Big in Japan: Japanese farmers raise poison-free blowfish

by Matthew Firestone on

To steal a line from a classic Simpsons episode:

‘Poison. Poison. Poison. Tasty Fish.’

Blowfish or fugu (??)???packs a lethal punch in the form of tetrodotoxin, an extremely potent neurotoxin that paralyzes its victims while they are still conscious. To put things into perspective, this means that you are fully aware as your throat closes, your lungs deflate and you drift slowly into death’s arms.

There is no known cure.

However, Japan is a country of safety and order, so thankfully the majority of deaths occur when untrained people catch and prepare the fish, accidentally poisoning themselves in the process. The most dangerous culprit is the liver, which has been illegal for centuries despite being the tastiest morsel of the blowfish – it is often compared to the highest-quality foie gras (fatty goose liver).

While illegal meals of liver can still be had on the black market, the danger cannot be understated. In 1975, the famous Kabuki actor and ‘Living National Treasure’ Bandou Mitsugorou VIII requested four servings of liver from a fugu chef in Kyoto. Unable to refuse the request of someone of such an elevated stature, the chef served him the livers. He died soon after.

Of course, all of this is set to change now that Japanese fish-farmers have found away to raise non-poisonous blowfish….

According to an article in the New York Times, recent advances in fugu research and farming have led to the production of blowfish that are ‘as harmless as goldfish.’ In fact, the advances are so significant that farmers have even been successful in producing completely poison-free fugu livers.

So, how did they do it?

About eight years ago, Mr. Tamao Noguchi, a marine toxin specialist at Tokyo Healthcare University and a leading fugu expert, concluded a two-decade study demonstrating that fugu could be made poison-free by strictly controlling its feed. While it was once believed that blowfish develop the toxin on their own, in actuality they eat other animals that carry tetrodotoxin-laden bacteria.

Earlier this year, Mr. Noguchi tested more than 7,000 fugu that had been given only feed free of the tetrodotoxin-laden bacteria. His hypothesis was correct – not a single fish was poisonous!

So, will it once again be possible to eat fugu livers in Japan?

Sadly, Mr. Noguchi’s research is being suppressed by powerful interests in the fugu industry, who fear that farm-raised blowfish will jeopardize their monopoly.

“We won’t approve it,” said Mr. Hisashi Matsumura, the president of the Shimonoseki Fugu Association and vice president of the National Fugu Association. “We’re not engaging in this irrelevant discussion.”

Sigh. Looks like thrill-seekers in Japan are going to have wait a bit longer to legally sample fugu liver. Of course, there are certain places in Japan where you can get your fingers on some fugu liver, though be sure that your affairs are in order before you dig in!

** All images are screenshots from the classic Simpsons episode One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish. The show, which first aired January 24, 1991, was the 11th episode of season 2 **

Big in Japan: Japanese worker logs 780,000 porno hits at office

by Matthew Firestone on

The Japanese are anything but prudish, especially when it comes to pornography or AV (adult video). Here in Japan, the AV industry pumps out literally hundreds of new videos each day, featuring pretty much everything that your sick little mind can imagine. I would expand more here on some of the more unusual varieties of Japanese adult entertainment, but for the sake of our sponsors at AOL – and out of respect for my dear mother! – I’ll let you discover them in your own free time.

With that said, if you’re going to scour the web for the latest and greatest in Japanese porno, it’s probably best not do it while you’re in an office cubicle. In fact, that is precisely what happened this week in the city of Kinokawa in southern Japan ,where a council employee was discovered looking at almost 10,000 pages containing explicit content per day! Over a nine month period, it is estimated that the 57-year old man logged more than 780,000 hits on porno websites.

And who says Japanese bureaucracy is efficient – in my opinion, it takes some serious dedication to log in that many hours of porn viewing in one day!

According to sources in the city council, the man was allowed to keep his job in public service, though he was demoted, and his wages were cut by about 20,000 yen ($200) per month. In porno terms, that’s about ten new-issue DVDs, or about a fifteen month online subscription to your favorite fetish site.

Mind you, not that I watch porno, or anything of the sort! (^_^)

The report goes on to describe how the man would turn up for work every day, though failed to maintain the same level of productivity as his fellow co-workers. Apparently, his incessant porno habit peaked last July when he is estimated to have logged 177,000 hits in a singly month!

In the end, the man was only discovered after his computer was infected with a virus, which prompted the IT team to access his web history. Foolish – he should have just deleted his web history like the rest of us!

Mind you, not that I watch or porno, or anything of the sort! (^_^)

As you would imagine, the city council was highly embarrassed by the incident, and was forced to comment on national television as to why it took several months to catch and reprimand the distracted worker. According to one official, employees’ desks were separated from one another, so it was impossible to monitor everyone’s web behaviors.

