indispensible advice from Mrs. Edo-san
and
the entertaining evesdropping of Loose Talk
ASK MRS. EDO-SAN
Educated Answers to Tokyo's Most Oft-Asked Questions
Q: In a survivalist course at my university, we were taught that 80 percent
of successful camouflage is the ability to stay as still as your surroundings.
To test this theory, I threw some soba on several members of our baseball team
and raced into the men's room where I stood quite motionless between two
urinals. But they found me anyway and beat me up. What did I do wrong?
--P.J.
- A: While my knowledge of the geography in a men's room is
sketchy at best, I will venture to say that your poor choice of hiding places
probably did you in. In any event, though there may be some practical
advantage to learning such techniques, I don't think you should make a habit of
experimenting on your schoolmates. Lucky for you, soba is light in weight and
doesn't stick to clothing. Had you thrown udon, you might really have had
trouble.
Q: I think both you and your column are
fantastic. I look forward to the start of each month and yours is the first
thing I turn to when I get my new copy of TJ. You make life in Tokyo
bearable. Thanks so much just for being you.
--S.W.
- A: What exactly is your question?
Q: My 4-year-old tabby cat
will persistently jump onto tables and sniff
at us whenever we have guests over. A friend of mine told me that a popular
Tokyo remedy to this is to put the cat in the refrigerator for a few minutes to
"cool it off." She added that her Persian can be kept in for as long as half
an hour, but after that it tends to stiffen. What do you make of this?
--S.I.
- A: I assume you are asking my opinion on this recklessly
cruel method of pet management and not on how long to keep your cat in. The
cramped living conditions in Tokyo prompt many pet owners to erroneously
believe that animals can endure proportionately closed quarters. I have heard
of hamsters kept in handbags, fish in toilet tanks, and snakes in the cardboard
center of a roll of paper towels. Not only is such treatment abusive and
immoral, but a cat in a refrigerator could create quite a difficult clean-up
job.
Send your questions to Mrs. Edo-san, c/o
Tokyo Journal, Iga Dai-ni Bldg.,
2-5-3 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150, or fax them to +81 - 3 -
3486-7341.
You can also email questions straight to Mrs. Edo-san's desk - but make sure you
state clearly in the subject line that your mail is for Mrs. Edo-san, or somone else in the
office might read it, and we wouldn't want that, now would we.
LOOSE TALK
"What are those?"
- One of the Aum children taken into
custody from Kamikuishiki when she saw a pair of socks
"Stand them
up together. They'd make a good comedy team."
- Osaka resident on
comedians winning elections for both Osaka and Tokyo governorships
"Last summer, I predicted the yen would rise to Y85/$1. I take it back.
It will go to Y70. And three years from now, it might even be as high as
Y50."
- Kiyoshi Imai, investment advisor to the Nippon Credit
Bank
"Wonder if they'll understand my Nagoya accent."
- Gin
Kanie, 102, one of Nagoya's famous centenarian twins, headed to Taiwan on her
first trip overseas
"This place is too big. I still can't find the
exits."
- New Tokyo Gov. Aoshima after a week on the job
"Your
father's confessed. Why do you insist on lying?"
- Matsumoto police, lying
to try to get Yoshiyuki Kono's 16-year-old son to say he knew his father
released sarin
"The detectives were just doing their jobs. I
can't hate them. But it would be nice to have at least a word of apology."
- Yoshiyuki Kono, after Aum became the prime police suspect in the Matsumoto
sarin case
"Different cultures. There's no way a conservative
Kansai company could understand the tinsel and bright lights of Hollywood-style
management."
- Management consultant Toshiyuki Takagi on why Matsushita
sold MCA after owning it for only five years
"I don't know."
- Gov. Aoshima when asked by an assemblyman if he knew what "Kokusai Forum" (a
new government office complex) or "Hello Work" (the new name for unemployment)
meant
"Aum is hurting the economy. Everybody's watching TV
instead of going shopping."
- Economic Planning Agency Director General
Masahiko Takamura
"My wife really bawls me out when I
come home drunk. But Mr. Kantor is pushier."
- MITI Minister Ryutaro
Hashimoto
"I'd like to talk to Mrs. Hashimoto."
- USTR Mickey
Kantor
"Right now, I'm happy to say that World War III is about to
happen."
- Aum guru Shoko Asahara in December 1994
"I'm just
an old blind man. How could I possibly be responsible?"
- Shoko Asahara
after the police arrested him, May 1995
"They could build bicycle
racing, horse racing and boat racing facilities, and casinos . . . all kinds of
public gambling. Label it Tokyo Metropolitan Leisure Land and make money off
it."
- Beat Takeshi's idea for what to do with the World City Expo site if
Gov. Aoshima succeeds in killing the fair
"America is trying to
make slaves of us, like they did to the Africans a long time ago."
- Minister of Transportation Shizuka Kamei on the proposed U.S. tax on luxury
car imports from Japan
Copyright © Tokyo Journal
