Just yesterday we heard about how proud the Japanese people are of their unique fine-tuned sense of the four seasons. Now the word out of Sapporo is that “indigenous peoples” are experiencing “unique fear” over the impacts of changes in the climate.

SAPPORO — Indigenous peoples will be the hardest hit by climate change because of their dependence on “Mother Earth,” Ben Powless, a native Mohawk from Canada, told a convention of nongovernmental organizations Monday.

In one of the subcommittees at the People’s Summit 2008, also called the Alternative Summit, Powless said climate change will harm indigenous peoples all over the world with food insecurity, decreased water resources and loss of cultural sites and traditions.

Damn it’s a drag being a sensory-deprived non-indigenous non-Japanese. . . I feel a unique sense of ennui coming on. . .

What Japan Thinks has a report on an Internet survey about what Japanese people think are the greatest attributes of Japan and the Japanese people.

The top 10 responses. . .

1. A sense of the four seasons

2. Diligence

3. Kindness

4. Rich food culture

5. Ability to create cutting-edge technology

6. Courteousness

7. Strong sense of duty

8. Consideration of others

9. Flexibility in adopting new cultures

10. Manual dexterity

Other notables further down the list are “Ability to express things vaguely,” “Ability to distinguish between subtle differences in taste,” and “Good table manners.”

I guess not *all* Japanese are eating healthfully. ESPN is reporting that 6-time Nathan’s hot dog eating champion Takeru Kobayashi lost for the second year in a row to his rival Joey Chestnut; this time in an unprecedented overtime period. Kobayashi is 30 years old and from Nagano. Do you think he trains for these contests? The amazing thing is that he is thin as a rail.

Joey Chestnut reclaimed the top spot at the annual hot dog eating contest on Coney Island on Friday after first tying with archrival Takeru Kobayashi in a 10-minute chow-down, then beating him in a five-dog eat-off.

The men tied at 59 frankfurters in 10 minutes, before being made to gobble another five dogs in a last-minute tiebreaker. They consumed 64 hot dogs total and were looking quite peaked after the competition.

Kobayashi had hoped to reclaim the throne after a disappointing three-dog loss last year shattered his six-year winning streak.

As usual, Kobayashi’s strategy was to eat all the dogs first, then dunk the buns and eat them. A pause while swallowing the soggy buns meant defeat.

The two will face off again Sept. 28 at the Krystal Square Off World Hamburger Eating Championship in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Meat is a killer and should be avoided, and you should get your protein by eating plenty of soy products like tofu, right?

Not necessarily so if research coming out of the U.K. is to be believed. According to a study led by Loughborough University and reported on in the journal Dementias and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders, eating high levels of some soy products, including tofu, may raise the risk of memory loss.

The study focused on 719 elderly Indonesians living in urban and rural regions of Java.

The researchers found high tofu consumption - at least once a day - was associated with worse memory, particularly among the over-68s.

According to the same study, however, consumption of tempe may actually improve memory.

The latest study also found that eating tempe, a fermented soy product made from the whole soy bean, was associated with better memory.

Professor Hogervorst said the beneficial effect of tempe might be related to the fact that it contains high levels of the vitamin folate, which is known to reduce dementia risk.

“It may be that that the interaction between high levels of both folate and phytoestrogens protects against cognitive impairment.”

Well, like many other households in Japan, we eat plenty of tofu and other soy products. Because of this, I think. . . ummm. . . . er. . . .ah. . . . ???

Found at a pet shop the other day, sparkling wine for pooches.

The woman in the store confided in me that they do not sell much of the stuff.

The Marmot has a great follow-up post on the Wai Wai Debacle and some attention that it has attracted overseas.

It is their popularity with some Western readers that has especially incensed Japanese bloggers. Many feel their country’s reputation has been “debauched” around the world. “Foreigners who don’t know the truth will believe these stories are true,” wrote one. Another railed: “Ryann Connell is a degenerate scatologist - a typical Australian.” And a third wondered: “Why doesn’t someone drop a hydrogen atom bomb on Australia?”