Of course, this seeming bit of nonsense has to make you wonder. If the guy has a healthy enough sexual appetite to spend all of his working hours searching for porno, he probably needed to, well, relieve himself at some point – perhaps the first clue that the guy had a porno habit should have been the frequent line outside the men’s restroom!

On that note, I think I’ll go back to doing something more productive instead of blogging about porno…

** All images are of the famous Anna Ohura, the half-Japanese, half-French AV sensation who is regarded as having the largest natural breasts (metric I-cup, 100cm) in the Japanese adult film industry **

Japan needs a panda

by Jamie Rhein on

A beloved treasure of the Ueno Zoo in Tokyo died yesterday. Ling Ling, the panda who became an ambassador of goodwill of sorts, and a world traveler looking for a mate had heart failure. In human years, Ling Ling was 70. In panda years, 22.

Now the zoo is without a panda, and Ling Ling was without offspring. He was flown to Mexico three times to give him a chance to procreate. He also spent spent some time in the National Zoo in Washington, D.C according to this Smithsonian magazine article, I found. Most importantly, he was part of the peace agreement with China in 1972. People in Tokyo are broken up over the news and are leaving flowers and notes at Ling Ling’s cage.

The Ueno Zoo is hoping to get pandas on loan at least. Unfortunatly, it’s not like there are many pandas to go around–only 1,600 of them live outside of zoos. Their native environment is in China in Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces. [see AP article]

Devra G. Kleiman, the author of the Smithsonian article, spent a long time studying pandas, both in the wild and in zoos, and provides a detailed account of their habits and habitat, including mating habits which may explain why Ling Ling never got lucky in love with pandas. In people love, he hit pay dirt.

Okayama, Japan: a place to see Japan at a quieter pace

by Jamie Rhein on

When I went to Japan several years back, the U.S. dollar was the pits against the yen. Luckily I had a friend of a friend of my brother’s to stay with in Tokyo. I had a Japanese rail pass for a week so we ventured out on day trips mostly, except for two nights in Kyoto. We went on a day trip to Nara from there. Other trips were to Kamakura and Nikko. This was an impressionistic sort of trip. Japan is such a vivid place that I can conjure up pictures of most of it.

Now that my friend has moved back to Japan, I’m thinking another trip to Japan is in order, particularly since we have another place to go. Okayama, where my friend now lives, looks like it’s a perfect sized city for visiting with children, and one where its possible to taken in the nuances of Japanese culture. In an odd way, it seems to be to Japan what Columbus is to the United States–a reflection of the rest of the country without being overwhelming. There is enough to see and do to make it interesting, but because of the size, the people and sites are accessible.

I’m getting this from the Okayama page at Wikitravel that lists several attractions you can take in.

Here are highlights:

There’s the Korakuen Garden, one of the three Great Gardens in Japan. It dates back to 1687.

The Okayama Castle is a tribute to the tenacity of the Japanese. Destroyed during WWII, it was rebuilt to look like it did before. This might be a place my friend could be an English speaking tour guide–a suggestion Shane left on my post about helping my friend find English speakers.

The Oriental Museum is the place to find out about trade between Persia and Japan. I bet this is a great place to see similarities between textile designs of Persia and pottery designs of Japan. Maybe not, but I would guess.

Sogenji Temple offers free meditation. Plus, temples in Japan are some of the most relaxation producing places on the planet. Here’s also a place to participate in a tea ceremony.

Shizutani School is possibly the oldest public school in the world. It is the oldest school in Japan to be built as an every person’s school. Today it is a national treasure.

There’s also Muscat Stadium, a sports stadium that has baseball games from time to time; a big monthly flea market and the statue of Momotaro. Plus, there’s Mt. Misaoyama for hiking, hot springs for soaking and bike rentals.

Okay, now that I’ve outlined some of what there is to do in Okayama, I have to say, it looks a bit more interesting than Columbus–by a mile.

Phone call: Back in Japan and looking for Americans

by Jamie Rhein on

My Japanese friend, who recently moved back to Japan, called me this weekend. Her kids are doing fine. Her husband is in the throes of work, and she is wondering how she can keep up with her English. As a person who fit well in the United States, her life back in Japan is taking some adjusting. She’s happy to reconnect with family and friends, but she’s missing here.

I promised to find her some Americans in Okayama where she is living. Okayama, a city past Kyoto, even further from Tokyo, is not exactly an expat hot spot. She’s been on a hunt for English speakers without much luck. I did a Web search after we hung up and, although I have yet to find any Americans for her, I think I found English speakers. There is a Toastmaster’s Club.

Most of the Okayama Toastmaster Club’s Web site is written in Japanese, but there is another site with information on Toastmaster Clubs in Japan with links to each of them. From what I can tell, the purpose of Toastmasters in Japan is to give people a venue for giving speeches in English and to help people improve their public speaking abilities in general.

Toastmasters International has clubs all over the world. If you’re in the need for some public speaking help and a place to meet people, here’s a suggestion.