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Newest Episode: Wed January 11, 2012. 11:05 PM
What's happening in Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Osaka, Shimane Japan
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Wed January 11, 2012. 11:05 PM
アサヒ スタイルフリー
Asahi, one of Japan's big four beer makers, has joined Kirin and in producing a totally alcohol-free beer.
The rather oddly named "Style Free" (don't Japanese advertising companies employ English-speakers?) joins Kirin's Free on the creaking shelves of convenience stores and liquor shops throughout Japan.
Style Free is 0.00 % alcohol and has proved popular with long-distance drivers (that's when I tried it), sea lions and recovering alcoholics. The taste is tinny and hoppy and one can of Style Free is usually enough (for life).
If you'd like to see some rather damning reviews of Style Free, have a laugh over at ratebeer.com
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Tue January 10, 2012. 11:33 PM
火鉢
As generators of heat in Japan's cold winter months, hibachi are now little more than curiosities. These antique charcoal braziers are usually ceramic and lined with metal. Hibachi were (and occasionally still are) used to boil a kettle and also as outsize ashtray as smokers would light their bamboo kiseru pipes on the charcoal and then empty them into the ash by tapping the bowls on the metal rim.
Hibachi can still be bought in antique shops and flea markets such as those at Kitano Tenmangu Shrine and Toji Temple in Kyoto. Hibachi can make for garden ornaments either as fish ponds or plant vases. They are also attractive as interior decorations.
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Mon January 09, 2012. 11:29 PM
富士山
Japan's iconic mountain Fuji is visible in the distance.
Late 2011 was warm, so snow only crowns the peak of the mountain.
Normally, the entire mountain would be blanketed in white.
Climbing season when many climbers go to see sunrise on from the summit of Mt Fuji is long over, but still it was unseasonably warm.
The Pacific Ocean spreads out from Yaezu, in Shizuoka Prefecture, with the Izu Peninsula in the distance.
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Sun January 08, 2012. 02:06 AM
今週の日本
The Myth of Japan’s Failure
New York Times
Top sumo wrestler ushers in the New Year
BBC
Yakuza gangs face fight for survival as Japan cracks down on organised crime
Guardian
Nuke regulators get teeth via bills
Japan Times
La industria baja los humos al coche eléctrico
El Pais
The Flowers of War, Christian Bale et les travers du cinéma chinois
Rue 89
消息称日本三井住友拟收购中邮基金20%股权
Caijing
Science with a Skew: The Nuclear Power Industry After Chernobyl and Fukushima
Japan Focus
Japan striker Lee looks to join Southampton
Yahoo Sports
Last Week's News
Statistics
The number of new adults - 20 years old is the legal age of adulthood in Japan - was 1.22 million on New Year's Day. That is half the peak number, in 1970, when there were 2.46 million.
Source: Kyodo News
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Sat January 07, 2012. 12:53 AM
琵琶
A biwa is a Japanese traditional instrument usually translated into English as a "short-necked lute" with four strings and played with a plectrum.
The biwa can be made from a variety of wood including rosewood, cherry, mulberry and zelkova.
The biwa is related to the Persian oud and probably came to Japan via China sometime before the Nara Period (710-794).
The biwa is usually held upwards from the lap while the players sits in seza (a kneeling position) and plucked with the large triangular-shaped plectrum.
The biwa became associated with court music (gagaku) in the Heian Period (794-1192). Many of the later players were blind and sang narrative songs to the accompaniment of the biwa, often about the battles of the Heike and Genji clans from the classic Tale of the Heike (平家物語).
The biwa remained a popular instrument in Japan until the end of the Edo Period and the coming of western instruments and music from the 1870s onward.
Later variations of the instrument originated in Kyushu and are called Chikuzen biwa and Satsuma biwa, the later style popular with the region's samurai to encourage their martial values listening to tales of past heroism and derring-do.
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Fri January 06, 2012. 07:43 AM
国際芸術センター青森（ACAC）
The Aomori Contemporary Art Center (ACAC) south of Aomori city is located on the grounds of Aomori Public College.
