In Japan, it seems that cats and dogs are more popular than an actual child
SHUKAN ECONOMIST (May 6) via Japan Times
….there are more dogs and cats in this country (an estimated 23 million as of 2007) than there are children under 15….
…Shukan Economist traces modern Japan’s first of two pet booms to the economic bubble of the 1980s…[and then] around 2000, with three main differences: the dogs of choice are now the smallest imaginable; their owners are economically average; and, unlike its transitory predecessor, this boom could be here to stay. Its immediate spark seems to have been a TV commercial featuring a Chihuahua. The dog was adorable. Suddenly everyone had to have one…more…
Ok, ok, I lied about the Japanese outlawing humans under the age of 15 (but you get the idea).
However, “Qoo-chan” the chihuahua has been a hit for the Japanese loansharking company “AIFUL.” And since more people in Japan retire than join the work force each year, humans are now obsolete. Beware of the Japanese robot armies!
See the previous 3Yen reports on the chihuahua plague in Japan:
—Who let the chihuahuas out?
—Rat-nappings dog Tokyo
—Fad-driven inbred Japanese runts
—Loan shark sashimi
Calling itself a “new documentary exploring contemporary Japanese pop-culture,” here’s TOKYO-LOGY– a bit of fluff about the obvious Tokyo from BoingBoing. Remember, the Japanese-engrish words, “trendy”, “dandy”, “costume/sex/maid-play”, etc. are considered complimentary—to worn like this week’s novelty T-shirt, not a lifestyle.
Click to view video.
Rather than ersatz “TOKYO-LOGY,” our 3Yen correspondent, “Den4,” sagely recommends: “Then again, you can always go for overkill with the hell-o kitty laptop.”
In one way, a young attractive woman will have an “easy” time dealing with the corrupt officials along the Silk Road, but damn…
Personal security aside, crossing the Gobi Desert, which is now larger, hotter, and drier thanks to environmental degradation, is going to be literally Hell on a Horse. She needs a least a mule or better yet a camel.
Adventurer to follow silk route by horse
Dorset Echo, Tuesday 22nd April 2008
Becky Sampson, 24, will ride by horse along the ancient silk route from London to Tokyo. The 15,000km journey is called Expedition Equus…Miss Sampson said: “I’m excited, especially about visiting Iran, but …
…It will take some four years and see her travel through 15 countries…When Miss Sampson reaches the eastern seaboard of China, she will catch a ferry to Japan, find her final horse, and ride on to Tokyo...more…
“Four years“? The Mogols rode into Europe in less than six months. Never breaking into a trot, it only takes 2-3 months to ride across the US. However, Ms. Sampson an English teacher and most likely is going to spend some of the four years teaching as well as her planned “SOS Children” charity work.
Here’s her planed route according to her website expeditionequus.com
Tombow Corporation’s Uniform Museum (machine translation)
“The opportunity when Japan turns into Western clothes from Japanese binding is said to be the uniform introduction of the early period of Meiji.” (sic)
“Traditionally” Japanese suicide with been done in the past couple of decades with carbon monoxide –poisoning with leaving a small, burning, charcoal grill in a confined space or commonly inside a rented automobile. However, there has been a new fad in the past few months to mix Japanese Sunpole® toilet cleaner and bath salts to produce deadly poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas. The problem is that poisonous hydrogen sulfide–the rotten-egg gas–produces a lot of collateral damage killing the rescuers… family members, firefighters, and police officers. It even endangers people in other apartments below the suicide room since the gas is heavier than air.
Couple suspected of gassing themselves to death with hydrogen sulfide 
Mainichi Daily News, April 17, 2008 KITAKYUSHU – A couple is suspected of fatally gassing themselves in a suicide pact by mixing detergents in their car and generating toxic hydrogen sulfide, police said Thursday. The case follows a spate of 26 incidents in which 27 people have allegedly killed themselves by mixing detergents and generating hydrogen sulfide since the beginning of this year, police said. In some cases, family members or neighbors also suffered poisoning…more…
Kyodo News photo - Apr. 12, 2008
The Japanese press calling this an “entertainers’ procession” is just a bit ingenuous. At least the Mainichi Daily News gets closer to the truth by explaining that these entertainers were Oiran “high-class” (expensive) “courtesans” (prostitutes).
Mainichi Daily News - AP Photo - April 12, 2008 –A participant (right) dressed as an Oiran, or high-class courtesan in the Edo period (1600-1868), marches during the annual Oiran festival in Tokyo’s Asakusa shopping district…
Via masashi_furuka’s flickr
The-other-side-of-the-coin would be…
That similarities could be found between the ancient Greek hetaera, the Japanese Oiran, and Babylonian Nadītu–all complex figures that are perhaps in an intermediate position between prostitutes and entertainers.
Japan turning itself into Cyberman machine civilisation
–Three million converted to undying robotoids by 2025–
The Register / 9 April 2008…. a specialist thinktank, the Machine Industry Memorial Foundation (MIMF?), has been set up to monitor the gradual infiltration of society by mechanoid impostors… MIMF’s latest estimates predict that 3.5 million Japanese workers - nearly three per cent of the population - will actually be automatic surrogates as of 2025.
In fact, the idea is that this is positive - the greying of Japan’s population is well known, as is its failure to reproduce itself….more...
Japanese love to claim they are “Homogenous” [inbreed] and “Unique” [un-diverse], so the nation policy of promoting humaniod robots makes perfect sense.
No foreigners—yes Cyberman!
Japan wants a robot “future” ….even though humanoid robots can’t do any real work and won’t able able to for many decades. Any kind of humanoid robot, even a clunky ”Star Wars” C-3PO is damp dream since autonomy –“consciousness”–for acting on their own is a long, loooong time away. Without “consciousness” robots are just spot welders, bolt tightening arms, burger flippers, spray painters, and factory drones that can swivel dexterously back and forth in a pre-programmed for assembly line work. They’re expensive toasters—one-trick-ponies. It will be many decades before humaniod style robots are going to be sentient.
And, this is much better!
DIY Battle Bot? All You Need Is $742 Million and No Sense of Reality!
Wired.com
Set to slow “simmer” is a how-to drawing from the Japanese bestseller with recent sales exceeding 30 million copies, “Practical Introduction to Slow Sex” (Kodansha, 2007).
–From bottom to top “simmer” (machine translation)
The Mainichi news paper in this article did not even think it was worth mentioned here is that in Japan 70% of single adult females live at home and sponge off their parents well into the 30s.
60 percent of married individuals ’sponge’ off parents
MDN-Mainichi, March 19, 2008– About 60 percent of married individuals received financial support from their parents or their spouse’s parents over the past year, a survey…conducted by Nihon University Population Research Institute...more...
One of the odd aspects of living in Japan is always having to explain the concept of “student loans” to Japanese folks—parents pay for everything.
- 
