When a friend in Los Angeles asked a longtime American expat in Osaka if he should relocate to Japan to pursue his interest in film criticism and interviews with Hollywood actors, my friend told him in no uncertain words:

“Yo, Richard, if your main audience is American readers, then there’s nothing about Japan (or
any other foreign country) that is likely to interest them. Here in Japan we have very few
women with huge breasts, and most female celebrities seem to wear
underpants and eschew tattoos. Nobody carries an Uzi or M-16. It’s a boring
country, and not many Japanese speak English well or have anything
interesting or controversial to say. I honestly wish I could help you, but I
think that guy was just trying to be helpful when he gave you my email contact –
You should know that Japan is an overpriced backwater that just imitates America and Europe, and
badly at that. Are you sure you want to come here?”

After instant ramen noodle king Ando Momofuku passed away in January, some blokes in Taiwan came up with this idea for a roadside shrine to the Noodle King.

Rest in Peace, Ando Momofuku! (aka Wu Bai-fu)

Worldwide TV feeds are saying former teen AV idol Ai Iijiama (real name: Mitsuko Ishii) and current TV panelist extraordinaire, [who studied computer graphics design at New York University in late 1990s], is retiring from Japanese show business, due to, according to rumor mills: health reasons… developing.

”Police also arrested Scott McAllister’s girlfriend, Ai Moriyama, 29, of Misawa, for allegedly giving false statements and helping McAllister evade arrest by giving a false alibi for him.”

The story started off at first as just a news brief: Japanese police arrest ex-U.S. airman, the Associated Press said. American man, 25, kills Japanese ex-wife, 33, in Aomori Prefecture last July 21. Arrested this week. Charges: burning and abandoning ex-wife’s corpse. Then, in a U.S. Army paper, more details emerged, about a girlfriend serving as an alleged accomplice.

The ex-wife, Naomi Kimura, owned a downtown bar called Purple Haze that was frequented by non-Japanese.

Her real name is Cynthia Shih, but her stage name as a singer/songwriter is Vienna Teng, because she likes Mozart’s hometown and to pay homage to her Chinese heritage. Some have compared her with Tori Amos, Fiona Apple and Sarah McClachlan, and she might one of the few Asian-Americans singers to make it. You can listen to her here.

What’s this all about?

An academic group is soliciting papers about “cute”. One of the organizers writes:

“Cute,” as we now commonly conceive of it, originated in the U.S. in
the late 19th century. Japanese “kawaii” is a quite recent import
altering and adding to “cute” in a variety of ways.

A 65 year old Chinese woman who claims to be Ando Momofuku’s daughter by his second wife, who was also Chinese, as was Ando (Wu Bai-fu by birth name), is threatening his estate with a nasty lawsuit. Her name is Wu Mei-ho. She did get around US$100,000 as part of her inheritance from the late noodle king, but she wants more, apparently miffed that the old man cut her out of his life after he “moved on” to other things, such as a third wife and major Cup Noodle profits.

According to a story in the papers, the woman’s half-brother in Osaka once called the police to arrest her when she tried to visit her father at the Nissin office there, and she spent a day in jail for her efforts. As the world turns. Keep slurping those noodles.

This week’s edition of TIME ASIA has a nice interview with ”Babel” star Rinko Kikuchi. [She is now making a new movie titled ”The Brothers Bloom” in Hollywood.]

Note: as Oscars watchers noted, she did not win the award for best supporting actress, but the nomination itself was a win. Everyone wins. Marie, she looked fabulous!

According to Tokyo Confidential, Prime Minister Abe might be in need of some recharging time. How to say “human dock” in Japanese?

“This was the second time Japan’s ship of state had been moored at the “human dock” — as physical exams are referred to in Japan — since last July.”

Some alert readers might remember the F-4 girls from a long time back. Here they are again.

And I think the names and faces might have changed, too. What do I know?

The newly-built High Speed Rail bullet train (and supplied with Shinkansen know-how) is now operating outside Japan, and I took a ride on it the other day, along with throngs of Lunar New Year sightseers, too — family groups, kids, grandparents, the whole shebang for holiday trips — and it was a marvelous, fantastic experience. I’ve ridden the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Nagano and loved the speed there, too.

The HSR [台灣高速鐵路] is not going as fast as the Shinkansen up north, but it speeds along pretty nicely here too.

The most fantastic part of the trip, from Chiayi station to Taichung station, is the best portion of the route and maybe a first in all of bullet train experiences — because — while most Shinkansen bullet train tracks around the world are straight and on flat land, more or less, with just a few gentle curves and hills to navigate, this route from Taichung to Chiayi, center of the island, goes through rugged mountain area, and while one second you are on the flat plains zooming along in normal bullet train status, suddenly, you start zipping UP (or DOWN in the other direction, south) in a banked curve into rugged mountain passes, with tunnels helping the train through and not only is the view staggering, from the highlands looking down at the plains below.

