工場萌

き‐ざ・す【兆す／^×萌す】

［動サ五（四）］
１ 草木が芽を出す。芽生える。「新芽が―・す」
２ 物事が起ころうとしている気配がある。心の中にある感情や考えなどが生まれる。「日射しに秋の色が―・す」「淡い恋心が―・す」
[補説]とがって芽生えるものが現れ出る意の「牙(き)差す」からとも、また「気差す」の意からともいう。

工場萌え

冒着白煙的巨大煙囱、迷宮一樣的喉管布陣、夜間射燈下的工廠投影，一座座冰冷卻帶神秘感的工廠景觀，已經成為日本人至潮觀光點。這股現象稱為「工場萌」，即「對工廠景觀的愛好行為」。工廠迷紛紛組團到工業區拍照，政府更推出工廠旅遊指南，將工業城鎮變成旅遊資源。
五年前《關西Walker》雜誌推出一輯當地工業區夜景照，展示了工業區獨特景觀。兩年前，攝影師石井哲更把他在網誌分享的日本各地工廠相片，輯錄成寫真 集《工場萌》，大賣四萬冊，正式引爆工場萌熱潮。同年千葉縣政府舉辦首次「工廠觀光試點旅遊團」參觀製鐵廠，僅三十個名額，但報名的多達一百六十五人，大 半是女性。大阪和川崎等地亦先後組織類似觀光團，每次報名人數都超額六倍以上。不少工廠迷表示：「工廠造型就是美」、「外形夠陽剛」、「看來很科幻」。
依戀往昔 重拾安心感覺評論家山田五郎認為，現今很多事物因電子化變得又小又輕，雖然方便但總令人不安。日本人迷上工廠這些經濟起飛時期的巨大建築，反映他們依戀往昔「努力成果」和「進步」均可被目睹的時代，透過壓倒性的存在感和質感，重拾安心感覺。

資料來源：東方日報

編譯陳世欽／報導】 2011.01.31 03:32 am

日本近來出現一種新型旅遊，愈來愈多人，迷上發電廠、煉油廠、液態天然氣儲存槽與其他煙囪設施。他們對工廠內部興趣不大，而是愛上建築外觀的美，尤其是工廠夜景。最怪的是，愛看工廠的人多半是女性。 這種新趨勢甚至催生了一個新日文字「工廠萌（迷戀工廠）」。旅遊業者打造的觀光船賞工廠夜景行程，經常一推出就被「秒殺」，國會議員開始提議讓一些有歷史的工廠申請世界遺產，神奈川縣川崎市等四大工業城市甚至將在下月舉辦「工廠夜景峰會」，討論擴大這股熱潮活絡當地經濟。 39歲的電器零件推銷員塚崎直美自稱每個月至少前往工廠參觀一次。她表示：「映襯著藍天，怎不令人震撼？」許多工廠萌更愛晚上也不停運轉的工廠，聲稱可讓人體驗到獨特的氣息與聲音，還有夢境般的照明。 川崎市一位觀光部門負責人說：「由於能體驗一種非日常空間的氛圍，使身心得到放鬆，參加者中65%是女性。」該市最熱門的工廠遊行程就是乘遊船從海上欣賞工業區，每次船票發售都在十幾分鐘到幾天內被搶購一空。 在日本，「工廠萌」最初只是一種次文化，最近開始獲得廣大迴響，導致各地工廠意外成為新興熱門景點。不同於參觀豐田汽車廠之類的傳統工業觀光客，工廠萌對 工廠內部構造與設備並無太大興趣，足以令他們熱血沸騰的是工廠外觀錯綜複雜的碩大管線，或噴出濃煙的圓柱形煙囪等龐然大物。 不過，這股工廠萌趨勢背後，也凸顯日本製造業不景氣，促使工業城被迫轉型。日本經濟陷入長期衰退，加上低成本的亞洲其他工業基地相繼崛起，許多日本工業城都想另闢財源，盼發展工業旅遊。

日本年輕人難為

The Great Deflation

In Japan, Young Face Generational Roadblocks

Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg News

University students took part in the Mynabi Job Expo, a job fair hosted by Minichi Communications in Tokyo in January.

By MARTIN FACKLER

Published: January 27, 2011

TOKYO — Kenichi Horie was a promising auto engineer, exactly the sort of youthful talent Japan needs to maintain its edge over hungry Korean and Chinese rivals. As a worker in his early 30s at a major carmaker, Mr. Horie won praise for his design work on advanced biofuel systems.

The Great Deflation

Generational Barriers

This series of articles examines the effects on Japanese society of two decades of economic stagnation and declining prices.

Related

• S.&P. Downgrades Japan as Debt Concerns Spread (January 28, 2011)

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Junji Kurokawa/Associated Press

Graduates waited last Saturday to attend a company’s briefing session during a job fair in Tokyo.

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Chao-Yang Chan for The New York Times

Quitting in Frustration Kenichi Horie moved to Taiwan two years ago to study Chinese.

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Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

Part of an Underclass Since graduating in 2004, Kyoko has held six low-paying jobs.

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But like many young Japanese, he was a so-called irregular worker, kept on a temporary staff contract with little of the job security and half the salary of the “regular” employees, most of them workers in their late 40s or older. After more than a decade of trying to gain regular status, Mr. Horie finally quit — not just the temporary jobs, but Japan altogether.

He moved to Taiwan two years ago to study Chinese.

“Japanese companies are wasting the young generations to protect older workers,” said Mr. Horie, now 36. “In Japan, they closed the doors on me. In Taiwan, they tell me I have a perfect résumé.”

As this fading economic superpower rapidly grays, it desperately needs to increase productivity and unleash the entrepreneurial energies of its shrinking number of younger people. But Japan seems to be doing just the opposite. This has contributed to weak growth and mounting pension obligations, major reasons Standard & Poor’s downgraded Japan’s sovereign debt rating on Thursday.

“There is a feeling among young generations that no matter how hard we try, we can’t get ahead,” said Shigeyuki Jo, 36, co-author of “The Truth of Generational Inequalities.” “Every avenue seems to be blocked, like we’re butting our heads against a wall.”

An aging population is clogging the nation’s economy with the vested interests of older generations, young people and social experts warn, making an already hierarchical society even more rigid and conservative. The result is that Japan is holding back and marginalizing its youth at a time when it actually needs them to help create the new products, companies and industries that a mature economy requires to grow.

A nation that produced Sony, Toyota and Honda has failed in recent decades to nurture young entrepreneurs, and the game-changing companies that they can create, like Google or Apple — each started by entrepreneurs in their 20s.

Employment figures underscore the second-class status of many younger Japanese. While Japan’s decades of stagnation have increased the number of irregular jobs across all age groups, the young have been hit the hardest.

Last year, 45 percent of those ages 15 to 24 in the work force held irregular jobs, up from 17.2 percent in 1988 and as much as twice the rate among workers in older age groups, who cling tenaciously to the old ways. Japan’s news media are now filled with grim accounts of how university seniors face a second “ice age” in the job market, with just 56.7 percent receiving job offers before graduation as of October 2010 — an all-time low.

“Japan has the worst generational inequality in the world,” said Manabu Shimasawa, a professor of social policy at Akita University who has written extensively on such inequalities. “Japan has lost its vitality because the older generations don’t step aside, allowing the young generations a chance to take new challenges and grow.”

Disparities and Dangers

While many nations have aging populations, Japan’s demographic crisis is truly dire, with forecasts showing that 40 percent of the population will be 65 and over by 2055. Some of the consequences have been long foreseen, like deflation: as more Japanese retire and live off their savings, they spend less, further depressing Japan’s anemic levels of domestic consumption. But a less anticipated outcome has been the appearance of generational inequalities.

These disparities manifest themselves in many ways. As Mr. Horie discovered, there are corporations that hire all too many young people for low-paying, dead-end jobs — in effect, forcing them to shoulder the costs of preserving cushier jobs for older employees. Others point to an underfinanced pension system so skewed in favor of older Japanese that many younger workers simply refuse to pay; a “silver democracy” that spends far more on the elderly than on education and child care — an issue that is familiar to Americans; and outdated hiring practices that have created a new “lost generation” of disenfranchised youth.

