Big in Japan: The $15,000 diamond martini and other choice bling

by Matthew Firestone on

Think you’ve got the hottest rims on the block? Can’t stop sporting your brand new Coach bag? Enamored by the diamond carrot ring on your pinky finger?

Trust me. Your hottest luxury items are already blasé in Japan…

Don’t believe me? Wait until you hear about the choicest bling from the Land of the Rising Sun.

For starters, anybody who is anybody knows that the best ride on the block is a custom-made Rolls-Royce.

Although your typical Rolls has a retail price of about US$390,000, in Japan you can choose a custom color combination for another US$20,000.

(Particularly popular in Japan is exotic light grey and tomato red combination!)

Or, how about fitting your ride with a refrigerator, wet bar, entertainment system and DJ booth for another US$140,000?

One client in Japan even went as far as putting his initials in the headrests using Gothic script – or, as he put it, ‘Harry Potter writing’ – for US$5,000!

Think Japanese bling is a bit extravagant? Wait until you hear about the US$15,000 diamond martini!

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In the West, Gucci or Louis Vuitton handbags ranging from US$600 to US$900 are highly coveted luxury items, though in Japan the super-rich have moved on.

On Omotesando Boulevard in Tokyo, somewhat akin to Beverly Hill’s Rodeo Drive or New York City’s 5th Avenue, Bottega Veneta handbags start at US$1,500, and can run as high as a small house in the suburbs.

And of course, if you’re sporting a luxury handbag, you should have an easy time forking over cash for the hottest and latest bling.

Last year, the rich and beautiful embraced a number of mind-blowing trends including:

– the $600 volcanic body scrub at a trendy spa in the Armani Tower in Tokyo

– the $130,000-a-night Christmas suite with jewel-studded tree in the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Tokyo

– the $100 Swarovski crystal-studded box tissue box

And…

– the $15,000 martini with a diamond at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Tokyo

Absurd. Truly freakin’ absurd.

So why do the Japanese love spending ungodly sums of money on disposable goods?

According to one ultra-rich Tokyo elite, Japanese people love to hang around Ginza, Tokyo’s most status-conscious neighbourhood, and show off what they got.

“Those people hanging around Ginza, they are just showing off. If someone has it, other people want it. That’s Japanese. The group mentality.”

He continues:

“The process of getting it, or just before getting it, is interesting. Keeping it is not so interesting,” he concludes.

So you see, there is no shortage of bling in America, be it diamond-encrusted grills or chrome spinners, but clearly the Japanese are masters in their own right.

Although I can assure you that hyper-consumption in Japan is anything but the norm, Tokyo does remain one of the world’s greatest shopping cities.

(Assuming of course that you’ve got the cash to burn!)

On the that note, I’m going to see if I can convince my local watering hole to make a somewhat more affordable cubic zirconia martini…

(Special thanks to my roommate Tac for reminding me once again why we both like to steer clear of Ginza)

**Note that the content in this article was originally reported by the Asia division of Reuters **

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Big in Japan: The world’s most expensive tuna fish

by Matthew Firestone on

Are you ready for this one?

Last week in Tokyo, a Hong Kong sushi restaurant owner paid a record $55,700 for a single bluefin tuna.

(In case you’re wondering, that’s somewhere around 6.1 million yen!!)

The record breaking fish, which was caught off the coast of Japan’s northern city of Aomori, tipped the scales at 607 pounds (about $92 per pound of flesh).

The sale took place at the first auction of the year at Tsukiji, the world’s largest fish market, which is located in Central Tokyo.

According to market officials, the record price was caused by a sharp decline in world tuna supply due to tighter international controls on the catch for bluefin tuna.

At present, the Japanese eat one quarter of the world’s total supply of tuna fish each year.

As any Japanese person can tell you, tuna are also the centerpiece of the Japanese diet. Whether you’re partial to maguro (?????; tuna) or toro (????; fatty tuna belly), one thing is for certain:

Tuna are delicious.

Of course, this why bluefin tuna will most likely be extinct sometime in the next fifty years.

It’s hard to imagine a fish like tuna becoming extinct, especially since they’ve been so abundant in the world for most of recorded history. However, numbers are falling dramatically, and it’s very unlikely that the population can sustain itself for much longer.

So, are we perhaps the last generation ever to enjoy fresh sushi?

Perhaps.

Approximately one year ago, British scientists issued a report warning that within the next fifty years, there will most likely be nothing left to fish from the sea. According to the report, nearly one-third of historical sea fisheries have already collapsed, and the rate of decline is accelerating.

