like concoction.

The smells come from machines under the seats in the back rows of two movie theaters, which create different fragrances by controlling the mix of oils stored in the machines, company spokeswoman Akiko Suzaki said Wednesday.

While the new technology is a welcome advance over previous attempts at blending film with scent, the chosen odors seem more appropriate for an aromatherapy session than an adventure movie.

AsiaPundit hopes that future attempts at smell-o-vision would be better integrated with the plot and setting: the scent of cigars for the Untouchables, perfume for Scent of a Woman, and, of course, napalm for Apocalypse Now.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia

Once again, AsiaPundit would like to remind readers that the people of Northeast Asia are conservative and traditional. Nothing illustrates this better than the ancient religious festivals still celebrated in Japan.:

… the male sexual organ, is celebrated in Japan’s Kanamara Festival as a symbol of fertility. To us Westerners, this sounds pretty strange, since we’ve all been brought up to keep our sexuality in our pants and in the back of our minds. The Japanese, it seems, are much more liberal about it. The Kanamara Festival is most famous for a giant consecrated shrine of a penis, which is carried through the town

For more follow the above link or see Masa Mania,

And for those who have an aversion to the penis, you can check out the Riding Sun’s Boobs.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia

The Dark Lord of the Sith is not faring well in Asia, getting bested twice by Tokyo’s Finest.

Part one:

Part two:

While in Malaysia Darth becomes a towel rack.:

Once I was the most feared man in the Galactic Empire.
I ruled the Imperial Army with an iron fist.
I was an evil and ruthless war criminal.
A mass murderer.

Now, I’m nothing more than a towel holder.

And Darth Made-in-China is long gone, after being sold on December 22.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, japan, malaysia, northeast asia, darth, southeast asia

According to the Mercer 2006 study on quality of living for expatriates, AsiaPundit’s current home is the most livable city in China Mainland China. Although it falls far behind his former home of Singapore.:

Singapore overtakes Tokyo as the top Asian city, moving into 34th position. Despite Singapore’s gain, Japan remains the strongest Asian country with the next eight Asian cities based there. Hong Kong (68th) breaks that run, and China’s top city is Shanghai (103rd), falling one place. In India, the top cities are Mumbai and New Delhi (both 150th). Indian city rankings are improving slowly due to India’s improving political relationships with other countries. Also, local authorities in India are feeling pressure from multinationals who want to locate there to improve quality of living standards.

The survey ranks standards of living based on measures including personal safety and security, health issues, cleanliness and pollution, and transportation - all areas that AP will admit are much better in the Lion City.

For that matter, Singapore should beat most (if not all) of the cities in the top-10 were those the only measures (easily trumping number three Vancouver on cleanliness, transportation and security).

That said, Shanghai’s skyline easily trumps Singapore’s.:

The city claims the third best skyline in the world, while Singapore comes in sixth. However, Shanghai once again is rightfully beaten by Hong Kong.

(Via IZ)

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, hong kong, northeast asia, singapore, southeast asia

Via 3 Yen, witness Gal-Sone.:

The name “Gal-sone” is a play on the Japanese katakana word “gal” (ギャル) means young woman who dresses provocatively in the “gal style” and “sone” which is typical sumo name ending. In this case, the longish (runtime: 09:21) YouTube video in Japanese shows “Gal-sone” constantly adjusting her makeup while sucking up 22 bowls of Okinawa noodles.

According to official statistics by the respective governments of the two countries, Japan’s human rights record is much worse than China’s.

Actually, the official website of the government-sanctioned Chinese Society for Human Rights Studies doesn’t really keep official statistics on human rights abuses in China. It does have some glowing reports on how quality of life is improving in China, and several reports noting human rights abuses in the United States. AsiaPundit will assume that the lack of a need to measure means there isn’t any real problem.

In Japan, however, the Justice Ministry has noted a four percent increase in human rights violations in 2005.:

TOKYO — The number of human rights violations reported to the Justice Ministry’s regional legal affairs bureaus across Japan reached a record high 23,800 in 2005, up 4% from the previous year, a ministry tally showed Thursday. Such violations using the Internet climbed nearly 40% to 272 cases, according to the ministry’s Civil Liberties Bureau.

