Whats the Eco Point?

ECO POINTS

If you have bought an electrical appliance for your home recently there’s a strong probability that you would have received Eco Points. For those who don’t know, Eco Points are an initiative of the Japanese Government to encourage consumers to purchase products with low environmental impact. Points are awarded to consumers based on the price of the product as well as the products environmental friendliness. It was recently announced that these points can be exchanged for credit on Suica or Pasmo cards as well as used towards the purchase of flights with JAL and ANA airlines.

While the idea behind the Eco Points scheme seems honourable, I cant help but feel that the initiative is simply a broad gesture intended to persuaded the public that the government is actively working towards implementing strong environmentally focused policies. I recently received some Eco points with the purchase of a household appliance and was amused by the hypocrisy of it all as I was handed numerous sheets of environmentally damaging bleached paper explaining the Eco Points system.

Cynicism aside, I’m sure that the Eco points system will go some way to convincing consumers to purchase Environmentally friendly products in the future and therefore should definitely not be considered a useless initiative.

Is Food in Japan Expensive?

Is food in Japan Expensive?

Hello! This is my first post on the Global Communications Blog and today I’d like to talk about the cost of food in Japan.

If I ask my friends in Australia what they think of Japan, most people will say “expensive”. I’m not sure where this image comes from but before coming to Japan I also thought that Japan was a very expensive country. However, I was surprised to discover that eating in restaurants as well as grocery shopping in Japan is actually quite a fair bit cheaper than Australia.

It is usual to pay around $30 (2500yen) for dinner in a restaurant in Australia whereas in Japan you can eat a decent meal for around 1000yen. This is less than half of what you would pay in Australia!

Shopping in supermarkets is also, in general, cheaper in Japan than in Australia. Products such as packaged drinks (juice, soft drinks etc), tofu, fresh and dried noodles, fish, chicken and pork are much cheaper in Japan. However, fresh fruit and dairy products are more expensive in Japan.

I have found that if I steer clear of western style restaurants and cook Japanese style meals at home, eating out and grocery shopping is much cheaper in Japan than in Australia.

I also recently moved to a new apartment that is very close to a 100yen supermarket, which also helps keep my shopping expenses low!

Well, all this talk about food has made me hungry, time for my Onigiri!

thoughts

I have now been in Japan for over 8 months, mainly going to school, studying and spending time with friends.
It has been an exciting time for me, even if I have spent mainly all of my time in Tokyo, except for one time around Christmas when I went with a friend to Yokohama, which was very fun, even if my friend wanted me to speak japanese at a time when I only knew very basic grammar and could not form a good sentence, and did not understand anything that people said to me. But still, I am glad she brought me along! The view we had of Mt. Fuji from the Ferriswheel was just lovely!

Being in Tokyo, and meeting so many people from different cultures has really made me even more aware of the big differences there are between people. For example, in Iran, apparently, paying for other people when you leave a restaurant is something normal, even if the bill can be pretty high. This is something I experienced myself a couple of weeks ago when we were celebrating a friends birthday. It actually surprised me quite a bit, since that is not a normal thing to do in Norway; we do not split the bill or anything, we just pay for what we ordered ourselves.

Since coming to Japan, I have started to like the country even more, and I hope that I will get the chance to come back as quickly as posible!
Even if I have been learning quite a bit about japanese society and way of thinking in school, I have also learned quite a bit from working at Global Communications! It has really been an interesting time for me, and I am very glad that I was given the opportunity!
I hope everybody continues working hard on acchieving what they want, I will definately do the same!

Sandra

School Lunch

School lunch in Japanese Elementary Schools

In April, I started teaching at elementary schools. One of the biggest differences that I noticed between elementary schools in Japan and the U.S. was the lunch system. In Japan, the students eat with their classmates and are required to eat EVERYTHING off their plate. I don't know about all of you, but being forced to eat everything is a bit extreme. Some people can eat more than others, and some have certain dislikes of food. In my case, I do not like hijiki or konyaku which is a main ingredient in most school lunches so I just leave it untouched. But as soon as the children see that I haven't eaten, all hell breaks loose. Kids start telling me that I have to eat it and then tell the teacher that I didn't eat everything. Even worse, some kids who just can't eat everything because they are full are bullied by the other kids into eating and aren't left alone until everything is clean off their plate.

In the U.S., kids are allowed to bring their lunches from home. Those who don't are allowed to choose what they want to eat from the school cafeteria so every one is happy. Now this is for me, the ideal school lunch system.

Media and Swine Flu

I am a little worried about the way that the media here in Japan is handling the outbreak of swine flu. This morning I noticed the lead story on the news was that the new swine flu had spread to the Tokyo area. They gave details on where the newly infected person lives, and even the route they traveled to get back to their house, even telling us if the person was wearing a mask or not. I think this is a little irresponsible. It makes people worry, yet doesn't seem to help them at all. I wish the news would focus on what people should do to prevent getting sick and reassure people that this new flu really isn't any more dangerous than normal flu.

