Japan is the healthiest country

The online magazine Health Fiend recently published their list of “the World’s Healthiest Countries“ (and their list of “the world’s least healthy countries” too).

Japan was ranked the World’s Healthiest Country based on the magazine’s criteria of:

-the longest healthy life expectancy at birth,
-lowest pollution,
-the percentage of a country’s population with access to improved drinking water and sanitation,
-low infant mortality rates,
-low rate of prevalence of tuberculosis,
-the density of physicians per 1,000 people and
-low undernourishment rates.

Three aspects of Japan were credited in particular with giving Japan the world’s highest life-expectancy:
–the healthy Japanese diet,
–Japan’s health-care system, and
–ラジオ体操 (government-sponsored exercise)

Here are the magazine’s list of the top ten world’s healthiest countries:

10. Australia
9. Austria
8. Denmark
7. Italy
6. France
5. Germany
4. Switzerland
3. Iceland
2. Sweden
1. Japan

Back to the ’80s

I grew up in the 1980s. By “grew up”, I mean from 1980 until 1989, I was between the ages of ten to 19.

Do you remember the ’80s? What do you remember that decade for the most?

Ronald Reagan was the U.S. President for just about the entire decade, it was also the decade of Pac-Man, the Rubik’s Cube, and the (cassette) Walk-man.
The microwave, VHS VCRs, and CD players were invented in the ’80s.
Movies such as E.T., Indiana Jones, Die Hard, Crocodile Dundee, and Back To The Future were released.

And, regarding popular music of the ’80s, there was pop music that I personally never liked…such as Duran Duran, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Wham! and Michael Jackson.
And then there was the type of music which I’ve always liked—heavy metal. In the ’80s, some popular metal bands were Whitesnake, Ratt, Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, The Scorpions, Twisted Sister, Quiet Riot and Def Leppard.

Well, there’s a new, young rock band from Australia called “De La Cruz“. They are too young to remember the heyday of these bands…but De La Cruz are obviously fans of ’80s heavy metal.

They sound just like the ’80s bands that inspired them.

I have their self-titled debut EP…and I like their music a lot!

De La Cruz has a video for their song “Back To The ’80s“. In the video, the band members are wearing black concert shirts from the bands RATT, Bon Jovi and Judas Priest. That’s how I used to dress in the ’80s!

Here’s their video for “Back To The ’80s“:

“The Kings of Asia”

Yesterday was the final match of the 2011 Asian Cup soccer games that were being held in the country of カタール国 (Qatar).

The Asian Cup is a soccer competition of countries in the Asian region (including Japan, North and South Korea, China, Vietnam, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Australia and others) and is held every four years.

I’m not really a big soccer fan. I think the Japanese comedian “Beat Takeshi” had an excellent idea to improve the game of soccer.
But I did watch the final match last night. It was Japan’s “Blue Samurai” vs Australia’s “Socceroos“ (maybe it’s a cultural difference…but don’t Australian people think the name “Socceroos” is embarrassing?)

As is “par for the course” for the game of soccer, the score of the Japan v. Australia game remained 0-0 for almost the entire match…until Japan’s Tadanari Lee (who is actually a naturalized Japanese of Korean descent) scored the only goal of the entire game.

Tadanari Lee of Japan's "Samurai Blue" national soccer team.

So now Japan are the 2011 Asian Cup soccer champions.

The Japan team was crowned the soccer "Kings of Asia".

So now out of the fifteen “Asian Cup” soccer competitions that have been held since these games started in 1956, Japan has been the champion team the most often.
Japan has held the title four times: in 1992, 2000, 2004 and now in 2011.

Here is a four-and-a half minute video of the highlights of the Japan vs. Australia champion game that was played last night (2011 January 29).
The video shows the failed goal attempts (which are a regular event in a soccer game) and the winning goal (which was actually quite excellent teamwork between aforementioned Tadanari Lee and Yuto Nagatomo):

(The photos in this post are from the Official Asian Cup Games website.)

比田井隆

It snowed again in Tokyo the day before yesterday. There was only a few centimeters of snow on the ground when it stopped snowing at around 9:00AM…and it was all melted away by that afternoon.

But I took a few photos of the snow with my cell-phone camera while I was on my way to work.

At the train station

The weather was much nicer yesterday and this week’s forecast says it’ll be sunny everyday. 🙂

I considered writing a post about:
the news that the Australian government is trying to force Japan to end it’s whaling,
or about Toyota Motor Company‘s recent problems with massive car recalls around the world and the news that the company’s president will be traveling to America soon to testify before the U.S. Congress,
or that the Japanese Olympic team got their third medal yesterday…this one in Men’s Figure Skating (Click here to see Japan’s 2010 Olympic medalists…and here to see the total number of medals each country has so far.)