Of the total violations, about 10% were by public servants and teachers. By type, cases of sexual harassment and other forcible action reached 7,144, assault and abuse 5,040, and noise and other action affecting community safety 4,790, the ministry said. Human rights violations using the Internet involved posting the faces of suspects in juvenile crime cases and discriminatory messages on websites.

To be fair to the Japanese, the ministry does consider noise pollution a human rights violation. Were that to apply in China, the ubiquitous car horns and late-night construction noise would mean that the human rights of AsiaPundit and all other Shanghai residents are violated on a daily basis.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, human rights, japan, northeast asia

Curzon at Coming Anarchy notes that North Korea is seeking the arrest of people who helped others escape the gulag state.:

North Korea issued a warrant yesterday for the arrest of four members of Japan-based NGOs helping North Koreans flee or defect to South Korea and Japan. The warrants were issued on the following charges, carrying the following penalties:

Joining or leading groups that engage in anti-State activities: 5-10 years of “labor reeducation”

Fleeing to a foreign state for the purpose of engaging in anti-State activities: 5-10 years of “labor reeducation”

Masterminding insurrection against the State: death penalty, confiscation of all property

No charges are leveled against the individuals for protecting dissidents who have fled North Korea—which is what all four activists do for a living.

Japan’s national Police Agency has opined that because North Korea is not party to the International Crime and Police Organization (ICPO), the warrant is meaningless unless if the suspects go to North Korea, calling it a “nonsense warrant with no enforceability.” (Information taken from Japanese language Sankei Shinbun article.)

AsiaPundit thinks this is a great opportunity and that talks should be opened with the North with an eye to bringing it in line with international legal processes. If the North wants to put some Japanese residents on trial, that seems fair - but only if the trials meet international standards and it reciprocates by handing over some of its citizens who are wanted in the West.

(Image stolen from here.)

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, korea, northeast asia, south korea, north korea

As if Technorati rankings weren’t enough to prove it, a sudden outbreak of product placement in Singapore blogs should demonstrate that the Lion City owns the blogosphere.

Singapore bloggers get all the good gear. Kevin gets a free Samsung A920 and the Mediaslut gets an xbox 360. Both reserve serious product reviews for later, as professional reviewers should.

Blog queen XiaXue, meanwhile, gets a Creative MP3 player and immediately starts dissing iPods and Mac users evangelists.:

Gah! I hate Mac evangelists.

Hate them as much as religion evangelists and cb MLM sellers and scientologists.

Not because Mac products suck, but because Mac users all seem to think they are so fucking cool just coz they use Mac.

What the fuck? Everyone can own an Apple product, it is just whether or not they are willing to save up a bit. Hell, I can buy 2 ipods with the $800 govt is giving me, but it doesn’t make me a wee bit cooler than I already am.

Unless of course I use the ipod as a yo-yo or use it to hit people. That would be quite cool.

But if you are a loser, you will still be a loser if you own an ipod.

In fact, it makes you even more of a loser coz you are a loser who is trying not to be a loser but failed.

Your shitty taste in music will not turn hip just coz you use a pure white product, nor will your shitty designing skills turn expert just coz you do photoshop on a pure white keyboard.

Man I hate Mac evangelists.

Ask me if I think Creative is better.

AsiaPundit is a dedicated Mac user and owns two iPods (don’t ask why). AP also has a lovely IBM ThinkPad T43 given to him by the office and owns an antiquated Acer Aspire desktop. Wendy getting free stuff and immediately offering a glowing review - before the item has even left the shop - doesn’t really cause offense.

In the day job AP will not take bribes. But as a blogger, AP is not above product-whoring in the likes of XiaXue. He hasn’t received any placement offers yet, but he is willing.

For example, if Japanese robot-maker VStone sends AP one of these he will happily sing the praises of Gigantor and slam all competitors.:

Aibo sucks!!! Gigantor would squish that little robo dog.

(Gigantor h/t Robot Dreams)

As well as pick on Yahoo! day, today is also Ultraman’s birthday.:

In celebration of Ultraman’s 40th birthday, a news conference was held on March 28th. The highlight of the conference was not just to show off the latest incarnation of Ultraman, Ultraman Mebius, but to reunite the entire Ultraman family.

