Take Prime Minister Taro Aso. He's made so many public blunders that an opposition lawmaker tried to give him a reading test during a televised session of parliament.

The Japanese leader bungled the word for "frequent," calling Japan-China exchanges "cumbersome" instead. Another time, he misread the word "toshu" (follow), saying "fushu" – or stench – and sounded as if he were saying government policy "stinks."

While the media and Aso's political rivals have been quick to heap ridicule, many Japanese have seen a bit more of themselves in Aso's goofs than they would like to admit. Since his missteps, books designed to improve reading ability have become all the rage.

Aso's nemesis is his mother tongue's notoriously tricky mishmash of Chinese characters and its two sets of indigenous syllabaries.

Here is what he – and all Japanese – are up against.

Just reading the newspaper requires knowledge of about 2,000 characters. Another 50,000 are less common but useful to recognize.

And that's just for starters.

Most characters have several different pronunciations depending on the context. For instance, the two characters in the prime minister's surname can be read several ways. The first character, which means linen, is pronounced "asa" or "ma." The second – meaning life, raw, or to occur or grow – can be pronounced "nama," "sei," "sho," or "ki," to list just a few possibilities. And together, they are pronounced "Aso" (Ah-so).

During last month's televised parliament session, opposition lawmaker Hajime Ishii chided Aso for his stumbles, saying: "We'd better discuss Chinese characters."

Then holding up a cardboard panel with a list of a dozen words, he asked: "Can you handle them?"

Aso refused to take the impromptu test, but Ishii didn't back down. "Today, those who can't read Chinese characters are scoffed at, and people are rushing to buy textbooks," he said. "Perhaps you deserve credit for boosting their sales."

Literacy-boosting books are selling briskly. One titled, "Chinese Characters that Look Readable but are Easily Misread," released a year ago, has sold more than 800,000 copies – most of them since Aso's mistakes first got national attention in November, said Yukiko Sakita, a spokeswoman for Futami Shobo Publishing Co.

"We owe a lot to Prime Minister Aso," she said. "Many people don't want to make mistakes like his."

The book has held the top spot in the weekly best-seller rankings compiled by Japan's largest distributor, Tohan Co., since the beginning of this year, ahead of "The Speeches of Barack Obama," which ranked second for weeks before falling to 17th this week.

"A text like this holding the No. 1 spot is extremely unusual," said Tohan official Hiroki Tomatsu. "As far as the book ranking is concerned, Mr. Aso beat Mr. Obama."

Gossip magazines have compiled lists of words Aso has misread and blamed the prime minister's love of comic books, or "manga," for his weakness. "Manga brain," one magazine lamented. At a school in Aso's hometown, Fukuoka, children who make reading mistakes are called "little Taros."

Aso's gaffe over Japan's relationship with China occurred in a speech in November, when instead of saying the countries' exchanges were "hinpan," or frequent, he proclaimed them "hanzatsu," or cumbersome.

His most embarrassing stumble, however, was over the word "unprecedented," which takes three Chinese characters to write. He read the third character incorrectly, saying "mee-zoh-you" instead of "mee-zoh" – such a basic mistake that it would turn a high school kid's face red.

Aso may be trying too hard, said Finance Minister Kaoru Yosano, respected statesman and grandson of a renowned poet.

"Some people just fall deeper into trouble the harder they try," he said.

Some pundits have acknowledged Aso isn't alone in the struggle with the written word.

"It's not just Aso," columnist Kenichiro Horii wrote in a recent issue of the Weekly Bunshun magazine. "I feel awkward ridiculing someone else's reading mistakes. Haven't you made mistakes in the past, too?"

According to a 2007 government survey, one-fifth of Japanese 16 or older often encounter Chinese characters they cannot read, while one-third have trouble writing them without looking them up. Nearly half said they still need to master the 2,000 characters considered necessary for daily life.

"Japanese is difficult," the best-selling primer on reading said. "But we don't want to humiliate ourselves in public."

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This would definitely enable us to have some kind of free energy. Frankly, I don't know any person in this world that doesn't produce some type of poop or urine. Some people are just full of it.

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The poll showed that while 50% of the Japanese people surveyed feel friendly toward Koreans, only 41% of Koreans feel the same.

But when asked to name the strengths of the other Country, here's what they had to say:

So does this mean the Japanese are truly friendlier? Or just indifferent?

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PS: Please excuse us as we try to figure out what's happening to our post thumbnails.

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According to the story, Jesus had come to Japan when he was 21. He assumed a new name, Daitenku Taro Jurai and learned Japanese. He gained an affinity to the Japanese people. I mean who wouldn't right? It seems that everyone who goes to Japan seems to become enchanted by life there.

Eleven years later, he returns and is beset upon by the Romans. Now here's where we go different here. But the Romans instead, got the wrong man and crucified his apparently adopted brother, Isikuri, to the cross. Jesus fled to Japan and spent the rest of his days there, living until the age of 106 and having 3 daughters.

I say judge for yourself. Could they really be the last descendants of Jesus?

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Believe it or not! Found via Cereal Wednesday.

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Random Japanese funeral arrangement

According to reports, police have begun questioning colleagues of 60-year-old Seiji Sakumoto, who was hospitalized on November 18, 2007 when his coworkers hoisted him up in the air in celebration…then forgot to catch him. As a result of the fall, Sakumoto sustained neck and backbone trauma, paralyzation (loss of limb use), and respiratory failure. He died on September 2008 due to blood poisoning as a result of his injuries.

The wife has filed complaints accusing three of Sakumoto's subordinates of gross negligence. Police are now planning to establish a criminal case against them since they have already confessed to the allegations. More people are believed to have taken part in the incident, but seeing as how the majority of the attendees were drunk, the police may have a hard time getting others to even remember what happened, let alone admit guilt.

Representatives of the transportation company Sakumoto worked for in Ritto have replied saying:

While the mourning family maintains that this could have been prevented, perhaps this is simply a new retirement plan in testing for the company. With the economy in its current state of recession, instead of paying out benefits and having to buy cheap, gold-plated watches, maybe the company will just start offing their employees as they get older.

This is yet another reason to appreciate those bargain-basement retirement gifts.

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I somehow think that the quote from Vice Foreign Minister says it all: “Hoshino is very popular and she’s been overseas many times. I hope she excels in the role.” I'm sure the fact she's been overseas has quite a bit to do with it.

I have to say this article was fun to research, since I got to see a lot of interesting pictures of her. I'm still shaking my head over this. I just find it funny how beautiful women find themselves in the oddest roles in Japan.

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Let me repeat that.

A Japanese woman has been arrested for the virtual murder of her fake online husband.

Tomari Mayumi, a 43 year old piano teacher from Miyazaki, was arrested Wednesday and is currently being held in Sapporo under charges of using the credentials of her online spouse in order to access his account and kill off his character in the online game Maplestory.  Apparently, her "husband" had "divorced" her, which drove her to commit this untextable act of pseudo-violence.

If convicted of the charges, our lovesick cyber-murderess faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $5,000.

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