No signs of recession in pet industry

OSAKA - The average amount spent annually on pet-related expenses by households with at least two members rose 4.6% in 2009 from the previous year to 18,323 yen, the highest figure since comparable data become available in 1990, according to a recent government survey.

While family spending as a whole is on the decrease, there are no signs of recession in the pet industry, as high-priced pet food and stylish clothing are selling well, pet cosmetics, insurance and various other services are now available and medical costs for pets are rising as they live longer, according to the survey.

As Japanese society continues to gray with fewer children, and as the number of single-person households expands, more pets are being treated as a child or a spouse, said a researcher commissioned by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

‘‘The market will likely continue to expand with owners regarding their pets as family members and sparing no expense,’’ Shimpei Iwama, a member of the Osaka office of research firm Fuji Keizai Co, said.

The firm estimates the value of the pet market at about 1.2 trillion yen in 2009.

The survey shows that pet-related expenditure, which was a little over 10,000 yen in 1993, exceeded 15,000 yen in 2003. Since 2005, expenses have been growing for five consecutive years.

By generation, people in their 50s spent the most on their pets at 28,951 yen on average in the reporting year, which was about 4.7 times the average of people under 30, showing that the middle-aged and above were the main group supporting the market, having finished raising children.

On the other hand, data on single-person households showed that women aged from 35 to 59 spent the most on their pets at 20,752 yen. Overall, women spent 12,508 yen on average, which was more than four times that of men, the report said.

Pet food makes up one third of the market, with diet food and health conscious ‘‘premium food’’ selling well, according to Fuji Keizai.

Beauty products including shampoos and services such as teeth and ear cleaning are also a big hit as more pets are raised indoors and live in line with their owners’ lifestyles.

Celebrating Japan's vegan and vegetarian traditions

Few people have done as much to help Western audiences understand Japanese food as Elizabeth Andoh. In “Kansha,” her follow-up to 2005’s award-winning “Washoku: Recipes from the Japanese Home Kitchen,” the former Gourmet magazine correspondent casts her eye over the country’s neglected tradition of vegan cuisine.

Like her earlier books, “Kansha”  (appreciation) isn’t content merely to list recipes, but offers an entire philosophy of cooking, focusing not only on nutrition but also avoiding waste and sustaining natural resources. Its pages are littered with advice on ways to use parts of vegetables that you’d normally throw away, alongside a wealth of tips on preparation, cooking and storage.

The detailed instructions accompanying each recipe mean that it’s hard to botch things up, and the titles alone are the stuff of mouth-watering daydreams: pop-pom sushi, slithery somen noodles, chrysanthemum greens in nutty tofu sauce, fiddlehead ferns steeped in soy-tinged broth… Veggie nirvana.

“Kansha: Celebrating Japan’s Vegan and Vegetarian Traditions.” Available from major bookstores and Amazon Japan.

From Japan, the Heavy-Metal Kid

Now, feel your lover's heartbeat through a digital heart!

Japan Herald, Wednesday 20th October, 2010  (ANI)

A Japanese mobile service provider has created a device, known as 'Taion Heart', that can transmit your partner's pulse through a phone app so that you can physically feel their heartbeat.

No matter how far away you are from your loved one, you can always feel close.

While the potential negative consequences of the device haven't been fully explored, for the romantic tech-lovers the Taion Heart is designed to replicate the experience of holding hands.

The device takes pulse and pressure readings when held in the palm of your hand. It transmits them via Bluetooth to a mobile phone running the application, reports News.com.au.

The app sends the data to your partner's phone, which in turn transmits the information to their Taion Heart that vibrates, warms up and illuminates in different colours depending on the readings.

NTT DoCoMo Inc., the company that made the device, said that couples can hold the heart in bed as they sleep to feel close to their absent partner.

They don't have any immediate plans to release the Taion Heart commercially.

Empress marks 76th birthday

Wednesday 20th October, 06:20 AM JST

TOKYO —

Empress Michiko marked her 76th birthday Wednesday and indicated her hopes that the imperial family members will find their future guidance in the footsteps of Emperor Akihito.

Referring to Crown Prince Naruhito, his brother Prince Akishino and their families, the empress said in a statement, ‘‘I am certain that they will find a guiding principle and support in the way His Majesty over the years has proceeded in pursuit of how the imperial family should be and how the emperor should be,’’ when they assume their roles in the future.

‘‘I trust that both the crown prince and Prince Akishino are continuing to nurture carefully the budding potentials they so often showed as infants and boys,’’ she also said.

Meanwhile, Empress Michiko expressed concern over the current state of the crown prince’s family, with Crown Princess Masako continuing to be treated for stress-linked illness and their daughter Princess Aiko attending a limited number of classes at school.

‘‘As the crown prince’s family is now experiencing difficulties related to health and schooling, all of us in the family are watching over them with concern,’’ she said.

