It’s remarkable how a Google image search for “anthony weiner twitter” produces such a rich set of visuals that tells more than enough: vanity, tears, arrogance, underpants, wife, user-generated content, hairless muscular chest, high school photo, the american flag. Of course he’s now finally heading for therapy and its inevitable political outcome, rehab. Godspeed, Mr Weiner, and thank you and Google for making our world more louche and understandable.
Lee Tadanari (李 忠成) is super-famous now in Japan, as one of the top scorers in Japan’s recent Asia Cup soccer tournament championship. I first noticed him on TV last nite in the return-home footage on the news. Despite the flight from wherever, Lee-san’s orange hair stood proudly high as his country (and a few foreign perverts) welcomed his return.
Apparently, Lee is 4th generation “zainichi,” or Korean-Japanese. I love his extreme vanity, and daring with hair color on and off the playing field.
Asahi newspaper explains that this young man is enduring a cold waterfall at Osaka’s Shoukouji temple (勝光寺) on the last day of 2010 to ask for spiritual intervention to secure a job. I wonder if he’s not just flaunting his body with “training” a euphemism for exhibitionist masochism. (Thanks to husband for providing this important news image and story).
Whatever the story is, I can imagine no better image to start off the new year.
Happy 2011 everyone!
If you spend as much time online as me, some of your closest friends are online only. Every day you visit their blog, read about their adventures, and feel that you are learning something about another person who in some ways shares your city or world.
Without any notice, right after the new year started, Nearly Asian, my favorite foreign blogger in Tokyo, disappeared. When I click my bookmark, I get a Blogger page in Japanese saying that it’s now private and can only be accessed by those who email him. Of course I don’t have his email. In fact, his was the only blog I followed that accepted *no* comments.
What are his newest obsessions? Does he still post daily? Will I never hear more strange stories from him?
For those of you who don’t know Nearly Asian, he described himself as a 20-something, half-Japanese creative professional living in trendy Shimokitazawa. His daily stories included his office, Tokyo events, and biking. But mostly they revolved around his obsessions with the older office lady, the flight attendant, and the other hapa he met biking.
Most peculiar were two contradictory threads. Nearly Asian was an avowed chikan. A chikan is someone who commits a crime by inappropriately touching women in crowded trains. His most over-the-top post involved his story of joining the crowds on Emperor’s Day, and, unhhhh, to put it more modestly than he did, leaving his fluids on a woman’s back. That she didn’t immediately call the cops, or punch him, raised issues of credibility, yet somehow the sheer perversion of the story had me even more hooked than ever.
The contradictory occasional theme was that he’s a born-again Christian. Ah, one of *the* three most popular American stereotypes held by Asians (that we are all fat, smell bad, and are religious freaks). Every time he brought it up, I was nauseated, but at the same time, it added to the perversion of his persona.
So why did the blog disappear? Did his mother/cousin/co-worker/bike crush learn his identity and read his blog? If anyone knows, please leave a comment (or email me directly). I also wonder if I may have met Nearly Asian in person a year ago through mutual friends.
Is anyone else suffering from the sudden and inexplicable disappearance of an internet friend?
Tokyo Moe 