Big in Japan: Can’t get skinny? Eat a banana!

by Matthew Firestone on

You can never be too skinny or too rich, at least according to the old expression…

Of course, in a country where size S is the veritable norm, and hyper fashion demands perfection in every curve, the pressure to stay thin and beautiful can quickly consume every waking moment of your day-to-day life.

As you might imagine, Japan practically invented the fad diet, which means that every month or so, some new food item is reported by so-called experts to be the miracle cure for obesity.

While there really is no substitute for a healthy diet and exercise, Japanese women, and increasingly men, have chowed down on a pretty lengthy list of fad foods: boiled eggs, apples, chili peppers, soybeans, black tea fungus, cocoa, carrots, yam paste, beer yeast, and even baby formula!

So, what is the current fad food that has recently risen in price by 20% as a result of supply shortages? Bananas!

Yup, bananas, those elongated yellow pods that are high in fiber, packed with vitamins and minerals, and largely comprised of H2O.

So, how does the Morningu Banana Daietto (???????????????????????????????????????, Morning Banana Diet) work? Keep on reading to find out!

The Morning Banana Diet is attributed to a woman by the name of Sumiko Watanabe, a pharmacist in Osaka, who designed this diet specifically to help out her tubby hubby.

Here is how it works:

In the morning, you can eat as many bananas as you want, alongside room temperature water. This is the key as breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and a few bananas in the belly certainly helps in getting your digestion going.

For lunch and dinner, you can pretty much eat anything you want, along with a small afternoon snack, but you have to avoid desserts, stop eating by 8pm, and go to bed before midnight.

According to Mrs. Watanabe, her husband quickly lost 37 pounds, which prompted her to release the diet on mixi, the Japanese equivalent of Facebook or MySpace. The Osaka pharmacist has also published her Morning Banana Diet in Japanese, Korean and Chinese, and has thus far sold close to a million copies.

Of course, while Mrs. Watanabe is lugging her suitcases full of yen to the bank, food distributors are quickly realizing that their supply of bananas can’t meet demand, especially following a recent TV appearance by the Watanabes.

According to Takeshi Ozaki, a spokesperson of Life Corporation, which runs more than 200 supermarkets throughout Japan: “Bananas suddenly flew off the shelves, there was a 70%-80% increase in weekly sales compared to the same period last year.”

However, before you rush out and buy a few crates of Chiquita bananas, keep in mind that not everyone is convinced.

According to Professor Masahiko Okada of Niigata University School of Medicine: “The human body has three essential nutrients – carbohydrates, fat and protein. The golden rule is to balance these three nutrients and a daily calorie intake. Once you understand that, you don’t have to be swayed by the fad diet any more.”

Again, the secret to good health really is a balanced diet and regular exercise, though a few bananas in the morning might not be a bad idea!

** Front-page image taken by Eriko Sugita at Reuters. All other images courtesy of the WikiCommons Media Project **

Second China allows for virtual culture training

by Mike Barish on

A team of University of Florida computer engineers have used the online world Second Life to create a virtual Chinese city that users can “visit” to simulate Chinese cultural experiences. The goal of Second China, as it is called, is to allow diplomats to gain experience interacting with Chinese nationals in typical settings such as business meetings.

Second China seeks to enhance the Chinese culture training that Americans receive before embarking to China so that they can hit the ground running once they arrive. Unlike other areas of Second Life in which all of the avatars are controlled by an actual human being, Second China has computer controlled avatars with whom you can interact. This ensures that all visitors to Second China will have similar experiences which allows for a more reliable training environment.

The project was supported by a $1.25 million dollar federal grant, so your tax dollars are truly at work here. My company offers culture training for employees who will be working overseas and I have both attended and facilitated some of those sessions. I think they more than adequately prepare people for local customs and social mores. I can’t imagine myself sitting at my computer, logging into Second China and attending a virtual meeting. That just seems foreign to me. Get it? Yeah, well, this idea seems about as good as that joke.

Rather than interact with some creepy avatar in a virtual meeting (aren’t real business meetings torturous enough?), I’d rather speak with peers who have been to China and seek their advice before traveling over there. Or I could read a book about conducting business there. Those just seem like more appealing uses of my time.

