April 26, 2014 at 12:02 pm (Japanese health)
I’ve found two totally different explanations for this:
– The Japanese are still basing what they say on the traditional lunar calendar of 28 days per month (perhaps simplifying from the traditional 10 months and 10 days saying)
and/ or
– The Japanese count from the last period rather from the first missed period
April 25, 2014 at 8:35 pm (Japanese history, Japanese transport)
The word rickshaw comes from Japanese “jinrikisha” (human powered car) and the first (pulled by man) ones were invented in Japan in around 1869, before the technology and the name spread around the world – the kind of Walkman of their day.
The invention seemed to be due to a unique combination of factors in Japan at that time: the scrapping of the Tokugawa rule against wheeled transport, the import and then mastery of western wheel technology, and the lack of horses to take advantage of those two other things.
April 21, 2014 at 8:00 am (Japanese crime and punishment, Japanese laws and rules)
e.g. 7 years for growing your own weed…
Here are some explanations from a very interesting Japan Times article on the history of cannabis in Japan:
‘Following the country’s defeat in 1945… the U.S. authorities occupying Japan brought with them American attitudes toward cannabis. Washington had effectively outlawed cannabis in the United States in 1937 and now it moved to ban it in Japan. In July 1948, with the nation still under U.S. occupation, it passed the Cannabis Control Act — the law that remains the basis of anti-cannabis policy in Japan today.
There are a number of different theories as to why the U.S. outlawed cannabis in Japan. Some believe it was based upon a genuine desire to protect Japanese people from the evils of narcotics, while others point out that the U.S. allowed the sale of over-the-counter amphetamines to continue until 1951. Several cannabis experts argue that the ban was instigated by U.S. petrochemical interests in a bid to shut down the Japanese cannabis fiber industry, opening the market to man-made materials such as polyester and nylon.
Takayasu locates the cannabis ban within the wider context of U.S. attempts to reduce the power of the Japanese military.
“In the same way that U.S. authorities discouraged kendo and judo, the 1948 Cannabis Control Act was a way to undermine militarism in Japan,” he says. “The wartime cannabis industry had been so dominated by the military that the Cannabis Control Act was designed to strip away its power.”’
Japan Explained FASAQ 