Caregiver Trainee Program Coming Up Short, but Options on Table also Daunting
By Tomohiro Osaki
In an interview with JCIE’s managing director Toshihiro Menju, the role of foreign labor in Japan’s nursing care industry is discussed, along with how a promotion of long-term settlement could combat the exploitation and corruption inherent in this sector.
Japan Alone Cannot Guard or Sustain Peace
When one speaks of turmoil on the Korean Peninsula, it’s usually in reference to North Korea, not South Korea. But Itsunori Onodera, who stepped down as Japan’s defense minister in September 2014, has some concerns with Seoul’s “provocative” actions toward Pyongyang.
Does Japan’s Conservative Shinto Religion Support Gay Marriage?
In 1999, a Shinto priest unofficially married two men in a shrine in Kawasaki, an industrial city near Tokyo. Literally “the way of the gods,” Shinto is one of Japan’s major religions, but it does not influence modern Japanese life the way that Christianity dominates in the United States. Rather, it’s more a matter of a shared culture against which some people define themselves.
Etiquette and Rituals Rule in Japan’s Business Culture
At a dinner meeting in Tokyo recently, two Japanese professors, Ryo Sahashi and Satoru Mori, arrived and sat down at their booth. Even though it meant one of them would shortly have to get up to make room for one of their colleagues, who had yet to arrive, they left the middle seat between them empty.
How Japan Pushes Coal on the World
While the U.S. backs away from its dirtiest power source, its closest ally in Asia is building, selling and financing coal plants worldwide.
In Japan, Foreigners Increasingly Fill Workforce Gaps
By Lisa Du
Non-Japanese are taking a bigger role in powering Japan’s economy as a labor shortage impels the country to overcome its long-standing resistance to foreign workers. With hundreds of thousands of jobs going unfilled, businesses from noodle shops to auto-parts factories are squeezing every existing channel to get help.
Rebel Without a Country
Rebel Pepper, China’s most notorious political cartoonist, fled his native land for Japan. But life in exile is tougher than he expected.
Japan’s Long-term Care Dilemma: Immigrants or Robots?
Sally Herships explores the problems surrounding Japan’s growing elderly population, and the question of whether turning to migrant workers would be a practical solution.
A Vote for Trump is a Vote for China
Isaac Stone Fish writes on how Donald Trump’s policies benefit China and the effect this has on the US-Japan relationship.
President Trump? Among U.S. Allies, Japan May be One of the Most Anxious About That Idea
By Julie Makinen
Is Japan gaga for Donald Trump? That was the impression created by a spellbinding YouTube video that went viral last week. Despite the video’s popularity, the reality is that perhaps no U.S. ally is as anxious and befuddled about the prospect of a President Trump as Japan.
