JAPAN: See Japan – without breaking the bank

Sunday, 17 January 2010

This intriguing country is renowned for being expensive. Susie Rushton tries out a new 'Price Cruncher' tour that could put it within your reach

 

Matsumoto Castle: 'Five tiers of beautiful blackish wooden pagoda, reflected in koi carp-filled waters'

Horrid slimy things, mushrooms. I've never liked them. So I'm not tempted by a box of three pale brown fungi on sale at a stall in Kyoto's food market.

That's just as well, because they cost 37,000 yen, or about £250. Fans of Japan often say its reputation for emptying a tourist's wallet faster than you can say "konnichiwa" is exaggerated. What's certainly true is that if you spend a lot in this land of high design, delicate aesthetics and unfailingly polite service, you're spoilt silly.

About Y25,000 (£169) buys a night at a top ryokan, a traditional inn where pampered guests can gaze out at bonsai gardens from the comfort of a private bathtub. There's no limit to luxury here. There are more three-star Michelin restaurants in Tokyo than any other city. Bullet trains are stupidly fast, punctual, clean – sexy, even. Your fellow travellers disport themselves without jostling or eating smelly food, meaning you can actually enjoy the journey. But a regular return fare from Tokyo to Kyoto on the fastest Shinkansen service, the 180mph Nozomi Super Express, will also tear Y27,040 (£182) from your purse.

So, my challenge was to take a two-week trip around the big-ticket sights of Honshu, seeing Tokyo and Kyoto, plus some of the prettier places in the "Japanese Alps" – keeping to about Y10,000 (about £67) each a day. It wasn't a shoestring; my days of sleeping in dorms are over. I've been to Japan twice before, on business, but this time I wanted to see more; my boyfriend had never been but had learnt some Japanese and was keen to try it out. Our plan was to sleep in cheaper, chain business hotels and budget ryokan. We'd use buses and local trains but we still wanted to eat decently, buy small souvenirs and experience some only-in-Japan moments.

The solution was a new self-guided tour offered by Inside Japan, which would pre-book accommodation and travel. The "Price Cruncher" tour also meant we knew how much the trip would cost: the only variables would be food and spending money.

We start in Tokyo, regularly at the top of any "most expensive city" charts. But there are plenty of free amusements: a 6am visit to the Tsukiji fish market; walking in the Imperial Palace Gardens; watching sumo wrestlers practise; and the view from the 45th floor of the Tokyo Metropolitan Building, Shinjuku.

Living frugally can't keep me from touring the city's ritzy department stores and gleaming malls. But, like lots of Tokyoites right now, we just look. It's easy not to buy clothes when your giant limbs would split Japanese XL sizes at the seams. The gourmet shops in department-store basements are harder to resist.

I soon give in to the call of consumerism, but keep purchases small – not the latest micro-camera, but what I'll call "cuteware". The country's unofficial religion is still the worship of all things kawai (cute), and for a few pounds you can load up on Miffy calendars, stickers, fun-fur ashtrays, glittery hair clips, and strapus (the mini toys that dangle from every mobile phone). Recession has meant good times for the 100-yen shops, which trade in cheap knick-knacks, household essentials and sometimes food.

Tokyo's subway system requires concentration to navigate (with the help of an English-language map), but it's affordable. We buy pre-paid Pasmo cards and load them with credits, although unlike London's Oyster system there's no saving on the standard ticket. Expect to spend about Y1,200 (£8) a day for about six journeys.

After four jet-lagged, beer-soaked nights in Tokyo, we're wrung out, so we head to the mountain resort of Hakone on the Odakyu Highway Bus (Y1,850, or £12.50), which is, they say, a great way to see Mount Fuji. (It's hidden in mist when I travel, so I'll take their word for it.)

The next morning, to get to Kyoto, we take the bullet train – the most expensive leg of the trip at Y6,000 (£40) for a reserved seat – and savour the journey. It'll be coaches and local transport from now on.

Hidden away at edges of the city, the antique pavilions, Zen gardens and pagoda architecture are captivating – but entry tickets average at Y500. We search out less popular sites, which are not only more peaceful but cheap, or even free. The best is a sprawling compound of Zen temples called Daitokuji. Here, the minuscule ryogen is a perfect jewel of five dry gardens, each about the size of a tiny city roof terrace, and each symbolising with moss or rock or gravel a lovely, if obtuse, piece of Buddhist philosophy. Entry costs a mere Y300 (£2), and it is deserted.

Kyoto's gardens require lots of walking, and, for me, that takes caffeine. Blowing Y400 (£2.70) at Starbucks is out, so I get familiar with the vending machines on every corner.