The news did mention that you shoul wash your hands, and it did mention how to take care of people who were sick in their homes, and it did mention that you would likely not die from catching the flu, but it should have spent more time on these important matters and less time telling people about where the new cases of swine flu happened and transportation routes that the infected person may have traveled. This is simply not helpful.

The news is suppossed to be a public service. Encouraging people to panic is not a service. Instead, I would like to see the news providing more balanced coverage and urging people to recognise swine flu for what it is, just a bad case of the flu.

Hiroshima and Miyajima

Hiroshima and Miyajima

I recently took a trip to Hiroshima and Miyajima during Golden Week. Hiroshima is definitely a place that everyone should visit. As it is the site of the first atomic bombing during World War II, it has a very deep and sad history. Despite the horrors of the atomic bomb, the reconstruction of Hiroshima goes to show that there is always hope even at the bleakest moments. For anyone who hasn't been to Hiroshima, I highly recommend that you visit at least once. And be sure to try their okonomiyaki...its declicious!

Miyajima was also a lot of fun to visit. The Itsukushima shrine and red Torii gate were very beautiful, especially during high tide. I was even able to touch the gate during low tide. Be sure to check the tides before you visit so that you can see it at high and low tide. AND...be sure to try their barbequed oysters and momiji manju...wonderfully delicious!

Summer is Here!

Hello Everyone!

I hope you all had a nice Golden Week. Sadly, the weather was not very nice. But for the past two weeks, the weather has been almost perfect. It has become very hot in Tokyo, and it is not yet humid. I think this might be the best time of year in the Kanto area.

I think the nicest thing about summer in Tokyo is waiting for the train. In the winter, it can get very cold waiting for the tarin outside. But in the summer, it is very pleasant to stand on the platform, especially if there is a nice breeze.

Also in the summer many restaruants in Tokyo put tables outside so you can sit and have a coffee or a meal and enjoy the weather. Tokyo gets hot and humid, but I still like eating outside. Where I come from, it is very hard to eat outside because there are so many insects. This is not a problem in Tokyo.

I am really looking forward to summer. It's my favorite season of the year.

First Bird Flu, then Pig Flu!

The other day a student asked me "what does swine mean." I told them that it was a word that we didn't use anymore, but is a technical name for pigs. That is why we are hearing so much about swine flu lately, it is a flue virus carried by pigs. Earlier, we heard about "avian" flu. "Avian" is just a technical word for bird. Sometimes I think that using technical words, and not ordinary English, can make things seem scarier than they really are. Luckily, people seem to be remarkably calm about the new swine flu in Mexico. Though many people have died so far, all of them have been in Mexico, and the disease seems to be not as bad as people thought orginally.

One good thing about all the preparations for bird flu is that when pig flu came around, though it happened from an unexpected source (pigs) and in an unexpected place (Mexico, not Asia) many health professionals, such as doctors and governments, were ready for the rapid spread of a dangerous virus. So far the swine flu has not been as deadly as it could be, and we have the preparations made for bird flu to thank for that. This just goes to show that it always pays to be prepared, even if it pays off in ways you might not have expected!

Golden Week Plans

Golden Week is coming up soon! I hope that everyone has made some interesting plans. I have talked to many students who are going traveling around Japan and some who are going to other countries, like France. Some people are just planning on staying home and relaxing, like me.

One of my students asked me today if "Golden Week" was Japanese English. The answer is yes. We don't have any holidays that last for nearly a week like in Japan, so it is a word that Japanese people made up. We do have a similiar idea though. American call the time from Thanksgiving to New Years the "Holiday Season" because three of the biggest holidays in the United States happen within about one month of each other. Sadly, we don't get to take that month off work! "Golden Week" may be Japanese English, but I think it's a good word. In Japan, people do not get very much vacation time, so the time that they do get to take off work is truly "Golden."

What are your plans for Golden week? Please let everyone know what you did by making a post on the blog! You can even include some photos!

Robots!

Did anyone see the female robot onthe news the other day?

Scientists in Japan keep developing new robots, and the seem to get more advanced all the time. Researchers at the National Institute of Advanced Industrail Science and Technology have created a female robot that can walk, talk, and even copy human facial expressions.

Japan has a long history with robots that seem friendly. Recently Honda and Sony have both made robots that might make good friends for humans. Sony unveiled a robot dog, Aibo, and Honda makes Asimov, who is meant to look cute so as not to scare people. Perhaps the most famous of all robots in Japan is Astro Boy (or Mighty Atom) who was made to replace his creator's dead son. Robots seem to have a long hisotry of being friends to people in Japan. The new robot shown off this week though goes further than ever before.

Japanese scientists hope that soemday human-like robots will be able to help out with household chores like cleaning and watching children and maybe even do simple jobs that humans do now, like secratary or receptionist work. This would be very useful, because with Japan's population declining, people will need all the help they can get to free up more people for more difficult work. Can you imagine, in twenty years, robots might be making our breakfast, driving our train, and greeting us when we come into work!