Celebrity, Humor, Japan Trends 
Comments Off on Hello Kitty Maternity Ward?
How did Japan get beaten to the punch on this one? Any thoughts from the JET alum (and Friends of JET) community?
Hello Kitty Maternity Ward – Yahoo! News Photos
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Hello-Kitty-Maternity-Ward-Hello-Kitty-Taipei/ss/events/lf/120608hellokittyhosp/im:/090121/481/157f0fef0bcb47f1ac31b27444cdb769/
After seeing the joy and excitement expressed by the people of Obama-shi, I thought it would be appropriate to stop and reflect on how far we have come in the relationship between U.S. presidents and Japan. (Make sure to watch the Saturday Night Live parody clip at the end.)
Article/Journalism, Humor, Japan Trends, Uncategorized, Video Comments Off on Reuters: Japan’s Obama Town Parties for Inauguration
Obama-shi in Fukui-ken, Japan is partying hardy to celebrate the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Here’s today’s report from Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE50J4AQ20090120
And here’s the video of their Obama-uta to get you in the mood. “La…la-la-la-la O-ba-ma!…”
JetWit is not making this job listing up.
The Australian Ministry of Tourism is willing to pay someone $100,000 to spend 6 months relaxing and enjoying some island in the Pacific and blogging about it.
Here’s the article from the NYTimes/Associated Press: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/world/asia/15australia.html?emc=eta1
Here’s the job listing website: http://islandreefjob.com/ For those interested, deadline is Feb. 22 and requires submission of a 60-second video among other things.
It sounds too good to be true, so my guess is that the $100G pays for itself via the publicity this generates for the island as a tourist destination.
If any JET alums out there apply for it, let me know or post a comment so we can hear about the process (and perhaps eventually the job itself!)
Blogs, Cartoon/Illustration, Humor, Writers Comments Off on Bankruptcy Bill #9: Bankruptcy on Steroids
Bankruptcy Bill is a cartoon created by Steven Horowitz (Aichi-ken, 1992-94) and Gideon Kendall. To see more strips as well as original bankruptcy haiku, go to bankruptcybill.wordpress.com.
Humor, Japan Trends, Translating/Interpreting, WIT Life, Writers Comments Off on WIT Life #16: Home for the Holidays
WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Interpreter/Translator/Writer Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03). In her recent posts, she’s been watching the news in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.
Today’s news discussed Japanese travel trends during the New Year’s holiday, and it turns out that 2.87 million people passed through Tokyo’s domestic Haneda Airport during this time. Many were taking part in what’s called the u-turn rush, or the phenomenon of people returning to Tokyo and other big cities from their hometowns at the end of a holiday season. According to the survey, 84% were u-turning and 16% were coming back from places like Guam and South Korea where they could take advantage of the strong yen.
This piece did a check of what kind of omiyage people had received from their families. A young man from Okinawa had two large cheesecakes his mother had baked for him. A man from Kagoshima held Read More
Humor, Jobs, Translating/Interpreting Comments Off on Job: Write Subtitles in English for Adult Movies – P/T – (Tokyo)
Via Craigslist Tokyo. I’m posting this more for entertainment value than job search value.
job-975368287@craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2008-12-31, 11:03PM JT
Tokyo-based adult video production company seeking part time bilingual staff to add English subtitles to material orginally in Japanese.
Requirements:
– Any age
– Strong command of English and Japanese
– Over 20 years old
– Available for 4 hour shifts in central Tokyo (9:00-13:00 or 13:00-17:00)
– Some knowledge of material content a plus (knowledge of terminology very useful)
This is a translation job only. You will be adding English subtitles directly and a native English speaker will review material before completion.
Blogs, Books, Cartoon/Illustration, Humor, Writers Comments Off on James Kennedy short story in Chicago Reader + New Yorker Cartoon Game
James Kennedy (Nara-ken, 2004-06), author of The Order of Odd-Fish, has a short story in the Chicago Reader this week. It’s called “The Most Dangerous Beard In Town” and, according to James, “it’s whimsically illustrated by the very talented Jeremy Russnak.”
Bonus recommended reading: On his blog today, James shares the results of a New Yorker cartoon game he invented and then played with his family. One hat is filled with everyone’s New Yorker style drawings and another with urbane punchlines. The drawings and punchlines are paired randomly, and the results satirize nicely.
Humor, Japan Trends, Music Comments Off on Christmas Song for JETs
Back in the mid-1990s, a weekly humor/lampoon-style magazine called The Alien began publishing in Nagoya. A lot of the humor was just cynical gaijin jokes recycled in different forms (which of course we loved). But occasionally there were gems like a verse from a song parody they ran at Christmas time that did a good job of capturing at least one relatively common Christmas memory for most JETs.
