· March, 2009

Stories about Japan from March, 2009

Japan: Tourism videos

  30 March 2009

Edo from Pink Tentacle introduces a series of official tourism videos produced by the city of Hakodate. The videos are about aliens invasion of the city.

Global Recession Survey: Survival Tips and Business Opportunities

  27 March 2009

Everybody is trying hard to cope with the global economic crisis. Bloggers are offering survival tips to their readers. Businesses around the world are adjusting. Some are even profiting from the crisis. In this post, I will feature individuals and companies exerting their very best to overcome the recession.

Japan: Italian news commentary in Japanese

  21 March 2009

Italian comedian and opinion-leader Beppe Grillo's blog [ja] is the only blog that is translated into Japanese (and English), presenting Italy from an unusual perspective. In his blog, he also hosts the translated version of journalist Marco Travaglio‘s weekly talks on the misdeeds of the current Italian government [it].

Japan: I wanna know America!

  18 March 2009

Koichi (耕一), a webdesigner living in Oregon (U.S.A.), tells about American culture, people, food, language and much more at his personal website Koichiben: Amerika ga shiritai (コウイチ弁、アメリカが知りたい lit. Koichi dialect: I wanna know America). Writing and video-blogging in Japanese, he proposes every time a new interesting topic with the aim of...

Japan: Sri Lanka, Somalia, us? The government?

  18 March 2009

Ryutaro Yanagawa (柳川龍太郎) in his podcast program Nekura Nomikon Onvoice (ネクラのみ来ん on voice) [ja] reflects upon issues related to Japanese foreign politics. In the last episode, the podcaster invites us to not forget those areas of the world, such as Darfur or Sri Lanka, that too rarely are the centre...

Japan: The work of art in the age of digital reproduction

  18 March 2009

A cross-generational debate over the value of art, and culture in general, has arisen among users of the social bookmarking service Hatena. The debate, originated by an anonymous entry titled: ehm… Isn`t it weird the idea that we have to pay money for music?, has brought many bloggers to ask...

Global recession and its discontents

  13 March 2009

Today the world seems flat. From Asia and Africa to Europe and the Americas, the people of the world are experiencing the traumatic effects of a global economic recession. This post is an attempt to describe the social impact of the great financial crisis as seen and felt by ordinary citizens around the world.

Japan: On Twitter, nobody knows you're a bot

  12 March 2009

“On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog.” -- The words of a well-known adage dating back to a New Yorker cartoon from 1993 capture the anonymity people generally expect from online communication. This week a new take on this adage hit the Japanese blogosphere when a blogger discovered that two of his closest friends on Twitter were actually bots designed as part of a programming contest.

Japan: Link Spam

  12 March 2009

Motoko comments on Google's decision to punish Google Japan for paying bloggers to promote their new “hot new keywords” by links.

Japan, Brazil: Crisis puts an end to the dream of a better life

  11 March 2009

After 30 years of a strong immigration trend from Brazil to Japan, young Brazilians who have crossed the ocean in search of a better life are now leaving their adopted country. It is estimated that between 40,000 and 50,000 Brazilians have lost their jobs and, unable to compete in the shrinking Japanese job market, have decided it is time to make the journey back home.

Japan: Making money thanks to the economic crisis.

  10 March 2009

If on one hand libraries and newspaper kiosks overflow with books and magazines that examine, analyze and comment on the current economic recession hitting Japan, then on the other hand, many people have begun to think that, if there are losers (layoffs and companies in the red), there must also...

Japan: The end of Bloomberg TV in Japanese

  4 March 2009

Kawase Madoka (為替 円) expresses surprised [ja] at the halt of Bloomberg Television's Japanese channel starting from the 30th of April. The blogger, who participated several times in seminars organized by Bloomberg, and who used to follow with enthusiasm the morning news, is sorry to learn about the end of...

Japan: To you who will graduate this year

  3 March 2009

Spring is fast approaching, and in Japan that means two things: the fall of cherry blossoms and the start of the new school year, which coincides with last year's graduates joining the workforce. One blogger and university professor posted a letter to a student which struck a drew a huge reaction among Japanese bloggers. The first line of the letter begins, "To you who will graduate this year"...

Japan: Why do Japanese work so hard?

  1 March 2009

Japanese blogger id:eliya, who is doing economics research abroad, writes that he is often asked by colleagues why Japanese work so hard [ja]. Referring to economics professor Masami Nomura's book, “Employment Instability” (雇用不安) [ja], he explains that Japanese work hard basically because the penalty for being fired from your job...