I had thought a formal Japanese tea ceremony was out of reach until I hear about a place in the small town of Uji, just south of Kyoto. Here, in a tea house next to the tourist office (where you buy the ticket), is supposedly the cheapest tea ceremony in Japan. The hot, fluffy, bright green liquid you drink at the end of cha-no-yu, or "way of the tea", isn't the point, of course. We're offered a place to kneel, while two ladies in brocade kimonos and elaborate hair split duties: one heats the water on a brazier and whisks the tea; the other kneels behind her, keeping one eye on her technique, while also making stilted conversation. It's like visiting a great aunt, but the tea ceremony is a showcase of traditional Japanese etiquette. At 20 minutes and just Y500 (less than £3.50), this was short order compared with the average Kyoto experience (45 minutes or longer, for Y2,000, or £13.40).

Back in modern Japan, eating fast, furious and cheaply isn't a problem. At lunch, restaurants offer a cheaper set menu. We slurp in noodle restaurants, where a big bowl of thick udon noodles in hearty soup stock are layered with slices of pork, just Y850, less than £6, in an Ebisu branch of the hip noodle chain Ippudo.

Conveyor-belt sushi restaurants with colour-coded plates helps avoid shocking bills, though you'll watch the priciest dishes glide by. Bento boxes are cheap and easy to select; okonomiyaki, an omelette filled with sliced cabbage, or noodles, with egg, slices of beef or fish, is yours for Y750 (about a fiver). Our favourite frugal dinner is yakitori, chicken skewers cooked to order as you sit facing the grill.

A step up from McDonald's, places such as Jonathan's, Royal Host and Yoshinoya are the equivalent to Pizza Hut, with a Japanese level of service and quality. My favourite is the "Italian" chain Saizeria: portions are modest but the flavours are decent and the picture menus are easy to use. A bowl of penne all'arrabiata and a glass of drinkable French red wine is Y600 (£4).

Two hours and 20 minutes from Kyoto on the limited express train (Y6,800 or £46) is the coastal town of Kanazawa, with famous ornamental gardens and a sleek new contemporary art museum. We spend the afternoon in the "Ninja Temple", a castle of tricks with hidden staircases and sliding doors designed to confuse invading enemies. The price is rather sly, too, at Y800 each, and by now the budget's getting tight so we start hanging out in games arcades; bigger places have their own "maid cafés". Sadly, nowhere do I find a budget karaoke venue to parrot my favourite Eighties' hits – the ubiquitous chain Big Echo charges Y2,000 (about £13.50) per hour. Too expensive.

The end of our frugal tour rounds the mountains west of Tokyo, through Takayama, home to Hida beef, which locals obviously hope can challenge Wagyu and Kobe varieties. Next day, in Matsumoto, two hours away by carefully driven coach (with filmic views of rusty autumn leaves), we spend the afternoon in the most beautiful castle I've ever seen. Five tiers of beautiful blackish wooden pagoda, reflected in koi carp-filled waters. On a war footing after a sturdy curry noodle lunch (Y525 a bowl), we march up the wooden steps inside the 16th-century keep with legions of school kids. Entry fee? A mere Y600 each (£4 – the Tower of London costs £16.50).

By the end of the fortnight, we meet our daily budget but the ruinous exchange rate didn't help. Our "self-guided" tour package gave us all the train and bus tickets beforehand and helped us sidestep expensive mistakes. A couple of practical tips: debit and credit cards are not as widely accepted here as in the UK, and post offices are the only place where foreign-issued cards work – so you need to carry cash. It's safe to do so, but the Y10,000 (£67) limit per transaction at a post office ATM means bank charges can tot up.

The Japanese have got used to living in recession, and there are bargains here – you just have to find them. I didn't feel like the Queen of Sheba, but everything I ate, drank and looked at offered amazing value – except for those mushrooms. They were definitely overpriced.

Compact Facts

How to get there

Susie Rushton was a guest of Inside Japan Tours (0117-314 4620; inside japantours.com). Its 13-night Price Cruncher trip costs £1,217 per person, based on two sharing, with five nights in Tokyo, one in Hakone, three in Kyoto, one in Kanazawa, two in Takayama, and one in Matsumoto, plus all breakfasts, one dinner and all transfers. A seven-night version costs from £600. Japan Airlines (0845 774 7700; uk.jal.com) offers daily flights from London to Tokyo from £589.

Further Information

Japan National Tourism Organisation (jnto.go.jp).

Original Article from The Independent

Technorati Tags: Japan,budget travel,Tokyo,Hakone,Kyoto,Kanazawa,Takayama

OP-ED: What’s Our Sputnik?

