Rajio Taisou!
Written by Jeshii on 2008.10.20 – 16:44 -We’ve all heard of Japanese people doing calisthenics before work and school. The reality is while I was in Japan, the only time I ever actually saw anyone doing ラジオ体操 (rajio taisou) was just before the 運動会 (undoukai) at school.
ラジオ体操 is basically just a song and a set of basic calisthenics that you do to the song. Yes, it’s old as hell, but it’s actually a lot of fun. It is played every morning on NHK Radio #1 at 6:30am. And it is not the only kind of music calisthenics. My personal favorite has got to be the やきとりおじさん (yakitori ojisan; On YouTube or ニコニコ動画).
Of course, the discovery of 初音ミク (Hatsune Miku) doing ラジオ体操 has prompted this entry, but if you want to follow along in a more informed way, read the Japanese explanation here, or my brief English explanation after the jump.
Tags: ラジオ体操, calisthenics, exercise, explaination, 説明, Hatsune Miku, health, NHK, nicovideo, radio, radio calisthenics, rajio taisou, society, video, 初音ミク
Posted in society | 2 Comments »
Yuko Obuchi, living oxymoron?!
Written by Jeshii on 2008.09.28 – 23:00 -
So we didn’t get Japan’s first female Prime Minister. We got Rozen-kun. But, he did appoint 中之条町’s very own 小渕優子 (Obuchi Yuko) to his cabinet!
The only problem? She is the Minister of Birth Rate Decline. The official “Special Missions” (特命) that she is in charge of are counter plans for birth rate decline and gender equality.
Lisa over at TokyoMango pointed out:
The job title “minister of declining birth” is kind of horrendous—it takes a lot of power out of her hands already by defining what her role as the person in charge of gender is. Women don’t get to choose their path in life, they just need to have more babies. That’s kinda how that title resonates with me.
Now, Yuko Obuchi is married and has a 1 year old boy. My guess is that appointing her is a 作戦 (sakusen) to show women can have children and hold careers as well.
I don’t think that directly translates to struggling middle class folk, not to mention, there really seems to be more issues with the declining birth rate than just the traditional “career” vs. “family” argument.
In any case, I wish her all the luck in her position and with her tasks. Oh, and by the way, maybe one way to combat the declining birth rate is to make immigration easier. I’m just saying.
Tags: children, girls, government, gunma, society, Yuko Obuchi, 小渕優子
Posted in government | No Comments »
Crying Out Love, In the Center of the Cabbage Field
Written by Jeshii on 2008.09.20 – 12:00 -First, some back story. There was a movie a few years back called 世界の中心で、愛をさけぶ (sekai no chuushin de, ai o sakebu; “Crying Out Love, In the Center of the World”). It was a real tear jerker about a guy having a kind of mid-life crisis about his dead high school sweetheart… Oh man…
Anyway (*sniff*), the following clip is about this place in my old digs, 群馬県 (Gunma-ken) in 嬬恋村 (Tsumagoi-mura, literally “Wife (Mistress?) Love Village”) where you can stand on a platform in a cabbage field (Gunma is known for growning cabbage) and yell out your love for your wife. In the video, they call it キャベツ畑の中心で、愛をさけぶ, or Crying Out Love, In the Center of the Cabbage Field.
I thought this was cute. The couple featured is a little odd… but I totally dig it. The 80-something year old was the cutest by far.
This seems to be a popular thing for Japanese guys… they won’t say 愛している (aishiteiru) or 好き (suki) on a daily basis, but will yell it out at certain special moments… or at least, the dramas have me believe such.
Tags: cabbage, gunma, inaka, love, marriage, society, video
Posted in society | No Comments »
Yuriko Koike on NicoNicoDouga and YouTube
Written by Jeshii on 2008.09.16 – 12:00 -
In case you haven’t been in the Japanese government loop, Fukuda has resigned and there are a bunch of people who want to be the next prime minister. One of the many is 小池 ゆりこ (Koike Yuriko). If she were to actually become prime minister, she would be Japan’s first female prime minister.