Can a virtual world help simulate cultural experiences? Maybe. But I’ll just grab some dim sum in Chinatown and call it a day. Thanks anyways.

Source: Science Daily

Catching the Travel Bug: Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam

by Josh Lew on

Welcome to Catching the Travel Bug, Gadling’s mini-series on getting sick on the road, prevailing and loving travel throughout. Five of our bloggers will be telling their stories from around the globe for the next five weeks. Submit your best story about catching the travel bug in the comments and we’ll publish our favorite few at the end of the series.

SARS. The subject was worked into every conversation amongst the expats and long-term tourists in Vietnam. The government claimed that the virus had been contained in several northern provinces, far away from Sai Gon (Ho Chi Minh City to Communist Party officials and fresh-off-the-plane tourists). Still. There were rumors about people’s neighbors being taken away in the middle of the night to be quarantined because of a persistent cough. Mostly, that was just speculation, fueled by one too many beers or one too many years in country.

Nonetheless, when I came down with a cough and fever, I had thoughts of gasping for breath in a hidden away hospital ward guarded by CP officials who didn’t want their SARS secret to get out. I wrote my illness off as a regular flu bug I’d picked up from being in a classroom teaching eight-year-old Vietnamese kids how to speak English. When my chest started to tighten and my cough to turn into a wheeze, I started to worry a bit more.

I confided in my girlfriend who took me to a doctor who had an after-hours private practice in his home. I was assured that he spoke English. He spoke great Russian because he’d been schooled in Moscow, but only a bit of English (like “Injection” and “Infection”). Between my modest Vietnamese skills and miming and his pidgin of Russian, English, and charades, I was able to get started on an IV of antibiotics. But he wanted an x-ray to rule out the unspoken disease. He kept asking me if I had been up north, to the areas that were hit by SARS. I said no, but he casually slipped a surgical mask on before starting me on the IV.
I got into the x-ray at a hospital the next day. It took two hours in the waiting room, which was not the best experience. Radiology was located by a nurses’ station and there were several people on hospital beds just parked in the hallway. I found out from a smiling but nervous lady in a neighboring seat that they were on a death watch. The nurses could keep an eye on them until the end.

The x-ray technician was unfamiliar with practicing his trade on someone of my height. It took 5 tries to get it right. I paid him 150,000 dong ($10 US) to hand the pictures directly to me instead of putting them up with the others.

My next antibiotic session consisted of me and about 4 others, sitting in plastic lawn chairs in the doctor’s back room with drips hanging from hooks in the wall. One guy smoked the entire time, but no one said anything.

A few days later, I went through the x-ray ordeal again. This time a smiling technician got it right on the second try. Through my girlfriend the doctor said that he chalked it up to a chest infection.

“No SARS?” I asked.

“No SARS.” He chuckled, said something in Russian, and patted me on the shoulder.

Check out the past travel-bug features here.

Big in Japan: Green tea is good for the body and the soul

by Matthew Firestone on

All this month, Big in Japan is bringing you a special series on Zen. From ancient scriptures and Buddhist mantras to austere minimalism and the sound of nothing, we’ll do our best to help you find your own little slice of inner peace and enlightenment.

Everybody knows that a cup of green tea (?????; ryokucha) is good for the body. High in vitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants and a whole slew of anti-aging and cancer fighting compounds, green tea – a cup or two a day – will certainly keep the doctor away.

But, did you know that green tea is also good for the soul?

Believe it or not, the appreciation of this humble beverage is actually one of the key components of Zen (??). In fact, the Japanese tea ceremony or chad? (?????, literally ‘the way of tea’) has been strongly influenced by the core tenants of Zen Buddhism.

So, want to learn how you can turn an ordinary cup of Starbucks green tea into a vaulted object of philosophical admiration? Sure you do!

On that note, today’s post, the final in our special series on Zen, is all about the way of the tea.

The way of the tea or chadō is one of the most complicated aspects of Japanese traditional culture. Entire volumes have been written by learned scholars, expounding on the importance of every precise movement leading up to the first and last sip of green tea.

However, without having to dedicate the rest of your life to finding deep meaning in mere dried leaves, the take home message in both chadō and Zen is that new perspectives and insights on existence will lead you down the road to enlightenment. So, rather than just gulping down mouthfuls of hot tea in an effort to get your morning caffeine rush, slow down, and appreciate the beauty and sophistication of this humble beverage.

