世論 What Japan Thinks

Good news: this month has seen the submissions for the Japan Blog Matsuri double!
Bad news: doubling two only gives you four!

However, I also have a volunteer to host next month’s Matsuri, and I’ll introduce him along with his entry towards the end of the article.

First up is Juice from the blog Juice on Japanese Girls with his entry on #Getting the digits#, an article on how to use your mobile phone to aid your chat-up attempts on Japanese girls. I must be getting old as I barely understand the English on that page!

To tell the truth, I was rather reluctant to accept this entry as I felt it was not quite “proper”, but on further consideration I decided that it was just me being rather old-fashioned about the whole affair. I’ve since read more of the site, and whilst being happily married I personally don’t find anything useful there, perhaps it might be of interest to others. Let me or Juice know what you think!

Next up is Jan Kuczynski from Wireless World Japan on the latest “mobile phone plus …” item, with this time the plus being a smoke detector. Rather pricey at 16,800 yen excluding mobile phone and service contract, but perhaps there might be a use in buildings where you can’t easily run a standard telephone line to.

James from Japan Probe provides us with video of ear-cleaning gadgets and salons. Apparently Japanese tend to have dry wax, so they can pick out gunk easier, or something. Having had my ears cleaned more than a few times, I can attest to the standard bamboo pick being extremely unpleasant, regardless of the lap my head may be in! Has anyone Western with wet wax tried out these fancier gadgets to see if the can cope with gaijin gunk? If you want a clean ear, however, the cheapest way (although there’s no lap to lie in) is to visit your local ear, nose and throat and get your tubes unblocked by a pro.

Finally, we have our volunteer victimhost for next moth’s Matsuri, Bill Belew at PanAsianBiz and Rising Sun of Nihon (and probably a few other places too) with the smallest gadget for the month, Hitatchi’s microscopic RFID chip, at a mere 0.05 millimetres square. Reading his site I spotted a lead to an interesting survey I missed! Thanks.

So, next month the Japan Blog Matsuri will be hosted over on Rising Sun of Nihon (I hope!) and once Bill decides on a topic, I’ll naturally post a reminder here too. Good luck Bill!