The scientists, who published their findings in the journal Science, partly attributed the fishery decline to the global increase in the popularity of sushi.

Despite the demand for more tuna, bigger vessels, better nets, and new technology for spotting fish are not resulting in bigger returns. On the contrary, the global catch of blue fin tuna fell by 13% between 1994 and 2003.

Dr. Steve Palumbi, a scientist at Stanford who worked on the project, told the press: “Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the ocean species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood.”

Eeek.

Sadly, it may be to late to save the noble bluefin tuna.

However, existing bluefin tuna stocks are being plundered, with high rates of overfishing being reported by virtually every single country in the European Union.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) sets annual fishing quotas to be followed by all member countries. With that said, conservation groups are cynical of ICCAT, and are partial to calling them the International Commission to Catch All Tuna.

Whether you loved canned tuna and mayo or fresh sashimi with a splash of soy sauce, it’s probably best to just enjoy fish while they’re still around.

** All images sourced from the Wikipedia Commons project **

How to live like Matthew McConaughey

by Jamie Rhein on

Living like Matthew McConaughey may involve taking your shirt off, as Matt Damon says in his hilarious impression of the often shirtless star while Damon was a guest on David Letterman. (Here is the YouTube video. It explains why I chose the photo I did.)

Another way that is less dramatic, perhaps, is by living with a family overseas. McConaughey was an exchange student to Australia in 1988 and lived with a family who he still visits. (YouTube video)

When I was in college, I was an exchange student and lived with a family in Denmark who I am still in touch with and plan to visit again on my next trip to Europe. I have visited two times already. My Danish sisters have also visited me and my family in the U.S.

When you live with a family there is an impression about a country you can get that’s much richer from traveling there. Although Abha found Copenhagen not worth traveling back to, which I can see if I didn’t know it better, I found the Danish culture a fascinating place to hang out for awhile. When you live with a family, you get to know more about the values and psychology of a place.

I also learned how to make a deep connection with someone who didn’t share my language and I didn’t share his. My Danish father didn’t know any English and I didn’t really learn any more Danish than to say “Thank you for the meal,” “Are you cold?” and “peacock.” I also know how to make a Danish lunch.

For anyone visiting the U.S., living with an American family is a way to understand more about the complexities of American life. We’ve had Japanese exchange teachers live with us on a couple of occasions. Both times it was only for a couple of weeks, but we took them to visit my husband’s parents and each were here for Halloween.

As an adult, there are still ways you can live with a family if your exchange student days are over, although many masters’ degree programs also have programs in other countries that involve staying with families. One of my close friends studied in Taiwan and lived with a family for the summer as part of his program through the University of Southern California. The first time I went to Taiwan, I visited him. Since he was studying urban planning seeing Taipei through his lens was a bonus.

Another way is to search out home stay options. There are organizations that link visitors to families, even for short visits. Here’s one for Nepal that I found, for example.

You can also possibly hook up with an impromptu stay. When we lived in Singapore, we had a few travelers stay with us who we met while we were traveling somewhere else. When they were passing through Singapore, we invited them to stay with us. Be friendly, open, and charming as hell, and you might get lucky.

When I was in the Peace Corps some travelers wandered into my village and guess who the villagers thought they should stay with because they might be more comfortable? Here’s an account of someone who finagled a stay with a nomad family in Mongolia. This stay involved learning a bit about sheep shearing. My Peace Corps visitors ended up going with me to a naming ceremony that involved drumming and dancing. By the way, they were Italian. One of them didn’t know English.

When picking a place for your next vacation, consider staying with a family in order to learn the language better. For that purpose, here’s one in Ecuador through the Cristóbal Colón Spanish school.

Here is a link to the Danish International Student program (DIS) that gives tips on staying with a family. They are worth a look at no matter which family you may stay with, even if it’s for a night or two.

Amazing Race 12 episode 9 recap

by Jamie Rhein on

As the teams left Mumbai, India for Osaka, Japan I thought, now there’s a contrast. I haven’t been to Mumbai or Osaka, but I’ve lived in New Delhi and traveled in Japan. If you put the two places on a spectrum, they’d be at opposite ends. Smells, sounds, music styles, food, religion, dress–if you come up with a category, I can assure you that they are nothing alike.

Ah, I have one. Tea is a popular beverage and both places have a real fondness for flowers. And one more similarity. Temples are quite prominent as cultural and historical landmarks in both countries. If you want insight into the inner workings of the countries’ belief systems, the temples are a good place to start.

