Japanese Society/Culture – Page 9 – C. Buddha's Hasty Musings

The World Housing Market – 50,000,000 Yen Edition

Here is an amusing photo series depicting the kind of houses you can buy around the world for fifty million yen (which is a whopping 547,106 USD at today’s rate – endaka is such a fickle bitch!): 5000???????????
The locations represented, in order, are:

Thai
Bali
Chicago
Costa Rica
Brazil
Spain
Tokyo

The problem, of course, is that land value skews the representations far too much. For instance, if you paid half a mil for the Thai house in anywhere but a few select locations, you paid 3 or 4 times more than you should have. Also, Brazil and Indonesia sure have similar architecture and beaches… Still, it’s a pretty funny idea until you over-analyze it!
Also:

That is all.

Neko funjatta – worst Japanese toy ever

I wish I knew who took this photo because I’d ask him to buy me one – that’s right, this is the original “run over kitty cat” toy from Japan.
(thx vtran)

lipton baracus

In Japanese, this specific position might be called a reverse inari-otoshi (falling inari). If you’ve ever seen an inarizushi up close, you may understand why. It’s usually performed on an unsuspecting high school friend who is sleeping face-up, and does not make you automatically hated among your peers, however disturbing the imagery might be (this is all hearsay; I didn’t even go to high school in Nippon).
Say it three times with me: Inariotoshi, inari-otoshi, ??????
That is your cultural baggage of the day; some things cannot be un-read.
(image from Cyanide and Happiness via Adam)

Dutch wives et al

Speaking of writing class, one of the earlier assignments was to write from the point of view of an object. Imagine my surprise when one of my students said she wanted to write from the POV of a “Dutch wife.”
This term actually came up in her Thai-English electronic dictionary and upon questioning her about it, I came to understand that she was talking about a dakimakura, or body pillow. I suggested she use the word body pillow, but was intrigued by the use of “Dutch wife.” You see, in my experience with the Japanese language, it basically only means a blow-up sex doll, and I didn’t even know it was used in English. Here it is, though, complete with the meaning of dakimakura listed at the top: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_wife
So I guess this is just part of learning something new every day. Also, it’s hard to get my mind out of the gutter, because THE GUTTER IS ITS HOME.

Bill’s Bar Sound, Nara ( ????)

A sodden karaoke snack is all that remains.

Thx to T for the pic.

Where do stolen Japanese bikes go? ????????????????

Well, many of them end up in Thailand:

One of two bicycle stores in town selling only stolen bikes from Japan that we visited this week (we’re looking for a Japanese-style child seat). This shop is the bigger one and has perhaps 50 bikes in stock. They park the merch on the dirt in front of the shop (a townhouse across from Big C Mahasarakham) during the day.

Anybody in Japan want to call Mr. Makino and tell him where his mountain bike is? He can have it back for 3,500 Baht plus shipping. I should get an award from the police or something for doing their jobs.

It’s been a long trip from Yamazaki.

A Saitama mama(chari).

Another defector from Saitama.

From what I could see, the majority of bicycles were from Saitama, Aichi, and Osaka, but seeing the registration stickers (sorry – officially they’re known as “Anti-theft Registration Decals”; LOLZR) is a bit like reading all the passing license plates when on a road trip in Nippon – a smattering of place names that either bring back memories or inspire further wanderings.

I saved the best for last; this bike has an intact warning issued by the bicycle parking enforcers that this bike is parked illegally and will be taken away… It doesn’t specifically say that Osaka city workers will load it on a flatbed and that it will eventually end up for sale (2,500 Baht) in Northeast Thailand, but hey – times are tough all over and at least someone got something out of it.
This is by no means a new trend overall, but it’s interesting that there’s such a number of these stolen bikes here now for there to be ample supply even hundreds (thousands?) of miles away from their port of entry. It’s also the same for motorcycles here. Sometimes you come across these shops where they sell big rice burners that all start with a screwdriver because their ignitions have been pulled.
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I apologize for my photos being so blurry. I was holding squirming baby and trying to take photos discreetly. I actually really want to find out where these bikes are sourced from, but somewhere down the supply chain the answer is “bad people,” so I’ll perhaps go ask sometime with a savvy Thai pal.

Robogeisha

I can’t decide whether this is a joke or just the queen mother of Japanese B movies:

Whatever the case, it gets minus ten points for the mislabeling of a rotary saw as “chain saw.”
UPDATE: Oh no, it’s real!

Manzai Conspiracy Theory (not really)

So I didn’t even know about the Two Ronnies until today. They apparently had a show on BBC from 1971. In Japan, Beat Takeshi and Beat Kiyoshi formed their manzai act, Two Beat (aka Two Beats) shortly after that and first appeared on NHK in 1976.
Coincidence?
Or did Takeshi borrow the naming scheme from the Ronnies?
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BTW, the naming is pretty much the only thing these two duos have in common:

Yoshi Ikuzo – Precursor to Japanese Hip-hop (yo yo)

He’s kind of the Grandmaster Flash of Japan, except he didn’t contribute anything to turntablism and he raps in the Tohoku (instead of Bronx) vernacular. Also, he includes kamishibai (link) in his lyrics, which I’m pretty sure Grandmaster Flash did not. He sure does have a Furious Five, though. Or maybe Fifteen..

Nikkeis from South America paid to leave Japan (and not come back to work ever again)

I’ve really been out of the loop, but this was a really interesting read: Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home
Even though the dumbass running the program can’t keep his racist views in check, I basically can’t see how having this choice is a completely bad thing. Sure, it’s insulting if you want to think of it like that, but hell – I know a lot of people who have needed to beg, borrow, or steal money to buy a ticket home when everything went wrong. And pride is a luxury for practical people.