I stumbled on a online gold mine. A talented guy named Tomoyuki Sakaguchi took some amazing photographs of his neighborhood. In his new photo book entitled Home, he captures 84 pages of Tama, the largest planned residential development in Japan.

Tama is a prefect of Tokyo. It’s famous for the Sanrio Puroland, the indoor, Sanrio theme park. It’s also the setting for that crazy anime movie, Pom Poko. Tomoyuki took all of these when the town was asleep. I think it give the photos a sort of magical look. My favorite time of day is that twilight time when you can’t tell if the sun is rising or setting.

“I had done a lot of central Tokyo photographs in the past, skyscrapers and trains,” says Sakaguchi, “and so I wanted to try a different location. I went to normal homes and photographed them at night. When I saw the results I was surprised, I felt as if I was looking at another world.” – Tomoyuki in a Japan Times article

Sakaguchi was a runner up for the Aperture Portfolio Prize. His book would make a perfect coffee table book. Purchase it here. Visit his Web site for more photos.

I’m very sorry that I haven’t posted in a long time. At school, everyone wants a piece of my time, and it has been hard trying to get all my priorities straight. I promise you that from this day forward you will get at least one post from me per week if not more. I have a lot of great things to talk to you guys about so stay tuned!

Hey, do you think I should buy this Buff Monster print? I have been debating it for a while. There are only 50 prints so I think the $40 asking price is reasonable.

UPDATE: This video was taken off YouTube. Took them long enough.

*Don’t worry: Nothing nasty happens in this video.

While Google is very anal about inappropriate content on the English side of YouTube, I guess they get a little lazy about finding foreign videos documenting questionable content. Sexual harassment? I think it’s kind of sleep at your own risk. If you are on a bench asleep with your legs wide open then, yeah, don’t be surprised if your stuff is on YouTube the next day. The crazy thing is that these shots were taken by a woman. Imagine how the guys must be.

From Metropolis magazine:

Welcome to 2008, the year of the Rat

People born in the Year of the Rat are thought to be go-getting charmers. They work hard to acquire the objects of their desire then keep them close. While often successful, they tend to gossip and are easily angered. Notable people born in the Year of the Rat include actress Scarlett Johansson (1984), rapper Busta Rhymes (1972), singer Kyosuke Himuro (1960), hockey legend Bobby Orr (1948) and designer Yves Saint-Laurent (1936). Last year was Year of the Pig, and it sometimes seemed all the attention was hogged by the many skyscrapers and mixed-use complexes that sprang up around the city. Whatever 2008 has in store turn the page for our forecast we at Metropolis would like to wish you health and happiness throughout.

Best wishes this new year, guys! Watch a video of New Year’s greetings from Japan Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. His Liberal Democratic Party recently created a YouTube channel. Click here for an article about it.

News straight from my favorite hip-hop Web site, Concreteloop.com: Kanye West, Lupe Fiasco, and Pharrell Williams, A.K.A. my favorite non-conventional rappers in the game, have formed a musical group called CRS, Child Rebel Soldier. All of these guys have taken some inspiration from Japanese pop culture. They are suppose to be coming out with an album together. In the meantime, make sure you pick up Lupe’s new album, The Cool, which hit stores last week.

Photo from Flickr; The amount of adult Japanese men who admitted to sitting while peeing has grown from 15 percent in 1999 to now 49 percent, according to Fuji TV. Image from Japan Probe

As I have said before, newspapers do not have to worry about disappearing in the digital age because many blog posts stem from news articles. This is the case with this awesome nugget of little known Japanese fact. Mainichi Daily News reported that about 40 percent of adult Japanese men sit on the toilet to urinate, according to a survey done by Matsushita Electric Works Ltd., a manufacturer of Western-style toilets.

The survey, which was conducted with 518 men as well as 518 women, shows that mothers and wives encourage the men in their families to sit down so as to avoid unnecessary spraying and urine cleanup. I guess we know who wears the pants in those households. Since 1999, the number of Japanese men who sit to do number 1 has skyrocketed. Matsushita started designing toilets with larger holes years ago to accommodate male sitters.

The number of men sitting while peeing is probably larger than what Matsushita is reporting. Not all men probably want to admit to the habit because they fear that they would appear feminine. Japan Probe was one of the first blogs to post about the article. They also included interesting graphics and a video from Fuji TV news, who did a report on the findings.

from www.japanprobe.com

Fuji TV conducted their own test to see if women’s worry that men splash too much had any warrant. They put special paper on the floor in a bathroom stall and had a man urinate standing up to see how much of his fluids didn’t make it to the bowl. The results will disgust you.

My boyfriend wants me to include his five cents. He says that when he was younger that it was harder for him to aim because his “you-know-what” was smaller, and consequently, he had to aim further from the bowl. He says that maybe the stereotypes about Asian men’s smaller packages are true and thats why they have a hard time peeing in the bowl. *Warning: I do not support my idiotic boyfriend’s view. I just thought it was too hilarious not to include*

BTW “Tachi-shon” is “to stand up and pee.” “Suwari-shon” is “to sit down and pee.” Thank you, Danny Choo!

Should American damsels force their Prince Charmings to squat while urinating? I think not. It’s already demeaning enough that we are starting to go to college and make more money and divorce them and stuff. Let them have some dignity. Men you are men so stand up for yourselves and hold your pee-pee high – just not too high.