Japan’s organizational style seemed to suit the teams well once they got to Japan, although for most of this episode TK and Rachel weren’t featured. Since they made a mistake by going through two airports–New Delhi and Beijing– to get to Osaka, by the time they landed in Japan, it was almost dark. The moral is: Never, never, never expect that going through two airports will get you anywhere fast, particularly if one of the airports is the one in New Delhi.

The other three teams ended up on a flight that went from Mumbai through Hong Kong to Osaka which meant they hit the ground about the same time, managing to be neck and neck for a good part of the episode. The first stop was Kishiwada Castle, a majestic, pagoda style building with pristine, orderly gardens.

Built in 1547, the castle is now a folk museum. Hmmm. I didn’t see any folk art or folk artifacts, but perhaps that’s because the teams barely had time to catch their breath from hoofing around the grounds and up into the main building to find their clue that would direct them to Kanjosan Noda Station–part of Osaka’s subway system.

At the point when Nate and Jen snatched their clue out of the box, they were as happy as could be since they figured out they were in first place. Likewise Ron, still vowing to be a better father and a better traveling companion, quit chastizing Christina and let her lead the way for a change–after all, she lived in Japan before and had studied Japanese. Don and Nick , now in third place, continued along in their consistent, affable and respectful way, even though Don was beginning to feel road weary and it showed.

I did notice Nick’s smart move when he asked the taxi driver to stay and wait for them while they looked for their clue at the castle. When I lived in India I often asked the taxi I hired to take me someplace to wait. It was worth paying the extra money just to have a taxi after whatever errand I was on in order not to be left stranded.

Once at the station, each of the teams found the station cleaner person who handed them their Road Block instructions. One member from each team had to don white gloves and a hat worn by Japanese taxi drivers so they could actually become taxi drivers just long enough to take a Japanese couple assigned to their cab to the post office five miles away, drop them off and head back to meet up with their team mate. Not so easy.

In Japan traffic patterns are opposite to the U.S. and the driver’s side is on the right. Then there are the signs mostly written in Japanese and the one way streets and the roundabouts. If I was doing this leg, I would have flashed back to my high school driver’s ed nightmare.

While watching the couples patiently sitting in the back seats of the taxis I thought that it must have not been that hot in Osaka. No one was perspiring. Can you imagine what it would have been like to be the Japanese couple wondering if and when they’d get to the post office? Or what it would have been like to drive if the temperature was what it was in Mumbai?

During this task, Christina discovered knowing Japanese did not do squat. She set the windshield wipers off once and couldn’t find the key. Turns out, she doesn’t drive back in the U.S. because she doesn’t have a car.

I was totally rooting for Jen in this part of the race. She was so darned pleased with herself, and so proud of how she looked in that hat. She’s growing on me. The white gloves and hat reminded me of the airport folks who work at Narita airport. Japan is such a tidy place. Plus, she’s so polite to everyone. Notice how many times she turns to say, “Thank you?”

One snippet I enjoyed seeing during this segment was watching Don and Ron drink water and share snacks at the subway station while they waited for their team mates to come back. It was a “Since I can’t do much about anything at this point, I may as well relax” moment.

The relaxation was totally over after Jen & Nate, with Christina & Ron close behind, headed off for their second Road Block. Nick managed to get himself lost while driving the taxi, therefore arrived at the subway 10 minutes behind the other two.

I’m not sure why Don is worried about his age. Nick somehow manages to get lost during every episode. If Don had been driving, they may have fared better. Still with TK and Rachel not even in Osaka yet, what’s the hurry?

Halfway through the episode there was a shot of TK & Rachel heading through the airport in New Delhi realizing that they probably made a bad move. The first time I saw the New Delhi Airport I wondered the same thing. The lighting in that place is so funky; it can make you think something is wrong with your eye sight–plus it doesn’t really smell all that swell.

After the taxi driving, you’d think that Jen and Nate could have enjoyed their triumph. She was trying to by excitedly recounting her moves, but he was an idiot. Instead of praising her for her driving skills, he told her that he couldn’t really listen while they were taxiing it to the Kita-mido Temple, a 16th Century Buddhist temple for their next Road Block directions.

Oh, bad move. This prompted Jen to become upset and the mood chilled which they had a hard time shaking, even after they arrived first at Saera Flower Shop for the Road Block task “Sense of Smell. “

If teams picked Sense of Smell their task was to pick a real flower from the fake flowers by sniffing it out. Ron and Christina also chose the Sense of Smell. As soon as they hit the shop close behind Nate & Jen, Christina told her father to blow his nose and he did. They found their flower not long after Nate and Jen found theirs and left.

Since Nate and Jen were back in their bickering mood, they had a heck of a time finding a taxi to take them to the Pit Stop at Tempozan Park, which allowed Christina and Ron time to catch up.