The Aomori Contemporary Art Center was designed by self-trained architect Tadao Ando, whose prolific CV includes the Suntory Museum in Osaka, Omotesando Hills in Tokyo and the Naoshima Contemporary Art Museum on Naoshima Island in the Inland Sea.
The Aomori Contemporary Art Center's circular exhibition hall is surrounded by a graceful water feature and set in a pleasant natural environment. There are also various studios and workshops for woodwork, printing, AV and photography on site, plus a residential hall and lounge.
ACAC showcases both contemporary Japanese and foreign art and includes an Artist in Residence Program (AIR) for both Japanese and foreign artists.
2011's summer exhibition "Re-Modernologio" included works by Tomii Motohiro, Niwa Yoshinori, Asakai Yoko and Romanian visual artist Pal Peter.
The Aomori Contemporary Art Center can be reached in 40 minutes by a JR bus or Aomori city bus from Aomori Station.
Aomori Contemporary Art Center
152-6 Yamazaki Goshizawa
Aomori
Tel: 017 764 5200
Hours: 9am-7pm daily
Admission: Free
Aomori Contemporary Art Center map
Anamorphosis 3, the sculpture you walk on by Pal Peter
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Thu January 05, 2012. 12:22 AM
青森県立郷土館
Prefectural museums in Japan are not always guaranteed to excite but the Aomori Prefectural Folk Museum in Aomori is an exception and well worth a visit for its broad sweep of Tohoku culture from the Jomon Period to the present day.
The Aomori Prefectural Folk Museum is housed in a grand 1930s building that was previously a bank. The museum itself opened in 1973 and its several floors have exhibition rooms dedicated to a variety of subjects as well as occasional special exhibitions - such as the comic cut-outs of people sleeping off too much sake at cherry blossom time (see image below).
The Archeology Exhibit has some fantastic earthenware and clay figures from the Jomon Period sites around Sannai-Maruyama, just west of Aomori city and the Aomori Prefectural Folk Museum is an important reference for anyone interested in this early period of Japanese history.
Aomori's nature is covered with dioramas and taxidermy exhibits and the nature Exhibit includes a model of the Aomori Elephant or Naumann Elephant, named after the fiery German geologist Heinrich Edmund Naumann (1854-1927), who spent a decade teaching and researching in Japan in the 1870s and 1880s.
The History Exhibit covers Aomori's history from the Nara Period onward including the history of the powerful Edo era Tsugaru and Nanbu clans, the Hakkoda-san Incident of 1902 and World War II. Original photographs, uniforms and newspapers help recreate 1940s Aomori, which was heavily bombed by the US air force.
The Folk Customs Exhibit displays agricultural implements, clothes and a number of oshira - pillar like household gods unique to the Tohoku area.
Other exhibits include an Apple Exhibit dedicated to Aomori's agricultural mainstay - apples, a Personal Experience Room, very much with school children in mind, where visitors can play with various exhibits, the Pioneers of Aomori Exhibit dedicated to such Aomori alumni as writer Osamu Dazai (1909-1948), Pulitzer Prize-winning war photographer Kyouichi Sawada (1936-1970) and singer Noriko Awaya (1907-1999) and the "Refined" Collection Exhibit, over 11,000 pieces donated by a local doctor.
The Aomori Prefectural Folk Museum is one block south of Yatai Mura and about a 15 minute walk from Aomori Station.
Aomori Prefectural Folk Museum
Honmachi 2-8-14
Aomori
030-0802
Tel: 017 777 1585
Aomori Prefectural Folk Museum map
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Tue January 03, 2012. 11:49 PM
さんふり横丁,青森
Aomori in the far north of Japan has a well-deserved reputation for the excellence of its local food.
Sanfuri Yokocho (Yataimura) in the east of the city is a recreation of intimate Showa-style food stalls offering a few seats (8-12) around a counter presided over by a mama. The 15 stalls are arranged in an alley covered with paper lanterns. Sanfuri Yokocho opened in 2005 and is open in the evenings.
