Random Japan

Photobucket

KIDS THESE DAYS

A newspaper survey revealed that 26 percent of female high school students say using a cellphone is their favorite after-school activity, while just 11 percent of boys say so.

On the other hand, 21 percent of guys said they devote themselves to video games, but just 6 percent of girls do.

After a subway car in Nagoya was found covered in graffiti, an official with the local transportation bureau said it had been “decades” since such a thing had happened in the city.

A teenager who had been hospitalized since eating tainted beef at a yakinuku restaurant in April became the fifth person to die from an E. coli outbreak in Toyama.

Cops in Miyagi believe that a total of 89 gangsters have received quake-related welfare loans from the government despite a requirement that applicants submit a formal declaration stating they are not yakuza members.

Stats

49

Number of remote islands the government will give official names to as a way of “safeguard[ing] the integrity of Japan’s exclusive economic zone”

¥364,252

Average amount of summer bonuses given to Japanese workers in 2011, a 0.8 percent drop compared to 2010, according to government figures

30

Percent salary cut accepted by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to help finance reconstruction of areas affected by the March 11 disaster

WILD THINGS

Two Tokyoites were attacked and slightly injured by a rampaging monkey on the streets of Nerima-ku. The animal is thought to be a runaway pet.

Prefectural officials in Nagasaki have appointed a “Chief of Boar Affairs” to devise ways to minimize damage caused by the wild animals.

The head of criminal investigations for the Aomori Prefectural Police made headlines when he accidentally discharged his service pistol at a local police station.

It was reported that five image-conscious Japanese companies participating in a trade fair in Dalian, China, decided not to put signs on their booths identifying them as being from Fukushima Prefecture.

In response to a surge in the number of cyber-attacks directed against its IT systems, the government sent a parliamentary vice minister to an international computer security symposium-in London

I’m The Chairman  

It’s OK If I Gamble

I’m Having Tantrum  

Because It’s My Ball  

Student Finds    

New Home  

 Cookouts along Tama drawing flak



By MINORU MATSUTANI

Staff writer  


For the people of Tokyo, the wide banks of the Tama River are among the most popular places to have a barbecue.

What many of them don’t know, however, or maybe they just don’t care, is that cookouts along most of the river, especially in the parklike areas inside the levees where the Tama flows through the metropolis, are prohibited.

Many municipalities tolerate barbecuing, though, unless they receive an overwhelming amount of complaints about smell, noise or bad manners.