Random Japan

THIS JUST IN…

• The NPA says 33 people around the country were arrested for voting improprieties in December’s general election—the lowest figure since current election laws were enacted in 1950.
• An online survey by research group Macromill found that 75 percent of 20-year-olds “expect little from the country’s politics.”
• In a breakthrough that could help endangered species, Japanese scientists have “artificially reproduce[ed] a kind of fish using surrogate parents from another related species.”
• The Council for Cultural Affairs recommended two additions to Japan’s roster of important cultural assets: traditional hunting equipment from Akita and a tug-of-war event in Saga known as “Yobuko.”

stats

• 36,000Estimated number of mah-jongg parlors in Japan in 1981, according to the National Police Agency
• 12,000Estimated number in 2011
• 76Number of high-school girls arrested in a raid of massage parlors in Tokyo late last month
  

Jammy Shoes and Out of Bounds Restrooms: School Kids Vote to Abolish Unwritten Rules

“Ignore the rules and you’ll get jam in your sneakers.”

The teachers may not always know about them, but throughout schools in Japan there are a number of unwritten rules that have been passed down from school generation to school generation and must be obeyed. First graders may only use the old, “haunted” toilet block nearest to the gym; only third graders may wear their backpack with just one strap; the cute art teacher must never be gazed upon by anyone other than the boys from class 2-F…

Entering a new school and being told to obey these long-standing rules “or else”, many kids probably wonder why their seniors, or “senpais“, are such jerks. But as the years go by and they, too, slowly rise to power and reap the rewards of having aged a couple of years, few are in a hurry to abolish the “ura“, or “other side”, code of conduct.

According to a report by Japan’s Yomiuri Online, however, students at a school in Tainai City, Niigata Prefecture have taken the unusual step of openly discussing these rules and swearing to abide by them no more.

I Must Puncture

Because I Like It

Hitting Is Bad

So They Do Anyway As They Are Assholes

Taking

Always Taking 

ASIA PACIFIC / POLITICS

China digs in history to bolster isle claims

THE WASHINGTON POST

BEIJING – Bitter maritime disputes between China and its neighbors have recently sent fighter jets scrambling, ignited violent protests and seen angry fishermen thrown in jail. But beneath all the bellicose rhetoric and threatening posture, China also has been waging a quiet campaign to bolster its territorial claims with ancient documents, academic research, maps and technical data.

The frenetic pace of such research — and the official appetite for it — comes after decades of relative quiet in the field and has focused heavily on the two hottest debates: China’s quarrel with six other nations over a potentially oil-rich patch of the South China Sea and its tense feud with Japan over a small sprinkling of land called the Diaoyu Islands by the Chinese and the Senkaku Islands by the Japanese.