Japan

Annual ‘Crying Sumo’ Baby Contest Held in Tokyo

Like what you see? Subscribe to the full RSS feed. The annual baby crying contest was held at the Sensoji Temple in Tokyo last Sunday. At least 80 babies participated in the traditional contest that determines which baby cries first as a pair is held aloft by two sumo wrestlers who persuade them to cry. […]

Japan Celebrates Annual ‘Festival of the Steel Phallus’

Festival of the Steel Phallus, Japan © Saya M. Every year, hundreds of camera wielding tourists gather around the Kanamara Shrine in Kawasaki, Japan to see something they’ll never get to see in their home towns – a large, twelve foot pink representation of a penis being held aloft by chanting men, and paraded down the […]

Japan’s Annual Naked Man Festival

A bizarre ancient festival in the city of Okayama brings together lucky amulets, wooden sticks and men in white diapers, like the ones worn by Sumo wrestlers. In ancient Japan, the festival marked the culmination of the 14-day New Year festivities, during which monks presented paper amulets to the elders of the community. The demand […]

Photo of the Moment: Morning Commute, Japan

Japan’s Male Geisha Emerges

With Japanese women paying to enter clubs where beautiful young boys dress and act as bashful schoolboys to please them, it was just a matter of time before the male geisha emerged. A new trend in Japan has gender roles reversed as successful women pay suave young men to spend an evening with […]

Japanese Grave Maker Develops High Tech Gravestone

It was just a matter of time before the dead got high tech, and Japan is unsurprisingly showing the way. A Japanese grave stone maker has developed grave stones with embedded bar codes in them. When visitors visit the gravesites of their dead relatives, they can take a picture of the tag with their cell […]

Cosplish School Opens in Tokyo

To the long list of English language hybrids around the world, you can add a new dialect – Cosplish. It has its origins in Tokyo, and more specifically, in the slang used in cos-play, or costume play, which has fans of anime and manga comics dressing up and speaking like the animated characters. If you’d […]

Bizarre Japanese Art of Inemuri

Japanese Art of Inemuri “To be asleep, but present.” This is the Japanese art - or gift - of ‘inemuri.’ In the most sleep-deprived nation on Earth, the Japanese talent for falling asleep anywhere - on trains, in elevators, during meetings - is both necessary, and admired. In Japan’s workaholic culture, falling asleep out of exhaustion is […]

Bizarre Culture: ‘We Are the World’, Japanese Style [Video]

We Are the World is among the most famous and unmistakably recognizable songs of the last twenty-five years. It’s the only time I can recall during which such a massively famous group of music superstars simultaneously collaborated and produced a single song. … written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, produced and conducted by Quincy […]

Japan’s New Fetish Cafe Caters to Train Maniacs

If you have a thing for trains, railroads or nubile young railroad conductors, you might want to head Japanward, and check out the Little TGV bar in Akihabara, Japan (where else?). The bar, which opened February 21st, features waitresses dressed as railroad clerks, railroad themed decor, and is run by a fictitious railroad company called Shin […]

First ‘Schoolboy’ Fetish Cafe Opens in Japan

More fetishes from the Land of the Rising Sun. The success of homoerotic romances and manga comics has fueled the growth of an industry that’s targeting the female otaku – women who are also fans of animation movies, computer games and comics. In short: all things geeky. Tokyo’s Edelstein Boarding School At Japan’s […]

Bizarre Culture: Japanese Marshmallow Eating Contest [Video]

Were I given an entire lifetime to imagine some of the ideas seen on Japanese game shows, I’m not confident I could devise anything nearly as bizarre as this: I’m honestly jealous of the sheer amount of creativity the writers of these shows are able to muster.

Going Green with a Vengeance in Tokyo

Tokyo has never been known for its vast parklands. Green space accounts for just four percent of the city, compared to twelve percent in New York. The rapid reconstruction efforts post World War II ensured that Tokyo quickly evolved into a concrete jungle with skyscrapers clogging the city, and every available inch used […]

Tokyo Says “No Smoking” in Taxis

As a rather apt follow-up to this video review of Tokyo’s coffin hotels … Tokyo has joined the growing list of cities to enforce stricter restrictions on smoking in public. After Paris’ cafes, it’s Tokyo’s taxis that have become smoke-free zones. Two Tokyo taxi associations initiated the ban on lighting up inside, responding to […]

Coffin Hotels of Tokyo [Video]

I’m positively fascinated by all things Japanese, and particularly the Capsule (a.k.a. “Coffin”) hotels of Tokyo. Geobeats explains: Somewhere William Gibson is smiling.