In chadō, each tea bowl, whisk and tea scoop is ritually cleaned before and after their use according to prescribed motions. This ritualized ceremony enables the practitioner to fully appreciate the amount of preparation that goes into making a single cup of green tea. While you can’t exactly replicate these motions at your local Starbucks, you can still find peace of mind in a seeping tea bag.

The next time you’re taking your teatime, stop and pause for a moment to reflect on the beauty in your cup. Green tea, served steaming hot without any milk or sugar, is a simple pleasure that refreshes the palette, warms the body, and tunes your mind into the ebb and flow of daily life. Considering that the key to Zen is discovering the Buddha-nature that inhabits the ordinary, perhaps Nirvana might truly be closer than you think.

Well, that concludes our special series on Zen (禅) – hope you learned a few new things! Be sure to tune into Big in Japan next month for our usual assortment of the weird, the wacky and the wonderful from the Land of the Rising Sun.

** All images courtesy of the WikiCommons Media Project **

Amazing Race, Season 13: Cambodia, boats, breakdowns and beauty is only skin deep

by Jamie Rhein on

After episode 4’s rest stop at Summerhill, that gorgeous sheep farm homestay in New Zealand, the teams barreling through the world in the Amazing Race were off to Cambodia.

This episode did a tidy drop of highlighting aspects of Cambodia’s culture and showcased its historical magnificence.

I’m still not sure which team I want to win. I do know which team I don’t.

Travel Tips from this episode:

  • If a travel agent says a flight is booked or closed, head to directly to the airline in case there might be room after all.
  • Don’t speed while driving in New Zealand. You could be stopped by the police.
  • If your boat breaks down in Siem Reap Harbor, if you use a stick for a row, you’ll eventually get somewhere.
  • Holding hands with your traveling companion can reduce stress.
  • Stay focused and calm, otherwise you’ll walk in circles and pass by the very place you’re trying to find.

Recap and Cultural Highlights

When Tina & Ken ripped open their destination details at 6:03 a.m., they were off lickety-split to Siem Reap, Cambodia, a place that evidently is not the easiest to get to from Auckland. There were only two flights left, both through Singapore. This separated couple, who seem to be getting along better by the hour, particularly as they won the last three legs, made it onto the first flight.

When Terrence & Sarah joined them, even after being slowed down by the who stopped Terrence for speeding 17 kilometers per hour above the speed limit, Tina & Ken took their presence in stride.

The rest of the gang, except for Ty and Aja who can’t seem to catch up, were close behind in plane two. Dan & Andrew squeaked onto this flight by heading to Emirates Airline’s ticket counter after they were told at the travel agent that the flight was closed. The ticket counter person, looking at their desperate, pleading faces, called down to the gate for the go-ahead.Their polite, but determined demeanor probably helped them score the ride. Ty and Aja weren’t so lucky and had to take a later flight. Which one? The next day perhaps? I have no idea.

Even though the flight to Cambodia went through Singapore, there wasn’t any mention of the slick polish of Changi Airport. I assume the teams had some time here because, according to Travelocity when I looked up possible schedules, flights from Auckland to New Zealand, average 34 hours or so. If you have any length of time to spend in an airport, Changi would not be the worst place.

Picking Cambodia as a backdrop for a leg of the Amazing Race, was a brilliant idea. It’s one of those countries where life is so different from the U.S., that senses pick up.

Whoever came up with the tasks the teams had to complete to get to the Pit Stop did a wonderful job using aspects of normal Cambodian life to create drama and provide interest. There didn’t seem to be the need to rely on gimmicks because the country is filled with unusual details, evident from the first task.

The first task was to take a taxi to a gas station in order to fill a truck’s gas tank with 25 liters of gas–five liters at a time. The only team to have trouble with hand-cranking gas, the typical method in Cambodia, were Dan & Andrew because they didn’t crank hard enough.

Once the tanks were filled, in a neck and neck pace, the teams climbed into their trucks to have the drivers take them to Siem Reap Harbor where they were to take traditional-style boats to the middle of the largest lake in S.E Asia to the floating Kho Andeth restaurant.

