Nipponica

Yonaguni Island, Japan’s westernmost remote island in Okinawa Prefecture, might not have a single doctor from next spring as the island’s only clinic will be unable to secure one, partly due to a possible contingency in Taiwan.

A Tokyo based medical association, which has dispatched doctors to the town of Yonaguni, has indicated that it would stop sending them, raising concerns among those living on the island, which is located only about 110 kilometers from Taiwan.

While it is understandable that many fear the impact of a possible war in Taiwan, an island community without medical care is not a community at all. Give them hazard pay, recruit from overseas, whatever is necessary to keep Yonaguni alive.

The agency is recommending replacing the government’s long-standing Kunrei system with more widely used Hepburn-style spellings. The changes are expected to be approved within the current fiscal year and gradually rolled out in textbooks and other materials.

Under the Kunrei system, codified by Cabinet notification in 1954, phonemes for ち and ふ are written as ti and hu. Most Japanese schools still teach the style in romanization studies.

But the Hepburn system, which renders them as chi and fu, has become dominant both in Japan and abroad, making the impact of the change likely most evident in educational materials such as school textbooks.

The council’s recommendation also adopts Hepburn spellings for し, じ and つ as shi, ji, and tsu, compared to the Kunrei spellings of si, zi and tu. It specifies that double consonants, as in てっぱん, should be written by repeating the consonant, while long vowels such as in かあさん can be indicated with either a macron (kāsan) or doubled letters (kaasan).

It is about a century too late but in Japanese time scales, pretty speedy. On a conceptual level I understand why Kunrei did what it did, but practically it only led to confusion for non-Japanese readers. Hepburn über alles.

Firefighting efforts on the ship, anchored near White Beach Naval Facility in the city of Uruma in Japan's southern island prefecture, involved U.S. Navy personnel as well as support from the Japan Coast Guard and the Maritime Self-Defense Force.

Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki expressed his deep frustration over the incident, warning at a press conference that it could have led to "a major disaster involving residents."

Americans making messes overseas. Just another day.

Two branches of the Japanese convenience store chain Ministop in Kyoto Prefecture are suspected of falsifying expiry dates on foods prepared in their kitchens for several years, the local health center said Tuesday.

The revelation comes after operator Ministop Co., a subsidiary of retail giant Aeon Co., said Monday it had found such misconduct at 23 stores in Tokyo, Saitama, Aichi, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyogo and Fukuoka prefectures.

This may be my own bias but I’ve always considered Ministops to be a lesser konbini in the great hierarchy so I’m not too surprised. Long live the king, long live Seicomart.

A policy proposal on coexistence with foreign residents in Japan has drawn a strong response after it was compiled by Shizuoka Gov. Yasutomo Suzuki at a meeting of the National Governors’ Association held in Aomori Prefecture in July.

The proposal calls on the central government to establish a comprehensive basic law and set up a central coordinating body for multicultural coexistence policies.

According to the prefectural government, as of Monday morning, it had received approximately 200 emails and phone calls. Many were critical, with comments such as, “It is unreasonable to use tax money to support foreigners,” or “This is inhospitable toward Japanese people.”

A friendly reminder that racism is everywhere.

The memorandum will allow Japan to receive information on non-Japanese people who seek entry to Japan from Taiwan, according to the sources. This will help Japan more effectively screen individuals and determine who may pose a threat to domestic security in the wake of a contingency. Under the memorandum, travelers bound for Japan will also receive a pre-departure check at Taiwan airports outside of contingencies.

“Chinese agents could enter Japan by concealing themselves among Taiwanese nationals,” a Japanese source warned.

The article notes how unusual this kind of agreement is and it is kinda chilling that there is public-level planning for this situation. But best to be prepared rather than improvise in the chaos.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency is set to designate at least four cities in the country as “hometowns” for certain nations in Africa at the 2025 Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), scheduled to begin on Wednesday.