Published: January 16, 2010

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

Taipei, Taiwan

Dick Cheney says President Obama is “trying to pretend that we are not at war” with terrorists. There is only one thing I have to say about that: I sure hope so.

Frankly, if I had my wish, we would be on our way out of Afghanistan not in, we would be letting Pakistan figure out which Taliban they want to conspire with and which ones they want to fight, we would be letting Israelis and Palestinians figure out on their own how to make peace, we would be taking $100 billion out of the Pentagon budget to make us independent of imported oil — nothing would make us more secure — and we would be reducing the reward for killing or capturing Osama bin Laden to exactly what he’s worth: 10 cents and an autographed picture of Dick Cheney.

Am I going isolationist? No, but visiting the greater China region always leaves me envious of the leaders of Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, who surely get to spend more of their time focusing on how to build their nations than my president, whose agenda can be derailed at any moment by a jihadist death cult using exploding underpants.

Could we just walk away? No, but we must change our emphasis. The “war on terrorists” has to begin by our challenging the people and leaders over there. If they’re not ready to take the lead, to speak out and fight the madness in their midst, for the future of their own societies, there is no way we can succeed. We’ll exhaust ourselves trying. We’d be better off just building a higher wall.

As the terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman noted in an essay in The Washington Post: “In the wake of the global financial crisis, Al Qaeda has stepped up a strategy of economic warfare. ‘We will bury you,’ Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev promised Americans 50 years ago. Today, Al Qaeda threatens: ‘We will bankrupt you.’ ” And they will.

Our presence, our oil dependence, our endless foreign aid in the Middle East have become huge enablers of bad governance there and massive escapes from responsibility and accountability by people who want to blame all their troubles on us. Let’s get out of the way and let the moderate majorities there, if they really exist, face their own enemies on their own. It is the only way they will move. We can be the wind at their backs, but we can’t be their sails. There is some hope for Iraq and Iran today because their moderates are fighting for themselves.

Has anyone noticed the most important peace breakthrough on the planet in the last two years? It’s right here: the new calm in the Strait of Taiwan.

For decades, this was considered the most dangerous place on earth, with Taiwan and China pointing missiles at each other on hair triggers. Well, over the past two years, China and Taiwan have reached a quiet rapprochement — on their own. No special envoys or shuttling secretaries of state. Yes, our Navy was a critical stabilizer. But they worked it out. They realized their own interdependence. The result: a new web of economic ties, direct flights and student exchanges.

A key reason is that Taiwan has no oil, no natural resources. It’s a barren rock with 23 million people who, through hard work, have amassed the fourth-largest foreign currency reserves in the world. They got rich digging inside themselves, unlocking their entrepreneurs, not digging for oil. They took responsibility. They got rich by asking: “How do I improve myself?” Not by declaring: “It’s all somebody else’s fault. Give me a handout.”

When I look at America from here, I worry. China is now our main economic partner and competitor. Sure, China has big problems. Nevertheless,

I hope Americans see China’s rise as the 21st-century equivalent of Russia launching the Sputnik satellite — a challenge to which we responded with a huge national effort that revived our education, infrastructure and science and propelled us for 50 years.

Unfortunately, the Cheneyites want to make fighting Al Qaeda our Sputnik. Others want us to worry about some loopy remark Senator Harry Reid made about the shade of Obama’s skin.

Well, what is our national project going to be? Racing China, chasing Al Qaeda or parsing Harry? Of course, to a degree, we need to both race China and confront Al Qaeda — but which will define us?

“Our response to Sputnik made us better educated, more productive, more technologically advanced and more ingenious,” said the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum. “Our investments in science and education spread throughout American society, producing the Internet, more students studying math and people genuinely wanting to build the nation.”

And what does the war on terror give us? Better drones, body scanners and a lot of desultory T.S.A. security jobs at airports. “Sputnik spurred us to build a highway to the future,” added Mandelbaum. “The war on terror is prompting us to build bridges to nowhere.”

We just keep thinking we can do it all — be focused, frightened and frivolous. We can’t. We don’t have the money. We don’t have the time.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 17, 2010, on page WK8 of the New York edition.

Link to the Original Article in The New York Times

Technorati Tags: US,China,Taiwan,Russia

JAPAN: Navy Ends Mission in Support of Afghan War

January 16, 2010

World Briefing | Asia

By MARTIN FACKLER

The defense minister ordered Japan’s ships to return from the Indian Ocean on Friday, fulfilling a government pledge to end an eight-year refueling mission in support of the war in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama refused to renew the law authorizing the mission, ignoring requests from the Obama administration to continue it as a show of support. Military experts have said the Japanese withdrawal would not affect military operations in Afghanistan.

