Ayashii World: Japan's Hidden News Network

THIS PROGRAM IS CANCELLED. IT WILL NOT HAPPEN. SORRY Tourism Ministry proposes to invite 10,000 foreign tourists to Japan, paying all travel expenses Aiming to recover Japan’s tourism industry, which has suffered badly from the Great East Japan Earthquake, the Tourism Ministry has proposed to bring 10,000 tourists from all over the world to visit Japan for free in 2012. Prospective tourists will apply mainly through an Internet application. Those…

In the middle of this month, the town of Ofunato in Iwata, badly damaged in the Great East Japan Earthquake, was visited by 16 German university students and lab workers with their families, who volunteered in the town for half a month of rubble-clearing and visits to evacuee facilities. In the wake of the disaster, many Germans left Japan fearing contamination from the TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. But this…

Entrants for Japan’s Paper Arts Prize were on display in a Tokyo gallery this week, including an arrangement of folded paper that attracted 2channel’s attention: “Unopened Flower” The other entries are no less stunning: Note that an exact mirror image of the piano is on the other side of the sculpture! Original source: Itai News (Japanese)

SHINSEN, CANTON, CHINA– A boy plotting to end his life by jumping from a bridge abandoned his plan after being discovered and kissed by a girl who saw him while passing by. Pretending to be the boy’s girlfriend, the clever girl drew notice for her “courageous deed”. The story is being widely reported throughout China. June 11th, 2011. A 16-year-old boy was ready to jump from a pedestrian crossing. A…