Elementary and high school students from Miyagi Prefecture were given a special send off at Japan’s Narita Airport yesterday afternoon as they set off for the U.S. in order to convey messages of thanks for the efforts of those involved in relief operations following the 2011 earthquake and resulting tsunami in Northeast Japan.
Below is an account from Sayaka, a reporter over at our sister site Pouch. It is an intriguing look at differences in business culture between Japan and the west. It makes one realize that there is no perfect business strategy as such but by incorporating the best parts from each culture, one can get pretty close to their own perfect business model. Moreover, Japan’s business culture has to be one of the most unique in the entire world.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of Tokyo Station as well as Grand Central Station, New York: two titans of transportation who have served their respective metropolises proud.
To honor this centennial, Grand Central hosted “Japan Week” which drew crowds to the already crowded terminal. Hearing of this, RocketNews24 sent a reporter to investigate the centerpiece of Japan Week; the ekiben counter!
It’s a question that’s plagued people for generations: How do I get a three-ton load of bamboo off the back of my truck with minimal effort? Well, the Taiwanese truck driver in the following video has developed a rather efficient method for dropping off his deliveries.
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In an effort to develop individuals who will be active in global society, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan’s Headquarters for the Revitalization of Education has compiled a draft proposal which includes making it a prerequisite to score above a certain number of points in the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) exam before being allowed to enter university.
The proposal states, “The development of human resources is essential for achieving the Abe Cabinet’s most important issue, economic revitalization. Moving away from egalitarianism, strategic human resource development aimed at strengthening top achievers will be undertaken.”
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We all love Swedish housewares chain IKEA for their reliable selection of TISDAGs and RÅSKOGs, and whenever I’m out shopping for a new SLÄT I like to stop by the cafeteria for their 99 yen (US$1) breakfast.
But for a limited time IKEA is lowering the price of their ultra-cheap “Morning Plate” breakfast right down to 0 yen (US$0).
Sushi is a classic Japanese food that has become popular all over the world. However, sushi served in restaurants outside of Japan can turn out a little strange. Sushi hybrid concoctions such as the California roll filled with avocado and crab, and the caterpillar roll, topped with avocado and made to resemble a live caterpillar, have been delighting foreign taste buds for years. But exactly what kind of sushi do the Japanese prefer? A survey asked 500 MyNavi News members (246 males, 254 females) to share their favorite sushi topping. Surprisingly, tuna is not the most popular.
Behold: a guitar shaped like an 8-bit Nintendo Famicom (NES) console with a pair of controllers! Aside from a few alterations, the body is nearly to scale with the game machine.
Let’s take a look to see how the designer going by the name Mitsumatsu made this monster musical machine.
Here at RocketNews24 we are no strangers to excessive consumption of ordinary foodstuffs. We even once constructed a bowl of gyudon with 10 raw eggs on top.
Still, we have to doff our caps to this gent who dreamed a dream and successfully cooked 50 egg yolks in a rice cooker. We say “successfully” because the end result actually looks pretty good – if not lethal.
Dr. Shunichi Igarashi has surprised even himself with his line of Super Reinforcement with Flexibility (SRF) technology. SRF basically involves wrapping the columns and walls of building in adhesive strips.
The idea of gluing fabric on a building to protect it from the sheer force of an earthquake doesn’t sound very comforting. However, when Dr. Igarashi’s SRF was put to the test in the Great Tohoku Earthquake on 11 March, 2011, it passed with flying colors.
Following the enormous success of our cup noodle gourmet experiment, we decided that it was time to give a couple of other cheap and cheerful snacks an image overhaul by turning them into something a little more glamorous. This time around, we opted for Japanese kids’ favourite Umaibō (lit. “delicious stick”), a 10-yen (10 cents) puffed corn snack that’s available in all manner of flavours. With its dry, powdery exterior and rich taste, we couldn’t help thinking that it might go well with chicken or pork, so we decided to use a few in place of the breadcrumb coating for tonkatsu fried pork fillet.