‘‘I truly cherish the families of the crown prince and Prince Akishino, and I pray with all my heart for the peace and well-being of each member of their families,’’ she added.

The remarks came in response to reporters’ written questions in time for her birthday.

Asked about her health, as she was diagnosed with a high probability of having a cough variant asthma in September, Empress Michiko said she has been ‘‘blessed with relatively good health’’ but feels she has become ‘‘a lot slower at doing things’’ in the last few years.

‘‘I also often experience symptoms that seem to be caused by aging, such as not being able to find what I am looking fore. I find these incidents amusing at times, but I also feel a bit helpless,’’ she said.

With regard to recent events that left impressions on her, she named the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Miyazaki Prefecture, along with several other topics including extreme summer heat and two Japanese researchers receiving the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

‘‘My heart goes out to the people of Miyazaki Prefecture who, before the end of the foot-and-mouth disease was formally declared, had to dispose of nearly 290,000 cows and pigs and I feel deep sorrow that they had to bury in such a way the animals that had been almost like family to them,’’ she said.

In April, the foot-and-mouth disease hit livestock in the southern prefecture, leading to the massive slaughtering of cows and pigs for preventing further spread of the disease until the Miyazaki government declared the end of the epidemic in August.

She added the incident also made her ‘‘think deeply about the pain’’ of those who found the animals with the disease and those who had to vaccinate them and cull them.

Introducing Japan’s new singing robot

October 18, 2010

Source: PhysOrg.com, Oct. 15, 2010

A new humanoid robot, the HRP-4 or “diva-bot,” has learned to sing by mimicking a human singer, enabling it to sound natural and to sing with more expression than any previous robot.

A research team from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Tokyo used a new technology called VocalListener to observe a real singer in action and synthesize the appropriate notes of the song with the help of Yamaha’s existing voice synthesizing software, Vocaloid.

Facial expressions were generated with a second new technology, called Vocawatcher, which analyzes video of a singer to mimic the expressions.

The 3-D Global Manager

Jesus' Love Shines in Tokyo

Sometimes in places where Believers are few, they bear a stronger resemblance to Jesus.  Japan is one of those places and Midori is one of those Believers.  She leads the singing in a church of 25 souls and cleans the rooms in a Christian guesthouse.  But a particularly Christ-like act of love by Midori happened in a Tokyo coffee shop.

The “Sonrise Café’” is a new ministry recently opened by TEAM missionaries in Tokyo.  The café’ exists to bring Japanese into genuine relationships with Jesus through those whom He has redeemed.  There, Midori’s humble, loving service has found her favor in the eyes of a patron...

Midori works part-time at the cafe, and one customer frequently asks "She will be here on Saturday, right?"  One Saturday, Midori extended kindness by massaging this woman's deformed hand.  The next week, a missionary co-worker at the cafe noticed a strange clicking sound and looked up to see Midori clipping the woman's fingernails for her.  Hmmm... strange.  A few minutes later, Midori was on her knees on the hardwood floor and spent a long time clipping the woman's toenails.  As it turns out, the woman's toenails are also deformed and very difficult to care for.  The woman has no family and had not found anyone willing to trim her ugly toenails – until she met Midori.  The missionary co-worker watched in amazement.  She saw the grace and the glory of God in that act of selfless love.  Perhaps the Lord will draw this woman’s heart to Himself through the love of Jesus in Midori.

When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. "Do you understand what I have done for you?" he asked them. "You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another's feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. – John 13:12-14

Diplomats reveal Japan 'old and new' through lens

TOKYO - An annual exhibition featuring photographs taken by Japan-based foreign diplomats opens in Tokyo on Oct 15, showcasing a country that is traditional, modern, beautiful and curious, from the viewfinders of keen international observers.

About 90 works submitted by 66 diplomats and family members from 40 countries will be on display at the 13th week-long exhibition, titled, ‘‘Japan ‘Old and New’ through Diplomats’ Eyes,’’ with the special theme of ‘‘takumi’’ (craftsmanship).

The Grand Prize, chosen by the show’s eight-member committee, went to Bengt Westerblad, a Swedish-born artist and husband of a diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, whose photo captured a bamboo-made bud vase on a black background. In the picture, what looks like a test tube protrudes from a dark bamboo-woven ball, with a green leaf inserted into it.

The piece, which is paired with a photo of bamboo, a knife and skin, ‘‘makes us see how natural life emerges and reigns even from the simplicity of bamboo,’’ Colombian Ambassador to Japan Patricia Cardenas says in a message to the exhibition.

Cardenas, who serves as chairwoman of the exhibition’s selection committee, adds that Westerblad’s photo embodies this year’s theme.

