Posts Tagged ‘Japan’
“Rice is great if you’re really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something”*…
Rice is the most widely consumed staple food for a large part of the world’s population, especially in Asia and Africa. It is the third most widely-cultivated staple crop worldwide, after maize/corn and wheat… and it is notoriously difficult to prepare correctly on a stove…
Cooking rice on a stovetop can be fraught. Add too much water and you end up with porridge. Without a keen sense of timing, you end up with undercooked [pellet-like] grains…
The automatic rice cooker is a mid-century Japanese invention that made a Sisyphean culinary labor as easy as measuring out grain and water and pressing a button. These devices can seem all-knowing. So long as you add water and rice in the right proportions, it’s nearly impossible to mess up, as the machines stop cooking at exactly the right point for toothsome rice. But creating an automatic rice cooker was not so easy. In fact, it took decades of inventive leaps, undertaken by some of the biggest names in Japanese technology…
How the biggest names in Japanese technology fought to make rice easy: “The Battle to Invent the Automatic Rice Cooker.”
* Mitch Hedberg
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As we ponder the pursuit of perfection, we might recall that today is National Potato Day– a celebration of the fourth most-widely cultivated staple crop.
“Cleanliness is next to Godliness”*…
Around this time of year, a coveted prize is awarded within a niche industry in Japan: the Laundromat-of-the-Year-Award (pdf). It’s presented at an industry fair in Tokyo known as the International Coin-Operated Laundry EXPO where excellence in laundromats are recognized within 3 main categories. There’s a top prize, a prize for best design and a prize for best user experience…
Meet the honorees: “Winners of Japan’s 2019 Laundromat of the Year Award.”
* John Wesley
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As we pre-soak, we might recall that it was on this date in 1934 that the Maytag company produced the first “Maytag Toy Racer,” a one-passenger automobile sold mainly to Maytag dealers, who raced them to promote the brand. 498 Maytag Toy Racers were built before production ended on December 1, 1941, and approximately 25 survivors have been located to date.
“Three matches one by one in the night”*…
Japanese match book covers… Many more at Agence Eureka.
(via Tyler Hellard‘s always-enriching Pop Loser)
* “Trois Allumettes,” Jacques Prevert
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As we close the cover before striking, we might recall that it was on this date in 1890 that the Meiji Constitution went into effect in Japan, and the first Diet convened. Modeled on both the Prussian and the British models, the Meiji Constitution provided for a form of mixed constitutional and absolute monarchy that lasted until 1947. In practice, the Emperor was head of state, but the Prime Minister was the actual head of government.
“Meiji Constitution Promulgation,” by Toyohara Chikanobu
“I am a ruin myself, wandering among ruins”*…
The abandoned Hachijo Royal Hotel on the island of Hachijojima
Japan is in some sense uniquely blessed as a land of ruins. Its rapidly aging population, low birth rate, urbanization and lack of immigration have left a legacy of ghost towns and more than 8 million abandoned homes, or akiya. That tally could hit 21.5 million, one-third of all residences nationwide, by 2033, according to the Nomura Research Institute.
Abandoned homes are ubiquitous in rural Japan, posing health and safety hazards to locals, but they can even be found in central Tokyo, vacant edifices that for whatever reason owners refuse to demolish and rebuild.
In addition to the scourge of abandoned homes, Japan is dealing with lingering effects of the asset-inflated bubble economy of the 1980s and 1990s that saw the construction of numerous hotels, theme parks and other leisure facilities that went bust when the bubble burst. Some money-losing facilities, including the ill-fated Canadian World in Ashibetsu, Hokkaido, themed on the popular “Anne of Green Gables” novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery, were rehabilitated into public parks. But in all too many cases, others were left to rot…
More on the “ghost towns” of Japan at “The lure of Japan’s mysterious ruins.”
* Heinrich Heine
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As we keep our ear peeled for echoes, we might we might send majestic 100th birthday greetings to the U.S. National Park Service; it was founded on this date in 1916.
“The sweat of hard work is not to be displayed. It is much more graceful to appear favored by the gods.”*…
If riding a giant log down a steep mountain sounds like an ideal way to spend a quiet spring afternoon, the Onbashira Festival is for you. Held every 6 years in Nagano, Japan, the festival involves moving enormous logs over difficult terrain completely by hand with the help of thickly braided ropes and an occasional assist from gravity as the logs barrel down hills. The purpose is to symbolically renew a nearby shrine where each log is eventually placed to support the foundation of several shrine buildings. The event has reportedly continued uninterrupted for 1,200 years…
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More at: “A Glimpse into Onbashira, the Dangerous Japanese Log Moving Festival.”
* Maxine Hong Kingston
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As we fulminate on flumes, we might recall that it was on this date in 1940 that the Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies animated short “A Wild Hare”– the first “official” Bugs Bunny cartoon– premiered (though readers will recall that Bugs [or at least, his prototype] made his inaugural screen appearance two years earlier). Directed by Tex Avery, “A Wild Hare” was nominated for an Academy Award.
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