I am with you

As a response to Japan's recent natural disasters, Miho Nakayama posted a youtube video of herself singing a song to show support to those in affected areas of Japan.

"I am with you"

New Year!

あけましておめでとうございます！
New Year Countdown celebrations were held at Zojoji Temple, Tokyo last night where they released silver balloons with notes of hope inside.

Here's a video with 5 minutes leading to countdown.

Tokyo women prefer to be 'cute'

Image by Kanebo Cosmetics Inc

 According to a lifestyle survey conducted by Kanebo released on Tuesday, Tokyo women prefer to be “cute” rather than sophisticated or anything else. This is the first ever South East Asian study on lifestyles and attitudes on women in Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipei and Seoul.

Happi mentioned that around 33% of Tokyo respondents wanted to appear cute, a standout figure compared to women elsewhere. In Beijing women want to look “elegant,” Shanghai women “lady-like,” Taipei “refined” and almost 45% of women in Seoul strive to look “sophisticated.”

The survey was part of a bigger study of examining women's expectations of work, their aims for five years' time, their personal aspirations, attitudes about beauty and make-up preferences.

Kobe Luminarie 神戸ルミナリエ

The annual illumination Kobe Luminarie has just commenced and will be running until 13th December. It started in 1995 commemorating 6000 victims of the Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in January 1995.

What started as just a small festival has grown into an annual one with more than 5000 visitors. This year’s theme for the lights is 「光の心情」meaning “The heart in the light” (roughly). It is an Italian designed tunnel and lights are expected to be lit for several hours everyday. Kobe Luminarie is among the first ever illuminations in Japan, starting a trend in other parts of Japan now.

Here are a few pictures I took from a few years back.

'Granny' maids

Photo from AFP-Yonhap News

Japan has been known for some quite strange maid cafes with young girls serving tea dressed in aprons and frills. However according to Korea Herald, a new trend in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district is a café which now boasts of a disciplinary housekeeper from anime series Heidi, Girl of the Alps (intro video below). So customers go in and are scolded for not sitting properly or having the right manners. This is part of the Festival Tokyo 2010. This is an interesting change in trend in Japan as it reinforces there is always something ‘new’ to be explored. Maybe even a longing to be scolded?

The ‘maids’ range from real-life grannies to young girls who are dressed as grannies who even wear fake wrinkles and dye their hair.

Facebook and Japan

It’s interesting how Facebook is not as popular in Japan than in western countries. The act of connecting with people on social networks has accelerated in recent years. Whilst Twitter successfully launched into the Japanese market in 2009, Facebook is comparatively still struggling. Even though Japan has the third highest usage of the internet in the world, according to Japan Real Time, Japanese people have the fewest digital friends on social networks with an average of just 29 friends compared to the rest of the world and mostly use Mixi, a popular Japanese social networking site. Facebook headquarters in California launched a cross-platform feature since September that will allow users of Facebook and Mixi to share links hoping to raise popularity.

Another feature of the Mixi site is that all users are able to track those who have been looking at their profile which may be due to privacy concerns. Tailoring Facebook to a specific culture may take time and effort.

Calorie count

Japanese mobile phones recently have an extra application – count calories of food snapshots you take. According to Yahoo News, the software is developed by Japan's NTT Communications evaluates the colour and shapes of food, then compares it with a database and counts the calories. There are about 100,000 different sorts of food stored on the server. However where there are a several plates of food in a meal, an individual snapshot of each one is required.

For Japan being a health-conscious nation especially among girls, this is a big asset and valuable resource to their dieting. I remember my host mother counting how many calories I was allowed to take a day and made sure even the salad dressing for my salad had the lowest calorie possible.

The application also enables friends to share information about their calorie intake so that they might encourage one another or just compare their diets.