h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

'Japan has the highest concentration of centenarians in the world; there being 25,000 in a population of 127 million. The oldest person in Japan was 120-year-old Shigechiyo Izumi who died in 1986. By 2050 the number of Japanese centenarians is expected to rise to one million. The average life expectancy for Japanese women is 85.6 years; for men it is 79.6 years'.

I would re-order this slightly, to read:


Japan has the highest concentration of centenarians in the world; there being 25,000 in a population of 127 million. By 2050 the number of Japanese centenarians is expected to rise to one million. The average life expectancy for Japanese women is 85.6 years; for men it is 79.6 years. The oldest recorded Japanese person was 120-year-old Shigechiyo Izumi who died in 1986.

BTW was Shigechiyo I a man or a woman?

A12590462 - for ease of navigating to Japan

Nother

Updated

Looking good Opti .

If you're going to add the bit about Total Quality Management which I mentioned in Post 199, it might be best coming after the section on car manufacture.

I've been thinking about that car section and been wondering whether to cut it back to just a little footnote, a link and the word car instead. what do you think?

Yes, some of it is a bit specialised and could do with their own Entries, e.g. 'Drifting'

Jst give me a minute...

Overcrowding in Japanese cities has led to strict restrictions on the size of vehicles, and the Japanese have therefore pioneered very compact city cars.
Nowadays, the Japanese companies, Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Mazda are among the most successful car companies in the world, doing very well in America and Europe as well as in Japan. During the 1970s and 1980s Japanese cars were often cheaper, more reliable and better equipped than their competitors, leading to the joke (Spoonerism)that it is 'raining Datsun cogs'.


(I think this is the place to insert something about the influence of Total Quality Managemnent. I'll get back to you on this once I've checked on what I wrote above.)

Indeed, perhaps the car manufacturing industry was the driving force for the Japanese implementation of 'Total Quality Management'<LINK http://www.vanderbilt.edu/Engineeri...Sloan/web/es130/quality/thetool.htm systems in manufacturing (I'll have to check on whether this is the case or not). Tools that the Japanese have invented to facilitate this includeare Ishigawa Diagrams and Tamaguchi (spelling!) Diagrams, named after their inventors. This has enabled the Japanese to 'stun the world' with their ability to produce a range of top quality products, noyt just cars!) at competitive prices.

Well, that link worke in post 119. You'll have bto fiddle with the 'LINK' coding to get it to work I think.

I meant Post 199

I don't think the overcrowding of japanese cities has a lot to do with the size of the cars here , I think its the width of the roads , ie my road outside my house is only 3mtrs wide and that is often normal around the houses

Big Al but I think you got your wires crossed. I've now reduced it to one word, a link and footnote and I have got your total quality management link in.

Ref what I was saying about 'High Tech Loos from Post 132 et seq - I think I need to eat my words! There was a feature article on bidets in today's Daily Mail newspaper (UK). It's about a high tech paper-free bidet toilet at Saki - a Japanese erestaurant in Smithfield, London.

The female reporter says,

'... ended up road-testing the lavatorial equivalent of NASA's Space Shuttle. In place of the toilet roll, there was a control panel. Instead of a sign requesting that ladies please use the bin provided, there was a set of laminated instructions.
You sit down and use the loo as normal. The technology kicks in only when you are perched on the seat; which, incidentally is heated... And then I had a choicew: press 'bidet' or 'wash'. Not knowing which was which, I threw caution to the wind and experimented.
The former was a more gentle affair, as a mellow jet of water shot upwards towards my rear. The latter involved an extended, shower-like spray head and was rather more ... bracing.
Suitably cleansed, I was then to activate the dryer, which was pretty damn industrial - like having your backside blown about by a vicious yet strangely pleasant gust of warm air.'

Saki claims to be the first commercial establishment in the UK to install paperless topilets so beloved of the Japanese (Apparently 70% of the households in Tokyo have one). (Must remember to ask Taamyu about this


'

No loo roll? But what if you want to pick/blow your nose? Touch up your lippy? Dunno about you fellas but us girls do lots of things in the ladies, not just pee 'n poo.

>> but us girls do lots of things in the ladies

is that why girls always go to the toilet in pairs ?

Iv'e got that kind of toilet it's the normal thing to have plus we have an auto light on fixture ie any movement in the toilet and the light comes on sad huh.

Forgot to mention when we flush, the water going into the cystern via the indented top cover you can or should wash your hands with it meaning you are allready using the water to wash your hands before it goes into tne cystern.
We are supposed to be number 1 in reciclable cant do that word
country in the world
I have worked out the road size too
nothing to do with cities all to do with selling the rice fields without changing the roadsides width in the countryside.

Five years ago when I was building this house I noticed that they were building a new wing three floors to the local elementary school little did I realize that it meant 10 new classes for the kids that were going to be born or live in this quite valley.
Now Iv'egot 9 new houses touching my land n boy this year sure has been noisy with all the nail guns working in every direction.
Me? just wanted a quite retirement

Just e mailed taamyu so she may come back soon .
I like to think I live in the countryside and last week I measured my mother inlaws road outside their gate the house was built 43 yrs ago the road is 2 point 75 mtrs wide I also asked my wife how her father worked the tambo fields before the tracter she said they used a cow to pull the plow .
Now like Iv'e tried to say before their are hundreds of new houses in this my valley n the devellopers ? bought the tambo fields but didn't increase the road size so all the roads around here and I beleive all over Japan cause my hobby is riding a motorcycle long distance are very narrow less than 3 mtrs wide only the main roads are normal ie two way or duel carriegeway if its a toll road.
If you travel alone from Nara to Tokyo its cheaper to take the train than go by car because of toll road prices
My old Japan road atlas book quotes reguler car costs 23 yen per kilo on the toll road but I know its gone up since it was published 20 yrs ago.
Just trying to tell it like it is, sorry but for me its hard work trying to find the correct keys on a japanese keyboard