A survival skill in shrinking Japan: Learn English

Japanese billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani decided two years ago that the employees at his company, Rakuten Inc., should work almost entirely in English. The idea, he said, was a daring and drastic attempt to counter Japan's shrinking place in the world. "Japanese people think it's so difficult to speak English," Mikitani said. "But we need to break the shell."

German customs demand $475,000 for Japanese musician's violin

German customs seized a $1.2 million violin from a Japanese professional musician and are demanding she pay almost $475,000 to get it back, reports said on Wednesday. Belgium-based Yuzuko Horigome was transiting through Frankfurt Airport last week after performing in Japan, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said. When she tried to walk through the green gate for travelers arriving in the EU with nothing to declare, customs officers stopped her and said she needed to pay 190,000 euros in duty on her 1741 Guarnerius violin.

Airport Automated Face Recognition Tests Begin

A facial recognition test program began at automated gates for immigration at Narita and Kansai airports on Monday. In the tests, the faces of incoming and outbound travellers will be automatically checked against passport photographs at the immigration gates. The tests target Japanese travellers and are intended to improve the performance of the automated gate system. One such gate is installed at each of four international airports--Haneda, Narita, Central Japan and Kansai. The system has so far checked travellers’ fingerprints for identification.

Low Number of Babies Born in Japan Recorded

Fewer babies were born in Japan in the last year than any other on record, pulling down its population for the third year in a row, according to government statistics released this week. As of the end of March, Japan had more than 260,000 fewer people than a year earlier, the biggest drop of the Japanese population yet, according to Japanese media. The baby bust has continued year after year despite Japanese efforts to nudge up the numbers: The government has doled out payments for couples with children and subsidized daycare. Japanese towns publicly herald the number of local births in city signs. Engineering students even crafted a cooing robotic baby years ago in hope of setting biological clocks ticking.

Female Cops in Japan Hits Record High

The number of female police officers in Japan has hit a record high of 17,686, with women making up 6.8 percent of all police officers across the country as of April this year, a National Police Agency (NPA) report has shown. The record figures were reported in the nation's White Paper on Police 2012, which was released on July 24. Since 2002, over 1,000 female police officers have been hired each year as part of a bid to revitalize and enhance police forces across the nation. The NPA said it will seek to expand recruitment of female officers. "Female officers' abilities are utilized in investigations into sex crimes and spousal violence cases, as well as in supporting the victims of those crimes," the white paper said.

Married Women in Japan Want to Work

Married women want to work, according to a government survey that will form the basis for a 2012 white paper on children, child rearing and mothers. The survey results, released early, show an astounding 86 percent of women want to continue working after having children, though most find it almost impossible to do so. Only 11.6 percent indicated they do not wish to seek employment. Most women said they wanted to start working again as soon as possible after giving birth, though they were keenly aware of the importance of being with their young children. The largest percentage of mothers, 23.8 percent, said they wanted to start work again as soon as possible. Another 22.1 percent said they would prefer to wait until their children enter kindergarten or nursery school, and another 20 percent said they would like to start after their children enter elementary school.

Trying to Look Pretty is the Trend for Young Japanese Men

Young Japanese men are starting to resemble their female counterparts when it comes to the pursuit of beauty, with the nation awash in salons dedicated to male grooming and products such as hair removal creams, electric nose-hair trimmers and face-firming masks targeting the image-conscious man. Men in their 20s and 30s today were teenagers when the now-common expression "ikemen" - meaning a good-looking man - was a new buzzword. The advent of the term and a social phenomenon lionizing ikemen have given males of this particular age group a belief that looking pretty is pretty cool. At the same time, gaining a more attractive look is a way to compensate for a lack of self-confidence.

AirAsia Japan to Offer 5 yen Promotional Fares for Domestic Routes

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- AirAsia Japan Co., a budget airline owned partly by All Nippon Airways Co., said Wednesday it will start selling one-way tickets on its website for 5 yen for 10,000 seats on three domestic routes in a special campaign ahead of its inaugural flight scheduled for Aug. 1. The promotional tickets are available for flights linking Narita International Airport near Tokyo to Sapporo, Fukuoka and Naha in Okinawa Prefecture. The Tokyo-Sapporo and Tokyo-Fukuoka flights will commence on Aug. 1, while the Tokyo-Okinawa route will start on Aug. 3. The special tickets will be sold for four days from Thursday to Sunday for flights from Aug. 28 to Nov. 28. AirAsia Japan said the minimum regular fare for the Tokyo-Sapporo and Tokyo-Fukuoka routes will be 4,580 yen and 5,180 yen, respectively. The minimum fare for the Tokyo-Okinawa route will be 6,680 yen. Passengers will be charged an additional 150 yen in commission, the airline said.

