• Made (by Chinese) in Italy.
• Erosion of safety at a J-burg park.
• Various ways of looking at the idea and the economic and political implications of “decline”.
• Preps of today.
• The history of Oktoberfest.
• But isn’t that what the oil reserve fund is for?
• Not just in France, America too.
• Group psychosis to blame for Japan’s less-than-stellar English.

The economics behind women’s tennis tournaments.

Eurozone’s dysfunctional internal markets.

Does the special relationship across the pond still exist?

How the German language evolved from the primordial Germanic soup.

Can the French economy be in better shape than the German’s?

Interesting short story from the perspective of a mail-order bride.

Nationalistic sentiments running high everywhere, including Japan.

Detroit’s decline reflected in its specific breed of strip bars.

Two sides of history on Churchill.

A divided India.

Power and ethical lapses.

Europe in 1914.

Helping girls in conflict resolution and confidence building early on.

Everyone has an opinion on if and how the Internet might be changing the way we think.

Caucasus, pipelines, and the new silk road.

China takes over Japan, officially second largest economy.

Russia’s “legal nihilism” and the exile generation.

One more powerful piece on the lack of foresight and sensitivities exhibited by the current healthcare professionals and patients when it come to dying. The practice of needlessly and fruitlessly pre-longing terminal patients’ lives with no regard for the quality of lives was also covered here.

The UK is more than capable of making good drama series. Although some self-reflection is never a bad thing.

What the Kosovo recognition means for other restive regions in the world.

Moving in the opposite direction as its Atlantic cousin: Britain looks to decentralize health care.

Milestone for Russia indeed. A town looks past his skin colour and elects a black mayor.

All those knowledge, skills and war stories, what happens once people retire? Not everyone can nor want to go into teaching, how do we capture and aggregate the knowledge?

Japan does love a craze.

Applying the type-A vigilance and zeal to parenting has created a whole industry that’s come up with the kind of ingenious products that warms up baby wipes.

UAE basically declares BlackBerry enemy of the state.

More deflationary pressure in Japan.

McMansions are not going away any time soon.

China should look for a profitable exit out of the American dollar, says one economist.

Does Europe’s belt-tightening signal an end of progress to decent treatment to all, or merely expose the flaws of a socio-economic system that has consistently put ideals above growth?

New journalism, fleeting loyalty, immediate feedback, and faster burn-out.

Communist government tries to reign in overtly materialist dating show that only mirrors what goes on in society anyway. In the meantime, birth tourism is beginning to take shape, because there’s always something more coveted than what’s just within reach.

Reconciliation – easier said than practiced, especially after a genocide.

A lot of attention lately on PTSD here and here, now with definition of trauma expanded.

From the land of Billy bookshelves, “every stereotype about poor white trash spanning both time and globe, rolled into one.”

Under-represented white minority in elite schools underscores rural southern Republican anxiety.

Oldie but a goodie read: Japanese youth that literally bunker down and hide in their rooms for over a decade out of frustration and fears.  And the social and business opportunities that arise out of this social phenomenon – night vending machines that sell bento boxes with 3 meals for the day, social workers that specialize in coaxing those kids of their rooms.

Online and citizen-journalism seems to have succeeded in South Korea, but not in Japan.

Japan, with its cultural disdain for those who stick out from the crowd, may be inhospitable terrain for the reader-turned-reporter model, Mr. Takeuchi said.

[A]nother reason for Japan’s resistance to alternative sites is the relative absence of social and political divisions. In politically polarized South Korea, OhmyNews thrived by appealing to young, liberal readers.

“It is only when the society sees itself as having conflicting interests that it will seek out new viewpoints and information,” said Toshinao Sasaki, the author of about two dozen books on the Internet in Japan.

Media experts say Japan has yet to see such critical questioning of its establishment press. They say most Japanese remain at least passively accepting of the nation’s big newspapers and television networks.

On top of the cultural and political differences between these two neighbours, does this also have to do with demographics?