Nagisa Inoue, a senior at Tokyo’s Meiji University, said she was considering paying for a fifth year at her university rather than graduating without a job, an outcome that in Japan’s rigid job market might permanently taint her chances of ever getting a higher-paying corporate job. That is because Japanese companies, even when they do offer stable, regular jobs, prefer to give them only to new graduates, who are seen as the more malleable candidates for molding into Japan’s corporate culture.

And the irony, Ms. Inoue said, is that she does not even want to work at a big corporation. She would rather join a nonprofit environmental group, but that would also exclude her from getting a so-called regular job.

“I’d rather have the freedom to try different things,” said Ms. Inoue, 22. “But in Japan, the costs of doing something different are just too high.”

Many social experts say a grim economy has added to the pressures to conform to Japan’s outdated, one-size-fits-all employment system. An online survey by students at Meiji University of people across Japan ages 18 to 22 found that two-thirds felt that youths did not take risks or new challenges, and that they instead had become a generation of “introverts” who were content or at least resigned to living a life without ambition.

“There is a mismatch between the old system and the young generations,” said Yuki Honda, a professor of education at the University of Tokyo. “Many young Japanese don’t want the same work-dominated lifestyles of their parents’ generation, but they have no choices.”

Facing a rising public uproar, the Welfare Ministry responded late last year by advising employers to recognize someone as a new graduate for up to three years after graduation. It also offers subsidies of up to 1.8 million yen, or about $22,000 per person, to large companies that offer so-called regular jobs to new graduates.

But perhaps nowhere are the roadblocks to youthful enterprise so evident, and the consequences to the Japanese economy so dire, as in the failure of entrepreneurship.

The nation had just 19 initial public offerings in 2009, according to Tokyo-based Next Company, compared with 66 in the United States. More telling is that even Japan’s entrepreneurs are predominantly from older generations: according to the Trade Ministry, just 9.1 percent of Japanese entrepreneurs in 2002 were in their 20s, compared with 25 percent in the United States.

“Japan has become a zero-sum game,” said Yuichiro Itakura, a failed Internet entrepreneur who wrote a book about his experience. “Established interests are afraid a young newcomer will steal what they have, so they won’t do business with him.”

Many Japanese economists and policy makers have long talked of fostering entrepreneurship as the best remedy for Japan’s economic ills. And it is an idea that has a historical precedent here: as the nation rose from the ashes of World War II, young Japanese entrepreneurs produced a host of daring start-ups that overturned entire global industries.

Entrepreneur’s Rise and Fall

But many here say that Japan’s economy has ossified since its glory days, and that the nation now produces few if any such innovative companies. To understand why, many here point to the fate of one of the nation’s best-known Internet tycoons, Takafumi Horie.

When he burst onto the national scene early in the last decade, he was the most un-Japanese of business figures: an impish young man in his early 30s who wore T-shirts into boardrooms, brazenly flouted the rules by starting hostile takeovers and captured an era when a rejuvenated Japanese economy seemed to finally be rebounding. He was arrested five years ago and accused of securities fraud in what seemed a classic case of comeuppance, with the news media demonizing him as a symbol of an unsavory, freewheeling American-style capitalism.

In 2007, a court found him guilty of falsifying company records, a ruling that he is appealing. But in dozens of interviews, young Japanese brought him up again and again as a way of explaining their generation’s malaise. To them, he symbolized something very different: a youthful challenger who was crushed by a reactionary status quo. His arrest, they said, was a warning to all of them not to rock the boat.

“It was a message that it is better to quietly and obediently follow the established conservative order,” Mr. Horie, now 37, wrote in an e-mail.

He remains for many a popular, if almost subversive figure in Japan, where he is once again making waves by unrepentantly battling the charges in court, instead of meekly accepting the judgment, as do most of those arrested. He now has more than a half-million followers on Twitter, more than the prime minister, and publicly urges people to challenge the system.

“Horie has been the closest thing we had to a role model,” said Noritoshi Furuichi, a 25-year-old graduate student at the University of Tokyo who wrote a book about how young Japanese were able to remain happy while losing hope. “He represents a struggle between old Japan and new Japan.”

Mr. Furuichi and many other young Japanese say that young people here do not react with anger or protest, instead blaming themselves and dropping out, or with an almost cheerful resignation, trying to find contentment with horizons that are far more limited than their parents’.

In such an atmosphere, young politicians say it is hard to mobilize their generation to get interested in politics.

Ryohei Takahashi was a young city council member in the Tokyo suburb of Ichikawa who joined a group of other young politicians and activists in issuing a “Youth Manifesto,” which urged younger Japanese to stand up for their interests.

In late 2009, he made a bid to become the city’s mayor on a platform of shifting more spending toward young families and education. However, few younger people showed an interest in voting, and he ended up trying to cater to the city’s most powerful voting blocs: retirees and local industries like construction, all dominated by leaders in their 50s and 60s.

“Aging just further empowers older generations,” said Mr. Takahashi, 33. “In sheer numbers, they win hands down.”

He lost the election, which he called a painful lesson that Japan was becoming a “silver democracy,” where most budgets and spending heavily favored older generations.

Social experts say the need to cut soaring budget deficits means that younger Japanese will never receive the level of benefits enjoyed by retirees today. Calculations show that a child born today can expect to receive up to $1.2 million less in pensions, health care and other government spending over the course of his life than someone retired today; in the national pension system alone, this gap reaches into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Abandoning the System

The result is that young Japanese are fleeing the program in droves: half of workers below the age of 35 now fail to make their legally mandated payments, even though that means they must face the future with no pension at all. “In France, the young people take to the streets,” Mr. Takahashi said. “In Japan, they just don’t pay.”

Or they drop out, as did many in Japan’s first “lost generation” a decade ago.

One was Kyoko, who was afraid to give her last name for fear it would further damage her job prospects. Almost a decade ago, when she was a junior at Waseda University here, she was expected to follow postwar Japan’s well-trodden path to success by finding a job at a top corporation. She said she started off on the right foot, trying to appear enthusiastic at interviews without being strongly opinionated — the balance that appeals to Japanese employers, who seek hard-working conformists.

But after interviewing at 10 companies, she said she suffered a minor nervous breakdown, and stopped. She said she realized that she did not want to become an overworked corporate warrior like her father.

By failing to get such a job before graduating, Kyoko was forced to join the ranks of the “freeters” — an underclass of young people who hold transient, lower-paying irregular jobs. Since graduating in 2004 she has held six jobs, none of them paying unemployment insurance, pension or a monthly salary of more than 150,000 yen, or about $1,800.

“I realized that wasn’t who I wanted to be,” recalled Kyoko, now 29. “But why has being myself cost me so dearly?”

日本歌的美國源If lyrics change, does a song remain the same?

VOX POPULI: If lyrics change, does a song remain the same?

Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a daily column that runs on Page 1 of the vernacular Asahi Shimbun.

2011/01/27

There are many seemingly Japanese creations such as "kasutera" sponge cake and "konpeito" sugar candy that were actually imported from foreign countries. The children's song "Chocho"(Butterfly) can be traced back to a Spanish folk song, and the composer of the children's song "Musunde Hiraite" (Close and open your hands) is said to be the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778).

Let me cite more examples from "Nihon no Shoka" (Japanese school songs) published by Kodansha Ltd. The song "Kogitsune" (Little fox) that starts with the words "Little fox kon kon in the mountains" was originally a German folk song. The Japanese lyrics "It crushes seeds to put on makeup" are sweet. But the words of the original song are completely different. They go something like, "Hey fox, unless you return the goose, I am going to shoot you."

It has recently come to light that "Aogeba Totoshi" (Look up with reverence), a song once commonly sung at graduation ceremonies in Japan, was based on "Song for the Close of School," created in the United States during the 19th century.

During the Meiji Era (1868-1912), the Education Ministry rewrote the lyrics and included the tune in a collection of elementary school songs. However, its origin has remained "the greatest mystery of school songs." The songbook even includes a passage suggesting it was composed by a Japanese.