The Prince Takamado Memorial Prize was awarded to Tomasz Kuczynski, second secretary at the Polish Embassy in Tokyo, whose photo shows the right side of an old man with a carved wooden mask covering his cheek and ear.

The picture, shot at a flower festival in Hiroshima Prefecture some years ago, shows the man and the artifact well blended together and expresses a sense of tradition, Princess Takamado, the show’s honorary president, said in picking it, according to Shinobu Abe, the committee’s secretary general.

The special prize was created in 2003 to memorialize Prince Takamado, an avid photographer who died in 2002 at age 47. Emperor Akihito’s cousin had served as the exhibition’s honorary president since its launch in 1998.

The show will run through Oct 21 at the Roppongi Hills business and commercial complex in Tokyo. It will also be held at the Central Park shopping mall in Nagoya on Nov. 19-30 and at Hyogo International Plaza in Kobe from Dec 15 to Jan 27, 2011.

Information about this event is available at http://diplomatseyes.com/

The Lost Art of Finding Your Center

The words people use give us a clue as to how they experience the world. As the culture changes, so does the language. Take the word hara, for which there are over 150 expressions listed in a Japanese dictionary. When a word has different nuances, it may be pronounced the same, but written with a different character. 

Hara written with the character 腹 (belly, abdomen) is in most common use today, and generally refers to the shape or state of the abdomen, as well as the seat of common emotions. Get hungry (hara ga heru), get angry (hara ga tatsu), be overweight (hara ga deru), be famished (hara peko), beer belly (bīru bara), eat to 80% of your fill (hara hachibunme), be determined (hara wo kimeru), be firmly resolved (hara wo kukuru). 

Hara written with the character 肚 (center, root) is associated more with mastery and maturity, rooted in Samurai culture. To have accomplished hara is to be a master (hara no dekita hito), to have large hara is to be big-hearted and magnanimous (hara no ōkī hito), to think with hara is to think deeply (hara de kangaeru), to have seated hara is to be calm under pressure (hara ga suwatteiru), the art of communication with hara to be intuitive (haragei), to train the hara is to develop yourself through a discipline (hara wo neru), to seek out hara is to know real intentions (hara wo saguru), to speak with presence is a hara voice (hara goe). 

Both characters use the left-hand radical 月 (here meaning flesh, or body), but belly 腹 is a body shaped like a bulging container, whereas root 肚 is a body which is grounded to the earth. In the latter case, it refers to the center of the mind and body, and the seat of the soul. 

The word hara as center or root (肚) has a long tradition, which is captured with clarity in a classic book called Hara: The Vital Centre of Man, written by Karlfried Graf Von Dürckheim (1896~1988) English translation: http://budurl.com/2r95 , Japanese translation: http://budurl.com/2pzy

Dürckheim was a German diplomat and psychotherapist, who studied Zen in Japan for 8 years, from 1938~1946. Although he was captured in 1945 by US counter-intelligence agents, and kept for eighteen months in Sugamo prison, after his release Dürckheim’s books and introductions to Zen Master D.T. Suzuki led to a chain of events that brought Zen into the mainstream of awareness in America. http://budurl.com/38jb 

But even as the West was discovering hara, mainstream Japanese culture was in the process of forgetting it. Though it is still an integral part of the martial arts and many traditional disciplines, it is fast fading from daily life. The vital center for many people seems to be shifting upward. 

In Japanese the original expression for losing your temper was hara ga tatsu (the hara stands up). Today you more commonly hear expressions like atama ni kita (it comes to the head), or even worse, kireru (to cut loose, or lose it). The English equivalent might be blew a fuse, or burst a blood vessel. If the mind is centered in the lower abdomen, even if you lose your temper, it is still possible to calm down, count to ten, or sleep on it to regain your composure. A person with a low center of gravity is grounded and composed, and can recover calmness quickly. The preferred way to be is to have a cool head and warm feet (zukan sokunetsu). 

Think how this compares to the opposite, having a hot head and cold feet! If you lose it, you’ve lost it. A person with a high center of gravity tends to be proud, self-righteous, argumentative, and inflexible, or even violent when things do not go their way. You see it on the evening news, and it’s not a pretty sight. 

The discovery of Zen in America in the 1950s and 1960s had a major impact on Western psychology. It developed over time into a greater emphasis on awareness, attitude, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence. Ironically, during this time Japanese have tended to drift away from their own roots, and currently seem more interested in key words like critical thinking, compliance, and quality control. While communication used to be hara to hara, or at least heart to heart, it is increasingly head to head. Books on brain training are bestsellers, while books on training the hara are hard to come by. 

However, like a prodigal son, the culture of hara has traveled to the West, changed our psychology, and is ready to return home. As Japanese witness the unravelling of good things in their culture that they once took for granted, they will become more receptive to the echos in their own cultural heritage. 

William Reed
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