Everyone looks good in a tux.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia, ultraman

AsiaPundit’s would apply the usual disclaimer “this is not porn this is pop culture,” but upon consideration AP has decided that this actually is porn - and the videos are clearly not worksafe.:

Trailer about “the inspiration for Kill Bill”, Female Yakuza Tale + Sex and Fury trailers, and The Pinky Violence Collection, Japanese sexploitation movies from the ’70s.

Also Pink Movie Posters gallery.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia, yakuza

AsiaPundit has never had an ear cleaning and likely never will. However, if he were to submit to the procedure he would prefer the hygenic and high-tech services offered in Japan. Via Boing Boing, Nude Highway Driving reports on Japan’s new ear cleaning salons.:

I remember the first time I saw it happen in public — I was hanging out one fine day in Yoyogi Koen when I noticed a Japanese couple nearby. The girl was sitting, and her husband/boyfriend was laying down with his head in her lap. She was slightly bent over, gazing romantically at him, and I saw her arm moving in a gentle, rhythmic motion. Then I saw her lift her hand and wipe off the little stick she held.

She was cleaning his ears. I later learned all about mimikaki from an American friend who is addicted to his Japanese wife’s ability to dig wax out of his ears without pulling brain matter out in the process. It’s a Japan thing.

So I guess it shouldn’t have surprised me to see an article in The Japan Times recently about salons opening up that clean your ears (use BugMeNot if it locks out). What better way to cap off a day or work and night of drinking than to have someone jam a camera-enabled pick in your ear so you can watch your very own “house of wax” on TV? A thousand yen gets you a 10-minute ear-cleaning and a quick massage. Ten thousand yen gets you a deluxe ear cleaning and a “happy ending.” (Just kidding — though it would be a great way to drum up some business. Especially if you name the salon Love Canal.)

In China, ear cleaning is much more traditional affair. and comes at a much cheaper price. Julie Chao at SF Gate describes the process.:

Li, 38, grew up in the countryside, but when he was about 18, his father decided he should learn a trade, so he took up hair cutting. He soon moved on to shaving and then ear cleaning. Traditionally, all three services were offered at barbershops.

He first practiced on peasants and migrant workers. Now, he charges 10 yuan (or $1.25) a pop and can make as much as $370 a month. It’s not a bad living for Sichuan province, where the average urban worker makes less than $1,000 a year.

Li uses an eight-instrument technique. First he runs a thin file along the ear lobe and outer edges of the ear canal to remove hair. Next he uses a thinner file, a flexible metal strip, to gently loosen the wax. Larger pieces of wax that come loose easily are removed with a pair of pincers. Smaller particles are scraped out by a bamboo stick with a small scoop at the end.

With the wax removed, the rest is just icing. He starts by sliding a hair- thin piece of wire into the ear canal and tapping it around. “It’s just to feel good,” he explains.

Next a thicker piece of wire with a loop at the end is also tapped around, for no good reason. Lastly, a bamboo stick with down feathers is inserted, and the tuning fork is gently snapped against the stick, causing the feathers to vibrate inside the ear canal.

(Japan photo via Kyodo, China pic via a . AsiaPundit owns one of those devices and does not recommend using it for ear cleaning.)

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, japan, northeast asia

From Japan, another precautionary tale about how blogging can be hazardous to your job.:

A former police administration officer in Morioka, Iwate Prefecture, has been reported to prosecutors for violating the Swords and Firearms Control Law after taking pictures of handguns and using them on his blog.

Whilst on duty in September 2002, the 33-year-old unlocked a firearms cabinet and selected two particularly photogenic weapons, then after surreptitiously taking a few pictures he posted them on his blog – twice as it turns out. Yet despite cleverly applying a mosaic pattern to the photos, a prefectural police worker later recognized the guns and promptly reported his findings.

The unnamed blogger was given a 10 percent pay cut as punishment, but being understandably embarrassed by the whole affair, he resigned on Wednesday, explaining his behaviour by saying, “I posted [the photographs of the guns] because I wanted people to take an interest in the home page.”

