Rest in Peace Japanese?

The AFP reports that Japanese students “rush for English-language education,” which would be a dramatic reversal of the trend of the past few years among young people to show less interest in foreign countries and cultures. The article features ridiculous quotes by novelist Minae Mizumura.

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Kjeld Duits • Friday July 3, 2009 • Society • Add Comment [1]

Companies Causing a Wave of Change in Japanese Agriculture

Amid growing concern about food safety and the nation’s low food self-sufficiency ratio, agriculture has recently attracted a lot of attention in Japan. Here we would like to give an overview of the current situation of the nation’s food supply and agriculture, and outline some new trends and future prospects. The increasing interest in agriculture centers around three major issues: the low percentage of food self-sufficiency, the deterioration of farming communities, and food safety concerns.

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Kjeld Duits • Tuesday June 23, 2009 • Society • Add Comment [1]

Japanese Reaction to Flu Was Way Too Sensational

I wrote an article about the Japanese reaction to the H1N1 Flu for Dutch media. Hereby an English translation.

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Kjeld Duits • Saturday June 13, 2009 • Society • Add Comment

We are only a sort of They

Fellow correspondents tell me that they are noticing the same trend that has been worrying me for a while: newspaper editors seem to increasingly see Asia as a far-away place that doesn’t really need that much attention. “Those Asians, they are so different from us, their experience doesn’t relate to our daily life,” some seem to think. That of course, is a very limiting way of thinking. Some one hundred years ago, British author and poet Rudyard Kipling beautifully expressed how They are really Us:

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Kjeld Duits • Wednesday May 20, 2009 • Society • Add Comment

Flu Epidemic Attacks Japan

click to see slideshow

The streets in Ashiya, a small town bordering Kobe, are surprisingly quiet. “It is like New Year’s Day,” says a young mother wearing a mask. “This is to protect my daughter,” she explains as she points at her mask. “She is at home as her school is closed all week.” As the H1N1 flu is now spreading much faster as authorities had expected, more than 4000 schools were closed in Hyogo and Osaka prefectures. Many museums and companies followed suit, leaving streets and trains far more quiet than is usual for a week day.

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Kjeld Duits • Tuesday May 19, 2009 • Society • Add Comment

Japan's Pandemic Reaction is "Exaggerated"

Japan’s pandemic reaction is “exaggerated” compared with other countries, says Hitoshi Kamiya, chairman of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry’s committee on vaccinations in an interview with the Japan Times.

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Kjeld Duits • Tuesday May 19, 2009 • Society • Add Comment

Commercial Appetite and Human Need: The Accidental and Fated Revival of Kobayashi Takiji's Cannery Ship

Japan’s best-known proletarian novel, Kani Kosen (depicting conditions aboard a crab-canning factory ship operating off Soviet waters) by Kobayashi Takiji (1903-1933), enjoyed an utterly unanticipated revival in the course of 2008.

Many attribute the revival of the novel to the deepening impoverishment of the ranks of the irregularly employed, now widely said to account for one-third of the work force. The majority of the latter earn less than two million yen per year. It is their increasingly insistent presence that has given such terms as “income-gap society” (kakusa shakai), “working poor” (waakingu pua), and more recently, “lost generation” (rosu jene) widespread familiarity.

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Norma Field • Tuesday March 17, 2009 • Society • Add Comment [2]

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