This is South Korea’s population profile.

And this is Japan’s.

South Korea is aging fast, but it still boasts a median age that’s almost 7 years younger than Japan.  A younger, politically divided, and more restless cultural undercurrent seems to be driving this battle.

Culture is one of these double-edged swords.  Certain aspects of a culture might help a country during one period of economic and political development.  The same traits will hinder development, if not outright self-destruction, during another period.

I enter Japan as exhibit number one.

On the heels of Japan’s latest prime ministerial resignation, the following seems especially relevant.

Dogged resignation to the status quo is inculcated from an early age here. There is next to no education in civics and no attempt to make children aware of their democratic rights. Children are not encouraged to express an opinion at school, where classes are large and taught by rote. The energies of pushy children are channeled into sports clubs where they learn how to fit into a hierarchy, first learning how to stoically endure discipline from older members, and then, as they get older, learning how to discipline their juniors. Less pushy children, meanwhile, can sleep in class and go unnoticed.

There is also great emphasis placed on the individual’s ability to gaman (put up stoically with suffering), rather than on problem-solving skills, and children are taught to fear the censure or ridicule of others, which makes them unwilling to stand out. In fact, the education system, with its songs, uniforms, rituals and group-focused activities, has achieved an almost perfectly Foucauldian model of passive citizenship. It’s an achievement, of sorts.

What helped to propel Japan to economic stardom post WWII is now dogging both its political and economic systems.  A lesson for China perhaps?

The best part of blogging is when the world echoes back, and someone challenges me on my ideas.  The latest question came from a dear reader, Amit, on the post I did a while ago on women’s labour participation in the OECD, particularly that of Japan and the Netherlands.

I’ve edited our email exchange slightly for easier web consumption.

Amit says:

1) The use of “abysmal” suggests that there is a pre-posited ideal state. Why so? It remains unclear as to whether the US and Scandinavian experiences with bringing vast numbers of women into the workforce fulltime are “correct” in an absolute sense.

Elizabeth Warren points out in her analysis of the US middle class, that women in the US workforce are there not just because they “want” to be, but often because they “need” to be, to afford housing and consumption at levels conditioned by media/pop-culture. She shows how the debt burden has risen per family, consistently, to the point where a prole+/bourgeoisie family has no alternative but to post 2 incomes to afford its suburban house (to which schooling is tied).

The US does not frown upon “assisted childcare” to allow women to work fulltime, but it also does not provide such care (though Scandinavian states do). For a mom to work fulltime in the US, the family takes on an additional expense burden (that eats away further into that debt servicing cash flow) of nannies and playschools, and the angst of knowing that this type of care is unregulated, and is held to a standard only on a caveat emptor basis.

Why is the US model good? Most American women (of a bourgeoisie status anxious grad schooled variety) I know, feel severe pressure to work and retain the “victories” of feminism, despite the strain it brings to their nesting and breeding instincts.

2) The Atlantic this week features the “millennial response” to the hook up culture, see it if you have time, and juxtapose with the Japanese sub-20 aspiration

3) I find your highlighting of the demand supply gap for the Y6MM+ man fascinating. If the US economy does not recover (through some fascinating and unforeseen next-big thing that generates jobs, perhaps it is Facebook?!), the same anxiety will grip American women of bourgeois extraction (and expectations).

There recently was an Atlantic review of the institution of Marriage itself, which shows that it will likely remain prevalent for bourgeois + (with richer women marrying younger and less educated and employed men, destined to be stay-at-home dads with part time work) and deteriorate entirely for bourgeois – (where marriage is largely abandoned already, 50% of kids are born out of wedlock, and 50% of those end up with an additional out of wedlock sibling via a different father within 5 years).

I’d call that sociological phenomenon of working women and stay-at-home-dads “inversion”.

I replied with the following, with mostly my observations and thoughts on why higher labour force participation for women is a net positive for society, and should be encouraged.

