Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

AND LO.

It rises from the ashes, like a kind of phoenix with one wing missing, bumping into walls as it flies away into the night. Grossly capitalising on the F-list celebrity paparazzi photo of toilet-cubical cocaine abuse SEMI FAME of my previous website, I’ve started a new one with a slightly different twist. What was once yongfook.com - a diary website detailing the swift decay of my life and ability to function in normal society due to exile in a small, isolated Japanese village - is now NEW! YONGFOOK.com, a diary website detailing the mind-boggling array of Japanese foods that are either morally wrong in terms of the endangered species’ genital content used in the ingredients OR just plain stupid in terms of concept and packaging design OR horrifically un-delicious OR SOMETIMES a tantalising combination of all of these factors wrapped up into one ultimate end of level boss one-punch-kills death food.

“But why?”, I hear someone say, far in the back.

Well, as some of you may remember, my old website was home to a small number of food reviews dotted amongst the last year of diary entries. These were light-hearted looks at some foods that I personally found either interesting or disgusting, and proved to be a welcome change of pace to my usual diary entries, most of which tended to follow this simple pattern:

• Recount amusing anecdote. • Contrive events in however tenuous a way to fit in funny observational reference to either John Carpenter’s The Thing, or Dune. • Add throwaway gag about small penises.

Eventually though, the honeymoon period of CrAzY LiF3 iN J@pAn came to an end and things worth mentioning became harder to come by. Yawnsome hackneyed anecdotes such as “Hahaha I messed up my Japanese and said CUNT instead of Hamburger!!!!” become boring after a short while and I feel there is now too much of that kind of guff on the intArweb for me to be bothered to try and distinguish myself over. In addition, the cyclical nature of a school working year means that whilst in your first year on the JET programme you get to experience a lot of interesting stuff, in your 2nd and 3rd year you end up doing a lot of the same things over again. This is not to say these repeated acts no longer become interesting, but they become less noteworthy on a diary that was essentially about “hilarious” fish-out-of-water antics in an upside down world of crazy new shenanigans.

This left me with a couple of options.

1) Start “breaking character” and not criticising everything under God’s sun, and instead spending entire entries pontificating on some heron I saw gracefully perched on a shopping trolley pushed into a river encapsulating in one image the tired Japan Blog Journey of Discoveryâ„¢! “Japan is SOOOOooo urban vs. natural! At least, more than my hometown in Shitsville, Texas, anyway” cliché of which there is faaaaar too much of on the internet as it is. Independent studies have shown that there are now more photos of Japanese wild animals in “ironic” urban settings (bird sitting on scaffolding, fish driving a bus etc) taken by Liebowitz-wannabe JET programme participants than there are pictures of lesbian porn. That’s just wrong.

2) Just outright venting and/or posting up emotionally charged entries such as “ALL CHILDREN MUST BURNNNNN” or “I’M EATING PINS. I’M EATING PINS AND THERE IS NO ONE HERE TO STOP ME”

But of course it all didn’t matter anyway as it all went tits up a few of months ago and my entire life imploded before my eyes in a kind of spectacularly public fashion. Thus, I start afresh with a new topic and a new site design, pushing what actually ails me in a human sense deeper into my cold, black, emotionally unavailable heart.

“But why FOOD??” I hear you mutter still, through jam-covered mouths.

Well, Japan is a veritable treasure trove for people who love to try new foods. Not only because it has a long, offal-ridden history of being the BEST country at eating disgusting foods when measured against our prudish western standards, but also because Japan’s snack food product cycle is VIOLENTLY active. New products are released and old ones are abandoned with such frequency that I could have a convenience store sabbatical for a couple of weeks, go back into one and be faced with a store full of products I have never seen before. Its this kind of dedication to the fickle Japanese consumer which I can rely on to provide me with new material to write about and never ever see the end of, at least until my body starts to fight back against all the crap I’m putting into it and I suffer a massive heart attack, slip into a coma and die on my computer, hands still clutching the chocolate-mayo doughnut sandwich with Real Beef â„¢ that sent me over the edge.

So what kind of changes can you expect? Well for one you might notice that all the articles now have bloody great big pictures. This is because I want you to experience the goods reviewed in all their gelatinous, crunchy insect-filled glory.

Structurally, things have also changed, in terms of the site layout and the way products are reviewed. Since this site is now dedicated to the review of these goods as opposed to using them as a device to draw attention away from the fact that nothing actually interesting is happening in my life, the criteria used when reviewing them will be standardised for each review. Each product reviewed from this entry onwards will be given marks out of 5, according to:

Appearance

Taste and Smell

Fear Factor

Health Implications

With a final score out of 5, as a rough average of those factors. Its safe to assume that now more than ever, this site is going to either terrify you beyond ever wanting to visit this country in sound mind, or fuel out of control your maniacal, sadistic enthusiasm for coming here, like dropping a neutron bomb on a bus full of children playing with grenades. Thanks for coming back. Group hug. Touch my balls.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 1st, 2005 at 1:26 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.