Don’t you wish you were a student in Japan? After seeing this article I know my kids would, lol.

Handheld game consoles are great to pass the time, but in Japan, teachers use them in the classroom. According to a report by the AFP, several instructors have launched pilot school programs that involve handheld gaming devices like the Nintendo DS and the Playstation Portable. It seems teachers feel gaming is a good way to engage children born in the fast-moving digital age. Kids love learning through games so much that they even started attending Saturday morning classes for extra credit

Click here for the full article.

Konnichiwa minnasan! Hisashiburi desu. Genki deshita ka? I am sorry for my absence from Japancast. Gomenasai. I have been busy for a while and I hope to begin posting stuff again here. And I have many podcasts to catch up on. I hope you all are well. As for any newcomers to the site, I shall introduce myself. Watashi wa Ophelia desu. Douzo yoroshiku:)

I saw this article at forbes.com and found it interesting so I’m sharing.

This is a picture of Akira Mori, who at present time is considered the richest person in Japan.
With a net worth of $5.5 billion, Akira Mori is 69 years old and married with 3 children. He’s one of Tokyo’s biggest real estate developers. He’s head of Mori Trust which owns 44 office buildings and 8 residential properties. That’s just a couple of his business ventures.

Japan is full of rich people. According to this article, Japan’s richest in 2007 are poorer than last year yet… they are still rich, lol. Richer than me and probably you, lol. Out of the 40 richest of 2007 in Japan, their net worth equals about $79.2 billion. Yeah, I could definately buy some new shoes with that money, lol.

Click here for the full article and the top 40 list.

Recently I watched the Oscar winning movie called Nobody Knows. A total chick flick, this movie is good. This movie will make you cry and get you very angry due to the fact that it’s based on true events in Japan.

A mother of 4 children secretly moves 3 of them into an apartment at the beginning of the movie. She only tells the landlord about her oldest child. Tells the kids pretty much to stay out of view so that nobody knows that they live there. She leaves them home all day in the hands of the oldest who is only 12 years old while she goes out for days, weeks, months on end leaving the kids with only some money and no way to contact her.

I remember when I first saw this movie for sale at yesasia.com a few years back. I wanted to get it then but sometimes yesasia’s prices are steep. So, I recently rented in at Blockbuster.

The movie is in Japanese with english subtitles. It was filmed over a year’s time so you actually see the kids grow a little throughout the movie, thus making the emotional impact hit very close to home. So, get you some popcorn, diet gingerale or tea or whatever you drink, a soft place to sit (it’s 2 hours 19 minutes long), and a box of tissues, and watch this movie…

I highly recommend this movie. I like movies in Nihongo period because anytime you listen to them, you’re going to inadvertantly brush up your listening comprehension. But, even for those who are not interested in learning Japanese, I still recommend this movie because it is such a tear jerker, and because it’s based on a true story.

BTW, Susumu Terajima is in this movie. You will recognize him from Moon Child as Shinji (older brother to Sho with the limp). He’s in everything in Japan. When I was in Tokyo back in 2005, I saw him quite a bit on cable tv.