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Cyzo Magazine By Ryann Connell, from Mainichi Daily News - It’s a fact of life that without the facts of life, there is no life. Period.
Even so, in Japan the issue of sexuality among the disabled is shunned from the public forum and discussion about it is regarded as taboo, one of the many unmentionable issues that Cyzo takes up in its February issue.
“When people hear the word ‘disabled’ the vast majority associate it with words like ‘care’ and ‘help,’ but they never think of ’sex.’ You should see people’s faces when I start talking about sex — it’s like their brains have short-circuited,” Yoshihiko Kumashige, the cerebral-palsy quadriplegic head of Noir — an NPO devoted to discussing sex among disabled — tells Cyzo.
Just because they can’t use their bodies like many others doesn’t mean the disabled aren’t interested in sex. And though they may not speak about it, there is actually Tokyo sex services that cater exclusively to the disabled.
Enjoy Club is one such place and provides oral or hand relief to the disabled.
“We get requests to help out from care workers and local governments,” Enjoy Club’s operator, identified only as a man called Saito-san, tells Cyzo. “If the girl can’t handle the job on her own, I’ll go along and help her out. Otherwise, we offer exactly the same sex services as any other.”
At first sight, it appears as though anybody disabled in Japan can have their sexual frustration sated as long as they’re prepared to foot the bill. But things are never quite as simple as they look when it comes to disabled sex. Those knowledgeable in the issue say the biggest problem within Japanese society appears to lie in the widespread refusal to even acknowledge the existence of sexual desire among the disabled. (more…)
From Live in Japan - Beginning as a method of preserving fish centuries ago, sushi has evolved into an artful, unique dining experience. In its earliest form, dried fish was placed between two pieces of vinegared rice as a way of making it last. The nori (seaweed) was added later as a way to keep one’s fingers from getting sticky.
Technically, the word sushi refers to the rice, but colloquially, the term is used to describe a finger-size piece of raw fish or shellfish on a bed of vinegared rice or simply the consumption or raw fish in the Japanese style (while sushi is not solely a Japanese invention, these days, the Japanese style is considered the de facto serving standard). This can be eaten as is, or is often dipped into shoyu (Japanese soy sauce) and then eaten. Great care is taken in the creation of the dish and the many methods of preparing the food indicate the importance of appearance to the educated consumer. Sushi is a work of art as much as a food, and while it is now available in a western quick and easy serving style, the traditional ways are far from lost.
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. (more…)
As many of you know North Korea recently exploded a nuclear device. Calls went out across the world for action. The UN eventually responded by banning certain luxury good from being imported to NK. Kim Jong (the NK leader) reacted in typical communist dictator style by bashing America and by sending his secret agents around the globe to acquire his favorite liquor. Here’s a video series about that. And here’s the rest of the series.
For those who don’t know, this is a fake commercial from the movie “Crazy People,” starring Dudley Moore, Darryl Hannah and Paul Reiser. It’s about a bunch of people in a mental hospital hired to do advertising because they tell the absolute truth as they see it.
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Filed under: Weird Stuff by — Alexander Marciniak (aim: thrawn124
) on October 10, 2006
From Wired News by Chris Kohler - TOKYO — Koji Igarashi, the producer of Konami’s Castlevania has a problem: Should the next installment of the storied franchise stick with Sony and its new PlayStation 3 console, or take a gamble on a hot new contender?
Fans are constantly asking him to bring the popular series and its whip-toting hero to Nintendo’s new Wii device, he said, but it’s not at all obvious to him how to build such a game.
Motion detection, the system’s coolest feature, has opened the door to a whole new kind of short-form entertainment mimicking real sports such as tennis. But that’s actually proving hard to work into narrative games like Castlevania, Igarashi said. If he were to create a version for Wii, he would be inclined to use the tilt controls only sparingly.
“With the Castlevania designs, I always want to have players sit and focus on gameplay for an hour or so,” he said. “But using the Wii controller as a whip for one hour wouldn’t work.”
The console wars have handed game designers a conundrum: Of the three major new platforms vying for dominance, which one is the right for them?
Microsoft is making grand overtures to Japan’s gamers, but has met with rejection thus far. And Sony’s dominant PlayStation brand faces its toughest competition ever in Nintendo’s inexpensive Wii console and its motion-tracking remote. (more…)