It was Masato Sakurai, 67, a Hitotsubashi University professor emeritus well-versed in American and British folk songs, who solved the mystery. While looking through old Western school textbooks and hymnals, he found the same music in a song collection published in 1871 in the United States.

But the original song, which sings about the sadness of parting with friends, has no words about "indebtedness to our teachers" and "stand tall and make a name for yourself," words that add a distinct flavor.

Apparently, the Japanese version tried to incorporate the image of a model citizen that the government at the time envisioned. School songs were used as a tool of national policy to encourage students to learn Western culture.

I hear the song has become less popular in recent years because of those very words. Apparently, school officials think it is inappropriate for teachers to make students feel indebted to them and encourage them to climb the social ladder on the occasion to mark the beginning of a new phase of life.

Perhaps they are right. Still, now that it has come clear that it was originally an American song, why not re-interpret it as encouragement for young Japanese people to go after the American dream? Its solemn melody is also good to push students on their back to take a step forward.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Jan. 26

* * *

Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

For older actors, the show (and life) must go on

• For true taste of Japan, try 'udon,' foodie says
• Boiled gyoza dumplings

BY SONOKO MIYAZAKI STAFF WRITER

2011/01/20

Members of senior theatrical company Nobeoka Show-Ginza rehearse a scene in Nobeoka, Miyazaki Prefecture. The group's productions are consistently sold out. (Sonoko Miyazaki)

As he approached the age of 70, Shinkichi Namiki felt he had no purpose in life. But he found a story in a local newspaper that gave him a new direction.

Now, at 71, Namiki has become somewhat of a local celebrity, even if he was once recognized as that "old senile man."

The newspaper article he read in 2006 solicited members for a theatrical group, Nobeoka Show-Ginza, in Nobeoka, Miyazaki Prefecture.

Namiki is the oldest member of the group.

"I wanted to try new things to stay young and active," he recalled. "The door to a new world would open with a step forward."

Show-Ginza is one of many acting groups for senior citizens that are booming across the nation.

Comprising amateur actors and actresses, around 60 senior theater groups passionately continue their activities. Members have been bitten by the acting bug at an advanced age, but their performances have grown in popularity.

Show-Ginza has 20 amateur players, the youngest being 50 years old.

The name of the group derives from "sho," as in laughter. "Gin" is from "ibushi-gin," which literally means oxidized silver and stands for reserved coolness. "Za" means theater.

It has been four years since the group was formed. Members meet for rehearsal twice a week at a civic hall in Nobeoka.

The group has gained a loyal fan base, and advance tickets for their regularly scheduled productions are sold out half a month before the curtain goes up.

Their next production is "Sorayuku Kaze no Koinobori" (Koinobori carp streamers of the wind that travel in the sky).

Namiki comically portrays an executive of a general store who makes every effort for the election campaign of his patron's daughter.

In real life, Namiki works as a driver of vehicles for wedding ceremonies, funerals and other events. He also attended night classes at a senior high school at age 56.

He once played an old man suffering from dementia. When he was walking down a street one day, a child called out, saying: "That's the senile old man I saw on stage!"

But Namiki was flattered. "I was glad that someone remembered me," he said, laughing.

He also admits he needs to work on his delivery as he sometimes speaks his lines too fast when he is caught up in the moment.

Elder Cats, a popular senior acting group based in Kagawa Prefecture, is known for presenting plays that mirror modern society and take up social issues, such as the "ore-ore" (it's me, it's me) telephone scam and dementia.

Kintaro Konishi, a 75-year-old former president of a signboard manufacturer, is one of the founding members of the company.

Konishi had no stage experience until he played an old man for his acquaintance's theater group. He was 60 years old then.

He delivered his lines clumsily, but he thought his style might create an aura and presence that young actors couldn't offer.

That idea prompted his fascination with theater. He took the lead in establishing Elder Cats in 2003, and long-time postal workers and teachers joined the group.

Elderly people drawn to acting came together in late October in Minoo, Osaka Prefecture, for the first installment of the international theater festival for seniors. Six theater companies took part in the festival, including Challenger from Shizuoka Prefecture.

The group was established under the slogan of producing "high quality and inspiring stage performance." Their up-tempo show gave Challenger a solid reputation at the venue.

"With theatrical groups of different backgrounds and styles getting together, it was a stimulating experience," Kazuo Harada, the 63-year-old leader of Challenger, said. "We learned a lot from the other groups, such as their sense of regionality and audacious approach for mise-en-scene that involved the audience."

Professional stage director Sho Ryuzanji, who has also established a senior theatrical troupe in Tokyo, cheers on the seniors.

"A raw body infused with history looks very realistic. Senior theater is much more fun when we watch their performances and imagine how they live their everyday lives than judge whether their performances are good or not," Ryuzanji said.

Writer Keiko Asahi, who started "Senior Engeki Web" (http://s-geki.net/) dedicated to senior theater companies in 2008, said the history of the shows' popularity dates back more than 30 years.

The forerunner was Hachiro Gekidan (Hachiro theater company), which was established in 1973 in Yao, Osaka Prefecture, to provide a place for social interaction among elderly people. In the same year, "Kokotsu no Hito" (People in ecstasy), a film about dementia based on Sawako Ariyoshi's novel of the same title, was released.

The next wave came in or around 2000, when the public nursing-care insurance system was introduced. Theatrical companies for seniors flourished. A private acting group set up a workshop program, and it has continued its activities.

Public officials got involved to help minimize health-care needs. The public sector also sought ways to make effective use of cultural facilities built during the asset-inflated bubble economy of the 1980s and early 1990s.

The third wave came between 2005 and 2010, when baby boomers born soon after the end of World War II started retiring en masse.

Fukuoka-based senior theater group Silver Panther completed its 10th anniversary performances in late September.

Yayoi Yasumaru, a 75-year-old member, had trouble finding ways to balance her acting gigs and the nursing care she long provided for her husband.

But she continued her theater activities thanks to words of encouragement from her husband: "You can tell me what goes on in the outside world. Keep on and have fun."

After he died a year ago, the theater group helped Yasumaru stay positive.

"To stage a performance with everyone, each member's health comes first," Yasumaru said. "Heading to the same goal while throwing ideas and opinions at each other and staying true to our personalities makes me eager to live my everyday life."

名物經濟學 Meibutsu: The Economic and Cultural Significance of Traditional Japanese Products

Meibutsu: The Economic and Cultural Significance of Traditional Japanese Products
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/2694.cfm


名物

めいぶつ【名物】 1 〔名産〕a noted [special] product; a local specialty [((英)) speciality]⇒めいさん(名産)
2 〔ある特色で評判のもの〕
村の名物男［女］
a popular figure in the village ぎざぎざの岩山がこの地方の名物だ
The rugged rocky mountains are a feature of this district.

Meibutsu: The Economic and Cultural Significance of Traditional Japanese Products

Published: January 26, 2011 in Knowledge@Wharton

Foreigners visiting any airport or tourist destination in Japan are often impressed by the sheer quantity of colorful treats and souvenirs marketed to Japanese travelers. Why are there so many varieties of unique products, and why are they in such high demand? Indeed, Japan's tradition of meibutsu, or famous regional products, is unique and unparalleled anywhere else in the world. Not only is it an integral part of the Japanese culture, but it also provides much-needed benefits to rural economies.

The Meaning of Meibutsu

Japan's diverse cultural traditions, business structures, and regional economic clout are apparent through the country's primarily domestic meibutsu economy. While meibutsu means literally "famous item," in practice it refers to the widespread distribution and usage of various regional products and goods. But what exactly does meibutsu represent? In examining Japanese prefectures such as Kyoto, Hokkaido, Miyazaki, and Wakayama, it becomes evident just how varied these products are.

Kyoto, famous for its nama-yatsuhashi sweet bean confections as well as its traditional Japanese craftwork, differs completely from Hokkaido, which is renowned for its milk-based products, beers, and herbs such as lavender. Similarly, Miyazaki's mangos and oranges are extremely popular, while Wakayama's umeboshi sour plum products can be found in almost any convenience store in Japan.

