Philip Brasor - The Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Nov 2, 2000

English teaching comes home to roost as foreign corporations invade Japan

When I was teaching English to Japanese business people in the late '80s, the main purpose was to prepare them for overseas assignments. In many cases, the students were not management people, but technicians and blue-collar workers. They were being sent to the U.S. or Europe to train employees in factories...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Oct 19, 2000

Talking head Tanaka wows 'em in Nagano

Yasuo Tanaka, candidate for the governorship of Nagano Prefecture, was supposed to meet voters at 2:30 p.m. at a shopping arcade in downtown Nagano, but it was a long arcade. A campaign worker wearing a bright orange windbreaker was handing out literature in front of Ito Yokado. "I think it's been changed,"...

CULTURE / Music

Oct 17, 2000

Badly drawn but beautifully sketched

Until I saw Damon Gough, the singer-songwriter better known as Badly Drawn Boy, in concert, it never occurred to me that the audience might be there for the performer's amusement rather than the other way around. At one point, Gough started handing out roses to women in the front row while he serenaded...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Oct 5, 2000

Celebrate the elderly when they stop saving

On Sept. 15, the country "celebrated" Respect for the Aged Day, when we honor our elders, who pass their wisdom and experience down to us so that our lives and those of our children will be happier and more fulfilling. Of course, nothing is farther from the truth. We in the industrialized world seem...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Sep 21, 2000

Japan insurance market just a phone call away

For the past several years, the insurance industry has been battered on two fronts by bad publicity. On the one hand, the collapse of almost all the major life insurance companies has been blamed on poor investment choices and even poorer management, while on the other, the spate of recent murder-for-insurance...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Sep 7, 2000

Educational TV: PTA knows best?

The Data Watching section of the Sept. 7 issue of Dime contains the results of various unrelated surveys regarding the current state of parent-child relationships. In addition to questionnaire answers about corporal punishment and what constitutes bad behavior, there is a list compiled by the Japan PTA...

CULTURE / Music

Sep 5, 2000

Rock 'n' roll high school back in session

The music of the Donnas is cleverer and more enjoyable than most of the retro-pop I've heard lately. Though it's high-school kids who compose the group's fan base, it's boomer music critics who've become their champions. They like these girls from Palo Alto, Calif., because they say they're the first...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Aug 31, 2000

Frugality boom highlights fun and fulfillment of the simple life

As explained in this column several months ago, Japanese TV often adapts successful programming ideas from abroad. Still, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a local version of "Survivor." Reality-based programming is already available in Japan. Years ago, "Denpa Shonen" moved beyond such simplistic...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Aug 17, 2000

Support the economy -- take a vacation

If all you knew about Japan was what you saw on Japanese TV, you might think the Japanese are the most well-traveled citizens in the world. No other broadcast culture offers as many travel programs in which happy-go-lucky celebrity guides see the sights, interact freely with the natives and, most importantly,...

CULTURE / Music

Aug 6, 2000

Fuji Rock fest hits its stride

After only four years, it might seem premature to subtitle the Fuji Rock Festival a "summer classic," but the event's institutional status was boosted this year by the fact that it was held at the same location as it was the year before. The Naeba Ski Resort was never the organizers' first choice --...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Aug 3, 2000

Okinawa seen through the summit prism

It's a common belief that the annual G-7 or G-8 summits accomplish little more than allowing the leaders of the industrialized world to get together and make a show of global unity. Consequently, the only thing you can count on in the post-summit analyses is that they will dwell on what wasn't discussed,...

CULTURE / Music

Jul 25, 2000

So you wanna be a glam-sleaze superstar?

As befits artists whose chosen mode of expression is more or less a comment on somebody else's mode of expression, Swedish pop groups definitely have the best names. The Trampolines play bouncy, never-less-than-fun British pop while the Wannadies mine the rich vein of teenage angst in straightforward...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jul 20, 2000

Coverup just makes the scandal worse

The Yukijirushi (Snow Brand) contaminated-milk scandal was the product of corporate arrogance aggravated by a bunker mentality. President Tetsuro Ishikawa's apologies meant little after he admitted he had no idea what goes on in his plants. Having helmed the number one dairy products company for several...

CULTURE / Music

Jul 16, 2000

A guide to the music festivals of summer

The recession has reportedly made concert promoters' lives miserable, and yet it doesn't seem to have affected the flood of foreign acts rushing to these shores.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jul 6, 2000

Law inhibits election coverage and debate

Prior to the Lower House elections June 25, commentators both here and abroad complained that the parties weren't putting forth concrete proposals, but instead only vague assurances that they would rebuild the economy and return Japan to its former glory as the world's last bastion of civility.

CULTURE / Music

Jul 1, 2000

Inciting the huddled masses to Rage Against the Machine

Bruce Springsteen's controversial new song, "American Skin (41 Shots)," about the shooting death of Amadou Diallo by New York City policemen, has split his fan base of blue-collar male boomers down political lines. Bob Lucente, the president of the New York State chapter of the Benevolent Order of Police,...

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jun 29, 2000

Marriage guide for men begs the question, 'Et tu, Brutus?'

In the cultural wars secular liberalism continues its slow, laborious march toward victory (two steps forward, one step back), but one bastion of male-centered tradition remains inviolate: the marriage proposal. Men do the asking, and women wait for them to ask. The vector indicated by this dynamic mimics...

CULTURE / Music

Jun 18, 2000

All in the Phish phamily

At first, I felt sorry for the Americans who followed Phish across the Pacific for the band's Japan tour. I live here, and even I find the prices intolerable and the infrastructure unforgiving.

COMMUNITY

Jun 8, 2000

A mouthful of Crazy English goes down very well in Japan

Li Yang seems an unlikely proselytizer for internationalism through English language study. Not only is he not a native speaker of English, but prior to last week he had never even set foot outside of mainland China.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jun 1, 2000

Who wants to say he's a millionaire?

Everybody knows that the popular quiz show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" was dumbed-down after it was exported from England to the U.S. Some advertisers, in fact, were very angry because they thought the level of difficulty made it too easy for contestants to go all the way.

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