Tag: culture (Page 2) | RocketNews24

culture

Squid Sperm – One More Reason to Not Eat It

Apr 30, 2013 by Casey Baseel
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Here at RocketNews24, one of our reporters’ duties is chronicling the intriguing or shocking culinary options we come across. Whether it’s giant cheeseburgers in Japan or gasoline-roasted clams in North Korea, we’re happy to taste test them for the entertainment and edification of you, our readers.

But not this time. Read More

【Follow-Up Report】“Miss Korea” Entrants’ Similar Features Not the Product of Plastic Surgery

Apr 29, 2013 by Michelle
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When head shots of this year’s Miss Korea entrants surfaced on the Internet, the world was shocked at how similar each girl’s features were. With the same pointed nose, slender chin, and eerily matching smile, it was easy for anyone to guess that these ladies all went to the same plastic surgeon. However, a second set of photos has surfaced, showing each girl wearing light makeup and dressed in very informal attire, confirming that this year’s Miss Korea entrants actually aren’t identical manmade clones.

Apr 27, 2013 by Casey Baseel
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Over the years, Thailand has gone by many names. Until 1939 it was Siam, and the country’s friendly citizens have earned it the nickname “The Land of Smiles.”

For a few days each year though, Thailand is also “The Land of the City-Wide Splash Fights.” Read More

Suicide Prevention Month: Depressing Posters Cause Controversy in Kobe

Apr 26, 2013 by Oona McGee
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As part of efforts by Kobe City to prevent suicides, a number of huge posters (each measuring 2.1 by 1.35 metres), have been set up on local subway platforms at Sannomiya Station, in Kobe’s Central Ward. While some have commended the effort, it seems that the crowds of commuters aren’t all on board with the somewhat depressing content, as the move has been generating a lot of criticism from the public.

Apr 25, 2013 by Philip Kendall
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Although at first I blamed my insular, uncultured British brain when I struggled to tell the difference between many of the entrants for this year’s Miss Korea pageant, after speaking with members of the editorial team at RocketNews24 Japan, I soon discovered that they, too, were having tremendous difficulty telling some of the girls apart.

If beauty is something that can be defined by one particular look, facial expression and hairstyle, then the entrants for Miss Korea 2013 clearly all got the exact same memo…

Apr 17, 2013 by Philip Kendall
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“Seen this way, Tokyo really is beautiful.”– A comment from the Japanese Niconico Video user who originally posted photographer Samuel Cockedey’s video “Inter States” to the social video site.

The time-lapse video shows splashes of neon interspersed with orange street lamps, streaking red taillights and rushes of black figures, painting detail onto the concrete canvas that is Japan’s capital city. Hives of energy and movement, it sometimes takes an outsider’s perspective to recognise that even a sprawling metropolises like Tokyo can be quite breathtaking when we stop to notice them. The full video after the jump.

Apr 15, 2013 by Philip Kendall
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One Piece, Dragon Ball, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure; whatever your paper-based poison, Tachikawa City’s Manga Park has you covered. With an incredible 30,000 comics to relax with for just 400 yen (US$4) per day, the only way this could possibly be better for manga fans would be if the staff also dressed as your favourite characters and gave free foot massages.

Apr 13, 2013 by Philip Kendall
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April in Japan is a month of changes. As well as the beginning of the new tax year, the new school year begins, staff are rotated between departments, and new employees enter companies wearing plain black suits and fixed smiles that are betrayed only by the thin layer of sweat on their foreheads and nervous, darting eyes. It’s also the time of year that millions of university students experience life away from home for the first time, installing themselves in halls of residence or nearby apartments with no one to check up on them.

In an effort to help their students settle in and start their studies off on the right foot, a university in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan, is operating a free breakfast initiative, inviting all new students to stop by the cafeteria from eight o’clock each morning to eat a nutritious, home-cooked meal, thus ensuring that they consume at least one meal during the day that hasn’t come out of a plastic cup or a convenience store microwave.

Apr 12, 2013 by Philip Kendall
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Maturing into adulthood while sharing a roof with our parents can be tough. We start to become sexually aware, have boyfriends or girlfriends, and secretly store racy photos, magazines or DVDs where we think/hope/pray that no one will ever find them. And then there’s the Internet…

When our parents openly discuss things that we’d much rather they didn’t even know existed, however, words cannot even begin to describe the feelings of shame and embarrassment.

Apr 8, 2013 by Jessica
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In the port town of Numazu in Shizuoka Prefecture, a very strange festival is held each April. The local fisherman don women’s clothes, board brightly decorated fishing vessels, and make the boats “dance” around the bay, all while singing and dancing on deck for the spectators. The tradition is said to bring safe seas and good catches to the town. Or curious tourists, at the very least. Read More

Maid Cafes in Russia are Sad, Sad Places

Apr 5, 2013 by Mike
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The below video, which we stumbled through with ears open for loan words like “kawaii” and “product placement,” presumably depicts that most otaku of Japanese exports – a maid café – in the middle of Russia.

The interior’s got style in spades, albeit with weirdly out of place old timey photos and a suspicious lack of vodka bottles (apologies to Russian readers for the ignorant stereotyping).

As far as the food selection goes, the menu’s got Japanese maid café classics such as omu rice, but apparently also some more exotic selections like some kind of taco-burrito hybrid, which the Russian reporter happily digs into.