View Article in The New York Times

JAPAN: Born in Japan, but ordered out

Sunday, January 17, 2010; A20

By Blaine Harden

TOKYO -- Fida Khan, a gangly 14-year-old, told the court that immigration authorities should not deport him and his family merely because his foreign-born parents lacked proper visas when they came to Japan more than 20 years ago.

Fida Khan, 14, faces deportation from Japan, although he was born there and speaks only Japanese. (Blaine Harden/the Washington Post)

During the past two decades, his Pakistani father and Filipino mother have held steady jobs, raised children, paid taxes and have never been in trouble with the law.

"I have the right to do my best to become a person who can contribute to this society," Fida told a Tokyo district court in Japanese, the only language he speaks.

But the court ruled last year that Fida has no right to stay in the country where he was born. Unless a higher court or the Minister of Justice intervenes, a deportation order will soon split the Khan family, sending the father, Waqar Hassan Khan, back to Pakistan, while dispatching Fida and his sister Fatima, 7, to the Philippines with their mother, Jennette.

Aggressive enforcement of Japanese immigration laws has increased in recent years as the country's economy has floundered and the need for cheap foreign labor has fallen.

Nationality in Japan is based on blood and parentage, not place of birth. This island nation was closed to the outside world until the 1850s, when U.S. warships forced it to open up to trade. Wariness of foreigners remains a potent political force, one that politicians dare not ignore, especially when the economy is weak.

As a result, the number of illegal immigrants has been slashed, often by deportation, from 300,000 in 1995 to just 130,000, a minuscule number in comparison to other rich countries. The United States, whose population is 2 1/2 times that of Japan's, has about 90 times as many illegal immigrants (11.6 million).

Among highly developed countries, Japan also ranks near the bottom in the percentage of legal foreign residents. Just 1.7 percent are foreign or foreign-born, compared with about 12 percent in the United States. Japan held a pivotal election last year and voters tossed out a party that had ruled for nearly 50 years. But the winner, the Democratic Party of Japan, has so far done nothing to alter immigration policy.

That policy, in a country running low on working-age people, is helping to push Japan off a demographic cliff. It already has fewer children and more elderly as a percentage of its population than any country in recorded history. If trends continue, the population of 127 million will shrink by a third in 50 years and by two-thirds in a century. By 2060, Japan will have two retirees for every three workers -- a ratio that will weaken and perhaps wreck pension and health-care systems.

These dismal numbers upset Masaki Tsuchiya, who manages a Tokyo welding company that for seven years has employed Waqar Khan.

"If Khan is deported, it will not be possible to find anyone like him, as many Japanese workers have lost their hungriness," said Tsuchiya, who has urged Japanese immigration officials to rescind the deportation order for the Khan family.

"When the Japanese population is declining, I believe our society has to think more seriously about immigration."

At the Ministry of Justice, immigration officials say they are simply carrying out rules politicians make. The rules, though, are not particularly precise. They grant wide leeway to bureaucrats to use their own discretion in deciding who stays and who gets deported. Last year, immigration officials granted "special permits" to 8,500 undocumented foreigners, with about 65 percent of them going to those who had married a Japanese citizen.

Exercising their discretion under the law, immigration authorities last year offered Noriko Calderon, 13, the wrenching choice of living with her parents or living in her homeland. The girl, who was born and educated in the Tokyo suburbs, could stay in Japan, the government ruled. But she had to say goodbye to her Filipino mother and father, who were deported after living illegally in Japan for 16 years. Following tearful goodbyes at a Tokyo airport, Noriko remained in Japan with an aunt.

Japan's growing need for working-age immigrants has not gone unnoticed by senior leaders in government and business. Slightly relaxed rules have admitted skilled professionals and guest workers. The number of legal foreign residents reached an all-time high of 2.2 million at the end of 2008, with Chinese accounting for the largest group, followed by Koreans, Brazilians (mostly of Japanese descent) and Filipinos.

Still, experts say these numbers are far too low to head off significant economic contraction. A group of 80 politicians said last year that the country needs 10 million immigrants by 2050. Japan's largest business federation called for 15 million, saying: "We cannot wait any longer to aggressively welcome necessary personnel."

Yet the treatment of foreign workers already in Japan is unpredictable. The government opened service centers last year to help foreign workers who lost their jobs to recession. For the first time, it offered them free language training, along with classes on social integration. As that program got underway, however, the government began giving money -- about $12,000 for a family of four -- to foreign workers, if they agreed to go home immediately and never come back to work.

