Random Japan

KIDS THESE DAYS

A 22-year-old Kanazawa University student who called the cops and claimed he’d been stabbed later admitted he had knifed himself in a failed suicide attempt because he didn’t have enough credits to graduate.

A couple of 10-year-old girls-Miu Hirano and Mima Ito-broke table-tennis prodigy Ai Fukuhara’s record as the youngest players to win a singles match at the national championships. Ai-chan was 11 when she won two matches at the 1999 ping-pong nationals.

At the other end of the age spectrum, 40-year-old tennis player Kimiko Date-Krumm was reduced to tears after blowing a 4-1 lead in the third set of her match against 21-year-old Pole Agnieszka Radwanska at the Australian Open.

A nasty monkey named Lucky, who bit more than 100 folks in Shizuoka last fall, escaped house arrest at a park in Mishima, causing officials to warn local residents to stay inside and keep their doors locked. The rampaging primate was caught a day after ditching his cage.

In an awesomely named place called Bungo-Ono in Oita Prefecture, the local government is planning to let wolves loose in an effort “to control wild animals that destroy agricultural crops.” Can’t wait for the reaction when a wolf chows down on a local farmer instead.

Five middle-aged men in Tohoku filed a fraud suit against three international marriage brokers in a Sendai court, claiming they got unexpected home visits from South Korean women accompanied by the brokers, who convinced the lonely dudes to let the women “homestay” with them for a week or so.

Stats

35

Percent of Japanese TVs tuned into the Asian Cup semifinal between Japan and South Korea on January 25

4,418

Cases of so-called “It’s me” fraud recorded by the National Police Agency in 2010, up 44.5 percent from a year earlier

44.6

Percent of 50-84-year-old men in Hachioji who have “close friends living nearby,” according to a survey by a local think tank

34.9

Percent of men who said they had no friends at all

THE MOTHER OF ALL SUMO SCANDALS

A 63-year-old woman who was arrested for her role in a betting ring involving sumo wrestlers said she took part in the affair because she had incurred “massive debts.” Her son, a wrestler, was also busted.

Kokkai and Gagamaru, a pair of sumo wrestlers from Georgia, got into a drunken brawl with one another in the early hours at an Indian restaurant in Tokyo, smashing a glass partition in the process. Save it for the dohyo, boys.

Hard-throwing closer Marc Kroon is switching Giants, jumping from Yomiuri to San Fran after the Tokyo team cut him loose in the offseason. The 37-year-old reliever signed a minor-league contract with the World Series champs and gets an invite to spring training.

Tatsuya Ichihashi, the guy charged with murdering Lindsay Ann Hawker in 2007, admits in a new book that he spent some of his 2-plus years on the lam on a small island in Okinawa, where he lived in a hut and “caught fish to survive.”

Thanks For The Crash  

Now How About Some Cash?  

We’re Not That Popular  

Better Get Out The Recruitment Posters  

I’m Not On Drugs

I’m Just “Acting” Like It  

Ginza hostesses battle back against predatory work rules



TOKYO  

“With all the fines and my having to make good on the unpaid bills run up by customers, I didn’t receive any salary at all for half a year. But I accepted 3 million yen in advance wages when I started working there, so I can’t quit.”

The speaker, identified only as Ms A, talked to Friday (Feb 18) after the first session of a labor tribunal held at Tokyo District Court on Jan 18. She and two other hostesses had taken their case to the court after claiming their employer, a Ginza club referred to only by its first letter, Q, owed them a total of 4.3 million yen in unpaid wages.

Ms A took action after consulting the Cabaret Club Union, an affiliate of the Part-Timer, Arbiter, Free Timer and Foreign Worker Union (PAFF) based in Nishi-Shinjuku.