The reasons why I chose to highlight the low labour participation rate of women in this country [Netherlands] as a caveat for where the Japanese will most likely move toward, is because:

1. During WWI and WWII, most western countries’ female populations entered the work force because there were severe shortages of men, UK, US, Germany, etc.  The same didn’t happen in the Netherlands.  The country was occupied by the Germans relatively late in WWII, so it never suffered the same kind of labour shortages, which meant that women did not really step into the work force.

2. Contrary to popular perception, the Netherlands is a deeply conservative country.  Big surprise?

This is a country where the Christian Party is always featured prominently in elections, where they hold strong views on issues ranging from Sunday shopping (still a huge subject of debate even in big cities) to women’s places in society.  The views of the Christian party is well supported by popular opinion.  Outside of the Randstad (the triangular area of Amsterdam/Rotterdam and the Hague/Utrecht, the western and more developed areas of the country), women are expected to stay home after birth.  Those that rush back into the work force will have fingers wagged at them.

On top of societal pressure, child care is very expensive relative to income.  So for many, it is a  choice of finance, not one made out of emotional needs.  Germany is much the same, and the term Rabenmutter is quite infamous.

3.  It is perhaps then no surprise that, quite distinctly different from its Scandinavian neighbours, Netherlands has one of the worst maternity policies I have come across in developed countries.  Women get a mere 6 weeks of maternity leave after birth.  When I lived in Alberta, considered the Texas of Canada, women got a year off with 70% of their pay intact.

4. Now, you are saying, what’s the harm right? If women and families are happy with the way things are, why should anyone like me apply judgment on them?
Two reasons.

One is pure economics.  A country like the Netherlands simply can’t afford to.

On the one hand, it cannot afford to NOT harvest the productivity of half of its potential work force, which it has spent so much to educate.  I have seen statistics show that women on average are able to claim only 1/2 of what men can claim as pension at retirement time, because of the limited amount of time and investment they put into their working life.

On the other hand, 1 in 5 couples in the Netherlands is childless.  I have to do more research on whether that is better or worse than OECD average, but my guess is worse. If the examples of Germany and Italy is any indication (with shockingly low fertility rates), when faced with the choice to have children or continue building their careers, many women will choose the latter if society does not offer feasible options for them to do both.

We all know how demographics look in this part of the world. With a fear of immigration, putting children out at a rate higher than replacement ratio is the only way to ensure there’s enough working adults to support the graying population.  We’ve all heard this a thousand times, no need to say more.

But for many mothers or otherwise would-be-mothers, a lack of alternatives to pursue both tracks with social approval and financial support, they will choose one or the other, neither good for the long-run development of this society.

The other points is a bit more philosophical.  In a society like America, I think females have almost reached the post-modern place in term of gender progress (post Hilary, now Sarah Palin, so to speak).  In a place like that, some women can comfortably say, enough with that glass ceiling shit, I know I can do it, but I want to go home and spend time with my kids.  That is fine.  But that is after two (or is it three?) generations of struggles, to have bumped against the ceiling and made it, and to choose another paths.  That to me, is logical, and I would applaud mothers that choose that path.  But choice is the emphasis here.

The case with the Netherlands, and with Japan, is such that no such barriers have been broken.  It might seem a bit odd to lump those two countries together: one is confused with its Scandinavian neighbours in reputation when it comes to gender equality, the other is known to be paternalistic and operates under some assumption of misogyny.

But when it comes to the labour market, I dare to venture that they are closer than apart.  And it is somewhat misguided to think that just because its women have sexual freedom and ranks high on random gender issue/equality index, that the cultural and social setting, and the amount of gender progress made in this country is anywhere close to where America (and some others) is at the moment.

What do you think?  Write me and let’s talk!

Courtesy of Mutuantfrog, an excellent blog on Japan, I came across this pretty troubling depiction of what the Japanese expect out of life, and what is clearly unattainable given today’s socio-economic configuration.