The agency, which assists with implementing development assistance in developing countries, will assign the city of Nagai in Yamagata Prefecture to Tanzania, Kisarazu in Chiba Prefecture to Nigeria, Sanjo in Niigata Prefecture to Ghana and Imabari in Ehime Prefecture to Mozambique.

The purpose stated in the article is that it will promote two-way dialog and bring more population to these cities in Japan. But with an immigration system like it is now, is it realistic to expect that Africans could immigrate to Japan?

A male assistant professor at Hokkaido University assaulted and injured multiple students while intoxicated at a social gathering, sources involved with the university have told the Mainichi Shimbun.

Following the incident, the students called on the university administration to conduct an investigation and take disciplinary action against the assistant professor, a member of the chemistry department of the university's Faculty of Science, questioning the department's reluctance to make the issue public. It took over a month following the incident for the department to distribute a document to students regarding "measures to prevent a recurrence."

Totally outrageous and this faculty should be terminated and prosecuted. Let’s keep the school violence sequestered on the other side of the Pacific and not let it seep into this country.

Japanese trading house Itochu will begin discussions with the banking unit of the 7-Eleven convenience store chain on a capital and business alliance, as it looks to increase its consumer financial service offerings.

The Japanese trader has "agreed to commence discussions" with Seven Bank on the tie-up, "including collaboration across a wide range of financial fields," it said on Monday. Nikkei understands that Itochu is considering acquiring not only Seven Bank's treasury shares -- stock bought back from shareholders -- but also shares held by institutional investors. Combined, they would potentially amount to a 20% stake.

Worth noting that Itochu owns FamilyMart. Compared to the failed Couche-Tard deal, increased domestic partnerships like this seem like a better way to grow.

The new yen-denominated stablecoin will be named JPYC. To peg its value to the yen, it will be backed by such highly liquid assets as deposits and government bonds. Sales are expected to begin in the weeks after registration as a money transfer business is established.

Individuals, corporations and institutional investors wanting to use the new JPYC stablecoin will be able to apply to purchase it and transfer the payment, after which it will be transferred into their electronic wallets. Uses will include such international remittances as sending money to students abroad, as well as corporate payments and the blockchain-based asset management services known as decentralized finance.

For reasons still unknown, we are being dragged into this world against our will.

Among the teachers surveyed, 3,522, or 65.6% of the total, said that they take almost no breaks in the course of a day. The percentage shoots up to 85% when teachers who break for less than 15 minutes are included. The survey results show that a mere 1.5% of the teachers are taking breaks amounting to at least 45 minutes, as stipulated under Japan’s Labor Standards Act.

Many of the survey respondents said that they are not able to go to the bathroom at school because of the lack of breaks, and as a result some teachers have suffered recurrent bladder inflammation.

And I wonder why they are having just a hard time hiring new teachers.

All Nippon Airways (ANA) said Thursday that, together with a U.S. startup, it hopes to have electric "air taxis" whizzing over Japan from as early as 2027.

ANA and California-based Joby Aviation said they will establish a joint venture with a view to deploy more than 100 of the five-seater aircraft.

An ANA spokesman said on Thursday that the aircraft, designed to carry a pilot and up to four passengers at speeds of up to 320 kph, could be in service from as early as 2027.

ANA bringing traffic jams to the skies of Tokyo Bay.

In order to replace the aged wooden building of Hatsushima Station on the Kisei Line, the building parts for the new station were produced at a plant using a 3D printer and assembled at the site in March. After assembly work, which took about six hours, ticket machines and gates were installed.

Very cool project and a good & efficient way to replace aging rail infrastructure at smaller stations.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Friday vowed to seek forward-looking, mutually beneficial cooperation with Japan while calling on the neighboring country to "squarely face up to" the "long and fraught" history the two countries share.

Speaking at a ceremony in Seoul to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of Japan's colonial rule, Lee said Japan is "an indispensable partner," though "unresolved" historical issues still leave some South Koreans suffering, without detailing such issues as forced labor during the colonial period.

