Random Japan

Quiz of the Week: Round 4 (Now with 100% more otter!)
Philip Kendall
Don’t forget to highlight the space between the square brackets [ ] after the word “Answer:” or click the “Read more” link to check your answers. And remember: every time you cheat, Evil Baby Sato gets a step closer to your door.

Let’s begin, shall we?

Question 1.
Which of the following everyday words originally comes from Japanese?

A: “Soap”, as in the thing you really ought to be washing your stinky armpits with.
B: “Skosh”, as in ‘”Salt and vinegar on your squirrel bits, guv’ner?” “Yeah, just a skosh!”‘
C: “Sunday”, as in the day that comes four days before Thursday.
D: “Shhhhhfrtftfpojtftffgvfvffvjvfvpcunk”, as in “the keys that I just mashed”.

Answer: [ B ] Read more

Question 2.
This advertisement caused controversy earlier this week, with many calling it “racist”. But what was the ad actually intended to promote?

STATS
1,603
Residents of Fukushima Prefecture who were killed as a direct result of the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami

1,605
Fukushima residents who have died since the quake “in connection with prolonged evacuation”

10
Number of people injured earlier this month when an elevator suddenly stopped moving at Musashi-Kusagi station in Kawasaki

SIC TRANSIT
Officials at Kanda Fire Station are seeking the identities of two Good Samaritans who helped rescue a 20-year-old woman who had fallen onto the tracks at Iwamotocho station.

Meanwhile, authorities at JR East bestowed certificates of appreciation on seven grade-school girls who helped save a woman whose wheelchair had gotten stuck at a railway crossing on the Chuo line in Yamanashi.



The sports ministry says the Olympic cauldron used for the 1964 Tokyo Games will be relocated to the National Stadium that’s being built for the 2020 Olympics.

Bottom Story of the Week: “Astronaut Wakata Speaks With Talking Robot Aboard ISS” (via Mainichi Japan)

Politician, Cash

What Could Go Wrong?

He Liked The Smell

So He Took Em

I'll Have

The Lavender Crab

Buddhist statue carved from tsunami-struck pine trees
January 24, 2014
By NORIHIDE FURUSAWA/ Staff Writer
RIKUZENTAKATA, Iwate Prefecture--About 7,000 people across Japan created a Buddhist statue from trees of a forest that was flattened by the 2011 tsunami.

Seizan Watanabe, a Buddhist statue sculptor based in Otsu, Shiga Prefecture, was the main carver of the kannon (deity of mercy) statue.

But thousands of others also played a part.

After the project started in January 2012, wood for the statue was sent to about 30 locations around the country where residents could each chisel a portion and make donations for the Tohoku region.

The project was planned to pray for those killed by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, and to support reconstruction of the stricken region.