In an interview with the Herald late last year Connell admitted his transcriptions might have contributed in part to a lazy notion that if Japanese are not totally inhibited by their strict social codes, they are hopelessly debased by their bizarre fetishes.

“It does concern me that we resort to these stereotypes all the time,” he said. “Downtrodden salarymen, slutty schoolgirls, crazy housewives, corrupt old bosses and so on. And there have been times when I picked stories of questionable accuracy to write up. But by and large I’m presenting to the English-speaking world things that the Japanese are writing about themselves.”

News about the following TV commercial for a company named EMOBILE has gotten Obama supporters the world over up in arms.

The voice over has the monkey giving in a speech in which he promises that EMOBILE is committed to change. Obama supporters claim that the monkey is a racist reference to Barack Obama.

The following is from a Washington Post report on the cancellation of a trip to Seoul by U.S. President George Bush due to demonstrations against U.S. beef imports there. Emphasis is mine.

President Bush canceled plans Tuesday to visit Seoul next month amid protests over U.S. beef imports, and his administration made a key concession to North Korea by allowing it to exclude atomic bombs from a required disclosure of its nuclear activities.

You mean this whole exercise was intended to limit North Korea’s electrical power generation options!?!

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has assured Japan that The United States will continue to press for the release of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea.

Japan worries that the United States will remove North Korea from its list of nations sponsoring terrorism before a resolution of the issue.

“We have made very clear that the United States is not going to set aside or forget the Japanese abduction issue,” Rice told reporters on the plane to Berlin, where she will attend a conference on security in the Palestinian territories on the sidelines of a donors conference.

“We’re going to continue to press North Korea to make sure this issue is dealt with,” Rice said. “Japan is one of America’s strongest allies in Asia, I should say one of America’s strongest allies in the world and we recognize the sensitivity of this issue,” she said.

Right. . . Just about no one is falling for this in Japan, where the latest U.S.appeasement concession is being met with condemnation by people on both sides of the aisle.

A top LDP politician bitterly criticized Washington for repeating a past mistake. “The United States is doing the same thing over again.”

He was referring to the U.S. government’s failure to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons even though it promoted reconciliations with Pyongyang by dispatching then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to Pyongyang at the end of the Bill Clinton administration that stepped down in 2001.

“The Bush administration has become too lenient toward North Korea as its tenure is approaching an end,” he said.

Many politicians feel that the administration of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has supported the U.S. position even though there has been no tangible progress in the abduction issue because it places top priority on Japan’s ties with the United States.

However, some politicians expressed concern that the U.S. decision to remove North Korea from its list of terrorism-supporting countries could adversely affect Japan-U.S. relations.

Straight from the Japanese Make the Best Tourists Department comes a report that students from Gifu City Women’s College are in hot water for defacing the Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Italy during an overseas study tour by writing the date, their names, and the names of their friends with an oil-based marker on the marble wall. The cathedral is included on the U.N. Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage List.

Initially the college suspected a female student and responded by issuing a strict warning, but later three males were identified as the culprits. The three have been suspended.

The college found out about the misbehavior of its students when a Japanese tourist contacted the college via e-mail.

MSNBC has still another story about the high-tech toilets of Japan.

Japanese toilets can warm and wash one’s bottom, whisk away odors with built-in fans and play water noises that drown out potty sounds. They play relaxation music, too. “Ave Maria” is a favorite.

High-end toilets can also sense when someone enters or leaves the bathroom, raising or lowering their lids accordingly. Many models have a “learning mode,” which allows them to memorize the lavatory schedules of household members.

But this story tries to put a whole new twist on the whole thing by saying Japanese toilets are consuming too much energy.

These always-on electricity-guzzlers (keeping water warm for bottom-washing devours power) barely existed in Japan before 1980. Now, they are in 68 percent of homes, accounting for about 4 percent of household energy consumption. They use more power than dishwashers or clothes dryers.