But there’s enough written on the internet about all of those stories already.

I want to write about someone that you probably haven’t heard of.

「比田井隆」 (Takashi Hidai).

He’s a member of Japan’s 2010 パラリンピックス (Paralympic) “Wheelchair Curling Team“.

「比田井隆」 (Takashi Hidai)

Do you know what the パラリンピックス (Paralympics) is?
It’s the Olympics games for athletes who are physically handicapped or blind.

These games are sometimes confused with the “Special Olympics“…which are the games for athletes who are mentally handicapped.

I think the athletes who participate in both the Paralympics and the Special Olympics are amazing.

As I said Takashi Hidai will be participating in the 2010 Paralympics Games, which will be held in Vancouver, Canada from 2010 March 12 – 21. Shortly after the “regular” Olympic Games are over.

I heard about Takashi Hidai in the Japanese news.
He’s 75-year-old. The oldest person to ever join the Japanese Paralympics Team.

When he was 31 years old, he was working in Tokyo as an electrician on a construction site when suddenly a crane fell over on top of him and fractured his spine…paralyzing him from the waist down.

He credits the love of his wife and daughter (who was three years old at the time) with helping maintain his positive attitude after his tragedy.

About ten years after the accident, someone at the physical rehabilitation center that he was a patient at suggested he try his hand at archery.
His family agreed that it sounded like a good idea so he bought a bow and practiced earnestly.
He enjoyed it alot and became skilled at it and in 1980, he entered the National Archery Competition…competing against non-handicapped archers.

About five years ago, an acquaintance who participated in a local Wheelchair Curling workshop suggested Mr. Hidai try it.
He doubted that he would be able to maneuver his wheelchair on ice at the age of seventy…let alone compete in such a sport against people forty or fifty years younger than him.
But he went ahead and tried it and found that he really enjoys it…not to mention, excels at it.

Mr. Hidai also went to England in 2005 to compete in the World Archery Championship.
He said “Being 70 years old (at the time), I was really surprised to make it to the World Championships!”

But fate dealt Takashi Hidai another blow.
His daughter, whom he said constantly encouraged him with a smile, died nineteen years ago of cancer.
She was only 28 years old and had just became a mother only six-months prior.

He wishes she was still here to encourage him when he plays at the 2010 Paralympics in Canada next month.

Spiders

I remember about fifteen years ago, it was on the news here in Japan that some Australian Redback Spiders were seen in Western Japan. And that someone got bitten by one.

They assume that the spiders hitched a ride to Japan onboard a cargo ship from Australia.

It was big news in Japan at the time because the Australian Redback Spider is a very poisonous spider in the Black Widow family…and before that Japan had no poisonous spiders.

Australian Redback Spider

In Japan, there are hornets, centipedes, and a few poisonous snakes…but until this spider arrived in the mid-’90s, there were no poisonous spiders here.

But after that initial news story, I had forgotten about that spider because there was no more mention of it on the news…and also it was seen on the other side of the country.

But the Australian Redback Spider is back in the news here in Japan again.

It seems that the population of this spider has greatly expanded in Japan.
The news said that this spider has been seen in other parts of Japan now too.

I guess the Australian Redback Spider has become a permanent resident in Japan.

It’s a dangerous spider but there is an anti-venom for it’s bite so there hasn’t been a single case of a person dieing from this spider’s bite in decades.

It’s unfortunate that the Australian Redback Spider has come to Japan…but at least the highly venomous (and creepy) Australian Funnel-web Spider isn’t here!

The "Australian Funnelweb Spider" has large fangs and a deadly venom

Sister cities

Many cities in the world have a 姉妹都市 (“sister city“) partnership with a city in another country. Some cities have more than one “sister city”.

Tokyo, for example, has eleven sister cities.
– 中国北京市 (Beijing, China)
– Berlin, Germany
– Cairo, Egypt
– Jakarta, Indonesia
– Moscow, Russia
– New South Wales, Australia
– New York City, America
– Paris, France
– Rome, Italy
– Sao Paulo, Brazil, and
– Seoul, Korea
are Tokyo’s sister cities.

Cities make “sister city” contracts with other cities in the world to help promote each other’s culture, industry and tourism.

I just found out that the city I grew up in…Clearwater, Florida, USA is a sister city with 日本国長野市 (Nagano, Japan).

And that this year (2009) is the 50th year that Clearwater, Florida and Nagano, Japan have been sister cities.
To celebrate, both Nagano and Clearwater are doing more than usual to promote each other’s culture.

I also found out that every year, a small group of American students and teachers spend two weeks of the summer in Nagano, Japan…and a similar small Japanese group from Nagano visit Clearwater, Florida.
I wish I knew about that when I was a teenager in Florida! I might have applied for the program!