The meibutsu economy is uniquely Japanese and has characteristics that are very different from many other countries' takes on regional specialty goods. Each of Japan's 47 prefectures has its own unique meibutsu that enjoys continuously developing markets and consumers. In the U.S., for example, famous products are created for different popular tourist destinations. Furthermore, another unique aspect of meibutsu is its dynamic nature and its mix of old and new, which relates closely to broader themes in Japan's cultural, historical, and socioeconomic spheres.

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While the term meibutsu does have certain nuances, it generally includes unprocessed regional agricultural products and crafts. Yutaka Mukai, a member of the Ise City (Mie prefecture) Chamber of Commerce and Industry, defines it more specifically: "In order to be meibutsu, something has to be a special product; it has to require specific skill or knowledge for creating it that is possessed by people in a certain region. This skill or knowledge is often passed down in families from generation to generation, thus preventing those from outside the region from gaining the ability to produce the meibutsu." For instance, the Yubari melons of Hokkaido are some of Japan's most cherished. These flavorful melons require special growing techniques and are subject to strict regional collective trademark standards to prevent their cultivation and branding in other regions.

The meibutsu industry revolves around several groups of people. Producers range from farming cooperative associations to large consumer-goods manufacturers. In addition, government agencies -- such as the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries -- oversee quality control for processed products, while the Japan Patent Office helps producers comply with regional trademark policies. Consumers are generally domestic Japanese tourists who often perceive meibutsu as unique specialty items exhibiting high quality and other traits from the producing region.

Another concept that is essential for understanding the popularity of meibutsu is highlighted by the tradition of omiyage, or gift-giving. Many Japanese rely on meibutsu in their gift-giving culture, so these goods are often sold in major department stores and various souvenir shops located throughout even the most sparsely populated regions of the country. Omiyage is now written ???, which literally means "earth product," i.e., a product from a specific region. However, according to Mitsuhiro Okamoto, a Nara city cultural expert, omiyage used to be written as ???, which literally means "coming down from the shrine." This alludes to the old tradition of people offering food and other goods to the temples of Shinto gods and then, after a few days, taking those same items back home to eat and enjoy.

The fact that the Japanese people have forgotten the origin of omiyage and have even changed how it is written to reflect only its regionality shows that the concept has changed over time. This may imply that the Japanese people are focused on, or even obsessed with, how omiyage and meibutsu are limited to a region, and that artificial value is created when regional limitation, as opposed to pure quality or taste, is valued so highly.

In addition to regional limitation, the popularity of various meibutsu products depends on many factors such as seasonality, advertising, and other economic issues. With regard to seasonality, some meibutsu ingredients are most popular at certain times of the year, so consumers often flock to purchase them during their period of availability. For example, lavender blooms mainly in June and July in Hokkaido, so lavender-related meibutsu such as lavender-scented bath salts and incense benefit then from increased consumption. Meibutsu's popularity is also affected by recent trends in advertising, specifically through the increasing numbers of "antenna shops" (satellite shops that sell regional items) in Tokyo and other major Japanese cities. These shops cater to a particular prefecture's meibutsu, selling only products related to that region. This has effectively increased the reach of various prefectures' meibutsu to a broader base in Japan.

The Origins of Meibutsu -- Tradition vs. Practicality

First-time visitors to a historic Japanese city might mistakenly assume that all the goods they buy reflect hundreds of years of the city's history and traditions. These visitors would be surprised to learn, for example, that the most popular Kyoto meibutsu, the nama-yatsuhashi, has been around for only about 30 years. This illustrates how practicality often trumps tradition for many meibutsu products in Japan.

One meibutsu item that truly reflects centuries of Kyoto's traditions and its artisans' skills is senshoku (dyed textile), which includes products such as the kimono (literally "thing to wear"). Senshoku developed as a necessity for clothing the Emperor and the imperial family beginning in the Nara period (710-794 AD). However, for a modern tourist visiting Kyoto, buying a decent kimono made by Kyoto craftsmen would cost at least several thousand U.S. dollars, in addition to being difficult to transport and store given its fragility. What visitors to Kyoto opt to buy is not a true object of traditional Kyoto culture but rather a simple symbol of Kyoto that is cheap, simple to carry, and easy to give as a gift or share among friends. This has led to the development in the last few decades of Kyoto nama-yatsuhashi. In Hokkaido, similar needs led to the development of Hokkaido Shiroi Koibito (white chocolate cookies), while other prefectures and tourist cities developed other inexpensive types of meibutsu that could be mass-produced.

According to Akinori Fujita, store manager of the Hokkaido "antenna shop" in Tokyo, "In actuality, anyone can attempt to label a new product as a meibutsu, but if it is not produced in that region, then it is unlikely that souvenir shops will stock the product because they do not see it as a legitimate meibutsu." Still, new and creative meibutsu items are constantly being released. For example, some regions claim very non-Japanese items as their own meibutsu, such as the Yokohama Navy Burger or the blueberry cheesecake-flavored Nestlé Kit-Kat bar, found only in the Koushin region (famous for its blueberries). In short, with regard to meibutsu, most modern Japanese pay only marginal attention to the historical origins and traditional values, focusing much more on the practical and novel aspects.

Social Impact

Such aforementioned traits, habits, and values of modern domestic Japanese tourists have shaped social norms within the country for decades and also carry significant potential for shaping the social economy and landscape even more. The most important social consequence stemming from meibutsu will most likely be the ways that its producers can help prevent the shrinking population problems facing rural Japan. First, it is necessary to understand the magnitude of this issue. Since the 1950s, rural communities have been plagued by the problems of internal migration. Urbanization -- stemming from the migration of people from the countryside to the city and surrounding suburbs for better educational and employment opportunities -- has led to severe depopulation in many rural areas. This has resulted in a large aging population, with few children or young people in the rural community. A continuation of this trend portends many troubling issues both for these rural communities and for Japan.

The increased promotion and sales of meibutsu can best help rural communities through increased employment opportunities, which can entice people to stay rather than move to the cities. Such opportunities will be available in both the agricultural and manufacturing sectors. Most agricultural meibutsu products are grown on small, family-owned farms. Thus, increased sales will lead directly to increased revenues for these small businesses. As demand increases, the farms will require more employees to help with the agricultural production. In addition, businesses that specialize in meibutsu manufacturing should also see increased demand and thus be able to offer more employment opportunities. These factories offer the potential for employment growth in rural areas because many meibutsu items are produced in locales only a few hours away from the actual cities in which they are sold. For example, many of Kyoto's renowned fabrics are actually made in factories in neighboring, and more rural, Fukui prefecture.

The increased employment opportunities are made possible because meibutsu plays such a large part in the Japanese social culture. The sheer number of meibutsu is directly related to the aforementioned tradition of giving gifts (omiyage) to friends, family, and co-workers after trips, whether personal or business-related. Any foreigner who vacationed with a Japanese friend will have noticed that the friend was constantly worried about buying enough omiyage to take home. The culture has evolved to the point where it is often socially unacceptable to not give omiyage, and some Japanese even travel secretly to avoid this social obligation. This activity is a major factor in meibutsu's growth over the last few decades.

Various cities, prefectures, and regions have adapted their products to suit the unique needs of the visitors who are looking to buy meibutsu omiyage. The most popular meibutsu items are often small, easily packaged, and relatively affordable. They are sold not only at tourist attractions, but also at major transportation centers such as train stations. Therefore, not only is meibutsu a way to show you have visited a particular area, it is also a way for the recipient to enjoy a product that, through limited distribution, would otherwise be impossible or difficult to find elsewhere. Unfortunately, meibutsu also has negative consequences. According to Junko Kimura, the director of planning and sales at Kyoto-kan (an antenna store for Kyoto goods in Tokyo), "many meibutsu stores in Tokyo have seen patterns whereby married men and women come to shop for gifts for family to account for alibis of business trips to different cities. For instance, a weekend fling on the beaches of Okinawa staged as a weekend business trip to Kyoto can be accounted for by purchasing a box of nama-yatsuhashi, a defining souvenir of Kyoto."