“For hygiene-conscious Japanese, the romance with these toilets is equivalent to the American romance with the Hummer,” said Philip Clapp, deputy managing director of the environmental group at the Pew Charitable Trusts in Washington.

Proof positive that there are people in the world wanting to micro manage your entire life, including how you take a s**t.

Thanks to bjair for the tip on the story.

Gold & Jewelry Tamaya of Sapporo has started selling an 18-carat gold Hello Kitty mobile phone strap.

Tamaya came out with the mobile phone strap to mark the 10th anniversary of the launch of the series of Hello Kitty products made to commemorate particular places in Japan. The 1.8 gram gold Hello Kitty was made by Tanaka Kikinzoku Jewelry in Tokyo’s Ginza. Normally, Hello Kitty has a red ribbon in her hair, but the mobile phone strap version uses a lavender-colored ribbon as lavender is strongly associated with Hokkaido.

Lavender is said to mean “waiting for you,” and the jewelers are eagerly awaiting orders.

Price: 50,000 yen

The dream of every tubby around the world. . . A pleasant tasting magical fruit that will allow you to eat your way to a slimmer waistline. That is what is being claimed for the Thai mangosteen.

“Mangosteens are sometimes called the Queen of Fruits,” Koichi Okabe, a dessert company president who deals with a variety of different Thai foods, tells Sunday Mainichi. “Mangosteen juice, made by crushing the fruit, skin and seeds, not only tastes great, it has wonderful health benefits. It was only developed last year in Thailand, but American buyers are swarming to get it.”

Mangosteens contain over 100 different beneficial substances; most notably xanthones, said to help fight the effects of allergies, cancer and lifestyle diseases, as improve blood pressure and the immune system, and restore youthfulness to the body’s cells.

This isn’t the first time that magical properties are being claimed for a plant growing in Thailand. Long-time readers of JAPUNDIT may remember that a number of years back we had a report on a plant called the Pueraria Mirifica, which is said to enhance female breasts if ingested regularly.

I used to be pretty amazed to see golfers in Japan imbibing beer, sake, shochu, and whiskey early in the morning before venturing out onto the golf course, but at least the tipplers were getting some exercise in the open air.

But now the latest thing in Tokyo seems to be golf bars, which let you enjoy bashing golf balls without all of the troublesome stuff like walking and going outside.

My swing is so bad I look like a caveman killing his lunch.
- Lee Trevino

After the dreadful knife attack in Akihabara last week, it was discovered that the killer had announced his intent on an internet message board, but his threat was not taken seriously.

Well anything in that vein is being taken very seriously now. On Monday, police made two unconnected arrests of idiots posting online death threats.

Yo Suzuki, 29, of Hamamatsu, Shizuoka prefecture, was arrested after posting his intent to “to unleash an attack to ‘kill 100 people’ on the streets of Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district” on the 2-Channel bulletin board.

“I saw the TV coverage of the case in Akihabara and thought I’d create a bit of a stir,” Suzuki told the police, referring to the June 8 case where a random killer’s rampage on the Akihabara district of Tokyo claimed seven lives.

“I did it half as a joke,” he said.

Meanwhile in Fukuoka, a 17-year-old girl was arrested after using the same message board as Akihabara killer Tomohiro Kato, to threaten -

I intend to carry out a massacre at a station in Kyushu which will go down in history. I’m the same as Kato. I feel sympathy for him. I will be executed because I will kill more people than he did.

She too later claimed, “I was just joking. I didn’t imagine it would turn into such a big deal.” Well you got that wrong then didn’t you.

A popular cosplay event that has been held at the Flower Center, Heidi’s Village theme park in Hokuto, Yamanashi Prefecture was suspended after an elderly woman complained that the participants detracted from the flowers there.

The Yamanashi prefectural government, which owns the park, asked the park’s managers to review whether or not the competition should be continued after receiving the complaint.

