A group of former South Korean elite soldiers slaughtered live pheasants, Japan’s national bird, outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul last Thursday (July 17) in protest against Japan’s sovereignty claim on Liancourt Rocks. Video below…
The Liancourt Rocks are a group of small islets in waters between Japan and Korea; the islets are also known as Dokdo in Korean or Takeshima in Japanese. Both nations are claiming sovereignty over the islands… and the dispute heated up recently following Japan’s fresh claim of ownership in their textbook guidelines.
The South Koreans protested heavily as expected, and I don’t blame them for doing so. However, cruelly slaughtering live birds in public? That’s too much.
Most foreigners don’t have enough knowledge on who actually owns the island. We can only learn a bit of the story from news and websites; and this kind of bird-killing gimmick certainly won’t go well in global opinions… it achieved nothing besides showing the world a bad image of South Koreans.
Dayana Mendoza from Venezuela was crowned as Miss Universe 2008 in Nha Trang, Vietnam on July 13.
Dayana Mendoza, Miss Universe 2008 (Image from William)
Asians didn’t perform well in the 2008 contest with only one contestant making it into last 15. Riyo Mori from Japan was the 2007 winner, with another three Asians (India, Korea and Thailand) making it into the last 15 last year.
Gas stations across Japan are rushing to fix digital signs that can’t display gasoline prices higher than 199 yen per litre; most current digital signboards at Japanese gas stations can only display a “1″ in the hundreds column. [Mainichi]
The average retail price of gasoline in Japan stood at 181.5 yen per litre for regular fuel as of July 7. With the current trends and latest tension in Nigeria, the crude oil price is expected to continue soaring… the 200 yen mark could be reached pretty soon, unfortunately.
A Japanese commercial jointly produced by Japan Ad Council (AC) and Korea Broadcast Advertising Corp (Kobaco), featuring popular Japanese star Tsuyoshi Kusanagi and Korean actress Choi Ji-woo.
The commercial is for environmentalism purpose, to encourage recycling practise and protecting the environment…
American Joey Chestnut retained his Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest title in 2008, beating Japanese arch rival Takeru Kobayashi after a close fight.
Each of them consumed 59 hot dogs in 10 minutes and forced the game into extra time, with Chestnut claiming the final victory after a five-dog playoff.
Video: Nathan’s International July Fourth Hot Dog Eating Contest 2008
Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest is arguably the world’s most famous competitive eating contest. The competition is held annually on US’ Independence Day (July 4) in Coney Island, New York, since 1916.
Takeru Kobayashi is a legend in the contest, winning it for six times in a role (2001-2006) before Joey Chestnut, nicknamed the “Jaws”, claimed the title in 2007 and successfully defending it in 2008.
2016 participants (1008 reflexologists and 1008 tourists) have set a new Guinness World Record in Taiwan on July 1 for having “most people receiving foot massage (reflexology) simultaneously.”
Tourists who volunteered for the event came from various countries, including Japan, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong etc.
The world record attempt at Taipei Arena, Taiwan (Image from Huaxia)
The attempt was organised by Taiwan Tourism Bureau to promote health tourism Reflexology is a popular practice in Taiwan for relaxation and improving general health; the activity is gaining popularity among foreign tourists in recent years.
There were no previous attempts made on this category; Guinness have set the requirement to have at least 400 participants with treatment for at least five minutes on each foot… which were met by the folks without much sweat.
Cosplay, or costume play, is a popular trend where people dressing up mimicking fictional characters from anime, manga (comics), video games and movies etc.
Japan is generally credited as the origin of cosplay, but there are no actual facts of when the cosplay culture started. The credit for coining the word ‘cosplay’ seems more apparent though… although there are a few versions on how it was created, the credit goes to Nobuyuki Takahashi when he first used the word in some Japanese magazines in 1983/1984.
Akibanana has some scanned image of the My Anime magazine released in June 1983, which is said to be where the word first appeared, written in Japanese - コスプレ (kosupure)…