A recent government white paper found that a large portion of women in their 20s want to be housewives. Not only that, another survey found that around 40% of unmarried women aged 25-35 want a husband who makes at least Y6 million a year. Sadly for them, only 3.5% of unmarried men in that age bracket actually make that much.

This kind of typical post-war middle-class lifestyle is pretty out of reach in a country that’s still struggling through two decades of recession, where the last Prime Minister’s attempt to de-regulate and dismantle the carefully-constructed social contract that included life-time employment, and where society is certain to be confronted with more uncertainty in the near future.

In the translated op-ed , the author suggests breaking down the rigid structure of Japan’s full-time employment system, and make part-time work a more systematic and acceptable feature of Japans labour landscape.

If embraced by the people, I can see how those changes may very well draw out stay-at-home moms into the work force. It may also steady overall future productivity if the policy succeeds in pushing up low birth rates that is plunging the nation into demographic abyss.

But is this really ideal? A more socially acceptable and entrenched part-time work culture will most likely be accessed by women, especially in a still traditionalist society where gender roles persist.  Will this kind of labour arrangement be the right transitional model to engage and entice more women into the labour force?

Take a look at the Dutch experience with part-time work.

Back in the 80s, labour force participation of prime-aged women in the Netherlands was one of the lowest in the OECD.  Over the next two decades, a part-time work structure gradually emerged and attracted more and more women to the work force.

But contrary to Scandinavia, where women transitioned rather quickly to full-time work, women in the Netherlands stayed with their part-time arrangements.  It now has one of the highest (I think Japan has since 2001 overtaken the Netherlands) female part-time employment rates in the OECD.  Which is to say, most of the women that work in the Netherlands, work part time.  And the percentage that actually does work is a rather abysmal 55%.

Ideal? I think not.

During the 1980s and 1990s, part-time work was praised as a way to increase the low female participation rates. However, the attitude towards part-time work among policymakers has changed. Now, a part-time job is often considered a trap in which the full potential of women remains unexploited. Part-time working women are paid less and have fewer opportunities for promotions. Therefore, increasing working hours would be beneficial for their labour market position. Stimulating female labour supply is also considered to be a potential source to increase economic growth and deal with the costs of an ageing society.

So if Japan goes down this road, a more flexible employment system will contribute economically, but will probably just further entrench the gender gap.

Even in a country that’s perceived to be one of the most progressive by the rest of the world, “about 40% of both Dutch men and women think that the family would suffer if the woman would work full-time. This opinion has not changed much during the past decades and across generations”.

Additionally, if female participation in the word force is truly encouraged, then more affordable and accessible child care facilities must be available.  In Japan, as in the Netherlands, and quite distinct from Scandinavia and North America, it is complicated, expensive, and socially frowned upon to organize child-care around awkward school hours (i.e. children getting sent home at lunch at in early afternoons).

Addressing those concerns and taking away the burden of women planning their lives around the children, will probably have consierable impact on both labour market participation and birth rates in the long run.

In a society where confrontation is hardly desired nor practiced, the Japanese’s reluctance to engage in face-to-face has created a whole new level of creepiness.  Where wannabe models and actors elsewhere wait tables and tend bars, the ones in Japan find employment as wakaresaseya, or splitter-uppers.

Rather than pleading with him face to face, a woman whose husband is having an affair may hire a splitter-upper to seduce his mistress away from him. Parents may engage their services to prise off the unsuitable lover of a son or daughter. Dozens of wakaresaseya companies advertise on the internet, under names such as Lady’s Secret Service and Office Shadow. They employ models, actors and personable people of different backgrounds first to trail and then to seduce their quarry.

But looking at the grander picture, these soap opera-ish home wreckers are merely one symptom of much larger problems in Japan.

The Japanese take the art of bowing just as seriously as they do with the art of honorific speech.  Salon investigates the four different kinds of bows through the Toyota recall debacle.