Pet Shops Banned from Displaying Cats, Dogs after 8 p.m.

An Environment Ministry ordinance took effect Friday banning pet shop operators from displaying cats and dogs after 8 p.m. to relieve the animals of stress, following criticism by animal rights' groups of outlets that stay open until late at night. According to the new ministry order based on the animal welfare and management act, cats and dogs can be shown to customers at pet shops between 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. As a provisional measure effective for two years, the ministry allows "cat cafes," where customers can pet cats, to operate until 10 p.m. if the animals are more than 1 year old and can move freely around the premises.

Japanese men getting fatter, women thinner

Japan is facing a queer problem - men are getting fatter by the year while women are getting thinner. Latest estimates released by the country's cabinet office on Wednesday says that 31.2% men aged 20-60 years are presently obese (body mass index over 25) as against 25.3% in 1995. In comparison the ministry of health, labour and welfare's 2010 National health and nutrition survey found that 29% of women in the 20s were too thin (body mass index less than 18.5). In fact just five years before (2005), 21.9% women in their 20s were found to be too thin. (India Times, May 26) Source: http://newsonjapan.com/html/newsdesk/article/96558.php

The Worldwide Triumph of English

By GWYNNE DYER LONDON — The second president of the United States, John Adams, predicted in 1780 that "English will be the most respectable language in the world and the most universally read and spoken in the next century, if not before the end of this one." It is destined "in the next and succeeding centuries to be more generally the language of the world than Latin was in the last or French is in the present age." It was a bold prediction, for at that time there were only about 13 million English-speakers in the world, almost all of them living in Britain or on the eastern seaboard of North America. They were barely 1 percent of the world's population, and almost nobody except the Welsh and the Irish bothered to learn English as a second language. So how is Adams' prediction doing now?

Harry Potter heads to Universal Studios Japan

Harry Potter has conquered the world with books and then with movies. Now he's doing the same with theme parks. Universal Studios Japan on Thursday will unveil plans to build the first international version of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the blockbuster attraction that has drawn millions of fans to Universal's Orlando resort and is coming to Los Angeles. The Osaka destination -- expected to begin construction in the next few weeks with a planned opening in late 2014 and an expected cost of about $500 million -- brings Hogwarts Castle and rides including Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey to the boy wizard's biggest market outside of the United States. The eight Potter movies grossed nearly $900 million in Japan -- more even than in his home country of Britain. Products including magic wand chopsticks have made the Harry Potter brand Japan's most successful movie-based consumer products line of the last decade.

PayPal, Softbank to Form Japan Joint Venture, Launch PayPal Here Service

PayPal and Softbank said Wednesday they will form a new joint venture to pursue online transactions business in the country. The two companies said they will each invest ¥1 billion (US$12.5 million) in the newly established firm PayPal Japan which will be a 50:50 joint venture. The companies also said they would launch PayPal Here, a platform that uses small card swiping attachments to allow smartphones to be used as mobile credit card readers, in Japan. For Softbank, which owns Yahoo Japan, a portal with dominant domestic auction and shopping properties, the deal will provide access to an established global e-payment platform. Yahoo Japan is largely independent from its troubled cousin in the U.S.

Lady Gaga auctions teacup to help Japanese artists

TOKYO — Fans bidding in a charity online auction to buy a teacup used once by pop diva Lady Gaga had offered more than four million yen ($50,000) by Tuesday, with five days left before the hammer falls. The china cup and saucer set was used by the star at a press conference in Tokyo three months after the massive tsunami of March last year swamped a large stretch of coastline. Lady Gaga told reporters at the time that she would auction the cup, marked with her lipstick and bearing the Japanese message “We pray for Japan” along with the star’s autograph. All the money raised will be used to help young Japanese artists who want to study in the United States. The cup was put on “Yahoo! Japan Auctions” at midday Monday, with the starting price of one yen. The auction is set to finish midnight Sunday.

EU and Japan to Make the Internet Safer for Children

Europe and Japan will work together on a strategy to make the Internet safer for children and teenagers. The new strategy was announced by Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes on Wednesday. On Thursday, she met with Tatsuo Kawabata, Japanese minister for Internal affairs and Communications to discuss how the European Union and Japan could collaborate on such plans. Although the strategy is for industry self regulation, the digital agenda spokesman said in an email that the European Commission would intervene if self regulation does not deliver. However "a regulation-only approach would fail," he said. Apple, BSkyB, Dailymotion, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netlog, Nintendo, Nokia, Research In Motion, Samsung and Vodafone have all signed up to the initiative, which aims to improve content for children and create a safer online environment.