Sales of meibutsu are assured as long as there are domestic travelers. And domestic travel within Japan is almost certainly guaranteed given the Japanese people's social and regional interests. The proliferation and importance of this tradition are most evident in the tests on the subject given to Japanese schoolchildren. Many of our interviewees recalled elementary-school quizzes in which regions on a map of Japan would be matched up with the appropriate meibutsu -- e.g.,Kyoto yatsuhashi, Kishu umeboshi, and Hokkaido Yubari melon. In addition, Japan's widespread gourmet food culture has spawned many TV shows and magazine articles that detail the various regional specialties found throughout the country. In fact, TV shows focused on food account for a whopping 35%-40% of domestic programming in Japan. Specialties that are found only in a particular area are profiled and naturally spur discussion and interest in that region.

While meibutsu has increased social interest in various parts of Japan, it is also important to note how its producers have changed proactively to suit new cultural norms. For example, Pagong, a subsidiary of the famous Kyoto Kimono Yuzen Company, has a new spin on yuzen, a traditional method of dyeing fabric. Although yuzen has traditionally been applied to more formal Japanese clothing, in recent years Pagong has taken the lead in adapting these traditional patterns to eastern clothing, such as polo shirts. It is interesting to note how meibutsu evolves to fit social needs -- in this case, combining the sophistication of the kimono with the easy-to-wear style of western clothing.

The aforementioned nama-yatsuhashi is another example of how meibutsu has evolved. Originally, one of Kyoto's defining regional products was yatsuhashi, a baked confection made from rice flour, sugar, and cinnamon. As the cultural capital of Japan, Kyoto has always played host to various tour groups, including middle school and high school students' week-long field trips. It is unclear how yatsuhashi came to be sold in raw -- or nama -- form, but by the 1980s unbaked nama-yatsuhashi was the most popular food souvenir from Kyoto in terms of units sold, especially among these students. In essence, school children pioneered the popularity of a new food, which has now become the defining meibutsu of Kyoto for people of all ages. Thus, it is not far-fetched to anticipate new social issues changing meibutsu in other regions of Japan. As healthy eating habits and organic products become a priority for consumers, it is likely that new forms of healthy meibutsu may appear in various regions.

These examples illustrate how social norms affect meibutsu and how this tradition has changed and can continue to change as a result. In fact, the entire life cycle of meibutsu -- from production within rural areas to sales at tourist sites -- has the potential to affect not only the social norms, but also the social structure of Japan.

'Home of Wasabi'

The economic importance of meibutsu lies primarily in its ability to create identity and branding for local goods, thus allowing for comparably higher pricing, the creation of derivative industries, and direct contribution to regional tourism. These benefits have been of increasing importance for regional economies, where agriculture plays an important role as one of the largest employers. Even as Japan faces growing competition from foreign agricultural producers and pressure to reduce agricultural subsidies, the development of meibutsu has created a path to greater value and demand for goods that might otherwise be considered mundane. The case of Yakurai wasabi in the northeast region of Japan highlights these points.

The northeast region -- comprising Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, Akita, Yamagata, and Fukushima prefectures -- is one of the regional economies most heavily reliant on the primary sector of economic activity, defined in Japan as agriculture, lumbering, and fishing. According to the 2005 census of Japan's working population, the region is home to approximately 5.9 million -- or 9.6% -- of Japan's 61.5 million working population. Although the majority of these residents work in the primary sector (compared to the national average of 4.8%), their contribution to regional GDP is only 2.7% of the total. Furthermore, it should be noted that the workers in this sector are, for the most part, from lower income groups. Specifically, agricultural families in the sector earn an annual average of 3.7 million yen (US$43,400) versus the national average of 4.5 million yen (US$52,800).

In essence, an improvement in the earnings and economic power of the northeast region's primary sector would clearly benefit the lower-income segment of the economy. And this situation is certainly not limited to this region. Yakurai wasabi is a particularly relevant example of meibutsu's benefits to the economy.

Yakurai wasabi has achieved success through strict identification with the area of production and brand image around the region's history. In addition, it emphasizes the fact that this wasabi is produced by local farmers. With the branding power thus afforded to it, its producers have been able to sign deals with restaurants that highlight the use of the product in their dishes. In addition, the products are sold in about 50 specialty stores, where the average customer spends approximately 10,000 yen (US$117). The producers have also developed derivative products in the form of wasabi dressing and wasabi seaweed. Currently, a "Home of Wasabi" attraction is in development, focused on promoting tourism. Yakurai wasabi represents a case where the use of a local name and the image associated with it have provided a company with the opportunity to upgrade its image. This is a unique situation, given that wasabi is not indigenous to Yakurai, but is actually from Sendai.

Another example of meibutsu's importance for promoting otherwise mundane goods can be seen in the case of Ishiya, a sweets manufacturer from Hokkaido best known as the maker of the aforementioned Shiroi Koibito. Although there is no reference in the name of the cookie nor any ingredient unique to the region, the company has chosen to associate the brand with Hokkaido and to sell Shiroi Koibito and its other products as Hokkaido meibutsu. Ishiya's shining-star logo is said to be a reference to Hokkaido, and even the company's mission statement ("With reliability and safety as our first priority, we put our heart and soul into the creation of Hokkaido sweets") is careful to distinguish that it wants to produce "Hokkaido Sweets" rather than just generic sweets. Ishiya's commitment to Hokkaido helps distinguish the company from other sweets manufacturers, even as its commitment also benefits Hokkaido itself. Moreover, Ishiya, with over 9.2 billion yen (US$109 million) in annual sales, employs more than 400 people (plus temporary workers), all of whom are based in Hokkaido. Because of all the interest in Ishiya's products, the company has built a miniature amusement park (Shiroi Koibito Park) that has already become a major tourist attraction, increasing the market for its meibutsu.

Cases like Yakurai wasabi and Shiroi Koibito have been noticed by both the national and local governments, which have taken steps to improve and develop the legal and business environments for meibutsu. This collaboration has come about with the support of groups like the regional farming cooperatives and enterprise cooperatives.

In 2005, the regional farming cooperatives and enterprise cooperatives began working toward developing legal protection for regional brands, registering 52 brands when the law was enacted in October 2006. Upon trademark registration, only farmers who are members of a given cooperative can produce goods with the official name. The law specifies what can or cannot be termed, for example, an Aomori ringo (apple). In addition, the law defines what types of products can be branded and the scope of a given brand name, and has made it possible for regional goods to gain identity and branding power while simultaneously reducing the risk of brand infringement and quality issues from copycats. As a result, local businesses have been able to expand the scope of their product offerings and create derivative industries.

As an example of an actively managed brand, in the latter half of the 20^th century, Wakayama farmers developed a breed of ume (a Japanese fruit, related to an apricot, that is an important part of Japanese cuisine), whose thick, soft flesh is well-suited for producing umeboshi (pickled ume). The popularity of this new breed of ume was transformational for the region's agricultural profile, as ume sales rose from 2.8 billion yen (US$32.9 million) to 15.5 billion yen (US$181.9 million) annually between 1980 and 1990, moving from the tenth to the second largest agricultural product in the prefecture. The farmers also began to sell the processed version. Sales of umeboshi in Wakayama rose from next to nothing to 5.1 billion yen (US$59.8 million) by 1995, but declined to 1.8 billion yen (US$21.1 million) by the time the Regional Branding System was developed.

According to Souji Yabumoto, chief economist for Wakayama's Department of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries, "after the Wakayama ume became popular, there were a lot of producers from outside Wakayama that started giving their products brands like Kishu umeboshi [which implies that they were made in Wakayama, historically known as Kishu] even if the product didn't have anything to do with Wakayama. This competition from other places in Japan as well as from foreign imports was bad for the sales of umeboshi by Wakayama farmers." Ume-producing regional farming cooperatives in Wakayama's towns of Minabe and Tanabe cooperatively registered the Kishu umeboshi brand name with the Tokyo patent office. The towns were not only able to distinguish their product from their competitors, but they were also able to start marketing and licensing the brand more effectively. Today, the Kishu brand can be seen on umeboshi (e.g., rice balls) and umeboshi-flavored products (e.g., potato chips, candies, and soft drinks).