Many fans are calling for the event to be restored.

The park opened in 1998. A confectionary manufacturer from the prefecture and another organization were appointed its custodians in 2006. They refurbished the park and reopened it themed on the anime Heidi, Girl of the Alps.

The cosplay event has been held six times since April last year and has become the park’s main attraction. The park’s managers have even set up changing rooms and held contests.

About 19,000 people, mainly young women with homemade costumes and multicolored wigs, participated in the contests in the last fiscal year.

A single senior citizen complaint shuts down an event enjoyed by 19,000 young people. . . No wonder Japan’s youth feels so depressed.

A Tokyo trucker, Masahiro Fujiwara, 47, has been arrested on charges of counterfeiting after using a colour photocopier to produce about 10 ¥10,000 notes.

His plan was to replace the bills in his wife’s purse with the fake ones, and go out drinking.

His wife, of course, had no notion that the money in her purse was fake, and spent two of the bills later. Which is when the fireworks started.

He reluctantly turned himself in to police after he was grilled by his wife, who suspected that the bills in her purse were fake, according to investigators.

Ah, the image that that sentence conjures up…

Ex-Beatle Sir Paul is reportedly horrified that an eco-friendly Lexus LS600H automobile given to him by Toyota was delivered by flying it 7,000 miles to the U.K. from Japan.

A source is reported to have said: “Paul was offered a Lexus as a gift and ordered the hybrid limo because it helps to reduce emissions.
“He’ll be horrified after learning it was delivered by plane. Paul has always campaigned for green issues and he can’t understand why anyone would send an enormous car from Japan to Britain on a plane.”
Carbon offsetting firm CO2balance.com said the plane journey would have caused a carbon footprint of 38,050kg, compared to 397kg for a three-week boat journey.

Thanks to Mr. Pink.

Not enough Hello Kitty in your life yet?

Well, get ready for more as the mouthless wonder has been named a government envoy.

Japan’s tourism ministry on Monday named Hello Kitty as its choice to represent the country in China and Hong Kong, two places where she is wildly popular among kids and young women.

Officials hope tapping into that fan base will lead to a bigger flow of tourists into Japan and push the country closer to the goal of attracting 10 million overseas visitors every year under the “Visit Japan” campaign.

Last year the number of foreign tourists traveling to Japan hit a record high of 8.35 million, up 60 percent since the government began the marketing effort in 2003.

Arrivals from China and Hong Kong, who accounted for 16.5 percent of visitors to Japan last year, are poised this year to become the second-largest group of tourists after South Koreans.

At a press conference, Sanrio Co. President Shintaro Tsuji, whose company created the toy cat, called Hello Kitty’s new appointment “an honor” and pledged the feline would “work hard to attract many visitors.”

Big thanks to RTN.

It’s been argued by many that awareness in Japan of AIDS and HIV is nowhere near as high as it should be.

About a year and a half ago, Kyodo reported the results of a survey which revealed that -

Nearly eight out of 10 long-term care and nursing-care facilities surveyed in Japan have refused to accept patients with HIV who wished to receive long-term treatment or care for their ailments and chronic health symptoms, a survey showed Thursday.

A majority of those facilities cited lack of expertise on AIDS and HIV for their refusal, according to the survey conducted by a team of medical experts led by Hideaki Nagai, head of the department of respiratory diseases at the National Hospital Organization Tokyo National Hospital in Kiyose, suburban Tokyo.

At the time, I said, “A lack of expertise? Haven’t HIV and AIDS been under the world health spotlight for a quarter of a century now? You could excuse the general public a certain level of ignorance, but it’s clear that when these facilities say they can’t help, they’re covering the fact that they don’t want to help.”

But perhaps ‘a lack of expertise’ is right on the money. The Mainichi is running a story this morning about a clinic in Shimane prefecture that, it has been revealed, used the same intravenous needle to take blood from 37 patients…