Oddities...
Some strange articles around...
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Banning Samurai Swords (London)
"The government said Wednesday it would ban the sale of samurai swords because the weapons had been used in a number of serious, high-profile attacks.
The Home Office said the swords would be added to the Offensive Weapons Order from April next year, meaning they could not be imported, sold or hired."
Samurai swords are killing people, so we should ban them. Why not use the same logic to, for example, guns...? But it's just an interesting thing. Can't blame the guys too much because, at least, they recognized in a way that it's not the weapons that necessarily kill people. It's the people who wield them...
"However collectors of genuine Japanese swords and those used by martial arts enthusiasts would be exempt from the ban.
'In the wrong hands, samurai swords are dangerous weapons,' Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said."
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Gags about poverty (Japan)
"On TV Asahi's popular variety show "Zenigata Kintaro," whose title is a parody of Zenigata Heiji, a famous fictional hero, comedians visit the homes of people who claim to be poor and learn how they get by on very little money. On each program, four contestants are profiled and a panel of judges chooses the most interesting or original survival story and awards the winner ¥200,000.
The situations are played for laughs, even though some contestants make do without running water or electricity, others live in spaces that barely give them room to sit down, and almost everyone survives on diets that wouldn't nourish a gnat."
... Really. For "survival stories" they should go to some places outside Japan...
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Kogyaru grow into monster mums (Japan)
"Generation kogyaru has come of age. Heaven help their kids, says Shukan Bunshun.
'Kogyaru' means high-school girl, but the kogyaru phenomenon of the 1990s had more to do with what went on outside class. Kogyaru fashion called for thick makeup, dyed hair, bronzed skin, short skirts, loose socks and high-rise platform-soled shoes. Kogyaru mores were as loose as the socks, typified by telephone clubs, date clubs and various other avenues of easy coupling whose most noted aspect was enjo kosai — casual sex with older men for pocket money to buy brand-name goods. "
"Yuka, 26, paints her first-grade daughter's ultralong nails. The school protests — the child's nails are so long she can't hold a pencil properly. Never mind, says Yuka: 'Writing with a pencil isn't important. Nowadays people write with computers and cell phones. In junior high school she'll have to wear a uniform. Now is the time to develop her fashion sense. For a girl,' she says — a surprising throwback to pre-kogyaru, pre-feminist thinking — 'the main thing is to be attractive.'"
What can I possibly say?? Poor kids is the only thing I can think of...
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Lately I'm having fun reading the blog Muito Japao. It has some curiosities about Japan that you probably would have to live here to know otherwise... sometimes not even that. Some posts I read and after realise how different it is, but I got used to that after staying for a while in Japan. Others are things that I've never saw myself... but wouldn't be so surprised if they existed here.
One of the things is some kind of mask to keep one's face small. For some reason, for Japanese standards, small faces are beautiful.
The posts are in Portuguese, but most of them have pictures. Some of them self-explanatory.
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Banning Samurai Swords (London)
"The government said Wednesday it would ban the sale of samurai swords because the weapons had been used in a number of serious, high-profile attacks.
The Home Office said the swords would be added to the Offensive Weapons Order from April next year, meaning they could not be imported, sold or hired."
Samurai swords are killing people, so we should ban them. Why not use the same logic to, for example, guns...? But it's just an interesting thing. Can't blame the guys too much because, at least, they recognized in a way that it's not the weapons that necessarily kill people. It's the people who wield them...
"However collectors of genuine Japanese swords and those used by martial arts enthusiasts would be exempt from the ban.
'In the wrong hands, samurai swords are dangerous weapons,' Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker said."
-----
Gags about poverty (Japan)
"On TV Asahi's popular variety show "Zenigata Kintaro," whose title is a parody of Zenigata Heiji, a famous fictional hero, comedians visit the homes of people who claim to be poor and learn how they get by on very little money. On each program, four contestants are profiled and a panel of judges chooses the most interesting or original survival story and awards the winner ¥200,000.
The situations are played for laughs, even though some contestants make do without running water or electricity, others live in spaces that barely give them room to sit down, and almost everyone survives on diets that wouldn't nourish a gnat."
... Really. For "survival stories" they should go to some places outside Japan...
-----
Kogyaru grow into monster mums (Japan)
"Generation kogyaru has come of age. Heaven help their kids, says Shukan Bunshun.
'Kogyaru' means high-school girl, but the kogyaru phenomenon of the 1990s had more to do with what went on outside class. Kogyaru fashion called for thick makeup, dyed hair, bronzed skin, short skirts, loose socks and high-rise platform-soled shoes. Kogyaru mores were as loose as the socks, typified by telephone clubs, date clubs and various other avenues of easy coupling whose most noted aspect was enjo kosai — casual sex with older men for pocket money to buy brand-name goods. "
"Yuka, 26, paints her first-grade daughter's ultralong nails. The school protests — the child's nails are so long she can't hold a pencil properly. Never mind, says Yuka: 'Writing with a pencil isn't important. Nowadays people write with computers and cell phones. In junior high school she'll have to wear a uniform. Now is the time to develop her fashion sense. For a girl,' she says — a surprising throwback to pre-kogyaru, pre-feminist thinking — 'the main thing is to be attractive.'"
What can I possibly say?? Poor kids is the only thing I can think of...
-----
Lately I'm having fun reading the blog Muito Japao. It has some curiosities about Japan that you probably would have to live here to know otherwise... sometimes not even that. Some posts I read and after realise how different it is, but I got used to that after staying for a while in Japan. Others are things that I've never saw myself... but wouldn't be so surprised if they existed here.
One of the things is some kind of mask to keep one's face small. For some reason, for Japanese standards, small faces are beautiful.
The posts are in Portuguese, but most of them have pictures. Some of them self-explanatory.
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