All photos from Flickr

There were definitely things I don’t remember about my 21st birthday party the other week. Mostly I don’t remember anything that happened after 11:30. In Japan, there are parties where everyone is suppose to forget. They are called “Bonenkai” or “forget-the-year parties.” These office parties, which start around December 10th and normally last until the end of the month, are held to help people forget the unpleasantries of the last year and to start fresh with the new year. The Japanese workplace is normally pretty stiff and strict, however, at these parties the bosses and the rest of the employees usually get ridiculously drunk, and all decorum gets thrown out the window or the cubicle or whatever.

Bosses especially try to break loose at these events and be “breiko” or forgetful of their high position. Now you don’t just get drunk with your coworkers; you also get invited to other office parties. Drunk salesmen drink with drunk accountants, and drunk bank clerks drink with drunk bus drivers. Then these drunk salarymen take to the streets. Surveys found that office workers go to parties more than students during the holidays and that both men and women go to parties. Most people go to “izakaya” for Bonenkai celebrations. Izakaya are Japanese pubs that have drinks and a myriad of small to middle-sized dishes. They also sometimes have karaoke.

Even though Bonenkai are suppose to be times of forgetfulness, people must be careful not to forget their manners. You must never pour your own drink first and instead you must offer to pour either your host or a guest’s drink. There is even a correct way to pour the drink itself! You must raise your drink out of respect when you receive it. If you are the host then you must make sure that your guests’ cups are never empty.

New Year’s is the largest celebration in Japan. They really make a big deal out of it. “Omisoka” is New Year’s Eve, and “Shogatsu” is New Year’s Day.

I guess one of the next posts will be about Shinnenkai celebrations in January. The Japanese sure know how to party.

Read what some Bonenkai revelers have to say about the holiday parties.

Here’s a guide to surviving Bonenkai festivities.

A drunk guy passed out on the street is normal in Tokyo (you see how everyone is just walking by)

Maria Adelaida Lopez’s doll house covered with vacuum cleaner dust. Photo from: Critical Miami

I was really excited when I found out that the popular, bi-annual, Japanese art show, Geisai, was coming to the States. The talented Takashi Murakami has been on the grind the last few months. Geisai Miami, the first edition of the Geisai art festivals in the country, appears to have been a dollar store of unknown art. But alas, nothing is as good as the original. There was more reporting done a few months ago about the artists being selected than reviews of the event itself. My advice to Takashi: Keep Geisai in Japan.

Geisai was started six years ago by Murakami to give young Japanese art students a stage to present their art. The word “geisai” is derived from the Japanese word meaning “art festival.” Last September’s Geisai #10 seemed to be a blast. About 800 artists sitting on the floor. One large hall at the Tokyo Big Sight exhibition center. Truck loads of cheap, creative art. Prizes and contests. What is there not to love?

Somehow this free-for-all worked in Japan.

Geisai Miami was from December 5-9, and it was hosted by the PULSE Contemporary Art Fair. Amongst all the other Art Basil festivities , the exhibition was lost in the mix. I just think that during its leap across the pond that the show lost its charm. I wasn’t impressed by the artists’ lineup. Their pieces just didn’t seem fresh enough for me. In comparison, I thought the “GEISAI Artists at Giant Robot” exhibit was much more exciting and well put together. All of the artists featured were Japanese and had won awards at past Geisai shows. They were handpicked by Takashi and Eric Nakamura from GR. I’m not trying to “hate” on Takashi for the effort in Miami, but some things are only kaiwaii in Japan.

I think it’s named after Lombard Street in San Francisco. The street consists of sharp turns down a hill so steep that if it wasn’t for the curves cars would roll down and crash. If I remember correctly in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas they did a pretty good job recreating this street in the game. Does anybody else remember that?

Photo and screenshot from GTAGaming.com

All of the large Japanese newspapers have bureaus if not their headquarters in Tokyo. Some people forget that Tokyo was not always the center of activity in Japan. The city of Kyoto, which means “capital city,” was Japan’s capital from 794 until the late 19th century.

The Kyoto Shimbun News is a community newspaper that focuses on the cities of Kyoto and Shiga. The paper has a company mission of upholding “justice, freedom and truth.” The Kyoto Shimbun Web site looks like something your novice programmer designed, however, its simplicity and to-the-point features are appealing to foreigners.

The site is offered in both Japanese and English. The English version of the site is regularly updated with three “fluffy” main stories on the home page. While that’s not a lot of content, the way that the page is designed with images and article summaries make it okay visually and easy to read. The articles are extremely short. They are more like news briefs than articles. I think that they could afford to fit more of the articles on the home page. They could also invest into making slide shows which visitors would find helpful. I like the “Guide,” “Photos,” and “Festivals” navigation. These are topics that they don’t have to spend time maintaining. The Japanese version of the site is a little more meaty in order to better inform the paper’s main readership – one of the 1.5 million Kyoto inhabitants. Still I think it leaves a lot to be desired.

Just to be fair, let’s compare this site to that of an American community newspaper that serves a similar amount of people – Philadelphia.

Let’s talk about my old stomping ground, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Web site. I think the Philadelphia site is very formulaic. There’s one main story photo and then there’s some article summaries. There’s a spotlight of some features articles with photos. They should put their online exclusives a lot further up. Why bother spending a lot of time on a gift guide or an interactive presidential campaign contributions map if you are going to stuff it on the bottom of the page where nobody is going to see it?

After writing a lot of these site reviews, I have found that the Japanese media outlets really need to spend more time on site development. It’s strange that they are so behind when it comes to online journalism especially since their audience seems to be really tech-savvy with many of them getting their news via mobile phones. What do you think?