Cooperatives across Japan have been very enthusiastic about the government's trademark policy, registering 347 regional trademarks since 2006. Although the government's protection of regional brands is a relatively recent development, it recognizes meibutsu's importance to different regions. Continued protection of regional brands is expected to be helpful in supporting regional economies. This policy is of particular interest to regions struggling with shrinking populations or lack of cost and strategic advantages within local industries.

The unique culture of meibutsu has significant implications for Japan's economic, social, and cultural future. Its potential to affect various facets of Japanese society include not only increased demand for products via branding, but also increased employment, especially in rural areas, which can help stabilize or increase the overall population of those regions. It is evident that meibutsu is more than just a souvenir or a food. It is a social and economic tool that can be used to benefit Japanese culture and society for generations to come.

This article was written by Jerry Chi, Foster Chiang, Russell Gottfredson, Neeraj Maathur and Erica Sugai, members of the Lauder Class of 2012.

日本的「便當造型師」"業" 漸漸發達

日本的「便當造型師」"業" 漸漸發達

1. 「便當造型師」的影片

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   台北3C大展宣傳：Show Girl生肉裝吸睛！男版 ... 2 分鐘 - 2010年9月22日 上傳者：shamhing8 youtube.com

BBC apologises for Japanese atomic bomb jokes on QI

22 January 2011 Last updated at 23:22 GMT

The QI episode was shown on BBC Two in December

The BBC has apologised after Japan's embassy complained over jokes on an episode of comedy TV quiz show QI.

Panellists made light of the experience of Tsutomu Yamaguchi who survived the Hiroshima atomic bomb in World War II and the Nagasaki one three days later.

Presenter Stephen Fry described him as "the unluckiest man in the world".

The BBC said it was sorry for any offence caused and would be replying shortly to a letter received from the Japanese embassy in London.

A spokesman for the corporation added: "QI never sets out to cause offence with any of the people or subjects it covers, however on this occasion, given the sensitivity of the subject matter for Japanese viewers, we understand why they did not feel it appropriate for inclusion in the programme."

A joint statement of apology was issued with Talkback Thames, the production company which makes QI.

Japanese viewers reportedly contacted diplomatic staff after the programme, featuring comedians Alan Davies and Rob Brydon as panellists, was broadcast on BBC Two last month.

More than 200,000 Japanese people are believed to have died in the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

Mr Yamaguchi, who died last year at the age of 93, is the only person to have been recognised by the Japanese government as having survived both.

For Japanese advertisers, the buzz is priceless

BY KANAME KAKUTA STAFF WRITER

2011/01/21

Ultraman Zero is proving to be an effective "sales manager." (The Asahi Shimbun)

Interested in a part-time job that pays 2.5 million yen ($30,500) per hour for delivering a pizza to a remote island by plane?

Too good to be true?

Yes and no. While the job offer was right on the money, it was only a one-time deal, or rather, a one-pizza delivery. Job security was clearly not on the menu.

But no one cared about the downside, and thousands applied for the job. And that was the point--the campaign generated massive publicity for the pizza company.

While companies have long employed quirky advertising tactics and seemingly overgenerous rewards to entice customers via print media or broadcasting, the advent of online services such as Twitter have spawned extreme, sometimes off-the-wall campaigns.

Company officials say that unlike traditional advertising mediums, online services provide an opportunity to reach millions of consumers at very little cost. The savings, they say, allow them to use their ad budgets for even more high-profile, at times, hair-raising stunts.

To celebrate its 25th anniversary in Japan, Domino's Pizza Japan Inc. announced in October that it would offer 2.5 million yen to anyone willing to take up an "extremely short-term, part-time job lasting only one hour" in December.

The actual job was cleverly kept secret, and the company said only those who were selected following a screening process would be notified about what the job entailed.

The high-paying mystery job offer quickly went viral, spreading over the blogosphere and the Twitterverse after it was reported on TV and Internet news sites.

More than 10,000 applications flooded Domino's. At last, a 53-year-old woman from Miyazaki Prefecture was hired. Her assignment: Pick up a pizza from a Domino's in Tokyo's Mitaka, hop on a flight to Izu-Oshima island, and deliver it to a waiting customer.

Ecstatic company officials said they were overwhelmed by response.

"While the 2.5 million yen was like a reward, the advertising effect was much larger than any ad campaign costing 2.5 million yen," said a company official.

Traditional newspaper or TV advertisements can reach the range of hundreds of million yen, including production costs.

"Free advertising" is the holy grail for companies. Creating a campaign that gets mentioned on the Internet rockets PR officials into a state of bliss. The buzz effect is compounded when TV and newspaper reporters pick up the trail.

Nihon Kraft Foods Ltd. held a 2-million yen sweepstakes to mark the nationwide launch of Stride gum in November. What set it apart from other campaigns was that it was a winner-take-all contest, unlike everyday sweepstakes which dole out small amounts to a large number of winners.

"We figured that giving one person 2 million yen would create a bigger buzz than dividing up the money among 200 people," a spokesperson for the processed food company said.

Another food firm, Meiji Dairies Corp., enlisted TV superhero, Ultraman Zero.

Appointed as a "special sales manager" in December, the latest Ultraman's image can be found plastered on packages of yogurt and pudding products targeted at children.

The campaign is a twofer--Ultraman's hawking of Meiji's dairy dessert products also serves to promote the superhero's latest movie.

Again, information technology played a crucial role, as purchasers of the dairy products can obtain discount coupons for the Ultraman movie or original ring tones by scanning QR (quick response) codes printed on the packages with their cellphone cameras.

This synergy greatly reduced the cost of using the popular superhero in the ad campaign, Meiji officials said.

Hidehiko Sekizawa, a professor at Tokyo Keizai University who specializes in corporate advertising, said that online services have greatly expanded advertising possibilities.

"While people have sought out topics of conversation for ages, social networking services and Twitter have helped spread such information across society."

The Spirit of Hospitality (Highlighting JAPAN)

No.35 (January 18, 2011)
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[The Spirit of Hospitality]

If there is one thing visitors to Japan are certain to experience
on their travels it is the Japanese people's inexhaustible spirit of
hospitality. We introduce some of the many forms this hospitality takes.

-Arrivals and Departures

-Ryokan Comforts

-The Word on the Street

-Tips for the Traveler

-Checking Into Japan

-Attracting MICE with Japanese Treats

-Character Reference

-Visiting Japan: Director's Cut

-Japan. Endless Discovery.

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<<>>

-Road to the Bogor Goals

<<>>

-Cool Japan Schedule, 2011

<<>>

-Pioneers in Organic Synthesis

<<>>

-Superalloy Takes the Heat Off

<<>>

-Old-Style Looms Weave Contemporary Chic

<<>>

-Pull of the Power Spots

* Please click below to open the online magazine
http://cz.gov-online.go.jp/cl/O010/2510917/2201000286/2240

allure of 1960s Ueno

Nostalgic diorama recalls allure of 1960s Ueno

BY AZUSA ITO STAFF WRITER

2011/01/18

A large diorama shows a street near Shinobazunoike pond in Tokyo's Ueno district in the late 1960s. (Photos by Azusa Ito) A reproduction of the previous building that housed the Izuei Honten eel restaurant

Izuei Honten, an eel restaurant in Tokyo's Taito Ward that has been in operation since the Edo Period (1603-1867), is serving up a dollop of warm nostalgia along with its old-fashioned tasty food.

Folks are thronging to reminisce over miniature scenes in 1/80 scale that recapture the old Ueno district of the late 1960s.

Lit to show the sunset glinting on Shinobazunoike pond at Ueno Park in around 1965, at the height of the bustling Showa Era (1926-1989), the diorama is attracting visits from people who knew the area back then.

The diorama is the second one that Kazuo Doi, the 67-year-old president of Izuei, asked diorama artist Takaki Yamamoto, 46, to recreate.

Yamamoto, who lives in Tokyo's Setagaya Ward, is noted for a series of dioramas he created of Showa scenes.

His first creation for Doi was of Izuei Honten's previous building, which was rebuilt in 1984. It shows in loving detail the old-fashioned, two-story wooden restaurant, complete with food displayed in the windows.