As it turns out, the result was even more umai than we could have possibly imagined.
Japan’s version of the Moon Pie, the Choco Pie, is almost identical to the American classic – sweet filling nestled between two pieces of white cake covered in chocolate. They are made by Lotte and have been delighting Japanese sweet lovers for 30 years.
Much like the Japanese versions of Pepsi, Kit Kats and Pringles, Choco Pies are getting a new limited edition makeover. Marketed under the name “Wa Choco Pie” (Wa meaning both “peace” and, in this case, “Japanese-style”), these special Choco Pies have been supersized to 12 cm (4.7in) and filled with matcha creme. However, unlike most limited edition foods in Japan, these special Choco Pies can only be purchased by entering into a lottery draw. They will also be sold for a ridiculous price.
If you’re a video game fan and in the line for a new laptop computer, it might be your lucky day! Japan’s Sega Store is currently accepting orders for specially designed notebooks designed to look like Sega’s late, great home consoles.
Short of dropping our current machines down the stairs or accidentally pouring coffee over them, we don’t necessarily need one per-se, but the more we gaze upon these photos, the more that little tech-loving devil inside us shouts the same word over and over and pumps gaming nostalgia into our bloodstream. Waaaant!
On the Japanese TV show Nep & Imoto’s World Rankings, they conduct surveys to rate countries by random attributes. For example, recent shows have ranked everything from how common it is to cry at graduation ceremonies to the number of shotgun weddings and frequency of cellphone checking.
Another ranking that has generated some chatter in Japan was one people’s tendency to lie, which ranked … countries in accordance to how likely they were to bend the truth.
So where do you think Japan came in? Read More
Catering for men who require a little more titillation than maid cafes can provide but not wanting to step into full-blown fuuzoku establishments, “girls bars” in Japan provide customers with a place to eat and drink while giving them something to look at and plenty of stilted conversation. A cheaper alternative to “hostess clubs”, girls bars are usually staffed by regular college-aged girls who don’t mind showing a little flesh and interacting with customers in an energetic, cutesy manner.
In a slightly different take on the genre, Yokohama’s Sexy Izakaya Natsuko focuses on the theme of summer all year round, dressing its staff in bikinis and sarongs while arming them with tambarines to bash while another member of staff juices grapefruits and serves food and drinks at your table.
Cup Ramen, known to Westerners as “Grade A college student feed,” is perfectly formulated with enough sodium and other preservatives to both fuel late-night study sessions and cure massive hangovers, but nobody’s ever accused it of being a gourmet food.
Never shy of running a cool promotional offer or two, Japanese convenience store Lawson has announced that it will be transforming one of its Tokyo outlets into a video game castle to mark the launch of the Nintendo Wii U version of hugely popular game Dragon Quest X. Even better, visitors to the store will be able to bag themselves a whole host of themed goodies and even unlock in-game items during the promotional period.
The long standing collaboration between Japan’s premier virtual pop star and ubiquitous convenience store continues this spring with the Hatsune Miku de Sakura no Uta campaign.
Unfortunately, the campaign has been having a bit of a rocky start with the sexually suggestive Sakura Style Strawberry Cream Bread. So now it’s time to bring out the heavy artillery: Family Mart’s second version of a Hatsune Miku-themed nikuman (steamed meat bun), Sakura Mikuman.
Ordinarily, we wouldn’t even bother burning the calories required to click the link when presented with a video titled “Chinese Military Shovel” (especially when it means risking seeing that god-awful Gundam pachinko ad again). But after being recommended it by our Japanese sister site RocketNews24 Japan, we sat down to watch a demonstration of how China’s bravest men make the most of a tool that few of us would think of using for anything more than digging a hole in the ground or patting the tops of sandcastles flat with.
As it turns out, this is one handy little tool to have, with the Chinese military demonstrating some 24 different uses for it in this peculiar video. And we thought Swiss Army knives were versatile…
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