Random Japan

HERE & THERE
The Sanyo Hotel in Yamaguchi, which was a favorite of “Japanese royals and high-ranking government officials,” is being torn down. Among the foreign luminaries to have stayed at the century-old inn were Babe Ruth and Helen Keller.
It was reported that a salon in Nagoya is offering a vitamin-rich intravenous drip to salarymen “as a quick way to get rid of work-induced fatigue.”
A company in Kobe has perfected a method of transforming old clothes into a wood-like substance it calls Rifmo. According to the company president, “You can saw and hammer a nail into it just like ordinary wood.”
Sony and Victor announced that they had developed the world’s first “full high-definition digital video cameras capable of taking 3-D moving images.”

Stats
51.6
Percent of Japanese who believe that “the country’s overall condition will improve in 30 years,” according to a survey by the Japanese Trade Union Confederation
93
Percent of Japanese who “sometimes worry about their future,” according to the same poll
1.92m
Amount of snowfall in Kita-Hiroshima on January 15-16, a record

OFFICIAL BUSINESS
Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba said he wouldn’t provide details about the city’s bid for the 2020 Olympics in the municipal circular because “nobody reads it.” The newsletter, which appears 28 times a year, has a circulation of 430,000 and costs the city ¥146 million to produce.
Special GPS-equipped keitai that can handle five calls simultaneously are being touted as the latest crime-busting tool of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Force.
Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology have discovered that low levels of serotonin can lead to feelings of impatience.
A resort in Niigata that is believed to be the “birthplace of skiing in Japan” celebrated its 100th anniversary.

Hello Kitty

Your Busted

Excuse Me

I Can Fix That

The Free Press

That Isn't Very Free

Demotion fear root cause of sumo wrestlers fixing matches


The latest allegation of match fixing in sumo mainly involved embattled wrestlers in a lower division who could easily face difficulties surviving as professionals even if demoted by one rank.

Given that the fear for too drastic a life change prompted wrestlers to try to cling on to the elite in which only 10% of the wrestlers can get salaries, pundits are calling for reform of the Japan Sumo Association so it can win more support from the public.

Fresh off a baseball gambling scandal last year, the sumo world is now grappling with the allegation that wrestlers have fixed matches, and possibly traded wins for cash.

Many of the wrestlers at the center of the scandal were in the second-tier juryo division. So far, juryo wrestler Chiyohakuho, lower-ranked Enatsukasa and elder Takenawa, who retired as a wrestler after last month’s tournament, have admitted involvement in match fixing.

Recent tension, pro-North schools' history spin hurt tuition waiver bid
Saturday, Feb. 5, 2011
By ALEX MARTIN
Staff writer　
Flipping through a copy of a recently obtained Korean history textbook used in pro-Pyongyang junior high schools in Japan, journalist Ryo Hagiwara points his finger to a section describing how North Korea's founding father, Kim Il Sung, and his Korean People's Revolutionary Army defeated the Japanese occupation forces in 1945 and drove them off the Korean Peninsula.
"Well, this reads as if Kim and his army single-handedly liberated the North, but this is not true. It's a known historical fact that Kim was an officer of the Soviet army's 88th Brigade at the time," Hagiwara said.