Interview with Bruce Osborn, who took amazing portraits of Japanese parents with their children.

There surely are extensive sociological studies of the Japanese society: figures, numbers, tiny print on countless pages and lots of dry charts, too. But what about a more artistic, visual approach? In 1982 American photographer Bruce Osborn began what has become his lifelong work: the Oyako series. For the last 25 years he took pictures of one parent with one child in a white studio setting. Bruce even introduced its own version of the Japanese “Oyako No Hi” (parent and child) day: he organizes a huge photo session every year. After some time, Bruce would even repeat the same parent-child shoot to reveal the significant changes in the relationship between mother and daughter for example, the differing characteristics of fashion changing over the years or simply documenting people getting older.

In the photo: 1984: Parents Mitsuaki Ohwada/tattooist and Akie Ohwada/housewife. The child Keiko Ohwada is an elementary school student. Bruce: “Her parents were tattooists and the girl got a huge shock when she entered a sent?, a public bath, for the first time. Until that event it was in her mind that all the adults must have tattoos. Everybody around the house had some and it was a very natural thing for her.”

Link

By Kimberly Bellamy From The East Carolinian - Speakers addressed congress and introduced services available to them to help organizations coordinate and plan events.
…
Another service presented to the congress was the upcoming Event Planning workshops. Ashley Hudson spoke on behalf of Adeea Rogers, assistant director of event planning, and delivered information about the dates of the workshops and what topics will be covered. Hudson said that Event Planning works directly with student organizations, SGA and student life to assist them in coordinating events for their organizations. Topics being covered at these workshops includes; how to use webviewer, cancellation policy for events and how to plan events. According to Hudson, the workshops will be held from 12 - 12:30 p.m. and 5 - 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 22, Feb. 26, March 26 and April 23. To get more information on the workshops available, you may call the Office of Event Planning at 328-4731 or e-mail them at MSCEventPlanning@ecu.edu
…
To find out more about SGA you can call the office at 328-4742 or visit the Web site at http://www.ecu.edu/sga/

From BBC Asia-Pacific - The US has banned exports of iPods, fine wines and fast cars to North Korea as part of the punishment for the country’s nuclear bomb test last year.

The sanctions are said to be targeted at North Korea’s elite, who reportedly enjoy luxuries despite the country’s desperate poverty.

Meanwhile the US set talks with North Korea on lifting financial penalties.

The moves come amid efforts to restart multilateral talks aimed at persuading North Korea to halt nuclear activities.

US envoy Christopher Hill said, after meeting his North Korean counterpart in Berlin, that he hoped the six-nation talks would resume by mid-February.

The talks ended inconclusively in December, having resumed after a break of more than a year.

The sanctions on luxury goods were “carefully considered and carefully targeted” to affect only the country’s elite, said US commerce department spokesman Richard Mills.
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From Professor Solomon, Finder of Lost Objects - “Across the sea is the land of Japan. With its ancient shrines, sumo wrestlers, Zen masters, capsule hotels, Laughing Festival, fortunetelling birds, haiku masters, phantom foxes, mania for bathing, musical crickets, tea masters, Living National Treasures, Moon Viewing Night, bowing etiquette, Festival of the Dead, dream-eating Baku, samurai films, Fuji pilgrims, and robots, it is unlike anywhere else in the world. Let me tell you about it.”
—Professor Solomon

At last, the unknown Japan. The traditional Japan. The real Japan.

In this erudite yet entertaining work, the Professor explores a Japan of which few of us are aware.

For a tour of a unique culture—a fascinating look at its diverse ways and wonders—join him.

151 pages. Illustrated.

Free download of entire book from Professor Solomon

Buy the paperback from Amazon.com: Japan in a Nutshell

Male otaku live out their fantasies at
“maid cafes,” where they are waited on
by maids whose costumes come from
erotic comic books. Sayaka is dressed for
work at the Mailish maid cafe.
From National Public Radio - At the recent Tokyo Game Show, the crash and ping of computer combat echoed around a cavernous hall, as hundreds lined up to be the first to try newly released games. For fans, computer gaming isn’t so much a hobby as a way of life, offering people a ready-made community and, in some cases, a new identity.

Take 24-year-old Kai. Sengoku Basara is her favorite computer game. An office worker by day, Kai spends her weekends dressed up as a 16th-century samurai, Chosokabe Motochika. Her chest is bound flat. She wears a gray wig, armored cuffs, high black boots, a red satin jacket and a red eye patch over one eye. Other women, all dressed as computer-game versions of samurai, surround her. “I don’t want to be a man,” she says, “I just like cosplay” — short for costume play.

“I’m a nerd. This is Japan’s new culture. To me, it’s just one of the ways of showing your creativity,” Kai says.