She’s not really a front runner, but she does have an interesting strategy. She is using ニコニコ動画 (NicoNicoDouga) and YouTube to post videos of herself talking about the issues (or riding in jet planes). Why stand on top of a van in Shibuya when you can be on ニコ動… standing on top of a van!
I’d love to see her do well. Advancement of women and all that. But I have one major problem with her ニコニコ動画 videos; no comments! Comments on ニコ動 give you a sense that others are watching it too. So watching her comment-less videos (commenting seems to have been disabled) makes it feel like she is unpopular.
So, Yuriko-chan, let’s start seeing some commenting, huh? I’d love to see some “wwwwwwww” comments stringing across when you get out of that F-15!
Tags: government, nicovideo, society, video
Posted in government | 1 Comment »
Is perfume breaking up your marriage?
Written by Jeshii on 2008.09.10 – 19:00 -
Perfume, from your wife
So remember I was taking about perfume, the wildly popular elecropop girls trio?
Well, looks like perfume are so popular, they are starting to break up marriages.
The story comes from
a thread on the message boards over at Yahoo!知恵袋 (Yahoo!chiebukuro). My translation of the initial post is as follows:
My wife is pressing the “perfume” question.
Hello. I’m a 29 year old married man. I don’t have any children.
It’s not like I’m really big into music, but I download and listen to a lot of different kinds of music. It doesn’t matter if it is Western or Japanese and I enjoy music from any genre.
The other day, a friend of mine recommended I give perfume a listen, but although it was music that was fairly off my particular radar, I gave them a listen and really liked it. The music videos are also quite spectacular, so I really started to get into them and started to buy DVDs on Yahoo! Auctions and collect all the CDs I could.
When I recommended them to my wife, she quietly listened and said “This is some interesting music, huh?” But then, one day, I asked her over dinner, “Who is your favorite out of the three perfume girls?” She responded angrily, 『殺すぞ』 (korosu zo, “I’ll kill you.”)
“Who gets these girly DVDs and CDs at this age?! You are always listening to it everyday! You pervert!” Among the verbal abuse, she overturned the table. Since then, my wife has started to curse the very thought of perfume. If they show up on TV, she will change the channel. If their music is the background of a commercial, she will mute it just for that commercial. She does this all with a blank face. It’s scary.
One day, when I came home from work, I found that almost all the pictures on perfume CD covers had labels put over the faces of かしゆか (Kashiyuka) and のっち (Nocchi). Somehow, あーちゃん (A~chan) made it unscathed. When I asked my wife what she was doing, she replied with the question “Which is more important, our life together or perfume?”
We aren’t very wealthy nor affluent. It seems my hobby of trying to buy CDs and DVDs had ticked her off. In the end, she hit me with these conditions. “Put all of your perfume stuff on Yahoo! Auctions, and stop listening to perfume completely. If you can’t do this, I want a divorce.”
Up until now, I had a lot of CDs of young girl bands/singers in pretty heavy rotation, and I bought some DVDs, but my wife had never said anything before… And how come あーちゃん was the only one to make it out without being covered in stickers? But I’m not in any position to be asking these questions right now. I have to get rid of the CDs and DVDs by the end of the month. This is really harsh…
To the wives and women out there, is there some way that I can peacefully end this thing? My wife is the same age as myself.
Thank you for reading.
On a side note, my real name is Yasutaka.
(Translator’s note: That last thing about Yasutaka, the DJ who produces and makes perfume’s music is Nakata Yasutaka.)
Poor guy. But, I gotta say, if is wife is that upset about it, he must be totally otaku-ing out on perfume.
But that is a good question… why perfume? And why not A~chan? Maybe it is just her cryptic way of saying which on is her favorite?!
Tags: bbs, music, perfume, society, ystk
Posted in Internet, music | 18 Comments »