Bank lending growing fast in Tohoku region

Bank lending is growing faster in the Tohoku region than in other parts of the country, according to data released by the Bank of Japan. At the end of March, the lending balance in the Tohoku region was 4 percent higher than a year earlier, against the national average increase of 0.9 percent, the central bank said Wednesday. Tohoku municipalities are increasingly borrowing money to fuel reconstruction following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, said an official at the bank's Sendai branch. By contrast, the Kinki region has recorded 44 consecutive monthly falls.

Sumida River to light up with LED fireflies

By MAAYA KONAGAI Staff writer Japan isn't a difficult place to live. If you want to eat Mexican food, there are Mexican restaurants. If you want to buy brand-name British clothes, there are shops and websites that deliver. So Tokyo Hotaru Festival asks the question: What does Tokyo, where you can get anything, really need now? The answer, organizers say, has to do with a return to the past. Long ago, the Sumida River, which runs through Tokyo's east end, was one of the life sources of the community. The Hotaru Festival will try to draw attention to an effort by locals to beautify the river and its precincts. As May 5 is Children's Day in Japan, there will be a lot of activities for families to do by the river.

Twitter introduces brand pages in Japan, a first for Asia

Twitter first launched brand pages in the US in December last year and four months later the advertising feature has come to Japan, the first market in Asia. DoCoMo, the country's largest mobile operator, national retailer Lawson and Warner Entertainment Japan are the first companies that will take advantage of the pages, according to the Twitter Japan blog [Japanese], via Asiajin. It's of little surprise that Twitter has chosen Japan as its third market to launch brand pages - behind the US and the UK, the latter of which got the feature in February - as the micro blogging service has been a runaway success in Japan. Twitter has broken into the mainstream in Japan which, in a country that has traditionally preferred domestic services to those from overseas, is quite an achievement. Last year Twitter founder Jack Dorsey took stock of its remarkable growth, which began by allowing Tamagotchi owners to feed their pets more easily, before becoming (arguably) Japan's most popular social network. Proof of Twitter's appeal in Japan came last year when Mixi, which has been the country's leading social network for some time, announced an advertising partnership with Twitter to help combat the growing threat of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg's service has taken its time to grow, but the last six months saw its membership double to reach 10 million members in the country.

Fortunetelling addiction spreads among the insecure

Chiyoko Osaki married a man after a fortuneteller said he was a good match. The marriage soon fell apart. She initially turned to her parents and friends for advice on building a solid future and career, but she soon found herself returning to the soothsayer. Although counselling is available from both public and private organizations, many people in these unpredictable economic times are looking to divination for solutions to their problems, as well as specific advice for marriage, work and future plans. As could be expected, the number of problems concerning fortunetelling has also risen Many people become addicted to fortunetelling because they have been exposed to it through TV shows and magazines since they were very young, said Hiroshi Watanabe, a lawyer. He has handled cases involving fortunetelling and fraudulent sales of goods or services claimed to bring supernatural benefits to the purchaser. Fortune tellers have long been working on the streets of Japan. But with the nation’s economy still sputtering along, the Internet has become inundated with sites providing fortunetelling services over the phone or through e-mail.

Maid cafe waitresses show off their scientific know-how

Girls dressed in French maid outfits running craft classes on soldering, of all things, might seem like something out of Japanese anime. But this is Akihabara, Tokyo's "Electric Town," and home to all things anime and "otaku," meaning geeks. The workshops are the brainchild of electronics parts retailer Wakamatsu Tsusho Co. Akihabara has long been home to many electronics parts shops. But nowadays, it also serves as "ground zero" for otaku culture and attracts thousands of enthusiasts of anime, videogames, cosplay and other pop culture trends. Wakamatsu came up with the idea of craft classes run by waitresses in maid costumes to revive interest in the science behind electronic gadgets. The company, established 36 years ago, hosted a free craft session in March at Akihabara Network & Embedded Technology Center, Akiba NET-kan, in the Sotokanda area of Chiyoda Ward. In addition to Wakamatsu Tsusho workers and specialists close to Japan's leading semiconductor manufacturer, Renesas Electronics Corp., it included Erika Kurosaki and Shion Arimura from Togenkyo maid cafe as instructors to offer tips on soldering. Twelve people, ranging from a 6-year-old girl, who is set to attend elementary school this spring, to a 62-year-old man, joined the session. After they were given basic tips on soldering, they worked on a heart-shaped circuit board to complete an LED flasher that plays music.