I have written a number of posts about interesting people. Most of whose stories are related to Japan in some way.
Maybe you haven’t seen many of them…so I decided to put links to all of them on a new page that I titled “Who’s Who?“.
Please check them out and leave comments to let me know what you think.
The new page is here.
Sometimes quotes from songs and movies become so well-known and often used that eventually many people don’t even know that the expression came from a pop song or movie.
For example, have you ever heard this quote:
Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.
Do you know where that simple but inspiring quote is from?
It’s a line in the song “Beautiful Boy” by John Lennon that was written for his son Sean Lennon.
John Lennon's "Double Fantasy" album (which includes the song "Beautiful Boy")
Here are some of the most often quoted lines from movies that I could think of off the top of my head (in no particular order):
I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse!
-Marlon Brando (from “The Godfather“)
(I have a feeling) we’re not in Kansas anymore
-Judy Garland (from “The Wizard Of Oz“)
Go ahead, make my day!
-Clint Eastwood (from “Sudden Impact“)
What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.
-Strother Martin (from “Cool Hand Luke“)
Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!
-Charlton Heston (from “Planet Of The Apes“)
Have you seen any of these movies? Surely you’ve heard those quotes before. Did you know they were from those movies?
What other famous movie quotes can you think of?
Maybe you know that Japanese school students wear a uniform to school.
But did you know that they wear the uniform in junior high school and high school only?
In Japanese 公立小学校 (public* elementary schools), kids wear their regular “street clothes” to school.
*(Japanese 幼稚園 (private kindergartens) and 私立小学校 (private elementary schools) have uniforms that their students wear).
Even though students at Japanese public 保育園 (nursery schools) and 公立小学校 (public elementary schools) wear street clothes to school, they still have some mandatory things that they must wear…for example, a school hat while walking to and from school (it’s almost always yellow so that drivers in cars can notice them easily), gym uniform, and a uniform school bag.
The school bag that kindergarteners carry is small and light but Japanese elementary school kids are given a ランドセル (Randoseru bag) from their parents or grandparents just before they begin the first grade.
These bags are high-quality hand-stitched genuine or synthetic leather and are designed to last for at least the six years of elementary school. Usually though they last much longer.
Most schools allow the students to use a ランドセル (Japanese elementary school “Randoseru” bags) of any color they like…but the majority of girls choose a red one and boys choose a black one.
When my daughters were in elementary school they each had a red one.
Since ランドセル (Japanese elementary school “Randoseru” bags) are hand-made and very durable, they’re also pretty expensive. About ¥30,000 (US $360) on average.
Because of it’s high price many lower-income families have to give their children used or hand-me-down ランドセル (Japanese elementary school “Randoseru” bags).
ランドセル (Japanese elementary school "Randoseru" bags)
Well, it was on the TV news here last month that an orphanage in Japan received an anonymous donation of ten brand new ランドセル (Japanese elementary school “Randoseru” bags) around X-mas time.
Without this donation, worth about ¥300,000 (about US$3,300), the children in the orphanage who will start first grade this April would have had to use hand-me-down school bags from older kids.
The anonymous donation had a note that that they were from 「タイガーマスク」 (“Tiger Mask”).
「タイガーマスク」 (“Tiger Mask”) is a Japanese マンガ (manga (comic)) from the late 1960s – early 1970s about a professional wrestler called 「タイガーマスク」 (“Tiger Mask”) who wears a mask that looks like a tiger.
The 「タイガーマスク」 (“Tiger Mask”) character was an orphan who gives large anonymous donations to the orphanage where he grew up.
Due to the fact that the 「タイガーマスク」 (“Tiger Mask”) comic is over forty years old, the news media has begun speculating that the donor of the ランドセル (Japanese elementary school “Randoseru” bags) must be middle-age and that he might even have grown up in an orphanage.
Also, this news has inspired numerous “copy-cats” recently. Other orphanages around Japan have recently received anonymous donations of ランドセル (Japanese elementary school “Randoseru” bags) or money with notes from “Tiger Mask” or other famous Japanese fictional characters.
Do you know Roald Dahl?
