Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
Heisuke Kitazawa installing his show at Giant Robot 2 that opens this saturday. He’s a talented and perhaps underrated artist, at least in America and here’s some quick questions and answers with him. The music intro and outro by Goh Nakamura
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Troubled for sure, Hideki Irabu, 42 was found dead in an apparent suicide on wednesday in a Palos Verdes home. (why did the news just come out?!) He was often spotted in Torrance and was rumored to have owned a failed shop called Super Udon. Of late, the ex pitcher was seen playing in super minor league baseball in Southern California, and was trying to get back into the game. Irabu was part of an early wave of Japanese pitchers and was highly touted. He played on Yankee championship teams, yet by the end of his career, he was an outcast. He did make a brief come back with the Japanese minor league team, Kochi Fighting Dogs, which was short lasted. (SI – Hideki Irabu)
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By today’s fast-moving internet news and media standards, this is an old story. We first read about it in the online English edition of Japan’s Daily Yomiuri one month ago. Nevertheless, this story is important because it concerns likely human rights violations in Japan, one of the most economically- and technologically-advanced countries on the planet. Based on an article published by the Daily Yomiuri, and a more recent piece published just over a week ago by the New York Times, it has become apparent that the United States’ State Department considers Japan’s foreign trainee program to be harmful for most of its foreign participants, and in some ways very similar to human trafficking. The program, which is run by the Japan International Training Cooperation Organization (JITCO), is designed to recruit foreign nationals primarily from China and countries in Southeast Asia who want to learn technology and language skills by doing hands-on work for companies in Japan. It is currently estimated that 190,000 such foreigners participate in the program, mostly working in factories and on farms where they are reportedly subjected to substandard working and living conditions. According to the Daily Yomiuri, the majority of the mainland Chinese applying for the program are financially exploited by Chinese brokers in Japan, who typically charge fees of $1,400 or more so clients can secure a place in the program. And once placed with employers in Japan, many program participants have reported having passports and travel documents confiscated, and their movements and attempts at overseas communication monitored or restricted. The U.S. State Department considers factors such as this indicative of on-going human rights violations, which is whyJapan has received a Tier 2 “Watch List” rating in the most recent U.S. Trafficking in Persons Report. Sadly, this is the seventh straight yearJapan has gotten this rating in this annual State Department document. You can read the preliminary Daily Yomiuri piece about this situation here, and read the more in-depth New York Times article about the JITCO program here.
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Opulence. This Japanese bento box has it. And it is being offered for sale by high-end department store chain Takashimaya as this year’s osechi, or New Year’s meal set. Yes, for a mere $229,000, buyers of this special three-tiered bento box can partake of a rich tradition of eating special foods at the new year, which in Japan dates back to the late 8th century. It’s just that in this case, while the foods in the box will be of exceptional quality, their expense will pale in comparison to the hand-crafted 18-carat gold box in which they will be contained. About 3,300 grams of gold will be formed into the box shape by famous Japanese goldsmith Koichi Ishikawa. The elaborate surface design, which incorporates leaves, grapevines and grapes, will be carved into each tier of the golden box by Hoseki Okuyama, a sculptor who has been designated a living national treasure by the Japanese government. For those who have the disposable income, Takashimaya will start accepting orders for this amazingly elaborate meal set this October. But even for the wealthy, securing a set may still be a challenge, as only three are scheduled to be made. This is a pretty amazing thing, particularly when one considers how distasteful the Japanese find obvious displays of wealth. And as far as we’re concerned, this beats the cost and extravagance of any meal we can recall reading about in the Nieman-Marcus Christmas Book. (Wall Street Journal Japan RealTime – Costly Golden Bento Box)
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