Kuchikomi
Food delivery services facing hard times in post-pandemic environment
The spread of Uber Eats and similar food delivery services, even before the coronavirus pandemic, had a pronounced impact on food and beverage services. For instance, experimental restaurants with no tables or chairs began springing up, relying entirely on customer pickups and home delivery. Then COVID hit in the spring of… Read
Men with high academic credentials: Very little seems to go right for them
“Naturally I was bullied – I look just like King Bomby!” If that’s true, he’s in a bad way. No, he must be exaggerating. The game character he names is so comically grotesque it can only have been designed to resemble, at best, the most toxic self-image conceivable – more… Read
No 'East Side Story' musicals for Gen Z foreign delinquents
With the declining number of births, it goes without saying that crimes by juveniles in Japan must inevitably decline, right? Well...not necessarily. According to Spa (April 9-16), the number of foreigners in their teens and early 20s has increased, and some of them have banded together to break the law.… Read
How the weak yen is affecting ordinary households
We like to think, in the teeth of much evidence to the contrary, that we’re masters of our fate, that as we sow so we reap, that life gives us back what we put into it, and so on. Consider, however, the sinking yen. What the COVID-19 pandemic left standing… Read
Former mayor lauds grass-roots movement opposing opening of casino resorts
From last month, sports news in Japan has been dominated by revelations that Ippei Mizuhara, interpreter for Los Angeles Dodgers' superstar Shohei Ohtani, is believed to embezzled as much as $16 million from Ohtani to feed his addiction to sports betting. In the latest revelations, Yukan Fuji (Apr 16) reported… Read
Charges are hidden, sometimes small enough, that you don't notice how they're adding up
A plump child, she grew into a plump adult. It would not do. She must reduce. She tried dieting. But food is so tempting! But a society geared to satisfy every desire recognizes even the curbing of desire as a desire to be satisfied – at a price of course,… Read
Police practice of stopping and questioning comes under media scrutiny
"Do I look that suspicious?" asks the headline on the cover of Shukan Kinyobi (March 29). The sub-head reads, "Racial discrimination by police who stop and question people who appear foreign." The article concerns shokumu shitsumon, or shoku-shitsu for short, the police term for stopping and questioning individuals on the… Read
Domestic migrant workers traveling to areas in Japan where the pay is good
Japan is on the move, the nation is reconfiguring, workers are migrating – go north young man/woman, to Hokkaido, to Niseko; or south, north, east or west to Kyoto, Tokyo, Saitama, wherever, opportunity knocks, no or few skills required, drift here and do this, there and do that, and go… Read
Suburban Musashino line in Tokyo now number one in train groping incidents
The JR Saikyo line, which began service in 1985, long held the dubious reputation of being the Tokyo metropolitan area's worst in terms of frequency of groping assaults on female commuters. But more recently the line, which connects Omiya in Saitama with Shinagawa in Tokyo via the major rail terminals… Read
Japanese generally sleep badly - why, what effect does it have on body, mind and country as a whole?
Sleep to the sleepless is the most precious thing there is. Deprived of it, you’d give anything for it. Ask any insomniac, if you’re not one yourself. Odds are high you are, if you’re Japanese. Japan, says the fitness magazine Tarzan (April 11) citing a 2021 OECD study, is the most sleepless… Read
