I’m really looking forward to seeing sumo for the first time. We’re going to the Nagoya tournament on Saturday. Here’s an article about sumo barely surviving as a school sport in Kanazawa: Wrestle Mania It’s worth clicking for the photo alone. Money quote from a Ministry of Education spokesman: Nowadays it’s difficult to promote a sport where the participants are basically naked. Wow, it’s reassuring to see the education of a Japan’s youth in such able, perceptive hands. Following this logic, we’re sure to see the sharp decline in swimming in school athletic programs fairly soon, right?

There’s a memorable profile on Karl Taro Greenfeld, written by the man himself, over at Time Asia: Tokyo Popped His writing, as always, is vivid and enjoyable. Sometimes I suspect he and Gibson go out for strolls into the Tokyo night, each mentally recording all they see.

Wataru-kun must have lost his price tag again. So it begins: School to put electronic tags on students to monitor safety Paired with the Ministry of Health’s decision to implant foreign dogs (actual canines, not gaijin) with microchips to “prevent rabies,” I think it’s fairly obvious where this is heading. The next time any of you have to renew your visa, don’t be surprised when they ask you to submit to a subdermal implant… On the brighter side, would this mean we no longer have to carry around our gaijin cards?

My only memory of an authentic Philly cheesesteak (in the sense that I had it in Philadelphia when my dad took us; I don’t think it was from a reknowned shop), almost twenty years ago, is much the same as this man experienced: I’m standing in the street in line with some obviously neighborhood guys talking college basketball betting, just like in Armour Square but instead of talking Illinois, Notre Dame and Wisconsin they’re talking Syracuse and Holy Cross. I asked them what I should get on my sandwich and this guy with a gold Italian horn and a green, white and red T-shirt tells me to get cheese-whiz. Cheese-Whiz!?!…