I remember, though, when I was in elementary school, a group of teachers from Japan visited my school in Florida. I guess they were from Nagano. I remember that they seemed very interested in my school lunch and what I thought of it (I know now that it’s because American school lunches are so very different from Japanese ones!).

What city do you live in? What’s your town’s “sister city”? Have you ever visited the sister city?

I have been to Nagano once. In 1998, to see the ’98 Olympics that were hosted by Nagano, Japan.
And I’ve only been back to visit Clearwater, Florida once since I moved to Tokyo in 1990 (in 2004, my family and I visited Florida for a couple weeks in the summer).

As for Tokyo’s sister cities, years ago, I visited Seoul, Korea and New York City once each.

World Baseball Classic ’09

Do you know what the World Baseball Classic is?

World Baseball Classic logo

It’s a new international baseball competition. Like soccer’s World Cup.

The World Baseball Classic 2009 started today.
This is only the second time that the World Baseball Classic occurred.
The World Baseball Classic 2006 was the first and only other time this competition took place so far.

Japan was the champion team of the World Baseball Classic 2006 games.

The first game of the World Baseball Classic 2009 was Japan vs China. This game took place this afternoon (Japan time) at the Tokyo Dome.

Japan beat China with a final score of 4-0.
The next game will be Korea vs Taipei, also at the Tokyo Dome. Japan will face the winning team of that game on March 7th (again at the Tokyo Dome).

At the Tokyo Dome

The Japan team has high hopes of winning the World Baseball Classic again.

The host cities for the World Baseball Classic ’09 are Tokyo, Japan; Mexico City, Mexico; Toronto, Canada; San Juan, Puerto Rico; San Diego, USA; Miami, USA; and Los Angeles, USA.

The countries that have teams competing are: Japan (with Ichiro Suzuki and Daisuke Matsuzaka on the team), South Korea, China, Taipei, Australia, Canada, USA, Mexico, Dominican Republic (with Alex Rodriguez on the team), Cuba, Italy, The Netherlands, Panama, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and South Africa.

The World Baseball Classic 2009 will go from today’s game that Japan won until the final in Los Angeles on March 23, 2009.

Do you like baseball?
Are you following the World Baseball Classic? Which team are you supporting?
Did you watch the Japan vs China game today? If so, did you watch it on TV…or were you at the Tokyo Dome?

By the way, if you wanna visit the official World Baseball Classic homepage…then, click here.

World News

Some recent news from around the world that made an impression on me.

JAPAN

• On Saturday, January 10, 2009, three 17-year old high school students in Tokyo risked their lives to rescue a blind man who fell off of a train station platform.
  Without hesitation, they rushed over and pulled him back onto the platform to safety moments before a train pulled into the station.
  They were awarded letter of commendation from both the train station and the local fire department.
• Wednesday, January 14, 2009, a forty-five year old professor at 「中央大学」 (Chuo University) in Tokyo was stabbed to death in the school’s restroom.
  The motive is unknown and the killer is still at large (as of this writing).
• A 54-year old man who owns a medicine distribution company got a perm hair style so that he could more closely resemble his twenty-year-old son and attempted to take a test in his son’s place so that his son could get his OTC drug handling license to work at his company.
  He was caught when the test administrator notice he looked unusually old for being twenty.
• America’s Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. currently owns 41% of Universal Studios Japan‘s shares. They are making a take-over bid to gain the remaining 59 shares and own the amusement park outright.
• U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Thomas Schieffer left Japan today to return to America as his post ends with the change of the U.S. president this month. Schieffer was the Ambassador to Japan since April 2005.

CHINA

• A group of thirteen people in China were arrested for riding up on motorcycles and snatching toddlers to sell to people in other parts of the country for prices ranging between US$125 to US$3,800.
• China recently surpassed Germany to become the world’s third largest economy. The U.S. and Japan are still far ahead as the number one and two world economies, respectively.

AUSTRALIA

• Chemical pollution is the assumed cause of a recent spate of two-headed fish being spawned in Australia.

NEW ZEALAND

• Two Australian brothers in their early twenties were vacationing with their parents in New Zealand were killed when tons of falling ice fell on them at Fox Glacier, a tourist spot in New Zealand.
  The youngest brother’s body was never recovered, and he had the keys to their rental car in his pocket.
  Without the keys, the car rental company told the parents, they would have to pay NZ$1,950 (US$1,085) to have the car towed back to the rental office and have new keys made.
  After being relentlessly criticized for being heartless by both Australia and New Zealand, the rental car company finally decided to waive the charges.

AMERICA

• A man in California was arrested for trying to sell his fourteen-year-old daughter for US$16,000, one hundred crates of beer, and some cases of meat!

Have you heard this news stories? What do you think?