For a brief while though, it seemed that Ron and Christina would lose their edge since their taxi driver was acting like he might, to use Ron’s word, croak. Now, that would have made for some interesting TV. Even more than Jen accusing Nate of shoving her. There was a repeat of that footage, and from what I could tell it was more of a nudge, as in a “Get in already, we’re in a hurry and I’m excited because we might win a million dollars” kind of nudge.

Nick and Don were also beginning to narrow the gap between the two teams in the lead and them because of their ability to get along. Nick, who by this time was carrying his grandfather’s bag as well as his own, never blamed his grandfather for their lag time which is probably why they rarely court disaster. Even though Don wasn’t thrilled with their “Sense of Touch” Road Block task of getting small robots to play soccer at the Shimojima Building, he didn’t let that get in his way of letting Nick show him what to do. This was a pretty nifty way to work in Japanese gadget smarts.

The task involved using some sort of cell phone gadget to get the robots to move. It seemed to me these two were pretty good at this task, although I couldn’t tell how long it took them to get the robots to score the two required goals. For a guy who is going to be 70 soon, Don exhibits probably the traveling behaviors that lead to success. He will admit when something is out of his realm, but will try it anyway, and eventually succeeds.

TK & Rachel, who seemed to breeze through all the tasks even though they were all done after dark, were determined to enjoy themselves whether they ended up in last place or not. They did, and they were rewarded. When they stepped onto the mat at Tempozan Park, Phil told them this was not an elimination leg. Yipee. So for one more week, we’ve found out that it does pay to be nice.

As for Ron & Christina who came in first, they each get an environmentally friendly electric car for their efforts. I wonder if Christina will sell it or use it to tootle about when she goes back home. Neither of them seemed that thrilled with their prize, but they are thrilled to come in first, something Christina attributes to Ron not being negative towards her all day which helped her to concentrate.

I wonder if TK & Rachel ever get miffed at each other? I hope they get more air time next week.

*Shots of the teams are from the Amazing Race Web site.

Big in Japan: How do you say ‘power nap’ in Japanese?

by Matthew Firestone on

In 1980s, corporate culture the world over embraced a simple and effective technique for combating fatigue – the power nap.

According to Wikipedia, a power-nap is a short sleep that terminates before the occurrence of deep sleep or Slow-Wave-Sleep (SWS), and is intended to quickly revitalize the subject from drowsiness.

The term was coined by the famous Cornell University social psychologist, Dr. James Maas.

Although they may not taste as good as a Starbucks double mocha latte, there is no denying that power naps are an extremely effective way to combat fatigue and increase performance.

Sadly, few workers in corporate America would feel comfortable resting their head on the keyboard at work, though things are all together different in Japan.

Not only is power napping completely acceptable in Japan, it’s actually encouraged by employers.

In fact, there is even a specific term to describe this practice, namely inemuri ( ????????) or literally “sleeping while present”.

And here’s the best part…

Since you spend so much time in the office that you can’t ever get a normal night’s rest, inemuri shows employers how committed you are to the job!

Surprised? So was I, though hopefully this post will help clear things up a bit!

For starters, why exactly are power naps so effective?

According to American sleep expert Dr. Sara Mednick, regular power napping is a “lifesaving habit that can help improve your health and sex life, slim the waist and boost work performance.”

In fact, a 20-minute nap can give you an amazing energy boost, even if you just close your eyes and allow your mind to take a rest.

So, if power naps are such an effective tool for increasing efficiency, than why is the practice vilified in the West and revered in the East?

Although at first it may sound completely counter-intuitive, in Japan a person’s commitment to work is judged by the frequency in which they engage in inemuri.

Since the need to indulge in inemuri is the result of working hard and sacrificing sleep at night, Japanese employers feel that it is one of the best indicators of job performance.

(Believe it or not, some Japanese people fake inemuri to score extra brownie points with their boss!)

According to Dr. Neil Stanley, a sleep expert at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital in the UK, “The Japanese are right in their assessment that you work better after a nap than before it.”

He continues: “There’s a degree of machismo about it, you’re saying look how hard I’ve worked. But that’s better than the macho rituals we have over here, like how late you can send a work email to prove how long you’ve been working.”

Of course, there are strict rules to inemuri.

For instance, only those high up or low down in a company are allowed to nap at work. And, you must remain upright at all times, which shows that you are still socially engaged.

So, the next time you’re caught getting some shut eye at work, just tell your irate boss that you weren’t napping, but rather practicing the sacred Japanese art of inemuri.