Most glaringly, the legendary service quality of Japanese maid cafes seems to have gotten lost in translation, as the seemingly only maid on duty lacks any enthusiasm for the job, lazily reciting her lines like she’s been popping valium just to get her through one more bleak day of squirting ketchup squiggles on pimply-faced patrons’ omelets.

Source: Yahoo! Japan

What Keeps Japanese Schoolgirls Up at Night: Constipation, Bad Karaoke and Chapped Lips, Apparently

Apr 2, 2013 by Jessica
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Ah, elementary school! The carefree days of youth when my biggest concerns were the ingredients in the cafeteria’s “special” lunch and whether the boy sitting next to me did, in fact, have cooties. Sure, those concerns seemed weighty at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight, I know those were halcyon days indeed.

At the risk of sounding like a old crank, I have to wonder if young girls today are missing out on those years of blissful ignorance. A new book, published here in Japan, suggests that the weight of the world may be falling on the shoulders of elementary school girls much earlier than it did for girls of my generation.

Being a Girl collects a variety of concerns expressed by elementary school girls and offers advice from doctors and other specialists, and you might be surprised what secret worries burden young girls’ hearts. Read More

Turn Your Favorite Lollipops into Ice Candies!

Mar 27, 2013 by Esther
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Love lollipops? Love ice-cream? You can now make your own Chupa Chups flavored ice candy! Japanese toy maker Takara Tomy A.R.T.S will be releasing an ice candy making kit this coming 18 April.With the candy kit, making the lollipop flavored ice candy is simple and fun.

Mar 27, 2013 by Michelle
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Tourist shops everywhere in Japan are filled with colorful boxes of local sweets that are perfectly portioned for sharing. These are omiyage. At work, it’s almost expected that you bring back a box of omiyage filled with a specialty product from the area your business trip took place in, and friends and family often purchase omiyage for those who weren’t able to make the trip. Many argue that giving omiyage is a distinctly Japanese custom; Yuichiro Suzuki, author of Omiyage and the Railway, explains in an interview with Yahoo! Japan.

Mar 27, 2013 by Jessica
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Bon, a fashion house from Hiroshima, Japan, has been creating some buzz on the Internet. What for, you ask? Well, it turns out their clothing, actually intended for fashion-forward Zen priests, is being bought be regular Joes–er, Juns?–as well. Which leads us to ask: what the hell do fashion-forward priests even wear?!

Read More

Liar, Liar: Country Ranking of Fibbers Irritates Japanese TV Viewers

Mar 22, 2013 by Jessica
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On the Japanese TV show Nep & Imoto’s World Rankings, they conduct surveys to rate countries by random attributes. For example, recent shows have ranked everything from how common it is to cry at graduation ceremonies to the number of shotgun weddings and frequency of cellphone checking.

Another ranking that has generated some chatter in Japan was one people’s tendency to lie, which ranked … countries in accordance to how likely they were to bend the truth.

So where do you think Japan came in? Read More

Yokohama Bikini Bar Promises Summer, Bleached Blonde Hair All Year Round

Mar 22, 2013 by Philip Kendall
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Catering for men who require a little more titillation than maid cafes can provide but not wanting to step into full-blown fuuzoku establishments, “girls bars” in Japan provide customers with a place to eat and drink while giving them something to look at and plenty of stilted conversation. A cheaper alternative to “hostess clubs”, girls bars are usually staffed by regular college-aged girls who don’t mind showing a little flesh and interacting with customers in an energetic, cutesy manner.

In a slightly different take on the genre, Yokohama’s Sexy Izakaya Natsuko focuses on the theme of summer all year round, dressing its staff in bikinis and sarongs while arming them with tambarines to bash while another member of staff juices grapefruits and serves food and drinks at your table.

Mar 21, 2013 by Mike
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The old wisdom that going without a bra too often would cause a woman’s bazongas to stretch out and droop like a pair of baseballs in training socks is going out the window thanks to a series of recent reports to the contrary, and Japanese women are apparently responding by going out in public unsupported in record numbers.

Mar 21, 2013 by Philip Kendall
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Despite being famous for producing the heated, buttock-massaging, water-spraying robotic toilets of the future, Japan is also home to a surprising number of old-school “washiki” (Japanese style) squat toilets. Especially outside of the city, these toilets can still be found in many homes, public buildings and schools, despite the vast majority of the younger generation positively recoiling whenever they open a stall door to find one of these things waiting to humbly accept their waste.

According to Internet chatter this week, though, there may actually be more benefits to using Japanese-style toilets than simply good posture, with “hygienic”, “time-saving” and “strengthening” just some of the words being used to describe these classic ceramics.

Mar 20, 2013 by Rona Moon
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What is this so-called nampa? Nampa is the ancient Japanese art of pick-up. The seductive skill of girl-hunting. The discreet loitering around the train station, the thrill of the chase, the crushing rejection or ecstatic exchange of phone numbers. A much-maligned art which is becoming more and more illegal.

Awww, I remember my first nampa experience. I’d been in Japan less than a year and I was walking down a main street not far from Nagoya Station when a tall, skinny Japanese boy with a bleached anime-style shock of hair, a dapper suit and startlingly protuberant teeth smilingly approached me and struck up a conversation out of the blue. In Japanese! Living in conservative Nagoya and starved for human affection and contact, I and my fledgling language skills almost fell into his arms. I was so happy he was treating me just as if I was Japanese, making no distinction between me and the girls walking past in super short skirts (or maybe those were belts…).