Bijin-tokei

By reading The Nikkei Weekly, the English version of Japan's financial newspaper, I've learned one recent fad in Japan.

A website called Bijin-tokei features a photograph of a Japanese bijin (good-looking girl) showing the current time written on a chalk board. It automatically renews the photo every minute so the website does work as tokei (clock). According to the Nikkei Weekly, the website attracts 370 million hits a month.

It's also available as an iPhone app, a Google gadget, or a Dashboard widget for Mac OS.

This is very Japanese. I just laughed out loud when I read the Nikkei Weekly article about this website.

What's more, the website recognizes where you are on the earth. I'm in Stockholm and the bijin shows the Central European time instead of the Japanese time.

If you are an anti-sexism Swede, don't worry. There is a male version called Binan-tokei as well. :)