Random Japan

CHOWING DOWN

The Japan Food Service Association said that sales at restaurants around the nation rose by 0.5 percent in 2010.

Overall, the number of customers at restaurants around the country dropped, but sales per customer increased.

Thanks to discount promotions, sales at fast food restaurants increased 2.1 percent, but earnings at izakaya and family restaurants dropped.

A trio of Japanese food companies announced a joint effort to sell processed meats in Vietnamaimed at middle- and upper-class consumers. The firms hope to sell ¥300 million worth of goods by 2013.

Stats
¥220.74 billionTotal box-office revenues for films in Japan in 2010, an all-time high

12Number of Muslim converts from Japan who went on ahajji to Medina in November, according to Tokyo-based tour company Air 1 Travel


11Number of those converts

YIKES

Japan Airlines admitted that one of its jumbo jets had been in service for nearly three years despite the fact that its emergency slides were improperly installed.

A professor of international economics at Catholic University in Belgium told The New York Times that “Japan is a debt time bomb that is waiting to explode.”

An industry group said that demand for cement reached a 43-year low in 2010. Just in case you’re wondering, 41.77 million tons of the gray stuff was spread last year, which seems like a lot to us.

A 47-year-old Saitama man who was arrested for keeping the skeletal remains of his mom in their home for more than three years said he did it because “I didn’t want to be separated from her.”

16 Fools

Who Support The Corrupt

Give Us Millions

Will Give You Back Your Country

For \50,000

The Fake Picture Is All Yours

More Japanese men relish joy of homemaking


TOKYO
As the public perceptions of traditional gender roles shift, more and more Japanese men have become willing to take on homemaking. Some opinion polls show majorities of men in their 20s and 30s have no negative notions of men serving as the househusbands of their families.
Working around the house instead of in a career has become more of an option for men since an increased number of women are now gainfully employed. Meanwhile, more men are trying to start their lives anew at home after having been burned out by excessively demanding jobs.