Random Japan

Miwa Kaneoya

BEHIND EVERY GOOD MAN…

• Empress Michiko decided to forego the standard dress-and-heels ensemble in favor of traditional kimono and wooden sandals when she attended a memorial for victims of the March 11 quake/tsunami. It seems she was worried that she might have to spring into action if the Emperor, who had recently undergone heart bypass surgery, started to go down, and high heels just might not cut it under those circumstances.
• Speaking of ailing Emperor Akihito, it was reported that he twice had to have fluid drained from his chest after his heart surgery.
• In Iran, thousands of women have been training in the way of the ninja, but it’s more for fitness and protection, their instructor says, not to unleash an army of trained female assassins on an unsuspecting world, as some Western media have speculated.
• Maya Nakanishi, a 26-year-old paralympian who lost her right leg in a work accident five years ago, put out a calendar featuring semi-nude photos of herself to raise funds to get her to London for the Games this summer. You go girl!
• A 33-year-old train conductor was arrested for grabbing the boobs and nether regions of a 16-year-old high-school girl on an out-of-service Odakyu Romance Car. He is also accused of “committing sexual acts” with the same girl at a karaoke shop and in a hotel on two other occasions. Hold on… sounds he was just trying to add some romance to an ongoing relationship.
• Meanwhile, a 23-year-old art teacher at a junior high school in Kagawa Prefecture was canned after surreptitiously snapping photos of students’ snappers up their skirts while on the job.
• Ninety-two people wolfed down as many fermented beans as they could during a natto-eating contest in Ibaraki Prefecture. A 27-year-old from Nara was crowned king of the natto-eaters after downing 350 grams of the sticky stuff in 27.7 seconds.

THAT’S MIGHTY NICE OF YA

• US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said her government decided to “exempt Japan and 10 European countries from its new financial sanctions against Iran over the latter’s suspected nuclear weapons program as they have significantly reduced their oil imports from Tehran.”
• The Japan Meteorological Agency said the nation’s first cherry blossoms of the year bloomed in Kochi on March 21.
• Tokyo subway officials at Kasumigaseki station on the Hibiya Line marked the 17th anniversary of Aum Shinrikyo’s March 20, 1995, sarin gas attack that killed 13 people and sickened over 6,000. A moment of silence was observed.
• The last graduation ceremony was held at Japan’s oldest wooden schoolhouse in Takahashi, Okayama Prefecture. The school had been open for over 100 years but declining attendance spelled doom for the old building.