Workers’ Wonderland (sung to the tune of Winter Wonderland)
Have to work
On Christmas
For lunch plain rice
De-licious!
We’re slaving away
Day after day
Wilting in a workers’ wonderland
Note: I just did some Internet research and found a Wikipedia entry explaining that The Alien has evolved into the present day Japanzine. I also found a blog post on Jason’s Random Thoughts: Yet Another Gaijin in Japan that opines on Japanzine and, more importantly, has various posts in the comments section by a couple former writers for The Alien plus references to a couple of the great gaijin bars from the Nagoya scene back then. Natukashii!
Blogs, Cartoon/Illustration, Humor, Writers Comments Off on Bankruptcy Bill #8: General Motors Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy Bill is a cartoon created by Steven Horowitz (Aichi-ken, 1992-94) and Gideon Kendall. To see more strips as well as original bankruptcy haiku, go to bankruptcybill.wordpress.com.
Cartoon/Illustration, Humor, Uncategorized, Writers Comments Off on Every Situation is Different: Holiday Edition
To get everyone in the Japanese Christmas spirit, here are a few cartoons from the archive of Earth Bennett’s (Aomori, 2000-03) JET cartoon Every Situation is Different:
Blogs, Cartoon/Illustration, Humor, Writers Comments Off on Bankruptcy Bill #7: Debtor Education
Bankruptcy Bill is a cartoon created by Steven Horowitz (Aichi-ken, 1992-94) and Gideon Kendall. To see more strips as well as bankruptcy haiku, go to bankruptcybill.wordpress.com.
From www.fewmets.net
James Kennedy (Nara-ken, 2004-06), author of The Order of Odd-Fish, has reviewed all haiku submissions containing the designated word “fewmets“ for Haiku Challenge #1 and has selected a winner. Read on for his decision and rationale.
I was blown away by the quality of the fewmets haiku I received. I can state with absolute conviction that these are the best haiku about fewmets that I have ever read!
First, the honorable mentions. Meredith Hodges-Boos (Ehime-ken, Yoshida-cho, 2003-05) wrote an appropriately grim, medieval-epic haiku that ends with a wonderfully forbidding promise of violence:
Fewmets steam on bleak
Frost-covered leaves, hunter stoops
Soon blood will melt ice
Chillingly beautiful! Worthy of Beowulf! I can almost imagine Ms. Hodges-Boos is the kind of woman who makes her own chain mail.
Rick Ambrosio (Ibaraki-ken, 2006-08) put a decidedly modern spin on fewmets:
The fewmets of love;
lipstick wine glass, lost overcoat . . .
painful cotton swab nurse!
Every man who has endured a gonorrhea test will find the last line poignantly evocative. Mr. Ambrosio is clearly a gentleman about town, a chap of wide and varied experiences, a man who almost certainly has chlamydia. He came very close to winning, except that the second and third lines each have one more syllable than a fastidious interpretation of the haiku form allows. As sloppy as a tart’s kiss, Mr. Ambrosio!
Finally, we come to the winner, from the talented Ilya Blokh:
A French truffle, on the
Tongue, melts, but how I was wrong
It was a fewmet
True, the first line might has one more syllable than usual, but Mr. Blokh’s brilliance trumps formal quibbles. The imagination is set giddily free. How did the poet come across this spurious truffle? On what pretext is he eating it? From what beast does this fewmet issue? What does the fewmet taste like? Mr. Blokh creates an entire world for me to inhabit.
And thither shall I now flit, to freely and sportively bombinate among the flowers of his soul.
Click “Read More” to see a couple more haiku submissions.
Article/Journalism, Humor, Japan Trends, Video Comments Off on Another attempt to replace ALTs
Yet another devious attempt to replace ALTs. And this one doesn’t like being touched on the breast. (I’m not making this up. Read the article for yourself. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/10/aiko-the-female-robot-inv_n_149860.html)
Blogs, Cartoon/Illustration, Humor, Writers Comments Off on Bankruptcy Bill – Haiku #6
From structured finance
Quietly I transfer to
The bankruptcy group
***************
(Mug with haiku available for purchase here.)
Bankruptcy Bill is a cartoon created by Steven Horowitz (Aichi-ken, 1992-94) and Gideon Kendall. To see more strips as well as bankruptcy haiku, go to bankruptcybill.wordpress.com.
|
| Subscribe to JetWitJobs |