Hocking countries as products

by Neil Woodburn on

There are a lot of different factors that go into deciding which country will be the next you visit. In an attempt to influence this decision and direct you towards visiting a place eager for your tourist dollars, many local tourist boards have hired international marketing agencies to package and sell their homeland as though it were just another soft drink or pair of sneakers.

Branding a country is an important step towards identifying it with the things a potential visitor might love. In other words, making it an attractive enough place that an undecided traveler might add it to his itinerary. In some cases, this might mean putting lipstick on a pig, but for the most part it simply means highlighting the positive aspects of a nation that might have otherwise been unknown to the world at large.

Branding countries has become a lucrative advertising niche these days as the battle for tourist dollars continues to heat up. NPR reporter Eric Weiner tackles this interesting concept with a recent interview of marketing guru Sherif Sabri. My favorite part of the article is when Sabri addresses the results of a recent survey indicating that Australia has the best brand. He points towards Crocodile Dundee as the primary cause of such positive feelings towards the Land Down Under. “It’s a magical combination of a great deal of ignorance,” he says, “and a small amount of very positive and probably skewed belief.” Marketers love that type of environment and will capitalize on it every time.

Big in Japan: Aliens may have landed in Japan

by Matthew Firestone on

Ever wonder why the Japanese are so much more advanced than the rest of us?

What if the answer to this question was simply that the Japanese government has made contact with aliens?

What if the Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 were actually alien technology that was adapted to life on this planet?

Believe it or not, there may in fact be some truth to these statements!

Well, sort of…

According Chief Cabinet Secretary Mr. Nobutaka Machimura, one of the Japanese government’s chief spokesmen, unidentified flying objects (UFOs) do in fact exist.

Although he said that the Japanese government could not confirm any cases of UFOs, he told reporters that believed they were “definitely” real.

Interesting.

I guess at this point in the posting, you’re wondering one or more of the following:

a) How do you say Area 51 in Japanese?
b) So ramen really is an alien creation!
c) If there were space whales, would the Japanese hunt them too?
d) This has all got to be some big joke, right?

Have I peaked your curiosity yet? If so, keep reading as I assure you that there is some sort of rationale behind this apparent madness.

To put things into perspective, this whole ordeal started when a member of the opposition party asked the current government what their policy was in dealing with UFOs.

Although this is generally the type of question that no politician would want to touch, Mr. Machimura was quick to weigh in on the issue.

In the event that a UFO was discovered inside Japan’s sovereign airspace, Mr. Machimura said that fighter planes would be scrambled in an attempt to confirm the nature of the object.

However, Mr. Machimura regretted to announce that the government’s response measures ended there as there were no mechanisms in place for dealing with an actual alien landing.

Drawing peals of laughter from the crowd of reporters, Mr. Machimura admitted that this was a stereotypical response from bureaucrats.

Of course, Mr. Machimura was quick to emphasize that the Japanese government was not aware of any confirmed cases whereby a UFO was actually discovered in their airspace.

However, he did reiterate the urgent need to try and scientifically confirm whether or not UFOs exist because of what he called incessant reports of sightings.

Although to date most UFO sightings in Japan have either been birds, planes or other easily explainable objects, Mr. Machimura was proud to announce that he believes that they definitely exist.

And, it’s worth nothing that the position of the government’s chief spokesperson isn’t that much different from that of the prime minister, namely Yasuo Fukuda.

When questioned about his belief in UFOs, Japan’s Prime Minister took a long hard think, and then responded with the appropriate political rhetoric.

Although he was a bit more reserved than Mr. Machimura, he said that it was impossible to answer the question since no one could either prove or deny their existence.

Truth be told, the Japanese aren’t exactly famous for their direct answers, though perhaps Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is trying to tell us to read between the lines.

Visiting the past: Tracing your ancestry through DNA testing

by Neil Woodburn on

If your family is anything like mine, you’re not quite sure what part of the world your ancestors herald from. Sure, we have an idea stretching back to the late 1800’s but have never known beyond that – something fairly typical for many Americans whose ancestors came over on the boat sometime in the last 400 years.

And so, I remain jealous of those who journey across the world to their ancestral home to visit the village where long-dead relatives lived for generations before uprooting everything and moving to the New World. It must be a very wonderful feeling to stand in such a place and completely submerge oneself in family history and reconnect with the past.

I’ve thought often of hiring a genealogy specialist to help track down my family’s history so that one day I could knock on a door in Scotland, Ireland, Wales, or God knows where and introduce myself to some distant relative whose ancestors never caught the boat. How cool would that be?

There is another option, however, to researching my family history–one, that explores the family tree all the way to the roots.

DNA testing is something that was prohibitively expense even just a few years ago. Today, however, one can pay just $1000 for a partial genetic decoding that will not only reveal all sorts of things about inherited traits and predisposition towards certain diseases, but it will also trace back your ancestry.

Although a wonderful article in Wired Magazine focuses mostly on the “dozen or so diseases and conditions, from type 2 diabetes to Crohn’s disease” that can be identified through genomics, journalist Thomas Goetz does briefly discuss the ancestry angle thanks Jimmy Buffett. One day when Goetz was doing researching for the article, the singer stopped by a genomics lab to figure out if he was related to investor Warren Buffett (he wasn’t). In the process, however, he peeked into his ancestral genome to learn that his “maternal lineage showed a strong connection to the British Isles.” He also discovered “a strong link to the Basque region of Spain.” Very cool!

Sure, there are no addresses or even cities provided with such research, but at least it will point wanderlust travels such as myself in the right direction home.

And it’s simple. Just fill up a 2.5-milliliter vial with spit and mail it off to 23andMe, a genomics company run by the wife of one of the Google billionaires. The information will be securely posted online 4-6 weeks later, at which point you will know more about yourself than perhaps you’d ever like to know.

Tiger attacks three visitors at San Francisco Zoo

by Aaron Hotfelder on

Everyone loves going to the zoo (except, of course, the people who don’t). It’s our way to get up close and personal with a wide variety of beautiful, exotic animals, without any chance of attacks or danger. Well, not so fast.

Yesterday, a Siberian tiger named Tatiana escaped from her enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo and attacked three people, killing one and seriously injuring the two others. The tiger was shot and killed by police officers, but not before being responsible for the least funny thing to happen on Christmas since the release of The Santa Clause 3.

Investigators haven’t discovered how Tatiana escaped from her enclosure, which is encircled by a 15-foot wide moat and a 20-foot-high wall, but they haven’t ruled out negligence on the part of the zookeepers. This was not the tiger’s first attack of a human– it ate the flesh off a zookeeper’s arm last December during a public feeding demonstration, horrifying a group of zoo patrons. Apparently everyone gets a little temperamental during the holidays.

More coverage here and here.

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Where on Earth? Week 38

by Justin Glow on

This week’s Where on Earth could be another toughy, and I’m barring one of our loyal readers from making any guesses (oddsocks, I’m looking at you. Shh!) Everyone else: what city was this picture taken in? Here’s a hint: there’s an asteroid named after the town, and it’s also mentioned in an R.E.M. song. That’s all I’ll give you. Good luck!