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/ 11 January 2008
Dressed in dark cotton robes, a bracelet of prayer beads hanging from his wrist, Gugan Taguchi certainly looks the part. But, as he kneels to chant a sutra before an altar in the corner of the room, the people around him continue to chat and his rhythmic prayers can only just be heard above a Blue Note jazz track.
The days of a guaranteed pain-free visit to the dentist may not be far off, thanks to a petite Japanese woman in a pink sweater called Simroid. With a limited vocabulary and a strange complexion, the 160cm-tall humanoid robot is happy to feel your pain. Simroid, who will be used at medical schools, releases a clearly audible ”ouch!” whenever a trainee dentist touches a nerve.
As the guardians of Japan’s revered national sport, sumo wrestlers are used to their share of pushing and shoving. But now it is sumo itself that is taking a public battering. Police have launched an investigation into the sudden death of a teenage recruit, allegedly at the hands of his stable master and fellow wrestlers.
After years of relative calm, the yakuza have recently captured the public imagination in Japan. Shoko Tendo’s story, <i>Yakuza Moon: Memoirs of a Gangster’s Daughter</i>, has become a surprise bestseller in Japan in 2004, shining a light into a dark and little-understood corner of modern Japan.
The Japanese Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, sent his country’s wartime victims a defiant valedictory message on Tuesday when he visited a controversial war shrine on the anniversary of Japan’s defeat by the Allies. Victims of Japanese wartime aggression condemned his trip to Yasukuni.
The Bank of Japan raised interest rates from zero for the first time in six years, in a move that reflected growing confidence in the country’s economic recovery. The nine members of the central bank’s board voted unanimously in favour of a modest rise of a quarter of a percentage point.
A day of panic selling in the world’s financial markets on Tuesday knocked off the price of a barrel of oil, provided the sharpest one-day fall in gold for 13 years. Amid growing fears that rising global interest rates could bring a halt to the boom in asset prices of recent years, the toughest day for Japan’s Nikkei index since the 9/11 terrorist attacks was followed by extreme nervousness in European markets.
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/ 17 February 2006
Hitomi Terada is in the mood to shop. The 18-year-old has no credit card and very little cash on her, but that doesn’t matter: all she needs to shop at her favourite mall is the cellphone that rarely leaves her sight. Two or three days later the goods arrive at her home, along with the bill, which she pays at her local post office.
Japan was plunged into political turmoil this week when the Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, was pushed into calling a snap election that risks destroying his party. The crisis was prompted by radical plans to privatise the post office, which Koizumi has put at the heart of a structural reform programme.
On French fries it takes some beating. On salads it is palatable, in small doses. But straight from the bottle? Japan, a country not immune to some unusual gastronomic quirks (squid-flavoured ice-cream, to name but one), is hooked on vinegar, and without a shaking head or screwed-up face to be seen.