Archive for the 'Politics & History' Category

Never seen so much police officers out! During the G8 in Hokkaido there was police everywhere in Tokyo. During the short walk changing trains in Shibuya they where all over the place. Where did they come from? Where do they work all the other days of the year? Are the reservists?

This is the first name I have heard so far now that Abe is quitting. There will not be much change. Apparently Fukuda is also supporting the refuelling missions in the Indian Ocean. Unclear though, if he will visit the Yasukini Shrine.

I am from Sweden, and even though 90% of the people were peasants it is still popular to claim that we used to be vikings. Guess it is the same here in Japan. Japundit has got an interesting piece on Japanese names: Read the rest of this entry »

I must admit that the main stream media coverage of Japan´s prime minister Shinzo Abe´s visit to America didn’t make much sense. It was plain boring. I figured his visit was only courteous and that he wanted to say hello to Mr Bush. After reading the analysis on the blog of AMPONTAN the things got another perspective. Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: Shinzo, Abe

OK, Former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi has still got another 15 minutes of fame! Here he is in his own manga cartoon. Only in Japan! In this one he is meeting North Koreas Kim Jong Il.

Technorati Tags: Junichiro, Koizumi, manga, cartoon, Japan

Ok, I thought I’d keep daily news and politics out of this blog as much as possible, but now I have changed my mind. Recently Japanese politicians have said so much weird and strange things that I decided to collect them on the blog from now on.

For those of you who follow Japanese politics you already know that the current government thinks it is unnecessary to learn English, that school bullying is good because it creates hard individuals and the latest thing is that corporal punishment should be reintroduced for better discipline in school. (Yes, it means that the teacher beats the children) Well, let’s forget about that for now and focus on the latest gaffe:

Well you just did. Mahalo.

UPDATE! (Warning: Humor, might offend some people, please do not continue if you are not into sarcasm)

Now the true machine has been found!

Technorati Tags: Japanese, health, minister, women, birth-giving, machines

Found this video with World War II veteran Les Loken. He was stationed in Japan in the 1940:s and 1950:s and worked with re-building. His witness is very interesting. Imagine for example that all officers were forced to quit the Japanese army. Where did they go? I assume into the industry, that is part of the reason the why the Japanese industry was so military like. When the samurai era finished many samurai became school teachers, maybe the same happened to the WW II officiers? Even the Japanese schools have some of this in its organisation. Well, these are just my theories. Listen to Loken instead. He was here at the time.

More of Les Loken here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Technorati Tags: World, War, veteran, Japanese, army