Only in... Japan

This morning, I read in the newspaper that Japan officially announced it will restart its whale hunting tradition in the Antarctic waters. Once again, they defended their practices with the claim that they do this out of scientific necessity. I was shocked; not only because of the sad contents of this very announcement, but also because the journalist claimed that Japan uses money which was donated after the tsunami disaster last year. Whether this is true or not - I guess it's hard to retrace where the money came from in the first place - it still doesn't really make sense "to put $35 million aside to protect our whale hunting vessels" (official announcement by the Japanese government). As Paul Watson (captain of the Sea Shepherd, the international agency against whale hunting) puts it: "this is an insult against all nations that generously supported Japan after the tsunami!". He is right, of course, as there is no excuse whatsoever to hunt one of the most majestic creatures inhabiting our planet. Not even ambergris can serve as a justification for this loathsome decision...

Even I feel like I'm in a (pink ginger) pickle right now. On the one hand, both Fred and I simply love Japan. The food, the movies, the cultural traditions and - let's be honest - oddities, the language, the sumo wrestling and so on. A common passion which has led to our first trip together, last year: we went to the land of the rising sun to celebrate New Year's Eve in samurai style. On the other hand, I also donated money after the disaster and the idea that I financially contributed to whale hunting pains me a lot. That is why I decided to start a new topic, in which I will try to get rid of this ambiguous feeling by gently mocking Japan and some of its typicalities.

Today, I have decided to turn my attention to J-wear. Unless you are related to Dirk Frimout or Frank De Winne, it seems rather unlikely that you are familiar with this product: J-wear refers to experimental hi-tech undies, especially designed for astronauts at a Japanese university by a team of female scientists. First of all, I find it rather funny to think about the people conducting the research which has led to this particular kind of underwear. I mean, imagine walking into your soon-to-be supervisor's office, where some hyper-enthousiastic professor is trying to talk you into optimizing underwear. You may advocate textile engineering as much as you want, but this basically amounts to investigating samples (as in 'dirty underwear') and verifying data (plotting colour versus time, I suppose). Sounds like fun!

Secondly, the product itself is a bit of a stretch itself: J-wear is (well, was, at the time) a new type of anti-bacterial, water-absorbent, odor-eliminating fire-proof clothing designed for space travel. So, this thing absorbs water, which means that we are basically talking about hi-tech diapers - right? I can live with the idea that the result should be anti-bacterial and odor-eliminating, although I do wonder whether this implies that 'basic hygiene' was cancelled from the space shuttle equation. But the fire-proof property? What the hell? We are talking about astronauts: people risking their lives in the name of science, traveling towards unknown territory in rockets. As in: things which may explode. Heavily. I seriously wonder whether these people will be able to take comfort in the fact that they can be blown to shreds - burnt to a degree which exceeds numbers 3, 4 and 5 - knowing that their balls are save. Fire-proof underwear, jay-wear!

I do hope the Sea Shepherd carries missiles. I am pretty sure whale hunters haven't heard from it...