June 2010
22 posts
Re: Wide Island View - Chew on this, America!... →
Reblogging from Wide Island View: While the Japanese lack in the areas of individuality, confidence, sandwiches, hoagies, pizza, Mexican food, large scary bugs, sweet candy, militaristic rigidity, bureaucracy, English pronunciation, English grammar on T-shirts, house insulation, the consumption of whales/dolphins, and a general distinction between mature adulthood and cartoon characters… ...
Jun 30th
9 tags
attack of the robot babies!!!
I’ve mentioned Japan’s low birthrate and aging epidemic in some previous posts. The government has already offered to pay Japanese couples to have babies. Now Hiroki Kunimura, the project leader for the Yotaro robot, is offering a different solution… The full CNN article is here.  An excerpt below: Japan is struggling to find a solution to a pressing population...
Jun 28th
5 tags
WatchWatch
Keisuke Honda is the jam. Go Japan!
Jun 25th
9 tags
tetsuya ishida
Tetsuya Ishida was a Japanese painter who painted scenes of ordinary Japanese life, but he often inserted himself into the paintings as one who was trapped in machinery or as a cog-in-the-wheel of society. He was killed in 2005 by being hit by a train (possibly suicide).   His work is really stunning and communicates the loneliness, isolation and despair that a lot of Japanese men feel in the...
Jun 23rd
1 note
box o' gees
So…we’re moving out this week.  Kinda sad! Anna Claire sorting through her clothes explosion… our support cards came though.
Jun 22nd
19 tags
thebeatmotors
  Apparently, The Beat Motors are an up-and-coming band in Tokyo right now. Their sound is very Jet/The Strokes-esque.  Check ‘em out…you be the judge. Hope these music-related posts give you some insight into the younger generation of Japanese people and how different their worldviews and lifestyles are from the traditional, older generations. A lot of the stereotypes of Japanese...
Jun 21st
10 tags
Jun 20th
4 tags
Jun 19th
6 tags
more mario
  Some Japanese dudes with too much time on their hands…
Jun 18th
15 tags
arguing in japanese
  (*turn the captions on to see the English) This is a clever and funny video the guys at Gakuranman.com put together about how to argue in Japanese. If you go to their post on this it is really informative and will help you understand a lot of the differences in communication between Easterners and Westerners. The way Japanese people communicate with each other is so subtle, nuanced, and...
Jun 17th
biz card
something i’m workin’ on. 
Jun 14th
ListenLadies & Gents, The Innocence Mission ...
Jun 13th
6 tags
Mario Paper Stop Motion 【マリオ】付箋でストップモーション
  I’ve come to the realization that if I am going to embrace Japanese culture I need to develop a healthy obsession with Mario and Robots.
Jun 12th
“This life, therefore, is not righteousness but growth in righteousness, not...”
–  Martin Luther
Jun 11th
9 tags
4 Bonjour Parties
  4 Bonjour Parties is an interesting Tokyo-based band. Here they’re playing in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo in a somewhat uncanny scene that, to me, looks like something out of Blade Runner. 
Jun 11th
9 tags
the kan-san man can
Don’t know whether or not you heard, but Japan just elected a new PM - Naoto Kan. As you can see, he either has a good sense of humor or a plagiarist for a PR advisor.  
Jun 10th
8 tags
van gogh in 2070
   Van Gogh’s self-portrait remade by Onward Couleurs with 2,070 polo t-shirts of 24 different colors. 
Jun 9th
15 tags
feldman!
This is David and Meg. They’re the Feldman’s. They’re some of our best friends here in Roanoke. David is a professional cellist and plays in the Roanoke Symphony…among other things. He’s also a cello teacher, house renovator and aspiring gardener. Meg is also an artist who does a lot of painting. She is also a baby-walker, house renovator and aspiring gardener. No,...
Jun 7th
1 note
Japanese wins pizza-making contest in Italy | The... →
Woah this guy is in Nagoya!  Can’t wait to hit up his restaurant called Cesari. Mr. Makishima became the first Japanese man to win the annual international event to the surprise of many locals who were not expecting the King of Pizza to be Japanese.
Jun 5th
9 tags
Jun 4th
13 tags
nujabes (Noo-Jah-Bess)
They called him ‘Seba Jun’. For some reason great artists usually die young. Nujabes was an underground, hip-hop artist from Japan and he died in a car crash the same day a massive earthquake hit the island nation on March 14th of 2010.  He was 36.  This is what The Atlantic said about his music: Nujabes was known around the world for his jazz-infused, sophisticated take on hip...
Jun 2nd
3 notes
7 tags
what is with the robots?! →
Jun 1st