The Great Geek Manual

More proof that I should have been born Japanese. I turns out the there are a growing number of impoverished youth dwelling in the cybercafes of Japan, rather than paying rent on an apartment.

Takeshi Yamashita does not look like a homeless person.

From his carefully distressed jeans to his casual-cool navy striped T-shirt, he is every bit the trendy Tokyoite.

Yet the 26-year-old has been sleeping in a reclining seat in an Internet cafe every night for the past month since he lost his steady office job and his apartment.

It’s cheaper than a hotel, offers access to the Internet and hundreds of Manga comic books, and even has a microwave and a shower where he can wash in the morning before heading off to one of his temporary jobs ranging from cleaning to basic office work.

Asked how long he plans to go on living like that, Yamashita smiles and shrugs.

“I hope the situation in Japan will improve. The new Japanese generation doesn’t have any money, and many young people don’t have any motivation. I don’t have money, but I have a dream,” he says, sitting in a cubicle with a PC and a stack of comic books.

… and people say that I have an Internet addiction. Ppppp…

Read the Entire Story…
Source: Reuters

I noticed a plug for Misty Keasler’s book, Love Hotels: The Hidden Fantasy Rooms of Japan. It would certainly make an interesting coffee table book … though you might have to move it went you have your parents over for dinner. Here’s an excerpt from the inner flap:

Only in Japan will you find an institution like the love hotel. Hotels where couples can rent heavily decorated theme rooms by the hour for amourous liasons, love hotels cater to diverse tastes through elaborate decor ranging from subway-car eroticism to space-age bondage. Fascinating in themselves for what they contain, these rooms also present a window into an aspect of Japanese society virtually unheard of in the West.

There are around thirty-five thousand Love Hotels in Japan, which rent rooms by the hour to couples looking for a little privacy. Once called tsurekomi ryokan (drag her/him in hotels), it’s now trendier to call them fashion hotels, in acknowledgment of the fact that it’s usually the more discerning, trend-conscious woman who makes the room choice. All kinds of tastes can be indulged at love hotels, anything from mirror-lined rotating beds to ornate cages. Some rooms even come equipped with video cameras so you can take home a souvenir of your stay.

A stay overnight costs around eight thousand yen. The room fee for two hours during the day is usually a little bit lower, while on weekends, the prices are usually much higher. The reception at a love hotel is very anonymous. The guests choose a room on a board by pressing a button, before paying at a little window where the receptionist can’t be seen.

There’s an excellent article on Love Hotels at Globe and Mail’s Travel site. I also found a first hand account of a stay at a love hotel over at Atlas Magazine. Don’t worry, it’s a PG account.

I’ve just stumbled across a great short story, entitled “A Single Shadow” at one of my favorite podcasts, The Escape Pod. I’ve only been listening since I did the research for my Top Ten Geek Podcasts post in November, but it’s excellent listening. “A Single Shadow” is a story about a student teacher who has come to live in Tokyo, Japan, and subsequently has a brush with the supernatural. If you’re at all interested in the Japanese occult or what life is really like in Japan, you’ll enjoy it.

Listen to A Single Shadow at the Escape Pod.
Blogger’s Note: This story contains adult content.

Last week Reuters reported on the Hadaka Matsuri, or Naked Men’s Festival. This year’s festival, at the temple in Okayama, in western Japan, which pits cold and occasionally drunk men against each other in a battle for sacred sticks, turned tragic when one participant was crushed and later died. It was the first such death since 1987. The story roused my curiosity over the event, and I went looking for more information.

Blogger’s Note: Proceeding past this point may cause you to spontaneously tear your eyes from their sockets!
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This is a store in an up-scale Tokyo shopping center. Evidently, in Japanese fashion, Arkansas is the new Beverly Hills.

Source: Nude Highway Driving

Yes, it’s a condom machine.
I’m sorry.

In Japan, a person’s blood type or ketsu eki gata is a popularly used to determine a person’s temperament, much the way Americans use astrological signs. The difference is that the Japanese take blood types very seriously. Japanese dating services use blood types to make matches. Employers use them to evaluate job applicants. High school students exchange blood types by way of introduction. Sports card include athletes’ blood types prominently alongside more traditional sports statistics. Manufacturers even market a wide variety of blood-type specific products, including calendars, chewing gum, colas, and condoms.
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From Yahoo News:

As Japan’s population gets older, there are fewer young people to take care of the older people. The money to be made in this situation is talking dolls, designed to sleep next to seniors and tell them that they love them. Talking toys have become such a hit that some elderly people have embraced them as substitutes for the children who have grown up and deserted entire neighborhoods in the rapidly greying country.

Moral of the Story? No matter how alone you think you are, there’s always someone in Japan who spends their days talking to a doll all day who is lonelier still.