Kai is part of a new Japanese tribe — the otaku, or nerd. Once the target of playground insults, otaku are now becoming an economic force to be reckoned with. Japan’s nerds are out and proud.

Almost 200,000 people trekked out to a suburban convention center on their annual pilgrimage to the game show. Many dressed in elaborate hand-sewn costumes. All devote time — and money — to their passion.

The otaku market generated an estimated $4 billion in 2004, says Ai Ohara of the Nomura Research Institute, which has studied the otaku phenomenon.

And the Tokyo district of Akihabara is proof of geek spending power. Here, computer-game theme songs waft out of shops piled high with gadgets in an exuberant celebration of geekdom. Indeed, Japan’s nerds, with their exacting demands, are driving consumer trends.

Read the rest of the story at NPR

Momofuku Ando at he opening ceremony of
the refurbished Instant Ramen Museum in
Osaka, Japan, on 25 November 2004. From Reuters - TOKYO, Japan. The Japanese inventor of instant noodles, a snack that has sold billions of servings worldwide since its launch, died on Friday at the age of 96, according to an official at Nissin Food Products, the company he founded.

Born in Taiwan in 1910 while it was under Japanese occupation, Momofuku Ando ran clothing and other companies in Taipei and Osaka early in his career.

He was inspired to develop the world’s first instant-noodle product after coming across a long line of people waiting to buy fresh “ramen” noodles from a black market stall during the food shortages after World War Two, Japanese media said.

After his Chicken Ramen product became hugely popular in 1958, despite a luxury price-tag of 35 yen, he went on to bring out the Cup Noodle in 1971.

Providing the instant noodles in a waterproof styrofoam container that could be used to cook them using just hot water proved a stroke of marketing genius that made the product a hit with time-pressed people around the world.

Ando remained in the public eye until recently — appearing on television in 2005 to promote a version of the Cup Noodle adapted for astronauts to eat aboard the space shuttle Discovery.

Often seen devouring servings of the dish he invented, Ando opened a museum devoted to instant noodles in Osaka in 1999. Ando is survived by his wife, Masako.

Hello everyone, Ashley here bringing you the JL Schedule for the Spring 2007 Semester.

We meet every Thursday night in the GC Bate Building room 1015.

This so far is not set in stone because we haven’t decided on when to show movies as of yet.

When we decide those dates I will definitely add it in here.

If you have any questions feel free to call me, my info is on the contact page.

Thanks,

Ashley

Japan’s Defense Agency Director
General Fumio Kyuma From Yahoo News - Japan is to create a full-fledged defense ministry for the first time since its World War II defeat, when the United States stripped the country of its right to a military.

The government is to upgrade the existing Defense Agency into the Defense Ministry. The agency had a lower standing than full-fledged ministries as Japan’s 1947 constitution declared the country to be pacifist.

The creation of the ministry was a top priority for Prime Minster Shinzo Abe. The Diet, or parliament, passed the required legislation, with support from both the ruling coalition and main opposition, late December.

The move is based on “a change in the security environment surrounding our country,” Defense Agency Chief Fumio Kyuma said during a military exercise in Chiba, southeast of Tokyo, at the weekend.

“It is important to make our Self-Defense Force more powerful,” said Kyuma, who is to become the nation’s first defense minister since the end of the war.

Japanese troops will still be called the “Self-Defense Force” despite the creation of the ministry. The country has one of the world’s biggest military budgets at 4.81 trillion yen (41.6 billion dollars) a year.
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Does anyone want to help put up JL flyers in buildings around campus?
All you have to do is print out about 20 at a time in the Austin lab (any more in one print job they look at you funny.) or any other place and staple or tape them up on STUDENT boards and stairways/doors. (I averaged bout 10-15 per building)

I’ve already done Jenkins, Bate, Rawl, Austin, and half of the science and tech building, and going to finish that and then put up in Rivers and Brewsters. So if you would like to help (Please!!) email me with what building you are going to do and I’ll give you the flyer to print out. Jll1112@ecu.edu

From BBC NEWS Asia - South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun has proposed renaming a body of water which is hotly contested with Japan as the Sea of Peace, officials confirmed.

Mr Roh made the suggestion at an informal meeting with Japan’s PM Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the Apec summit in Vietnam last November.

The body of water between the two is widely known as the Sea of Japan, but South Korea calls it the East Sea.

Japan has reportedly not given any official response to the suggestion.

An official in South Korea’s presidential office confirmed a local newspaper report of Mr Roh’s suggestion to his Japanese counterpart.

“It is true that Roh suggested South Korea and Japan give up their respective names for the disputed waters and find a new mutually satisfactory name during his latest summit with Abe,” he was quoted by Yonhap news agency as saying.

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