The new diorama, measuring 90 centimeters wide by 70 cm deep, shows a section of Ueno Park and its famous pond in tiny detail.

Yamamoto even included Toei streetcars and the monorail that still runs today inside Ueno Zoological Gardens. Soft light falls from inside the street stalls lined up along the pond's edge.

Doi is originally from Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture. Arriving in the metropolis as a young man, he worked at Tokyo metropolitan government's Bureau of Transportation as a subway driver from 1964 to 1971.

He used to travel by train back to his hometown for holidays. On one such trip, he met his future wife, Yoshiko, now 74, who was traveling with mutual friends. Her father owned Izuei Honten.

After they married, Doi left his job and began working at the eel restaurant.

"A streetcar track used to run through this area," Doi recalled recently as he walked along a street near the pond. "It was Line 37 and connected Komagome with Mita via Ueno."

The streetcars were thronged. The Ueno zoo monorail service, which started operating in 1957, was the first in Japan.

Doi met Yamamoto at a filmfest in 2008 that showcased a movie featuring dioramas created by Yamamoto. Soon after that, the artist created the miniature model of the original Izuei Honten. Doi wanted "to remember what the old building looked like before it was rebuilt."

When Doi and Yamamoto walked around the area, they talked about how it used to look when the streetcars were running. They got along well and began making enthusiastic plans for a second diorama with a streetcar and the monorail train running near the Shinobazunoike pond.

However, few photographs of that era remain today to show how the area looked back in those days. Yamamoto had to recreate the landscape based on Doi's memories.

The diorama artist calculated the measurements of the streetcar based on photographs. He consulted with Doi on the details as he designed the tram.

"In old comics aimed at teenage boys, monorail trains were always featured as illustrations of what the future would look like. I think it was everybody's dream," Yamamoto said. "This diorama depicts the shift in eras from streetcars to monorails."

"Back then, everybody rode the Toei streetcar services," Doi said. "I'll be glad if many people can recall their warm memories (of the Showa Era) when they view the diorama."

新幹線軟體出問題:無法顯示"到着時刻表"Shinkansen outage dampens export ambitions

Shinkansen outage dampens export ambitions

2011/01/20

Naoto Miyashita, executive officer at JR East, apologizes at a news conference Tuesday. (Hiroyuki Yamamoto)

The outage of Shinkansen services operated by East Japan Railway Co. on Monday morning could have been avoided if the centralized computer train management system had been upgraded, JR East officials said.

The situation presents a mark of embarrassment as Japan tries to export its rapid train technologies overseas and will force Tokyo to review its infrastructure export strategy.

JR East had put off upgrading the COSMOS system that controls all five Shinkansen lines since it was introduced more than 15 years ago, despite a 40-percent increase in trains operated on arteries serving the northern reaches of Honshu.

Officials are also questioning the design of the system itself, which was unable to handle the increased traffic.

Japan has been fervently trying to export Shinkansen technology to the United States, Brazil and Vietnam, which plan to build rapid train lines.

The COSMOS system oversees the operations of the Tohoku, Joetsu, Nagano, Yamagata, and Akita Shinkansen lines.

According to officials, the confusion started when JR East tried to rearrange schedules for 24 bullet trains after a track-switch point malfunctioned on the Tohoku Shinkansen Line in Fukushima Prefecture due to heavy snow.

Under normal conditions, when a delay occurs, an operator of the COSMOS system amends the schedule, which is then transmitted to all scheduled stops accordingly.

However, when the amount of data to be amended exceeds a maximum 600 items--set as COSMOS' processing limit--the computer ceases to indicate the arrival times on terminal monitors. This caused the arrival times at each station along the Tohoku Shinkansen Line to disappear from the displays of all 22 train scheduling terminals at the operations center in Tokyo.

As data was being updated by the minute, the electronic updates appeared and disappeared from the monitors while officials struggled to fix the schedule.

While system managers and operators were aware of the system's characteristics and the processing volume limit, those in charge of giving operational orders were not informed, leading them to assume a system glitch.

As a result, operations officials took procedures to stop all trains.

JR East Executive Director Naoto Miyashita apologized at a news conference Tuesday, saying what initially was thought to have been a system glitch "was human error."

Miyashita went on to explain that the supervisor of operations had not been informed about the nature of the system out of fears that "if we were to inform those in the operation room, they would not be able to concentrate on managing the train schedules."

Miyashita said he initially believed that the system had been designed with some leeway to handle excess traffic, but acknowledged that the system's capacity had never been upgraded since being put in use in 1995.

Over the last 16 years, the total number of trains running per day rose from about 230 to about 320.

In May 2008, a train schedule simulation function inside the COSMOS system was extended from a maximum four hours ahead of time, to cover services all the way until the last trains of the day. However, again the data processing capacity was not revised, leading to suggestions that the system design itself may have been insufficient.

Officials said that JR East will likely look into reviewing its rescheduling procedures to reduce the burden on the system, and raising the limit of data that can be handled.

Another incident in which train services were stopped because of lack of awareness toward the characteristics of the COSMOS system occurred in 2008, when trains were halted for up to three hours, affecting 138,000 passengers on the same five lines.

Meanwhile, a separate case of human error caused trains to be suspended for up to four hours on Jan. 15 on the Tohoku, Yamagata and Akita Shinkansen lines after shoddy inspections failed to catch a worn power main near Oyama Station in Tochigi Prefecture that malfunctioned.

One of the key sales pitches for the Shinkansen in competing with rival exports offered by China and South Korea has been punctuality, with an average delay time per train of 30 seconds, including delays due to natural disasters.

The latest embarrassments prompted transport minister Akihiro Ohata to declare Tuesday that the government would take steps to assure that no doubts will be raised over Japan's drive to export Shinkansen technology.

Ohata summoned senior JR East officials to sound them out and receive an explanation on the cause of the outage, which inconvenienced more than 81,000 passengers.

新幹線ストップ、ソフトに不具合か　到着時刻表示されず

2011年1月18日6時13分

運行ダイヤを示す線が異常になった「ＣＯＳＭＯＳ（コスモス）」のモニター＝ＪＲ東日本提供

　ＪＲ東日本の五つの新幹線すべてが一時止まった１７日のトラブルは、運行管理システムのソフトの不具合が原因だった可能性が高いことが、同社への取材で分かった。１５本が運休し、１２４本が最大２時間１３分遅れ、影響した乗客は約８万１２００人に膨らんだ。

　ＪＲ東では１５日にも小山駅（栃木県小山市）で架線が切れて信号機も故障。東北、山形、秋田の各新幹線が最大約４時間止まるトラブルがあった。国土交通省関東運輸局は１７日午後、ＪＲ東に二つのトラブルの原因調査と再発防止を求める警告文を出した。

　ＪＲ東によると、トラブルが起きたのは「ＣＯＳＭＯＳ（コスモス）」と呼ばれるシステム。都内の新幹線運行本部室内にあるダイヤ管理用モニター２２台の すべてで、到着予定時刻を示す青い線が正常に表示されなくなった。各駅に運行データがきちんと届いているか確認するため、全列車を止めたという。

　ＪＲ東は、システムのソフトに不具合があった可能性が高いとみている。列車を止めてテストデータを送ったところ、駅の端末で適正に受信。モニター表示も約３０分後には正常に戻った。

　このシステムは２００８年１２月にも人為的ミスで不具合を起こし、始発から約３時間にわたってすべての新幹線が止まるなど、過去にも何度かトラブルが起 きている。ソフト更新など改修直後が大半という。しかし、担当者は「昨年１２月のダイヤ改定以降は改修しておらず、今回は心当たりがない」と話しており、 ソフトを開発したメーカーとともに調べている。

　ＪＲ東は１９９５年、新幹線網が拡大したためにコスモスを使い始めた。運行管理や情報監視など七つのサブシステムに分かれ、新幹線の運行にかかわるすべての業務を一元管理している。

Manga "Tiger Mask" hero cheers Japan orphans

By Roland Buerk BBC News, Tokyo

Tiger Mask is a professional wrestler who donates his winnings to an orphanage where he was raised

Children's homes in Japan are receiving anonymous donations of school bags and other gifts left in the name of a popular manga character.