Japan to Introduce World’s Fastest Maglev Train - Over 300 MPH!

The Central Japan Railway Company (J R Central) plans to build a maglev train between Tokyo and Central Japan. At a projected speed of 310 miles an hour or 500 kilometers, the train has already been billed as the world’s fastest maglev train. A maglev train uses electromagnetic force rather than an engine to propel […]

Japanese Underwater Toilet Provides Patrons a “Loo” with a View

Akashi, Japan’s Mumin Papa Café - built at a cost of $275,000 - offers this underwater restroom (or “loo” if you like) with a view to its patrons: I can’t imagine this is too healthy for the fish’s psyche.

The Singing Roads of Japan

In 1899, Charles H. Duell, Commissioner of the U.S. patent office, was famously quoted saying that “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” Evidently the Japanese didn’t get the memo. And you have to hand it to them - they certainly have no shortage of innovation. Their latest project - “The Melody Road” […]

5 Ways You Can Be More Japanese in Japan

If you can blend into the culture, I figure, you’ll get so much more out of your trip. So how can you fit into society better when you travel to Japan?

Hikaru Dorodango: How Shiny Balls Are Taking Japan by Storm

Here’s how it works: Japanese kids start a fad. Westerners then laugh at them for being ridiculous. Then we try it. Then we obsess. Then we’re left with a worthless collection of Pokemon cards while they’re off starting something new. Virtual pets on keychains that have to be fed once an hour? Check. Cartoons featuring teenagers […]

Photo of the Moment: Giant Jellyfish Invade Japan

A diver works to attach a tracking device to a giant jellyfish. If I hadn’t seen this in National Geographic, I’d probably have chalked it up to another Photoshop’ed web hoax.

From Recycled Japanese Train Tickets to Fine Art

In Osaka, Japan, Takashimaya department store employees have taken over 320,000 recycled train tickets and recreated four iconic works of fine art. Via PinkTentacle.com: The works, which include renditions of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (2.3 x 1.6 meters) and the Birth of Venus, as well as Renoir’s Dance at the Moulin de la Galette, consist of “pixels” […]

Photo of the Moment: Abandoned Japanese Theme Park

There’s something about urban (or in this case suburban) decay that’s so enchanting and mysterious to me. © SixWise With Gulliver (of Gulliver’s Travels fame) in the foreground and Mount Fiji in the background.

Odd Travel Gifts: Plastic Japanese Food

Photo © MikesBlender.com I love kitsch. Especially cheesy, kitschy gifts that I can share with loved ones back home. Japan comes through in spades: In Japan, restaurants often have front-window displays with foods from their menu, rendered in marvelous detail….in plastic. … Tokyo has a street near the Asakusa section called Kappabashi Dori, and it features every […]

Culture Shock: The Japanese Institution of Public Drunkeness

Mike over at Mike’s Blender introduces us to the idea of public drunkeness in Japan: While most people in the West are content to toss their cookies in the privacy of their own home, here in Japan, the trains and train stations have somehow become the designated area for this pastime. Ride the last train pretty […]

If You’re Not Yet Afraid of Flying …

… this should put the fear of God in ya. Video of an airplane in Osaka getting struck by lightning.

The Salaryman Robot: A Tribute To Cubicle Jockeys

If you’re a dreamy-eyed, workaday cubicle jockey chained to a desk surrounded by Dilbert cartoons, this one’s for you: Japanese performance artist Momoyo Torimitsu takes her robot for a crawl in downtown Sydney, Australia. Crowds watch the bizarre sight of the life-like Japanese businessman in suit and tie slowly crawling on all fours along the pavement. […]

No Sushi for You!

Now this is just wrong. WorldHum is reporting on Japan’s latest sushi crisis: … given fishing limits and international demand for sushi, the country can’t get enough tuna. Martin Fackler writes in the New York Times that Japan has fallen into a “national panic,” with news programs devoting much airtime to the crisis. In […]

Human Tetris

The Japanese never cease to amaze me. It seems no game show, food, or outlandish technology (see Chindogu) is ever weird enough. There’s always some chap in Tokyo willing to push the boundary just a bit further. Check out this video via Two-Zero’s blog: I’m not gonna lie - it looks like fun. I […]

Japan Says: Have a Coke (and an Ad) and a Smile!

Remember when I professed my love for Tokyo and all things Japanese? Of course you do - it was about an hour ago. Further proof of why the Japanese are leaders in global innovation and I love them for it: TOKYO - Thirsty Japanese will soon be able to drink coffee or other non-alcoholic […]