Japanese bows can be formally categorized as eshaku, a simple 15-degree bend or nod of the head; keirei, a 30-degree tilt to show respect; saikeirei, a full 45- to 90-degree bow intended to show the deepest veneration or humility; and dogeza, a fetal prostration expressing utter subjection or contrition.

But it’s not just the gradient of the bows either.

As important are the duration of the gesture, and the exact context under which it’s made. A graduating student might perform a full, prolonged saikeirei to his professor as a gesture of gratitude, but he might perform the same bow in an abbreviated form to apologize for having accidentally stepped on someone’s foot.

Now taking it to the nth degree, because this is Japan we are talking about.

Bowing is so important in Japan that parents begin to teach the practice to children shortly after they start walking, and some schools hold enormous assemblies where preteens spend hours bowing in unison to master the postures. One company supposedly developed a machine with a laser line to teach their sales staff the ideal angle for bowing to customers.

But really, it’s what those bows signify in the Japanese context that’s both mind-baffling and strangely fitting at the same time.

Still, in most daily interactions, the four categories and the precise pitch of the body matter far less than properly representing the hierarchical relationship between the two parties: The subordinate person—student, son, employee, etc.—must always must bow down lower, and stay there longer, than his superior.

A while ago, I wrote about Japan’s export of soft power through its kawaii culture, spear-headed by Hello Kitty, and now complete with culture ambassadors wearing Lolita uniforms.

The same thread was picked up by Wilson Center, whom viewed the phenomenon through more cynical lenses.  Is Japan’s obsession with cuteness merely a reflection of an increasingly infantilized and emasculated culture?

A clue as to what’s really going on may lie in the career of artist Takashi Mura­kami, an Andy ­Warhol–­like figure who has played a big role in taking cute global. In 2005 he curated an exhibit in New York titled “Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture.” “Little Boy” was a reference to the atomic bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, but it also “highlights what [Murakami] believes Japan has become in relation to the United States” since World War II—“a ­forever-­emasculated ‘little boy.’” Cute is a symptom of Japan’s infantil­ization, but as an “exploding subculture” it is also an assertion of Japanese soft power throughout the world, albeit an ironic ­one.

Or is it just simply, bored to death? Was the Japanese’ obsession with imperial glories simply channeled into more, mundane, matters? Is a country as rich and conformist as Japan doomed to become the poster child for post-modernism and despair?

Japan is rich enough, bored enough with national ambition, strait-jacketed enough and gloomy enough to find immense attraction in playful escapism and quirky obsession. … [T]here’s a Japanese word, otaku, denoting a whole universe of monomaniacal geek-like obsession, whether with an electronic game, some odd hobby, or the cartoonlike “manga” comic books devoted to everything from kamikazes to kinky sex.

Not a dilemma for countries in the West, since most have imposed economic sanctions on North Korea, which means no trade, but also no humanitarian aid either.

However, this doesn’t quite work for those in the neighbourhood.  For South Korea, China and Japan, North Korea is a reality that must be dealt with, in all its cultural-socio-geo-political complications.

This is an interesting point brought up by a blogger that I’ve not considered before: do you send aid to North Korea, or don’t you?

China and Japan may be weary of a nuclear North Korea.  But more likely than not, those two are more concerned over the potential social upheaval, both politically and economically, as a result of a collapsed North Korea.  The apocalyptic image of millions of starving North Koreans streaming over the Yalu River, or those seeking asylum at the Japanese embassy, must have caused somebody sleepless nights.  Better keep the country afloat and somewhat alive, than having it going into coma indefinitely. So the decision to extend North Korea the much-needed lifeline makes sense.

For South Korea that longs for an end to this expensive and psychologically draining military stand-off, but unsure of when and how the Kim dynasty will fold and just exactly how re-unification will get paid, the decision to the above question can be a constant struggle.

That’s where this blogger’s analysis gets interesting.

No one can plausibly monitor nor distinguish military personnel from civilians, since all it takes is a change of uniforms and a plate off the truck.  Therefore, if South Korea gives aid, then it will no doubt go to the military first.  The aid will go to prolonging the militarization of North Korea.  This is not good for South Korea nor for ordinary North Koreans.

