YeinJee's Asian Journal

Utsunomiya Zoo in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan, is giving out lucky charms made from elephant dung to their visitors.

Ayako and the “lucky” charm

The zoo produced the exam success charms as presents for students preparing to sit university entrance exams. The zoo created the charms by extracting fiber from the dung of a 36-year-old Asian elephant, then sterilizing it and processing it into paper. The charms contain the word “pass” in red characters.

This year is the first time the zoo has tried making the elephant dung charms, but the response has been good, with visitors describing them as “cute”.

Ayako Nakamura, a 23-year-old zookeeper was credited with the idea of making the charm. [Mainichi]

An aquarium filled with exotic fish in Gifu Prefecture, Japan, is using an electric eel to power lights on a Christmas tree.

Each time the electric eel at the Aqua Toto Gifu aquarium touches a copper wire in its tank, it sends power that lights up globes decking a Christmas tree. [Mainichi]

Electric eel is capable of generating powerful electric shocks, which it uses for hunting and self-defense. Despite its name electric eel is not an eel, but a knifefish.

Although it seems like a fun project; mind that it is not child’s play when handling an electric eel. A fully grown electric eel could discharge 400-600 volts and 1 ampere of current… more than enough to harm an adult human.

More pictures from 6th Korean Film Awards…

Hostess Song Yun-ah and special guest Park Jin-young (JYP) performed on stage

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The 6th Korean Film Awards was held last Saturday (Dec 1) in Seoul. “Secret Sunshine” (밀양; Milyang) was the biggest winner of the night, bagging the best movie, best director (Lee Chang-dong), best actor (Song Kang-ho) and best actress (Jeon Do-yeon) awards.

The winning trio from “Secret Sunshine”…
(L-R) Song Kang-ho, Jeon Do-yeon and Lee Chang-dong

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Korean female pop group Wonder Girls has recently held an online charity auction… with the top 5 bidders getting the chance to have a group date with all the 5 girls on Dec 9.

The Wonder Girls (Image courtesy of JYPe)

The auction has ended on December 3 and managed to raise a total of 20 million Korean Won (~ USD21k) for charity. The top 5 bids ranged from 3.5-5.5 million Won (~ USD3,800-6,000).

I wonder if the bidders are young hunks or old folks. It would be quite bizarre if these teenage stars are having a mock date with a group of guys old enough to be their fathers (or grandfather perhaps)…

Kibasen (騎馬戦) is a traditional Japanese game played by Japanese school boys.

The basic of the game involved 4 players on each side, with 3 people (horse) carrying a rider on top. The teams would charge at each other, with the riders attempting to remove the hat (or headband) of the opposition rider and thus defeating the team.

Sometimes they would use 4 carriers instead of 3, especially for younger kids that probably need an extra person to carry the weight.
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Some Japanese high school students doing “sports”; location and circumstances unsure, but it sure looks fun for the youngsters…

(Hat tip to Kamibakusho, Dannychoo and Samuraisoapbox)

Zhang Zilin (张梓琳), a 23-year-old secretary (and model) from People’s Republic of China was crowned as Miss World 2007 on Dec 1 in Sanya, China.

Miss World 2007 - Zhang Zilin from China (Image courtesy of Xinhuanet)

The final of this 57th Miss World contest was held in the Crown of Beauty Theater, Sanya, Hainan Province on Saturday night (Dec 1). Zhang Zilin was the eventual winner among 106 contestants and became the first ever Chinese to win the Miss World title.

Zhang’s victory also meant that Asians have won both major global beauty pageant contest - Miss World and Miss Universe in 2007. Riyo Mori, a 21-year-old Japanese was crowned as Miss Universe 2007 in May.