A Japanese Yokozuna

For the past 3 days, Japan has been getting ready to welcome the 72th Yokozuna. The media has been reporting on his life and the glorious process of being crowned a Yokozuna. There hasn't been a Japanese-born Yokozuna in the past 19 years so Japan is very happy. One cannot help but notices the repeated emphasis the media takes to stress that this is finally a Japanese-born Yokozuna. 

Door-up the train platforms!

Of the number of people who fell onto tracks (excluding those who had committed suicides), 56% of them were reported to be drunk. Japan's railways are notorious for the open platforms which see many fall off onto the tracks, purposely or accidentally. The best way to prevent such accidents from happening is to put sliding doors on platforms. But to date, only about 7% of the nation's stations have platform doors. The main reason for this is the high cost of installing doors on existing platforms. It is reported that it cost ￥2b for each station to be fully installed with doors. To 'door-up' all the stations on JR Yamanote Line will cost a whopping ￥5.5t The cost goes not only to the installations but also the beefing up of the platforms to withstand the heavier loads of the doors.
Another difficulty that stations faced is the different designs of the trains of the different railway companies. Trains have different numbers of doors on each carriage. Some have three exits while some have only two, which means that one set of sliding doors does not meet the requirement of all trains. To overcome this problem, some stations installed multiple sliding doors that can cope with the different configurations. To overcome the high costs, the authorities are testing out sliding doors which are lighter so that there is no need to beef up the loading limit of platforms. Currently about 665 stations nationwide are 'doored-up'. Tokyo hopes to bring that number to 800 in time for 2020.

New Year Tuna

Victory's been declared yet again this year by Sushi Zanmai! The price tag for the 2017 New Year's Maguro? ￥74,200,000 (about USD640,000)

Singles Christmas

In a survey conducted among 600 participants of age 20s and 30s, 52.2% of those surveyed are said to be spending this Christmas alone. More and more young Japanese are spending their Christmas alone, instead of with family or loved ones. This has prompted a new industry targeting these singles. There is even a name for this group of singles, called Kuribochi.

Platform Danger

It was reported that an estimated 3,730 people fell onto train tracks this year. The number of people who fell onto tracks exceeds 3,000 yearly. A study on these accidents has revealed that a majority of these cases (56.2%) was attributed to drunks and people who had been intoxicated. As the year ends, many Japanese will be out drinking and partying. December has always been the month with the most cases of track accidents. Train stations are already taking steps to prevent people from stumbling or falling onto the tracks from the platforms. In recent years, the facing of the benches on platforms have been repositioned. Security cameras have also been set up to identify individuals who may fall.

Blue lights on train platform

(Saw this in a variety show last night)

In Tokyo train stations, you may have come across blue street lamps on some open platforms. These are said to help discourage people from committing suicides on the tracks. Since these lights have been set up, suicides rates on these tracks have been estimated to drop by as much as 80%.
Blue lights are claimed to have a calming effect on people. In some parks, blue lights are used to discourage crimes too.

No Greetings allowed

The management of a particular mansion in Kobe city has come up with a very particular rule recently, in response to feedback from the residents there. The new rule states : No Greetings Allowed. Residents are forbidden to greet each other as they go about their daily affairs. This is all done in the name of security as some residents feel that it may be dangerous for children to greet and talk to strangers.
Strange, you think? Not until you run a search on the net and realised that many Japanese living in apartments and mansions are finding it stressful and troublesome to greet their neighbours. A strange trend indeed.