It began on Christmas Day with a donation of school bags. The donor refused to give his name but left a drawing of a man's face hidden behind a tiger mask.

The drawing is a reference to a classic manga comic pro-wrestler character.

After media coverage, the gesture has been copied across the country.

For the children of the orphanage it was a welcome surprise.

The donor refused to give his name, says local official Yasuhiko Taniguchi, but he did leave a drawing and a note.

It read: "I am Tiger Mask - I have come to your city and I want you to distribute the gifts to all the children's homes here."

For Japan's millions of manga readers the reference was immediately obvious.

Tiger Mask is a classic comic from the 1960s about a professional wrestler who donates his winnings to the orphanage where he was raised.

And after news reports of the first gift on Christmas morning there has been a wave of anonymous philanthropy in the character's name.

Many orphanages have received satchels, others fruit, vegetables and bags of rice.

One donor left more than 92,000 yen (£700) in cash, with a note saying there are Tiger Masks across Japan.

Fashion struts in artistic videos and photographs

BY MAKIKO TAKAHASHI SENIOR STAFF WRITER

2011/01/15

Japanese label "beautiful people" promoted its new lineup with live models in a downtown shopping mall and at other spots during the Tokyo Collection in October. (Provided by Hirokazu Ohara)A shot from the video of Gareth Pugh's Spring/Summer 2011 collection. (Makiko Takahashi)A sci-fi image from Undercover's "Underman" brand collection. (Provided by Undercover)

The standard fashion show image of beautiful models dressed in designer clothes walking down a runway in front of an audience is losing ground these days.

An increasing number of brands are presenting their collections in artistic works of video and photography, as well as in street performances, as was seen at recent fashion weeks held in Tokyo and Paris.

The trend seems to show that fashion brands are seeking ways to present new realities and diverse messages for a new era.

Gareth Pugh is seen as one of the most promising young designers at the Paris Fashion Week. He used an audacious video to present his 2011 spring/summer collection. It showed the delicate feel and details of the clothing in a heart-pounding and dynamic manner.

The video featured a model wearing a geometric patterned chiffon mini dress and another model dressed in a pair of sharply shaped men's-style trousers. Their images flickered and overlapped with each other in a rapid transition.

The new clothes offered contrasting elements, such as Gothic charm and a futuristic sense, life and death and beauty and ugliness, all of which were amplified by the images.

Pugh explained that the clothes can look more beautiful than when presented in a show, and it is video that has more reality in the Internet age.

The purpose of the runway show was to lay out the direction of the season in a comprehensive manner, including how to present music, the venue and its setup, models, hairstyle and make-up. If there is a better way to achieve it, then they might as well take another approach.

There have been fashion shows without a runway, but those had more to do with a lack of funds or other reasons. But recently, fashion brands seem to be seeking ways to present their fashion by means other than live shows to fit with the times.

For example, Alexander McQueen, who died last year, attracted attention with his 2010 spring/summer collection that concurrently featured beautiful, highly stylized videos. The show, which became his last, was also streamed live on the Internet.

Viktor and Rolf presented their 2009 spring/summer collection in an online showcase.

At the Tokyo Collection Week held in October, promising designer Aguri Sagimori showed a sweet and mysterious video she made in collaboration with a video artist.

"It would be a waste to present the clothes in a one-time show after working so hard to make them," the young designer said.

"Besides, with video, I can convey what is inside my head in a straightforward manner."

Another Japanese fashion brand, "beautiful people," placed models in many spots at the Tokyo Midtown complex in the Roppongi district. The models held a balloon in their hands with a Twitter-like comment printed on it.

"Feedback not only from industry professionals but also from all kinds of people in town is interesting," the brand's designer Hidenori Kumakiri said. "I felt this approach would be widely accepted now."

Meanwhile, Undercover held an exhibition during Paris Fashion Week titled "Underman." It featured a collection of Underman-themed photos and new designs.

The photographs followed masked hero Underman's fight against evil. The elaborate approach involved staging an explosion and other special effects.

The exhibition allegedly cost as much as a fashion show usually does.

Art director Katsumi Asaba commented on the trend. "With the incredible evolution in computer graphics and other technologies, (designers) are now able to convey far more than simply showing their clothes."

At the same time, fashion brands are likely beginning to re-examine the modern fashion system symbolized by fashion shows.

The system has expanded the market by giving priority to efficiency. But now, fashion brands seem to ask themselves whether the annual events have limited the possibilities for designers to pursue diverse forms of expression, while neglecting wearers' real sense of living their daily lives.

Amid an increase in glitzy fashion shows that feature easy-to-grasp clothing ideas designed for people in emerging countries, it has been pointed out that fashion shows have lost their original meaning.

Even amid the increasing number of fashion events are streamed live online, there are also moves to regard realism as the true nature of fashion and revive the importance placed on fashion shows.

"A growing number of presentation ideas are being conceived. We have to reconsider the best ways of expression to provide insight on the way things are today," Asaba added.

伊勢神宮

Ise Grand Shrine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

- [ 翻譯此頁 ]Ise Grand Shrine (伊勢神宮, Ise Jingū) is a Shinto shrine dedicated to goddess Amaterasu-ōmikami, located in the city of Ise in Mie prefecture, Japan. ...

撰文˙攝影／孫梓評
伊勢神宮 到神的家裡道謝
提起三重，不知道一般人腦中首先浮現的，是伊勢龍蝦、松阪牛，或是每年10月左右在鈴鹿賽車場舉辦的F1賽車？另一個絕不會被忽視、號稱「日本人一生必去一回」的，想必就是伊勢神宮。
分 為內、外宮的伊勢神宮，外宮位於近鐵伊勢市車站徒步5分鐘處，內宮須轉搭巴士約16分鐘車程。內宮祀奉的天照大神是日本皇室祖神，原本被供奉在古都大和皇 宮內，因崇神天皇時疫病流行，遂改在皇宮外祭祀；到第11代垂仁天皇，他派皇女倭姬命去尋找最適宜祭祀天照大神之處，到達伊勢後，倭姬命獲得神示：「神風 伊勢是美麗的魚米之鄉，我希望永遠住在這裡。」於是有了伊勢神宮。
因此，約有2,000年歷史、藏有3神器之一「八咫鏡」的內宮，在日本人心中有 著極特殊的高度。穿越宇治橋，橋下是清澈幽謐的五十鈴川，先向天照大神的管家「瀧祭大神」報備一下，再踅過數百年樹齡的碎石道，便來到素樸至極的「御正 宮」，上了石階之後攝影就不再被允許。同時，亦不要誤以為前來神宮，便可以大肆許願─對日本人而言，擊掌參拜低眉默禱的片刻，應表示對神的謝意。
伊 勢神宮的另一項特出之處，莫過於「式年遷宮」。每20年在附近備好的空地上，將重新建造新殿，這制度始於7世紀後半，已實施61回，下一次是2013年。 何以如此？有人推測是基於傳承古老手工藝；同時，神道希望維持「常若」（永遠年輕）精神，木頭的老朽髒污有可能會破壞神力；以及當時推行「神嘗祭」，而提 供祭祀用的穀物，保存期限恰是20年。然而，神宮附近滿植蓊鬱森林，確實都留做預備用地與建材，當地的木匠，也代代相傳打造神宮的技藝，使之維持與 2,000年前無異的彌生建築樣式。
其後，漫步於神宮外的「厄除町」、「托福橫町」，除了可愛的和風小物，店家陳售的小食：內餡包著松阪牛的福 饅、「豚捨」的牛肉可樂餅、「豆腐庵山中」豆腐口味的霜淇淋……都使味覺驚豔。最不容錯過的，當然就是要親炙赤福本店。沿著絡繹不絕的人潮往內，在疊席上 尋一處喜愛的角落坐下，待服務生端來280日圓套餐，一盆3個赤福餅，自1707年開業至今的300年老舖名非虛傳，仿五十鈴川水紋的紅豆沙甜而不膩，下 方包覆的白麻糬軟硬適中，再搭配無限供應的伊勢熱茶，雅味無限。