But the trip south from Taichung down to Chiayi puts the train on a curving J-shaped theme park rollercoaster-like sloping curve as the train exits from the last mountain tunnel in the Bagua Mountain range and begins a two-minute curvaceous descent at high speed, the likes of which I have never experienced in a train before, and looking out the righthand side of the train windows, you can actually see the curving, sloping track ahead of you as the train gains speed and zooms down the loop de loop.

I still can’t get over it.

If there is one reason to ride the HSR here, that is it. Just buy a ticket from Taichung to Chiayi, and you will come back a different person. I swear I am not making this up. It’s that good a ride.

The rest of the route is normal flatland bullet train fare. Comfortable, smooth, well done. But that 2-minute banking plunge down the chute part, south of Taichung, is something to experience once in your life.

Chotiros “Amy” Suriyawong has been reprimanded by her production house and ordered by her university to do community service as well as make a public apology for wearing the revealing dress.

Seems Buddhist morals, or lack thereof, or whatever, are also up for grabs in Thailand, of all places in Asia, where a minor movie actress has been catapulted to worldwide fame for her little black number pictured nearby.

For punishment, Amy was ordered to perform 15 days of community service by reading to the blind.

One wag noted online: “Wearing that dress WAS a community service!”…….

Kazunobu Kakishima, editor at Kodansha, denied the company was scrapping the Japanese translation because of the government’s protest.

The decision, he said, came after Ben Hills refused to acknowledge making factual errors during an interview with a Japanese TV station.

“We have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to maintain trustworthy relations with the author and thus we were forced to cancel the book.”

Three other publishers in Japan have contacted Hills, according to the AP report, and one of them might publish the book later.

Stay tuned.

“This could only happen in a country that is so open to immaturity. Authorities here feel it’s easier and less threatening to use characters to get the public to accept them, rather than explain the facts.”

A news story circulating worldwide today tells of Japan’s cute military mascot named Prince Pickles.

“Prince Pickles is our image character because he’s very endearing, which is what Japan’s military stands for. He’s our mascot and appears in our pamphlets and stationery.”

A blogger in South Korea, an English teacher there, keeps a blog about food trends there, called ZenKimchi, and when the New York Times mentioned his blog recently in a long article about Korean food in the international arena, his blog got 15,000 hits in three days. So imagine if the Times ever picks up on Japundit!

The big thing, of course, was The New York Times interview. That came out of nowhere. Yet it gave the site a tad bit of publicity (15,000 hits in three days).

It has been reported all over the news today, about Ben Hills, who recently wrote a book about Princess Masako and her life in the Imperial family. One Japan-based reporter who was misquoted in the book, along with others, apparently, wrote this open letter about the issue back in December.

A writer probing the problems of too many people crowding too little space in the future, Frosty Woolridge, tells readers his take on Japan here:

To give you an idea where we’re headed, while in Japan, I watched baseball games. They endure so little space; they construct four ball diamonds in a box of land all facing inward toward each other. All the outfielders mingle with outfielders from four other teams. You can’t believe it unless you see it. What benefit has overpopulation given the Japanese?

Four baseball diamonds in one large field. Where? Photo?

Oops. Just like some conspiracy writers in Japan, who have authored strange books about the Hebrews, along comes a chap in South Korea who has done something similar.

One of South Korea’s most prolific and leading authors, Professor Lee Won-bok, in a new book from his series, Monnara Iunnara (Distant Countries and Neighboring Countries) –which studies countries in a comic book format and for the last 20 years have sold over 10 million copies to South Koreans — has published images in his book that reportedly echo classic Nazi canards about Jews like those found in Der Sturmer and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion by recycling various Jewish conspiracies like Jewish control of the media and world finance, Jews profiting from war, and even the reason for the 9/11 attacks was due to the Jews. Or something like that. Maybe our Japundits in Korea can explain all this in the comments section.

I doubt there is any real antisemitism in South Korea since there are so few Jews living there.

Why am I doing this? No idea. But last night, went to the local 7-ELEVEn (anybody know why the final “n” is lowercased in the company’s logo and signs? Look again, it’s true!) to buy some dental floss toothpicks (I think they’re called) and the only things they had in stock was a box of Nurse Kitty Angel dental floss toothpicks in appropriate pink paper wrappings. Omigod, it has come to this? NURSE Kitty now? Then I googled and yes, she’s for real. If anybody can find an image of Nurse Kitty Angel dental floss toothpick wrappers, please post in comments. NOT that it matters, it DOES not.