DoCoMo, KDDI Offer Free Digital TV to Attract Users Bloomberg.com: JapanBloomberg— NTT DoCoMo Inc. and KDDI Corp., Japan’s biggest wireless operators, will make free digital television available on cell phones from tomorrow, offering content that may draw users away from paying for services such as mobile Internet surfing and e-mail. The introduction of phones that receive the “one-seg” broadcasts shows operators may sacrifice revenue to retain market share …

Ok, ok, so it’s TV on a cellphone not a regular TV set but it is still the SAME shows that are being broadcast for free over the air.
I guess that DoCoMo and KDDI are getting worried about that fact that cellphone owners will soon be able switch providers without changing their phone number and are trying anything like free “one seg” (ワンセグ) to stop their customers from switching to the soon-to-be Softbank/Yahoo half-price cellphone service.

Bereaved parents call for end to forced binge drinking
MSN-Mainichi—A group of parents whose children died after being forced to drink large amounts of alcohol have grouped together ahead of the university entrance season to produce coasters with warnings against forced drinking....more…

As previously covered in the 3Yen story No barfing under the blossoms!….‘Tis the season to be barfing in Japan. Students are celebrating or commiserating their college entrance exam results. Cherry blossoms need to honored a group drunk stupor. And, new employees new to initiated into the company. Japanese ambulances and ERs are filled for the next few weeks of the victims of forced chug-a-lug resulting in acute alcohol poisoning. It has been called “alcohol harassment” here: iki-iki-iki (イキイキ) “drink-up, drink-up” is the rallying cry in Japanese.
See the fun in Masa’s photoblog here and be sure to see the last photo of a true Japanese enjoying sakura.
Remember: In Japan, お酒がつがない - Never pour your own drink.

Japanese NEET (ニート)

Japanese high school students less motivated than overseas peers, survey shows
asahi.com: Japanese high school students are less motivated than their peers in the United States, China and South Korea to improve their marks, develop relationships or do anything constructive in their daily lives, a survey showed.
In fact, the survey released Wednesday showed that Japanese students have a strong sense of being just like everyone else, and tended to have a blase attitude about what to do with their time…more…

Many Japanese high school students study hard and bust their butts. However, just as many do nothing in school knowing that there is no way to expell a student for bad behavior (or more accurately, no behavior). The problem many foreign engrish teachers have with their students is that the students are unmotivated, lazy, or most commonly just plain zombie-like in class. Random violence from a student after months of slack-jawed emptiness is another problem. Alienation. Boredom. Despair. Those are the baseline of Japanese high school underclass of the Lost.
Japan’s former system requiring years of competitive schooling for “elite” jobs seems a complete waste of time to young people since new employees in Japan have none of the “guarantees” of the former Japan Inc.
Students ain’t dumb.
They’re savvy enough to see the “Japanese system” is not working any longer. Without any clear goals for their future, it’s only logical that, “Japanese high school students less motivated than overseas peers.”

PSA (public service announcement)

Shane Inwood: Thinking of teaching in Japan? Don’t bother
The Independent: Do you fancy a stint teaching English in the land of the rising yen? Heard a few good things about it from that girl who works for the record label? You know; the one with the really cool tattoo you talked to when you and your workmates went to that trendy sushi place after the end-of-work do.
Bad news, I’m afraid. While you were mucking around finishing up that TEFL qualification or BA, the party ended in Japan. You should have got here sooner, because it used to be a blast.
I can’t think of any other work abroad that paid so well, gave on-the-job training, accommodation and a visa, and had such amazing nightlife. Don’t get me wrong; expat life in Japan is still mental, but nowadays it’s a kind of fruit picking/ backpacker mental rather than the Skybar-champagne-happy-hour mental it used to be…more…

Back in the dawn of time when the first chordates pulled themselves out of the ocean, I was a linguistics doctoral student with teaching certification in ESL/EFL (engrish as a second language now called EAL). Thirty seconds after dragging my body onto to beach in Japan, it became obvious that engrish teaching was not a good career move in Japan with degrees and certification.
Nuf said.
English teachin’ …just say “dame“.

Update: Read more about working in Japan here from SMH News Service (March 15, 2006).

NHK might run commercials in overseas broadcasts
Kyodo
TOKYO —- Vice Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications Shogo Hayashi said Monday the ministry will consider accepting advertisers’ sponsorships to fund programs that Japan Broadcasting Corp., or NHK, airs abroad.
Hayashi’s remark came in response to a view expressed earlier this month by Foreign Minister Taro Aso, who said it might be necessary to run commercials if the public broadcasting system is to increase its overseas programs in order to disseminate more information about Japan.

Dang. NHK is grasping at straws. The voluntary/required contributions to NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster, are way down because on the continuous scandals and abuse of public funds. The problem is NHK programs are too boring (think of it very polite Japan Inc propaganda) to generate much ad revenue from commercials. This could be an opportunity to make more hard-hitting programs rather than pap—NHK has the resources to do better than the BBC or PBS. However, until now NHK has only been motivatied to run programs on cherry blossoms and food.

