Candle Night Summer Solstice 2007

Japan is doing its part in the effort to save energy as Friday night witnessed the Candle Night Summer Solstice 2007. The event was launched in 2003 to foster an understanding of global environment and to encourage participation in the effort to cap the energy spending. The country who is host to the Kyoto Protocol is itself trailing behind its commitment to reduce the greenhouse gas emission.

The Mainichi Shimbun reported that ". . . about 20,000 light-emitting diodes on the outer walks of the Omotesando Hills building in Tokyo's Shibuya-ku were turned off at 8 p.m. on Friday, and replaced with some 500 candles in plastic tubes. Subdued lights from the candles lit up Omotesando street through the windows. . . . This year, the owners of over 60,000 buildings usually lit up at night are expected to participate in the annual event, and organizers are urging households to participate. About 630 related events are expected to be held by Sunday."

Simply Sushi

Jay McInerney from the New York Times has reviewed two recently published books on sushi. You can find the review of the article here. The two books are: Trevor Corson's "The Zen of Fish: The Story of Sushi, from Samurai to Supermarket" and Sasha Issenberg's "The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy."

Recently, the power-that-be in the sushidom of Japan started wanting to police the existence of the internationally-known delicacy. They felt the need to maintain a certain standard of the practice by issuing certificates or stamps of approvals to vendors around the world. They found it disturbing that sushi had been bastardized by the existence of such invention of the California rolls and the spicy this-and-that rolls (yeah, and you may not want to ask real sushi chefs in the most revered sushi bars and restaurants in Tokyo about such rolls either unless you are ready to be met with swords flying from their eyes).

What I did not know was that California roll, for instance, was born out of necessity (and necessity, as you know, is the mother of invention). In the mid-60s, a Los Angeles Japanese restaurant Tokyo Kaikan's sushi chef Mashita Ichiro used avocado as a substitute for fresh fatty tuna belly (toro) because such item was hard (or none) to come by; and thus was born the California roll. In the words of Edie Beale, "I don't know whether you know that; I mean, dya know that?"

Find the article here.

(Original illustration for the New York Times by Nick Dewar)

Run for Your Waistline

That title is meant metaphorically AND literally. If you are going to keep your waistline slim, then run as far away as possible from what is coming to Tokyo: BURGER KING. But, if you are going to start consuming yet another unhealthy fare, then you better run a lot to get rid off the calories. BK's Press Preview took place today (June 6, 2007) at the restaurant, six years after it closed shop. To give it a local flavor, Teriyaki Whopper will be in its menu.

The Chicken and the Egg Question

I am not sure which comes first: the motion or the emotion? Yesterday I found news about the development of robotic facial expressions. Today I found this video in YouTube about the different movements of a robot. No longer having the "dummy-look," this robot gets more human-like every day. There must be an artificial intelligence fair and/or convention somewhere in the city that I have not been aware of, perhaps . . .

An Unfortunate Choice of Word

A humanoid robot developed by Japanese professor Takeno Junichi and a team of researchers is able to form 36 different facial expressions. A particular expression is formed after a word is typed into its software, which possesses a database of 500,000 words. From there, the software "extracts word associations" and makes calculations that results in pinpointing a level of expression from pleasantness to unpleasantness. In the end, the humanoid robot forms the appropriate facial expression.

Interesting progress on research and development of humanoid robot. It is just unfortunate that this being Japan, a country that suffered from the A-Bomb, and in that picture above (taken from the Mainichi Shimbun), the robot is reacting to the word BOMB.

The Lamentable, Irrepressible, and Regrettable Effects of Supersize Me

On May 7, 2007, the Wall Street Journal published an article titled "Developing Nation: Japanese Clothiers Update Their Lines," which regrettably had nothing to do with a new, fantastic line from the likes of Yamamoto, Kawakubo, Kenzo, Watanabe, Mori, and Miyake (read the article HERE; but rather, it had all to do with the expanding girth of the female Japanese population.

Japanese used to subsist on a vegetable-and-fish diet, but in recent times this has changed with the advent of the less-than-healthy American import such as: Krispy Kreme (in Shinjuku), Cold Stone Creamery (in Roppongi), and now the inevitable MacDonald's MegaMac that featured not two, not three, but FOUR beef patties in a three-bun sandwich (read the article HERE).

Some tends to want to put the blame on the American side for exporting such unhealthy and irresponsible food like those mentioned above, but there has to be a demand in Japan that those things are actually here. The almost two-hour wait at Krispy Kreme (six months since its opening) and the line at Cold Stone Creamery (more than a year after it opened its counter) is a testament to this. Part of the reasons may be the "American-ness" or the foreign aspect of it combined with the novelty of the item that appealed to the masses in major cities like Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Not wanting to be left in the dust, local food producers competed with their foreign brethren to attract the appetite of the masses; the release of Dekao (Huge King) and Super Cup instant noodles are but two examples of this. According to the Mainichi article, "One product even contains a staggering 1,100 calories, almost half the daily recommended 2,500-calorie intake of the average Japanese male." I noticed this a couple of years ago when I encountered a bigger package of spicy Korean noodles sold here in Japan (and in California): it used to be that these "ramen" or noodles packages were relatively small and would be just enough for one quick meal; but this particular spicy Korean noodle package was almost twice the size of their predecessors. Freshness Burger, a Japanese burger chain, came up with Classic Double-Double Burger; meanwhile, American-import Wendy's answer was the Big Triple.

I suppose one has to wait to see when the line will diminish, but for now, supersizing and girth-expanding diet are here to stay. Guess who is coming back this month to Japan after folding its tent for being expensive in their former foray into the Japanese food market? None other than the originator of the Whoppers: Burger King. The big department stores that used to relegate the "big sizes" to one corner can now safely "expand" their collection.