Diners can try some of Aomori's excellent sashimi (raw fish), kaiyaki miso (pictured above), and oden washed down with a glass or two of local sake or beer.
Yatai Mura is north of Amenity Street, one block north of the Aomori Prefectural Folk Museum.
Yatai Mura
Honmachi 3-8-3
Aomori
030-0802
Tel: 017 745 4242
Map of Yatai Mura
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Mon January 02, 2012. 10:19 PM
初詣
Click here for the sound of New Year hatsumode at Toyokawa Inari shrine, Tokyo.
Hatsumode - is the first prayer of the New Year and as people all over the country flock to shrines to pray for a success and health in the coming year. Shop owners and business people may visit one of the thousands of Inari shrines in Japan which are particularly associated with financial and commercial fecundity. Toyokawa Inari, a grand, 700-year old Shinto shrine in Tokyo's Akasaka district, is a very popular shrine at this time.
In the big cities such as Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto and Nagoya subways and commuter trains run all night to ferry the faithful to the popular shrines.
Hatsumode usually takes places in the first three days of the new year in Japan. New omamori (lucky charms) can be bought at many shrines, such as these daruma dolls below, and old ones are often burnt at this time or later at Setsubun.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
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Mon January 02, 2012. 12:11 AM
あけましておめでとうございます
Happy 2012 to all our visitors. It's the Year of the Dragon in 2012 and our nengajo (New Year's Card) shows the kanji character for the year of the dragon (辰; tatsu).
2011 may have been one to forget for many people in Japan following the huge earthquake and tsunami in the Tohoku area of north eastern Japan followed by a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi (Number 1) nuclear plant.
Join our Japan newsletter to keep up to date to all that is new on Japan Visitor for 2012.
E-mail us if you would like to receive the glossy New Year's card above (until January 20).
desk [at] japanvisitor [dot] com
Subject "new year card"
Just include your name and snail mail address, and we will promptly post it to you, written in beautiful calligraphy.
We wish you all a peaceful and healthy 2012.
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Sat December 31, 2011. 11:47 PM
今週の日本
Japan Panel Cites Failure in Tsunami
New York Times
Japan delays sales tax increase amid growing opposition
BBC
Japan streets ahead in global plastic recycling race
Guardian
Japan, India hike defense, economic ties
Japan Times
China y Japón estrechan lazos financieros
El Pais
Fukushima : le rapport d'enquête dénonce une cascade de défaillances
Rue 89
日本忧未来遭九级强震袭击
Caijing
A Problem for all Humanity: Nagasaki Writer Hayashi Kyoko Probes the Dangers of Nuclear Energy
Japan Focus
Brewers win right to negotiate with Japan’s Aoki
Yahoo Sports
Last Week's News
Statistics
Per capita GDP in 2010 in Japan was $42,983. That was 14th of the developed countries in the world.
It rose from the previous year, when it was 16th. That was primarily due to the strength of the yen.
Luxembourg was top of the 34 OECD countries at $105,313.
The US was eighth at $46,588.
China's per capita GDP was $4,430. Note: China is not a member of the OECD.
Source: Kyodo News
In CD singles sales in 2011, J-Pop group AKB48 claimed 1st through 5th place on the Oricon chart. "Flying Get" was the top single and sold 1.59 copies.
The top album was "Beautiful World" by Arashi. It sold 908,000 copies.
Source: Daily Yomiuri
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Fri December 30, 2011. 06:16 PM
紅白歌合戦
The big New Year's Eve television extravaganza to herald the New Year is NHK's Kohaku Uta Gassen.
Unlike the West, New Year's Eve in Japan is a fairly quiet night. Many Japanese families stay at home and watch Kohaku, which literally means "Red White."
In short, the program is a singing "battle" between Red (female) and White (male) teams. A panel of almost as famous judges evaluates each act, and then just prior to the tolling of the temple bells to ring in the New Year one team is declared the winner.
In recent years, the men have been very strong.
The list of guests on the NHK program was recently announced.
Here is the 2011 lineup which is not so different from the 2010 version of the show.