The truck ride was a mad dash as the teams at the front of the pack kept passing each other with whoops, hollers and High Fives. I enjoy watching this show the most when the teams seem to be enjoying each other and their surroundings. Tina & Ken, Terrence & Sarah, Andrew & Dan, and Dallas & Toni are those type of teams.

Sarah & Terrence certainly weren’t enjoying the process, though, when their boat broke down. The boats, similar to what you’d find in Vietnam or Thailand, were rickety, mostly wooden and equipped with buzzy motors. Each boat was big enough to carry a small group–although in this case carried passengers of two.

When their boat conked out, Terrence gamely started rowing, pushing on the lake’s bottom with a big pole. Sarah cheered him on as one by one, teams passed them. Neither of them took their misfortune out on the other which helped keep their moods from getting them down. Can do attitudes can work. At the restaurant, the driver was able to fix their boat quickly so off they went once more.

I would have liked to see a meal at this restaurant for future dining info in case I’m ever in Siem Reap, but there’s not time to dine on the Amazing Race. Have you noticed? What and when do teams eat?

From Kho Andeth Restaurant, it was off to do one of two tasks. “Village Life” or “Village Work” This was a fascinating segment since it focused on the life of a village that is totally set on water in a series of floating buildings, only accessible by boat. As Dallas said, “It’s like Waterworld.”

As Christy & Kelly made their way by boat, they kept noticing the poverty and wondered about children swimming on their own. As one of them said, “It breaks my heart.”

There isn’t a bigger eye opener when you travel than seeing the lifestyles of the world’s children. If one travels enough, so much of what might seem dangerous or poor seems normal. The vibrancy of life is what shines through.

Once the teams got busy with their tasks there wasn’t any more time to ponder.

For Village Life, teams went to three different locations to pick up three objects: a doll from the tailor; a pair of chattering false teeth from the dentist; and a basketball from a floating basketball court. To acquire the basketball, each team member had to shoot a basket first.

The funniest part here was when Christy & Kelly stepped into the dentist’s office, saw a woman with her mouth wide open and getting her teeth worked on by the dentist. At first, they thought, horrified, that the women’s teeth were the ones they were supposed to get.

For “Village Work,” the teams were to retrieve baskets filled with fish out of the lake, one basket for each team member. What a hard, totally not fun job. If I had picked this task, I’d have had hard time not whining and would want to change clothes afterwards double quick.

From the lake, the teams were off to Angkor Wat, Cambodia’s former capital city and temple that was built in the 12th century during the reign of King Suryavarman II. One person from each team was to find a specific room in the massive complex where, if you beat your chest, the sound echoes.

This task, although not phyically hard, required a sense of direction, or the ability to entice a Cambodian to take you to where you want to go. Up and down stairs and through hallways upon hallways, the team members doing the task scurried looking for the right spot. The task was a great way to highlight the intricacies of Angkor Wat’s architicture and details without anyone directly talking about its magnificence.

Nick found the room first, hit his chest, picked up the tablet with the next clue and and hid it under his shirt so he wouldn’t tip off the other teams. I’m not too fond of Nick really. He’s one of those people who appears to be used to winning. Of course, he is one of those people who is on the winning end, so he has a point.

Tina had a heck of a time figuring out her way around the temple and even walked through the room she was to find, not once, but twice. On one pass through, she wondered out loud what she was missing. Ken, to his credit didn’t take her lack of direction out on her when she finally appeared after several teams passed them.

The next stop was Bayon Temple, another 12th century beauty. Here was the Pit Stop location.

Who won this round: Nick and Starr

Nick and Starr also won round one and now feel like they are back in fine from. They are not my favorite team. I was hoping another team would have a shot at a prize.

What they won: A trip to St. John, Virgin Islands where they will snorkel in Trunk Bay and have a catamaran ride.

Eliminated: Ty and Aja

Words of wisdom: Think that the person you’re traveling with is utterly amazing and hold hands often.

At the end of this episode they walked away holding hands after Ty vowed he would move to California where Aja lives.

Aja thinks he’s the most beautiful person she has ever seen and that when she’s near him she gets butterflies. I’d say she won’t mind having him closer.

Who I don’t want to win: Christy and Kelly. They made a snide comment about Dallas’ hair. They said it makie him look like Teen Wolf. What snots.

What’s wrong with Teen Wolf anyway?