He was a great author of classic children’s books such as “Matilda“, “James And The Giant Peach“, and “Charlie And The Chocolate Factory“, many of which have been into excellent movies.
When I was a kid I read his book “Charlie And The Chocolate Factory” and I saw the 1970′s film adaptation starring Gene Wilder that was titled “Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory“.
「夢のチョコレート工場」 ("Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory")
The better movie version of this story was the one made by director Tim Burton and starred Johnny Depp.
This version was titled the same as the book and more closely followed the storyline.
「チャーリーとチョコレート工場」 ("Charlie And The Chocolate Factory")
In the story, Charlie finds one of the limited number of “Wonka Chocolate Bars” with a “Gold Ticket”.
Similarly, I learned that most of the “Wonka Chocolate Bars” sold in Japan have the same English-language labels as the ones sold in other countries…but there are harder-to-find “Wonka Chocolate Bars” with labels with the name written in Japanese カタカナ (Katakana) characters.
Well, I saw some in a store yesterday and, even though I don’t eat chocolate often, I bought one.
It says 「ウォンか」 which means "Wonka".
I haven’t opened it yet. I’m going to give it to my kids but I’ll probably try a piece of it.
Have you ever tried a “Wonka Bar”? Is it good?
John Lennon had a Japanese wife and they were both strongly opposed to war. So isn’t it ironic that he was killed on the thirty-ninth anniversary of the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor?
On 1941 December 8th, the 日本海軍 (Japanese Imperial Navy) attacked the U.S. Naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. (It was December 8 on the Japanese calendar but since Hawaii is on the other side of the International Date Line, it was December 7th there).
It’s the 69th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Also on this date thirty-nine years later John Lennon of the English rock band, The Beatles, was assassinated in New York.
Today is the 30th anniversary of John Lennon’s death.
Click here to read a more detailed post that I wrote about these two events
Japan has become a powerhouse in the sport of baseball.
In the American MLB there are many Japan star players such as Ichiro and Hideki Matsui, the Japan team was the world champions in both the 2008 and 2009 “World Baseball Classic” games (which, unlike the so-called “Baseball World Series”, is a real international baseball championship), and tonight (4:00 AM Japan Standard Time (JST)) Japan will play in the final game of the 2010 Little League World Series.
Just like the World Baseball Classic, the “Little League World Series” is an international championship match for the best baseball teams of boys up to age thirteen.
The “Little League World Series” is held every August in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, USA since it was started in the late 1940s. At first, only American teams played, but in the ’60s it became an international event.
The Japan team took the championship the first two years that the series became open to other countries, and has held the championship a total of six times so far (only America and China were champion more times).
The Tokyo Little League won their game against Taiwan yesterday and tonight they will represent Japan in the final match of the 2010 Little League World Series against the Hawaiian team (who are representing America).
After the game tonight* (it will be nighttime in Japan, but 3PM in America where they’ll be playing), either Japan or America will be the 2010 World Little League Baseball champions and the other team will be second place.
A great job by both!
Today is ７月４日 (July 4). 「アメリカ独立記念日」 (American Independence Day).
I don’t usually do anything special on this day. Although there are many 花火大会 (fireworks shows) in Japan during the summer, they don’t usually start until late July or early August.
Watching fireworks is a “Fourth Of July” tradition in America, but I don’t live in America.
(It’s possible that the U.S. military bases in Japan will have a fireworks show this evening. I’m not sure. I don’t live near any U.S. military base anyways).
But anyways, in honor of the 234th anniversary of America’s independence from England, I am writing a list of some of American inventions that have changed the world (in most cases, for the better).
So, according to the U.S. Patent Office, this is a list of some of the numerous things that have been invented in America:
U.S. "Stop" sign
Japanese 「止まれ」 ("Stop") sign
「アメリカンドッグ」 (Corn Dog)
KISS "Alive II" on 8-track tape
The Japanese baseball player Hideki Matsui used to play for the New York Yankees major league team until he began playing for the Los Angeles Angels last December.
(Click here to read the post I wrote last December about him moving from the Yankees to the Angels.)
His nickname is “Godzilla“.