Red Team
aiko
Ashida Mana
Ayaka
Angela Aki
Ikimonogakari
Ishikawa Sayuri
AKB48
KARA
Kawanaka Miyuki
Kanda Sayaka
Koda Kumi
Godai Natsuko
Kobayashi Sachiko
Sakamoto Fuyumi
Shiina Ringo
Shoujo Jidai
Tendou Yoshimi
Natsukawa Rimi
Nishino Kana
Perfume
Hamasaki Ayumi
Matsuda Seiko
Matsutouya Yumi
Mizuki Nana
Mizumori Kaori
Wada Akiko
White Team
Akikawa Masafumi
Arashi
Itski Hiroshi
Inawashirokos
EXILE
NYC
Kitajima Saburou
Gou Hiromi
Suzuki Fuku
SMAP
Sen Masao
Tohoshinki
TOKIO
Tokunaga Hideaki
AAA
Nagabuchi Tsuyoshi
Ishida Toshiyuki
Hikawa Kiyoshi
Hirai Ken
FUNKY MONKEY BABYS
Fukuyama Masaharu
flumpool
Hosokawa Takashi
Porno Graffitti
Mori Shinichi
Yuzu
L'arc-en-Ciel
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Fri December 30, 2011. 12:26 AM
2011年漢字一文字「絆」
絆
At the end of every year, the Japan Kanji [i.e. Chinese character] Proficiency Certification Society solicits from the public the kanji that best sums up the past year.
A ceremony takes place at Kyoto's Kiyomizu-dera Temple where the selected kanji is publicly put to parchment by the head priest, presently Seihan Mori.
The kanji selected this year was the character for bonds, ties or connections pronounced kizuna.
This character was chosen due to the large level of support and help ordinary Japanese gave to the victims of the earthquake and tsunmai in March this year that devastated the Tohoku area of the country north east of Tokyo.
The kanji chosen in 2010 was sho meaning hot, due to the record summer temperatures experienced that year.
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Thu December 29, 2011. 01:53 PM
小判
The koban gold coin (not to be confused with koban meaning police box) was an Edo Period Japanese flat, thinly beaten coin, oval in shape.
Koban gold coins, Sado Gold Mine MuseumThe gold koban were produced from metal mined from Sado Gold Mine on Sado Island and each koban was equal in value to one ryo, which in turn was equal to three koku of rice - a koku being the estimation of rice needed to feed one person for one year (about 150kg).
Koban at Sado Gold Museum, Aikawa
The Tokugawa currency gradually became debased over the centuries leading to inflation, which was one of the reasons the Tokugawa regime was in deep financial trouble by the time Commodore Perry arrived in 1853. The koban was replaced in the Meiji Period with the Yen based on Western standards.
Gold koban
Japanese ceramic maneki neko are often made holding a koban coin for luck and are called "Koban Maneki Neko."
Sado Gold Mine map
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Thu December 29, 2011. 01:49 PM
チャールズ・ロバート・ジェンキンス
Charles Robert Jenkins is an ex-US soldier who deserted his unit in Korea and went over to the North Korean side of the DMZ.
Charles R JenkinsJenkins was kept in North Korea from 1965-2004, at first in confinement with three other American deserters and later given more freedom. In 1980 Jenkins married Hitomi Soga, a Japanese nurse 19 years his junior. Soga, together with her mother, had been abducted by North Korean agents in 1978 from Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture. The couple had two daughters in the mid-1980s.
Jenkins photographed with Japanese celebrities
In 2002 Soga was allowed to return to her homeland supposedly for just a week by the North Korean authorities but her and the other abductees did not return to North Korea and the Japanese government lobbied for their families to be allowed to join them in Japan.
In 2004 Jenkins and his two daughters were released to Jakarta and then came to Japan. Jenkins was held for a symbolic 24 days for desertion by the US army at Camp Zama in Kanagawa and then released.
Jenkins now lives with his family on Sado Island and works at a souvenir shop selling rice crackers and other souvenirs at the Sado Rekishi Densetsukan (Sado Historical Folklore Museum), adjacent to Mano-gu, the tomb of the exiled Emperor Juntoku. When tourists drop off in the winter, Jenkins is not present at the shop but is replaced by a life-sized cardboard cut-out (see first image above).