Yahoo! News Photo
Japanese high school students brave the snow in Nagoya, central Japan ….. Japan issued avalanche warnings on Friday as temperatures were forecast to rise in mountainous areas buried under record snowfalls….

“Rules is rules” in Japan. It may have snowed almost meter in Nagoya but school rules say “sailor suit tops and pleated short skirts” are the required uniform.
Oddly, school uniform skirts have got so short in Japan many furyou girls (delinquent wannabes) wear their gym sweatpants gym shorts together with hyper-short skirts. Schools in “snow country” relax the uniform rules to allow girls to add training wear when needed but Nagoya fashion rules seems to not include common sense.
A snow country schoolgirl—

Stem cell experts seek rabbit-human embryo
The Guardian—British scientists are seeking permission to create hybrid embryos in the lab by fusing human cells with rabbit eggs. If granted consent, the team will use the embryos to produce stem cells that carry genetic defects…

PRIOR ART:
Japan’s genetically-defective TV commercial of “USAGI” chan of Nova engrish schools. The “usagi” (meaning rabbit in Japanese) is a pink bunny with a beak. Talk about genetic hybrids!
Japan’s largest and most annoying engrish school, NOVA uses USAGI as their spokesman in all their TV commercials.
See the genetically-defective fun:
QuickTime CM >> Small format, or >> Large
Real Player CM >> Small format, or >> Large format video, 15 secs

Finding their way / Young Japanese discover Zen in unlikely corners
TOKYO:….Atsumi Osaka, 20, a sophomore at Doshisha University, will change her major from commerce to religion…partly out of her discussions about Zen with foreign travelers during a month-long trip in Southeast Asia this summer. At a guesthouse in Malaysia, Osaka met an Australian man, who told her how interesting it had been for him to stay at a Zen school in Kyoto.
She was surprised to learn that the school, Kyoto International Zendo, was under the supervision of Gensho Hozumi…Hozumi says about 40 percent of the school’s visitors are Japanese, but the presence of young students has become conspicuous, especially during summer and spring vacations. …”I get the impression that many of them learned about Zen when they were traveling overseas and were shocked at how little they knew,” Hozumi said. …more…

Ok, ok. You might as well relax, take a deep breath, exhale and GROAN right now for what I’m gonna say.
Foreign Zen is purer than Japanese.
Whine all you want but it’s true.
The nature of Japanese Zen is poluted by the Japanese needs for hierarchy and male control. Zen-for-men-removed-from-reality in Japan is ruined by male-dominated, hierarchical and overly monastic traditions that bascally suck all the joy out it. Foreign zen has a broad participation lay people, female leadership positions and a social conscious. Japanese Zen has zen.

TOKYO, JAPAN: Japanese robot maker Tmsuk unveils a new guide and floor cleaning robot “RIDC-01″ which can recognize human voice and speaks to guests during a press preview…The robot, 1.3-meter tall and weighing 100-kg, is also equipped with a projector on its head and can show DVD movies or information. Tmsuk will start order with a price of 10 million yen (85,000 USD).

That Japanese version of a floor cleaning robot ought to get real kissie-kissie for 85,000 dollars. This is especially so when the Home Shopping Network sells a Roomba(tm) for $200 that does the same work.

According to the Japanese website of Tmsuk the manufacturer the “RIDC-01″ the name comes from the Robotics Industry Development Council (RIDC).
The robot’s specs are:
1,300mm H / 700mm W 960mm D
Weight approximately 100 kg
Power source: 24-volt DC lithium ion battery (100V AC power charger)
Operating time: 120 minutes maximum continuous operation time
Independent 2 wheel drive
Maximum speed: 3.0 km/h approximately
WiFi and cellphone enabled
Speech recognition and synthetic-speech enabled in conversational Japanese
Robot arms with 10 degree of freedom in 3-axis
Emergency stop and obstacle sensors

Tough job market? Study at Department of Butt-whoopin’. R-i-i-i-ight.

Putting the ‘liberal’ in liberal arts J-style & Weekend: ….Department of Butt-whoopin’
Kyungbuk College of Science is also offering a major in a sport that’s rapidly becoming popular in Korea: mixed martial arts, better known as K-1 in Japan. The school’s Division of Leisure Sports and Recreation started offering the major this year. Eighty student have so far signed up. “Mixed martial arts, including K-1 and PRIDE Fighting Championships, have been popular in other countries like Japan, the States and Russia for the last 10 years,” said Hong Young-kyu, professor of the department….the problem is that there are not many experts in K-1.…more…

If you don’t like to major in buttkicking, check out the advance studies in the “Department of Chastity” also mentioned in the above Joongang Daily article.
Hmmm…study “chasity.”
That is, studying not doing anything, which is what “chasity” is. Gee, that sounds tough. That’s a lot tougher than K-1, which is a kickboxing-like sport that mixes parts of Thai kickboxing , Karate, traditional boxing, other matial arts. K-1 competions were first introduced in Japan in 1980 by Kazuyoshi Ishii. The contestants in the fights I see on Japanese TV look like they need more “schooling”—the fights look sloppy and uprofessional.