Japan My Love - Japanese culture, tv, news, trend, food

We watch "The red and white singing contest" on New Year's eve.
It's the competition between teams of male and female singers, but on the other hand, there's an invisible costume competition between 2 singers.
One is a female singer called "Sachiko Kobayashi".
She's an enka singer.
Her costume has been the special-feature of this TV program for many years.
The other singer is called "Kenichi Mikawa".
He is a male enka singer, but his way of talking is completely middle aged lady.
We don't know if he's a gay or not...(mysterious...)
His costume is also the special-feature of this program.
Many people look forward to watch their costumes every year.

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Sachiko Kobayashi





Kenichi Mikawa

Japanese New Year's Day is just as same as Western's Christmas.
Most people spend time together with their family on this day.
On New Year's Day, we say "Congratulations!" to eath other.
And we eat traditional food like Osechi, Mochi.
Osechi is a special cuisine for New Year that consists of many kinds of ingredients.
Each ingredient has its own meaning, for example Kazunoko means "having many kids".
We also eat mochi on this day.
Mochi is Japanese traditional food called "rice cake" in English.
We decorate "Kagami-mochi" to pray God for family's prosperity.
On New Year's Eve, we watch "The red and white singing contest" on TV.
This program ends at midnight.
So many people celebrate the new year with the ending of this program.

Osechi


Kagami-mochi


Kazunoko


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Each PC maker released small sized & cheap laptop PC one after another since its pioneer "Eee PC" made a mega hit in PC market.
Eee PC is produced by ASUS which is a Taiwanese company.
It was an unprecedented product which made a big topic in the market.
The size is very small(7 inch - 9 inch) and its cheap price gave a shock over the market.(about \50000 = $500)
Because of the price, the performance of this PC was not so excellent at first.
Some geeks enjoyed remodeling it for higher-performance.
After the debut of this sensational PC, many of rival companies like HP, Dell, IBM, NEC...made the same kind of PC.
They have been evolved with more excellent spec and functionality these days.
We're looking forward to the debut of more "sensational" PC in the future.

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A website called "bijin tokei + binan tokei" (http://www.bijint.com/) is making a big topic.
The translation is:
bijin => beautiful lady
binan => beautiful guy
tokei => clock
In this site good-looking ladies and guys tell you what time it is now.
They hold boards on which current time is written by hand-writing.
It's updated every minute automatically.
That means 1440 pictures are shown in a day.
Every picture is taken on a street.
But there is an exception.
A female pop singer “Rina Aiuchi” appears in this website temporarily.
(The picture on the right is her.)
She’s advertising her CD on the board.
This website offers a "gadget" that can be used for homepages and blogs.
There's a rumor that they are developing an application of this clock for iPhone.
So iPhone users should check it out!

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In Germany Japanese tourists who have to pay the penalty for free ride of train are increasing.
That's because of the difference of ticket system of train.
In Japan, we have to put a ticket into the automated ticket gate to reach the platform.
But in Germany you can go to the platform without a ticket.
Beside there is no sign saying "you have to put a ticket into the machine to have date and time on it before getting on a train".
So many Japanese tourists tend to think trains are free in Germany.
There sometimes comes station staff on a train, and if the staff finds a tourst without a ticket or ticket without a stamp, then the penalty is inevitable.
There are "fake" staff these days that take penalty from the tourists.
"Genuine" ones have identity cards and they give receipts after taking penalty.
Be careful.

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Starbucks Cofee Japan announced that they gives a discount of 50 yen(about 50 US cents) to anyone who brings his/her own cup to drink coffee with.
We can also buy cups in Starbucks.
This is for saving of natural resoures.

This kind of movement called "ecology" is spreading over Japan.
At supermarkets many people bring their own bags and use them instead of using plastic bags given by supermarkets.
At some supermarkets we even have to pay for the plastic bag if we want it.

Hopefully this ecology will spread more and more to reach the world, and we can keep the beautiful nature of the earth for the future.

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Love Plus is a game of Nintendo DS released in September 2009.
It's a romance simulation game in which you can enjoy relationship with virtual girls.
For only 2 months it made a mega hit, 150000 are sold.
This game is so well-made that guys tend to be stuck in the virtual world.
You can go out on a date with a girl, walk hand in hand, even kiss her!
A news that a Japanese guy got married with a virtual girl made a topic in American site "Boing Boing" recently.
Also Love Plus causes a trouble on a married couple.
A wife of a 29 year-old husband working as a software engineer left home with a letter and a divorce notice left on a table.
The reason is when they had a quarrel the husband said
"I preffer the virtual girl to welcome me when I get home".
The husband visited the wife and apologized and they made up with each other after all.
How much influence games have on people is now unpredictable...

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