Jenkins has written a book about his experiences in North Korea, which was produced as a Japanese-language version, entitled 告白 - (kokukaku, To Tell the Truth, 2005). An English book on Jenkins titled The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea came out in 2008.
Sado Historical Folklore Museum
Sado Historical Folklore Museum map
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Thu December 29, 2011. 01:45 PM
北沢火力発電所
Located in the town of Aikawa on Sado Island the Kitazawa Flotation & Power Plants are an industrial relic from the early 20th century.
By 1938 the Kitazawa flotation plant was the largest gold ore concentrator in East Asia as Japan stepped up its gold production to pay for imports following economic sanctions imposed on it by the Western powers following the Mukden Incident of 1937 in China.
During the Second World War copper was also smelted here brought from Japan's South East Asian empire.
By the 1950s gold mine operations on Sado were much reduced and the gold ore concentrator was stopped.
The brick building pictured below is a thermal power plant built in 1908 to provide power and replacing the previous steam engines. Inside the building are photographs and other exhibits on the history of Aikawa.
The Kitazawa Flotation & Power Plant is very close to the Sado Gold Mine and just across the road from the Edo Period Sado Bugyosho.
Google map
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Mon December 26, 2011. 01:58 AM
E4系新幹線
The MAX Shinkansen is part of the E4 series of Shinkansen and has double-decker carriages. The MAX (Multi Amenity Express) runs on the Joetsu, Tohoku and sometimes Nagano shinkansen routes from Tokyo and Ueno stations at a maximum speed of 240kph.
When 16 cars are used the train can carry over 1,600 people, the highest capacity for a train set in the world.
The interior of the trains have special spaces for storing skis on the journey to ski resorts of Nagano and Echigo Yuzawa.
Max E4 Series Shinkansen Tokyo Station
The present E4 series is planned to be discontinued in 2016.
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Sun December 25, 2011. 07:52 AM
今週の日本
Japan Poll Finds Record Good Will for U.S.
New York Times
Worries over Japanese food safety
BBC
Japan nuclear operator scraps plan to dump contaminated water in sea
Guardian
¥2.3 billion for Tohoku diverted to whale hunt
Japan Times
El 'kimchi' conquista Europa
El Pais
Global Voices 29/11/2011 à 15h26
Génération Y au Japon : « Laissez-nous rêver ! »
Rue 89
日本自民党总裁：中日关系源于一种心态变化
Caijing
War Claims and Compensation: Franco-Vietnamese Contention over Japanese War Reparations and the Vietnam War
Japan Focus
Japan’s Darvish says he plans to head to majors
Yahoo Sports
Last Week's News
Statistics
On Thursday, Mount Sakurajima erupted for the 897th time this year. The active volcano located in Kagoshima broke its own record.
Source: Daily Yomiuri
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Sun December 25, 2011. 07:51 AM
今週の日本
Statue Deepens Dispute Over Wartime Sexual Slavery
New York Times
Japan PM says Fukushima nuclear site finally stabilised
BBC
China banks on bloody blockbuster to win friends … and Oscars
Guardian
Futenma base relocation has little hope left
Japan Times
Messi también juega en Japón
El Pais
A Séoul, les « femmes de réconfort » de l'armée japonaise réclament justice
Rue 89
日本在野党：首脑会谈应要求韩方拆除和平碑
Caijing
Postwar Japan's National Salvation
Japan Focus
Japan’s government endorses Tokyo 2020 bid
Yahoo Sports
Last Week's News
Statistics
Of the 83,000 workers at Japan's 18 nuclear power plants, 88% are contract workers.
Source: Japan Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency
Most Influential Cities (based on political engagement, cultural experience, human capital, and business activity)
1. New York
2. London
3. Tokyo
4. Paris
5. Hong Kong
6. Chicago
7. Los Angeles
8. Singapore
9. Sydney
10. Seoul
15. Beijing
Source: National Geographic
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