Stories about Japanese from June, 2009
ISS: Photos and a Poem from Koichi Wakata
Astronaut Koichi Wakata on the International Space Station posted some photographs, including one of Sarychev Volcano while it was erupting (Also part of NASA's Image of the Day Gallery), and a tanka poem: “My home planet enwrapped / The blue light of the atmosphere shines”.
Japan: Moonwalker, Jacko's video game
Esu-kei remembers [ja] the popular video game Moonwalker featuring the animated version of Michael Jackson. The object of the action game by Sega is to score points destroying the bad guys with moondust and choreographic kicks. When the enemies are all beaten, the children are safe.
Japan: News in Japanese for Iran Election Protests
“You can't get really the details of the Iran election protests from the Japanese newspapers and TV stations, but the situation is updated by the minute on Twitter.” – Hiroto Kobayashi set up iranelection, a Digg-style news aggregator specifically for this topic, where users are submitting links to content in...
Japan: Chinese Translation of 2channel
Takeshi Yamaya links to 2ch Kan Riben (2ch看日本), a blog that posts Chinese translations of interesting threads from the Japanese Internet forum 2channel. He appreciates the thoughtful observations made by their commenters.
Japan: On How to Perceive the Japanese Web (Part One)
Reporter Yuka Okada from the Japanese tech news site ITmedia brandished her well-regarded interviewing skills for a one-on-one session with Mochio Umeda. The result was “The Japanese web is ‘disappointing': An interview with Mr. Mochio Umeda” Part One and Part Two [ja]. In reaction, the Japanese blogosphere had to give...
Japan: Iran from a Japanese viewpoint
Gompagompagompa tells about his last trip in Iran, before the elections. The blogger describes Iranians as an extremely kind and hospitable people and explains how he decided to write this post to let Japanese people know that “Iran” is not equal to “terrorism”.
Japan: ‘1Q84′, the new bestseller by Haruki Murakami
“In your sky how many moons are floating?”. This the catch phrase of 1Q84 [ja], Ichi Kew Hachi Yon, (Q in Japanese reads the same as 9), the new 2 volume work by the bestselling writer Haruki Murakami, that in less than two weeks has already sold more than 960.000...
Japan: Wrongfully convicted man released with new DNA tests
Having serving 17 and a half years of a life sentence for the alleged abduction and murder of a four year old girl, Toshikazu Sugaya was released from prison after new DNA test results proved his innocence. Japan Video News links to an NHK news video with English v.o. Tokyo...
Japan: The curtain rises on the lay judge system
May 21st marked the first day in the introduction of the lay judge system in Japan, saiban'in seido (裁判員制度) in Japanese. The first trials in which the new system is to be applied will start in July and six citizens will be called upon to examine and judge criminal cases...
Japan: JActionScripters
Flash developer extraodonaire Takayuki Fukatsu has set up JActionScripters, a group blog that covers the Japanese Flash scene in English. “More than 20 Japanese flash coders share the blog/ You will be junkie for this crazy Japanese Flash news”
Japan: Akira Kurosawa Digital Archive
Johnny at Spoon & Tamago excitedly introduces a digital archive of film director Akira Kurosasawa from Ryukoku University: “Consisting of over 20,000 photographs, manuscripts, notes and other artifacts, this is easily the most extensive database of memorabilia related to the director and his work, as well as a fascinating look...
Global Lullabies: The Arrorró Project
Artist Gabriela Golder from Argentina has taken it upon herself to discover, record and collect lullabies from all over the world, and to find connections among them in the Arrorró project. Rising Voices director David Sasaki wrote about the project on the 80+1 website, where he interviewed Gabriela on camera, and got authors and editors for Global Voices involved by inspiring many to record themselves singing the lullabies they remembered from their childhood.
