Categories
Kirainet

A Geek in Japan – The book, on sale from June 9th!

I’m very happy to announce that my book, A Geek in Japan, will be finally available in English from June 9th. A Geek in Japan (Un Geek en Japón in Spanish), whose Spanish version has been on sale since 2008, is a best-seller in Spain and is in its fifth printing. It has been translated into 8 languages and has sold more than 40.000 copies worldwide. “A Geek in Japan”, the English version, is brought to you by Tuttle Publishing; it is an updated and revised version of the original Spanish book.

“Everyone who is interested in Japan will find this book fascinating”
Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle Corporation

“A combination of a likeable personality and a highly inquisitive mind have helped Hector penetrate the often difficult-to-understand layers of seemingly contradictory elements that make up modern Japanese culture. As a geek with an eye for aesthetics and photography, Hector is able to explain his findings in a clear and funny way. Hector’s book is one of the funniest and yet very accurate descriptions of modern Japanese culture that I’ve ever seen.
Highly recommend!”
Joi Ito, director of MIT Media Lab

The book will be availble in bookstores in English speaking country and also in Japan. If you can’t wait the book is already available for pre-orders on Amazon.com.

Thanks to all the readers of this blog and special thanks to all the people commenting, your comments have helped me a lot to learn about Japan and its culture.

More information about the contents of the book here.

Categories
Various

Mysterious Godzilla package in the office

Godzilla

Source: Reddit

Categories
Trains

Kyushu Shinkansen

On March 12th, the day after the terrible earthquake hit Japan, the Shinkansen line in Kyushu whose construction was started in 2008 started to operate. It was one of the Shinkansen lines yet to be inaugurated to “complete” the Japanese bullet train network, which has been under development since 1964 when the first high speed commercial rail line in the world connected Tokyo and Osaka. The technology behind high speed trains is a symbol of progress and national pride for the Japanese people.

The inauguration of this new Shinkansen line couldn’t be celebrated at the time, to keep respect to the victims in Tohoku. Almost a month and a half later, JR (Japan Railways) decided that it was time to celebrate and show the world that the Japanese people when united can achieve almost anything.

“They took special efforts to film it, and 10,000+ people showed up at various places along the route, hoping to be in the commercial. They filmed 3 hours of tape, and edited it down to 3 minutes, which the director said was extremely difficult, because everything was so good that they didn’t want to leave anything out. It aired maybe a dozen times, and then the disaster struck, and the commercial was pulled, as it was thought that it was bad to show people happy and having a good time in such a difficult time. Recently though, people have begun to wish for the commercial to be shown again, as it’s a good example of how Japan can do anything when people work together, and people can and will strive again.”

Source: Japanprobe

Other posts related to Shinkansen