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia

David Weber at Japundit investigates the unfortunate disappearance of the Ninja in American pop culture.:

As for the real Ninja, they served as the perfect martial arts foil for any aspiring hero whether they were samurai, shaolin monks, police officers, superheroes, or redneck truck drivers. Ninja were readily available for heroes to test their mettle against. It didn’t take much to find a few ninja back then as they were just about everywhere. A hero could hardly go for a leak without bumping into a pack of them along the way.

Then the butt-kicking would begin.

Despite their years of intensive training and strict discipline, ninja never won a single fight they were in even if they outnumbered their opponents 100 to 1. They appeared to be particularly vulnerable to an old-fashion left hook. The only time ninja were successful in actually killing someone with their skills or their myriad of pointy weapons was when they could manage to kill off the hero’s buddy, girlfriend, or dog. This minor victory was often short-lived and generally backfired on them as the hero would become enraged to the point of slaughtering ninja by the bushel. This would go on until the hero finally tracked down the Head Ninja and in an epic fight-to-the-death match, killed him. The few surviving ninja of the hero’s rampage would find themselves suddenly unemployed while many of them would have to apply for handicap parking decals.

Technorati Tags: asia, east asia, japan, northeast asia, ninjas

Via the blogger formerly known as Marmot, China ordered the removal of a recently erected statue of a Korean who assassinated a Japanese leader on Chinese soil.:

The Dong-A Ilbo reports that Chinese authorities ordered the removal of a statue of Korean independence activist (or terrorist, depending on your point of view) Ahn Jung-geun 10 days after it was erected near Harbin Station. Harbin Station, of course, is where Ahn, also known by his Catholic name of Thomas, popped a cap into former Japanese Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi in 1909.

The 4.5-meter-tall statue of Ahn was unveiled on Jan. 16 in a square along Harbin’s central Zhongyang Avenue, some 200~300 meters away from the spot of the assassination. At the foot of the statue is Ahn’s hand-print (minus, of course, a digit), so that the statue could be recognized from long off. The monument was erected by an Ahn Jung-geun remembrance association and a Korean businessman identified by his family name of Lee.

As it would turn out, Lee had gotten permission from the Harbin city authorities to put up the statue in the square, which is in front of a department store in which Lee was investing heavily.

Beijing saw matters differently, however, and not long after the statue was unveiled, the central government ordered that it be covered up and then moved inside the department store. “Statues of foreigners are not permitted,” explained Beijing.

And in Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian has ordered the removal of statutes of Chiang Kai-shek from military bases.:

The graven image of the venerable Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek will no longer greet you as you report for mandatory military service. President Chen has decided that the statues of Chiang which grace all of Taiwan’s military 100+ bases will be brought down and stored at an undisclosed location. According to one KMT Party mouthpiece (i.e., The China Post), this is like the destructive dismantling of traditional cultural icons that took place in China during the Great Proletarian Revolution (1966-76). Just as monuments to Confucius were scrapped, so too will images of Chiang, our "Eternal Leader," be tossed on the fire.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, korea, northeast asia, taiwan, japan

Now is the time at AsiaPundit when we dance.

This somehow reminds AsiaPundit of the Sugarcubes, only that Japanese is a touch more comprehensible than Icelandic.

(Via Panda Passport.)

To steal one of the Flea’s lines, now is the time at AsiaPundit when we dance:

AsiaPundit endorses

AsiaPundit has been busy in Beijing and has not had time to update. Plus, the internet connection in the hotel is even less satisfactory than his dismal home connection in Shanghai. Still, the room does have some perks. For instance, AsiaPundit can get a package of herbal Viagra for 58 kwai!

AsiaPundit generally doesn’t trust Chinese herbal medicine, so he will not be purchasing the packet. He does, however, trust alcohol-based medicine. Hot toddies are a favorite for dealing with the common cold.

With that, as soon as he returns to Shanghai he will be checking into the only restaurant he has found that serves all-you-can-eat sashimi plus decent dark lager.

As well as the medicinal benefits of the tasty raw fish, the lager will provide AP with all the male hormones needed for a society of business.

Hams brewery is owned by Japan’s Ashai. AsiaPundit cannot verify whether the Engrish can be attributed to the Chinese or Japanese side.

Technorati Tags: asia, china, east asia, japan, northeast asia, engrish