Category: Japan

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Sankei Shimbun apologizes over Aversfor “Jewish Conspiracy” books

From the WSJ (link)

Sankei Shimbun ran an Ad for books which describe “a conspiracy by the Jewish-controlled U.S.”

From the WSJ report:

The books that are the subject of the advertisements are authored by Richard Koshimizu, a self-claimed freelance journalist. In one book, he argues that the 2011 Tohoku earthquake was set off by a U.S. military bomb, while another says the Holocaust was a myth spread by the Soviet Union. A third book claims the election of Mr. Abe’s government in 2012 was part of a Jewish plan for global domination.

Could find some of Richard Koshimizu’s books on Amazon, but not the controversial ones.

The following is an image from his Facebook page:

Richard Koshimizu

 

It is not my first time to encounter Jewish conspiracy stories and books. I still hope that there are very few people who actually believe this stuff.

 

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GDP Per Capita

Was interesting for me to compare the GDP per capita between Israel and Japan.

Search on Google provides the following information:

GDP Per Capita Japan (2013): 38,492

GDP Per Capita Israel : 36,151

But!

While Israel is growing, Japan is shrinking.

(Source: Worldbank.org)

Gdp Per Capita comparing Japan Israel

 

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Nexus 9

Considered buying a Nexus 9.

I feel that having only iOS devices is limiting and would like to “break out”, or at least try.

 

Now, I can’t really do it if Google are out of stock .

Google Play

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Facebook Kansai Dialect

Facebook surprised me this morning with the following announcement.

Does this mean I can customise my Facebook to use Kansai Dialect?

Facebook Kansai Dialect

 

Not really interested in that, but may be funny for a day or so

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Japan Economy – an interesting analysis

Nikkei has an interesting interview on Japan economy with Bill Emmott, former Economist editor.

 

My take: reform of the Labor Market :

 

I think the big thing that needs to be done is to have a single labor law that applies to everyone, so to reduce the amount of protection for regular workers to make it easier to fire people, but then have the same protections for the irregular workers, so there should be one law for everyone.

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“My Man” /私の男 The book

As expected, the book was better than the film.

Winner of 2008 Naoki Prize, it has some faults, but definitely more depth than the movie.

The movie and the book differ in the flow of time. While the movie flows from Hana losing her parents and ends with her fiance meeting her father, the book goes back in time.

From the wedding ceremony, back in time to her first date , two murders and eventually Hana as a 9 years old, losing her parents and adoption by Jungo. Each part is told by a different Narrator, including Komachi san, Jungo’s “girlfriend”.

I must admit that the last part was a bit tiring, as I saw the movie and felt it didn’t add enough to the story.

Books are always better!

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“My Man” /私の男

“My Man”  (Japanese: 私の男 , watashi no Otoko), won the “Golden George Prize”  for best film.

As it happens, I watched the movie last week (before the announcement 😉 ) .
The Good:

The acting,  Nikaido Fumi, Asano Tadanobu and Kawai Aoba were great. Was mostly impressed with Kawai Aoba. A relatively small part in the film, but strong impact. Nikaido Fumi played her part very well, childish in parts, seductive in others.

The Not So Good:

Left the cinema feeling disappointed, last part of the film ended too fast and not clear. While spending a lot of time in Hokkaido, The Nature and murder (?) in the snow, Tokyo life were quite short.  Could be that the movie follows the book, but it did not feel right.

 

My take:

1. Going to read the book
2. Although I found Kawai Aoba to be very interesting as an actress , her blog is quite boring

 

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謝罪 – Apology

Japan has some fixation with Apologies.
Although “sorry” is used quite often, an apology , bowing down is respected.

Recent sexual harassment story was followed with an appropriate (?) apology , covered extensively in news reports this morning.

To me it doesn’t look real, especially when he denied all accusations for several days and seen smiling going out from the room.

This reminded me a movie I saw (on a plane) called 謝罪の王様 (”The Apology King”), of an apology expert helping his customers getting away from their mistakes/misdeeds.