In his first such Liberation Day speech since taking office in June, Lee pledged to hold frequent meetings and "frank dialogues" with Japan through "shuttle diplomacy" involving reciprocal visits by the two leaders, ahead of his two-day visit to Tokyo starting Saturday to meet Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

The usual issues still being pushed by the new RoK government but hopefully their pledge to continue diplomacy will move relations forward as the world reshapes itself.

Japan's immigration authority is intensifying efforts to crack down on suspected abuse of the business manager visa program, which is intended to help foreign entrepreneurs start businesses in the country.

The heightened scrutiny follows the recent arrest of a Sri Lankan national accused of assisting compatriots in illegally obtaining business manager visas through the use of fictitious companies and falsified documents.

Many experts argue that Japan's business manager visa is prone to abuse because it is subject to less oversight than other residency categories, enabling individuals to set up shell companies to help others obtain or extend visas.

Yes, people abusing the system should be found and removed from the country. But the infographic in this article shows that people on this visa are a mere fraction of the total of foreigners in the country. Good to stop the misuse of the system but I hope that these people aren't the designated scapegoats for the anti-immigrant wave.

The Japanese government plans to promote the use of generative artificial intelligence and other digital technologies to support the teaching of the Japanese language to children with foreign roots, sources close to the matter said Thursday.

Guidelines are expected to be drawn up to utilize generative AI for effective teaching methods for other subjects in addition to Japanese, amid a shortage of staff who can accommodate the native tongues of varying languages such as Portuguese, Chinese and Spanish.

This is bad. Everyone has been shitting on Duolingo for years for its gamification but it was a decent language learning app. But the quality plummeted when they went AI-first recently. Expand that enshittification to an entire cohort in Japanese schools and the results are catastrophic. I understand the issue with staffing shortages but this isn't the way.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will announce the initiative at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in Yokohama, Japan, that runs from Wednesday to Aug. 22.

Japan will support efforts to link India, the Middle East and Africa. The aim is to capture demand in African emerging markets and pursue economic security aims, such as ensuring a stable supply of resources.

To increase maritime shipping in the western Indian Ocean, Tokyo will use official development assistance to help build ports and roads in East Africa.

More belts. More roads.

The number of foreign-born workers has more than quadrupled in seven Japanese prefectures compared with a decade ago, underscoring how prominent immigrants have become in supporting understaffed small-town economies.

Foreign workers are now essential participants at every link in the supply chain, from harvesting crops to processing and shipping goods to customer service and retail.

Foreigners are holding the country together and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Parties that are anti-immigrant are anti-Japan, plain and simple.

Hirofumi Yoshimura, the governor of Osaka and leader of Nippon Ishin no Kai, has suggested the possibility of making another bid for a so-called Osaka metropolis plan, an idea rejected twice in local referendums.

The long-discussed plan would scrap the city of Osaka and reorganize it into special administrative districts under Osaka Prefecture.

I’m curious to know the public’s thoughts on why the previous referendums were rejected. A reorganization might fall in the “ain’t broke, don’t fix it” bucket but perhaps increased autonomy in the wards would be better in the long run. Interested to see how this plays out again.

Tatsuhiko Hoshino, an international relations officer at the nonprofit Japan Association of Overseas Studies (JAOS), said the depreciation of the yen had a significant impact on Japanese students looking to study abroad.

“There has been a notable shift away from traditionally expensive destinations,” Hoshino said, noting that students who still had their hearts set on Europe were looking to more affordable countries such as Germany, Hungary or Malta.

“This trend is unlikely to change, and I believe we will see even more Japanese students opting to study in Asia or EU countries going forward,” Hoshino said.

If I was a Japanese student looking at prices of an American undergrad education, I would do the same thing. It is simply unsustainable in this economy to expect students to go into lifetime debt for an educational gamble.