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30 July , 2001
NEWS FROM JAPAN -- BELIEVE IT OR NOT
I expect most Americans, including Japanese Americans, don't pay any attention to Japan, or to news about Japan, except when an international story about Japan makes it onto the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather (that's when he'll mangle Japanese words and pronounce Tokyo as "toe-kee-yo").
| Forget Spam. The Japanese this fall will be able to find "Godzilla Meat" on their grocery store shelves. |
More enterprising news hounds may have paid attention to the ongoing tensions caused by the continued US military presence in Japan, read about the country's worsening economic woes, or followed the rock star-like popularity of nattily-dressed, sharply coiffed Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
But most probably folks don't seek out Japanese news. I do.
I'm a media junkie anyway, and would watch CNN Headline News all day long if given the chance. I know, the station repeats many of the same stories every half hour, but I find myself when traveling tuning in to CNN Headline News and keeping it on anyway. And when it comes to news about Japan, I keep up as diligently as I do to the American media. Thanks to the Internet, it's possible for me to read Japanese newspapers and other media sites every day.
Many of these Web sites offer both English and Japanese versions, so if I ever get off my butt and start learning to read Japanese, I can practice with the news. For now, I keep to the English-language pages.
I start my daily news check with a site called Japan Today, and continue to the Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun, three gigantic national daily newspapers ("shimbun" means newspaper). Then I visit the Web sites of two English publications, the Japan Times (where I take the time every week to read the fabulously written book reviews by Donald Richie) and the Weekly Post.
Of course, while I'm scanning US media from the New York Times to Washington Post and LA Times, I stop to read any stories about Japan. So I feel like I'm pretty up-to-date on issues going on in the country of my heritage.
Why am I so fascinated by news of a country so far away? Because as the world's second-largest economy, what occurs in Japan can have ripple effects on the rest of the world, including the US. Because as a strategic partner of the US, Japan is in a key position as Asia's friendliest nation to the US, even though that means 47,000 US military personnel continue to live there, mostly in Okinawa. And, precisely because it is the country of my heritage, and I simply feel it's important to know what's going on there.
Plus, I'm often amazed by the many, many goofy news stories that come out of Japan. Here are some interesting bits of news, just collected in recent months:
I know, for instance, that the city of Tokyo has been under attack all summer, from legions of bandit crows, or karasu. The city now has an army of workers whose sole job is to go around when people complain about being attacked by crows, and the shake out their nests and rid the neighborhood of the nuisances. Having seen the giant black birds (Edgar Allan Poe would have chosen the crow over the raven had he seen these creatures) and heard their awe-inspiringly loud "caw"s, I would be terrified to anger any, and have visions of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" in my mind.
A growing death toll -- 19 so far this year -- among diners of the poisonous pufferfish has Vietnamese health officials seeking a government ban of the Japanese delicacy. Unless its highly toxic skin and entrails are properly removed before it is served, eating the fish can be lethal.
Forget Spam. The Japanese this fall will be able to find "Godzilla Meat" on their grocery store shelves. The canned delicacy is actually 3.5 ounces of corned beef from Tokyo toy maker Takara Co., packaged with pictures of the stomping, fire-breathing, irradiated dinosaur. The cans will sell for $4.75, and at this time there are no plans to export Godzilla Meat. Shoppers in Japan will also be able to buy Godzilla Eggs, a can of about 15 quail eggs, and Radon Meat, canned barbecued chicken named after the winged monster from the Godzilla movies.
An enterprising Japanese farmer has figured out how to grow square watermelons (remember, I'm not making this stuff up) by inserting them into glass cubes when they are still small. The square "suika" go for around $80 in chi-chi Tokyo shops. Why grow them square? So they won't roll off the counter and so they'll be easier to slice, of course!
A new trend in Japanese society is the fact that young women - who in the past would have been yearning to get married and quit their jobs to raise children - are staying at work and actually enjoying life. They continue to live at home, earning them the name "para-chan," or "little parasite" from their parents, and use the money they save to drive what little consumer spending remains in Japan's economy.
The Fuji Spinning Company has developed a t-shirt that will give wearers their daily dose of vitamin C. The company invented V-up, a fiber that contains a chemical called pro-vitamin, which turns into vitamin C when it contacts human skin and remains effective even after 30 washes. The product, which is aimed at women who are interested in skin care, should be on sale in 2002. There are also plans for vitamin-enhanced lace underwear.
Oh, sure. I follow more legitimate news items too. Japan is in the midst of a nasty trade fight with China that started over shiitakes mushrooms and other produce, but now has expanded into taxes and import bans on automobiles. The protests in Korea and China sparked by a new middle school textbook that glosses over Japan's role in War War II continue. And, the Japanese press have covered with more detail and urgency the funds scandal that got Denver's Japanese Consul General, Makoto Mizutani, dismissed (it may be the tip of the iceberg for Japan's diplomatic corps all over the world).
But I love the little news nuggets that brighten my day and make me chuckle. They're a wonderful bonus for a Japanese news junkie like me.