If South Korea turns its back on aid, however, then it is knowingly starving a whole lot of people. Again, because that line between military and civilians is so thin, and because Kim Jung-Il has the power to raise army and militia from ordinary citizenry should he choose to, a soldier today can be a civilian tomorrow, and vice versa.

You can make the argument that blocking aid will cripple its army and accelerate Kim’s eventual fall from power, but on the other hand, if and when this whole madness is over, South Korea needs to deal with a nation of malnourished, developmentally stunted citizens.  Not only will this impose a huge humanitarian cost for North Korea (imagine the finger pointing once the world sees pictures of skeletal children), it also has far-reaching social and economic costs for the government and people of South Korea.

Not an easy decision at all.

China is but an amateur when it comes to cultural exports, Japan has been at this for decades!

What started out as an uniquely Japanese obsession found success first in the Asian market in the early 90s, has now crossed the continent.  The industry of cute now receives the same kind of state support and heavy-duty marketing push once reserved for keiretsu.

Check out Japan’s new Kawaii Ambassadors, appointed by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

And why not?  Effectively disarmed after WWII with little room to project its political will, and increasingly marginalized on the economics front by rising stars China and India in recent years, Japan has turned to exercising “soft power”, through the export of culture and technology.

“Japan stands out in terms of its international influence in pop culture, and we need to find a means to enhance this advantage, ” said former Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker Yoshikazu Tarui, who headed a group of parliamentarians seeking to promote Japan’s video games, animated characters and digital content.

I can almost hear the sound of marketing machines churning in the background.  The student has overtaken the teacher, America should be so proud!

(h/t Tim Oren)

Staring apocalyptic demographic trends and economic stagnation straight in the face, Japan and South Korea have told some of its workers to go home early.

In South Korea, the Ministry of Health are telling its workers to go home early as part of its worker-wellness experiment.  It really says something about your workforce when a government agency forcefully turn off the lights one day a month and send workers home at 7pm, this makes the news.

The Ministry of Health, now sometimes jokingly referred to as the Ministry of Matchmaking, is in charge of spearheading this drive, and it clearly believes its staff should lead by example. Generous gift vouchers are on offer for officials who have more than one child, and the department organises social gatherings in the hope of fostering love amongst its bureaucrats.

Needless to say, it’s got a long way to go in transforming general attitudes towards work in the country.  Work-life imbalance aside, many are still aghast at pricey child care and the efforts in providing children with a good education in South Korea.

The comments left behind are the most telling:

The cost of nursery care in Korea can be four times that of a full-time university student’s tuition. Plus, many parents feel compelled by competition to have private tutoring for their kids, even in primary school. An average family spends up to 50% of their income on one child’s education so it’s no wonder only the well-off can have two or more kids, and the poorest can’t even begin to start families. The emphasis on education here is a bit extreme.

I spend quite a bit of time in Seoul on business and I can confirm that the Koreans work extremely long hours. The young software engineers will work till 0300 or 0500 and then stagger in the next day at 1100 ashen faced. Obviously, this leaves no time for procreation. One Wednesday last year they were all sent home at 1800 for a half day and nine months later two babies arrived on the scene. Now, it is company policy to take a half day (ie stop at 6pm) on Wednesdays, but they tend to sneak back in to get working again.

It is normal for women who have a baby to be fired in Korea. Given this situation, women do not want to have a baby. Moreover, the government in Seoul doesn’t say anything to support a family. It’s quite ridiculous.

In Japan, the biggest business organization is asking its 1,600 member companies to let their workers go home early.  But it’s a bit of a cat-and-mouse game.

Several firms have organised “family weeks” during which employees must get permission to work past 7pm, but most continue to squeeze every last drop of productivity from their staff. In response, the labour ministry plans to submit a bill exempting employees with children under three from overtime and limiting them to six-hour days.