He is currently the spokesman in Japan for the Kirin “Fire” canned coffee and in 新宿 (Shinjuku, Tokyo) there is a huge balloon in his likeness wearing a baseball uniform similar to his L.A. Angels uniform that has “Fire” emblazoned on the front.
The balloon statue is leaning on a giant can of “Fire” coffee.
The campaign is called 「ビッグマツイ」 (“Big Matsui“).
My daughter had to go to Shinjuku today, so she took a couple photos of this giant display with her cell-phone camera when she passed by it.
Here are her photos of the giant Hideki Matsui balloon in Shinjuku (you can see how big it is in proportion to the people standing near it):
"Godzilla" has hit Tokyo again!
Speaking of Godzilla…this time the iconic Japanese monster called 「ゴジラ」 (“Gojira“) in Japan and “Godzilla” in other countries that continually destroys Tokyo in his countless movies from Japan’s Toho Studios.
I wrote a post last summer (click here to read it) about the numerous Hollywood remakes of Japanese movies…including a 1998 remake of Godzilla that was poorly received by both critics and fans.
Hollywood's "Godzilla", circa 1998
I also wrote a post last April (click here to read this one) about both America’s “King Kong” and Japan’s “Godzilla“…and the classic film in which they battled each other.
Well, America’s “Legendary Pictures” has just announced their intention to film another “Godzilla” movie.
The movie is scheduled to be released sometime in 2012.
A major complaint that many people had about the 1998 American remake of “Godzilla” was that both the storyline as well as the appearance of the monster were too different from the Japanese movies.
Legendary Studios has implied that their version of Godzilla will stay true to the Japanese original.
According to their press release:
“…Legendary intends to approach the (Godzilla) film and its characters in the most authentic manner possible….”
That would probably be a good strategy if they want their movie to be successful…especially here in Japan.
Because in Japan many of the characters from Japanese classic movies, such as Ultraman and Godzilla, are still very popular.
Their movies are still made nowadays.
2009 Dec "Ultraman" movie poster
"Godzilla: Final Wars" movie poster; circa 2004
If the world famous Japanese movie director Akira Kurosawa were still alive, yesterday would’ve been his 100th birthday.
Akira Kurosawa (1910 March 23 - 1998 Sept 6), R.I.P.
I wrote a post last summer about Hollywood remakes of Japanese movies…and of course it includes some of Kurosawa’s classics (such as “Yojinbou” and “The Seven Samurai“).
(Click here to read that post.)
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It has been announced that all homes in Japan must have a 煙感知器 (smoke detector) in every room by 2010 March 31.
A smoke alarm needs to be in every room.
If you live in Japan, and your house doesn’t have smoke alarms, you can buy them at department stores or electronics stores for about ¥2,500 – ¥3,000 each.
(Even if you don’t live in Japan you should have smoke detectors and a 消火器 (fire extinguisher) in your house.)
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What size beer cans are commonly sold in stores in your country?
What types of places sell beer where you live?
In Japan, beer can be purchased 24 hours a day from convenience stores. It’s also sold in most restaurants (including some fast-food places), supermarkets, etc.
There are even beer vending machines in Japan.
Restaurants usually sell beer in mugs or glasses. Or else they’ll give a 瓶ビール (bottled beer), which is usually 633ml.
Canned beer is usually sold in 350ml or 500ml cans. But other sizes are available too.
Japan has very small 135 ml and 250ml cans, the “regular” 350ml can, the “tall boy” 500ml, and a very big 1,000ml can.
135ml, 250ml, 350ml and 500ml cans of Kirin Beer.
I like movies.
I used to watch them alot more often when I was younger…but I still like to watch a movie that looks like it’ll be good.
If you like movies too, let’s play a kind of “Movie Trivia Challenge”.
I’ll write a trivial fact in this post about a few movies…if you recognize what movies I’m describing, then write the titles in this post’s comment section.
And also write a trivia question of your own about a movie or movies, and me or anyone else can try to guess the movie.
So, here are my questions:
1. What movie starred Clint Eastwood, Jim Carrey, and had a cameo appearance by members of the rock band “Guns ‘N Roses?
2. What movie starred Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd?
3. What was the first movie that Johnny Depp appeared in?
Are these questions too easy?
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