The Khan family's troubles began two years, when a policeman nabbed Waqar Khan on his way home from work. He was detained for nine months. Police in Japan often stop foreign-looking people on the street and ask for residency documents.

The letter of the law was clearly against Khan and his wife. He had overstayed a 15-day tourist visa by 20 years. She came into the country on a forged passport.

But they have refused to sign deportation documents, arguing that although their papers are bad, their behavior as foreigners has been exemplary. Under Japanese law, foreigners are eligible to become naturalized citizens if they have lived in the country for more than five years, have good behavior and are self-sufficient.

The Khans also argue that their children, who regard themselves as Japanese, are assets for Japan. "It is a bit weird that the country needs children, but it is saying to us, go away," Khan said.

The family's lawyer, Gen'ichi Yamaguchi, has tried -- and so far failed -- to convince immigration officials and judges that the Khans are just the sort of hardworking, Japanese-speaking immigrants that the country should embrace for the sake of its own future.

"During the bubble years, the number of illegal workers increased a lot and the police looked the other way," Yamaguchi said. "Japan has always looked at immigrants as cheap but disposable labor."

An appeals court is scheduled to rule on the Khan case in the first week of February.

Special correspondent Akiko Yamamoto contributed to this report.

Link to Original Article in The Washington Post

Technorati Tags: Japan,foreigners in Japan,immigration

CHINA: Solar Eclipse

Uploaded on: January 16, 2010

After a complete solar eclipse, Chinese observed an annular solar eclipse the beginning of this year. Many Youku paike enthusiastically contributed their footage. This was the most popular one which was taken in Tengchong, Yunnan Province.

CHINA: In China's Tiananmen Square, patriotism snaps in the wind

January 16, 2010

By John M. Glionna and Lily Kuo

The daily flag-handling ceremony in the vast space is a stirring moment for Chinese tourists -- and a sometimes weird, unsettling one for foreigners.

Chinese officers raise the flag at dawn at Tiananmen Square. It is taken down each day at dusk. Out-of-towners flock to watch the ceremony; on national holidays the crowds swell

to thousands. (Andy Wong / Associated Press / June 3, 2008)

 

Reporting from Beijing - Lou Hongfei is playing tour guide. His girlfriend has just arrived in the capital from the provincial city of Chongqing and he wants to show her the urban wonders of Beijing.

So he has brought her to Tiananmen Square for a patriotic experience many Chinese tourists liken to the thrill of walking the Great Wall or viewing the terra cotta warriors: the quiet majesty of the flag-handling ceremony in one of the world's largest public spaces.

Twice a day, out-of-towners flock to the square's imposing expanse of concrete to watch the soldiers tend to China's iconic flag -- red with five yellow stars -- as it is unfurled at dawn and calmly taken down at dusk.

On national holidays, tens of thousands congregate to watch the ceremony. "For us," Lou says, "that flag symbolizes hundreds of years of Chinese history."

The event is akin to such tourist attractions as the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, Old Faithful's eruptions in Yellowstone or the New Year's Eve ball drop in Times Square.
"It's right up there with all the other top attractions of Beijing," says Michael Sichter, a U.S. law school student watching the ceremony. "It's just a cool touristy thing to do."

For the Chinese, the pageant is as patriotically intimate as a sun-splashed Fourth of July in the American heartland, a moment that brings a lump to their throats.

Zhou, a 40-year-old manufacturing employee who didn't give his first name, has brought his wife and young daughter to the square with about 1,000 others, stamping their feet in the 18-degree late-December chill.

Flanked by the Great Hall of the People and the mausoleum where Mao Tse-tung's body lies in state, Zhou revels in the unlikely sense of rural vastness afforded by the urban space. As someone shouts "It's starting! It's starting!" he lifts his daughter to his shoulders, teasing, "You're too heavy!"

The square suddenly becomes quiet as two columns of white-gloved soldiers, ceremonial white rifles raised, goose-step the perimeter of the towering flagpole.

Rush-hour traffic on the adjacent Avenue of Eternal Peace halts as many soldiers place their hands on their hearts. Then, with precise jerks, two soldiers lower the wavering banner. They don't fold it, but wrap it around a staff. The crowd murmurs. Fezia Tyebawly and friend Adnan Asgerali, tourists from Singapore, aren't sure what to make of the nationalistic show in a square many foreigners associate with the government's bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy activists.

They wince at being photographed by two men in dark jackets who they're convinced are state security guards. They see a Chinese woman mysteriously stuffed into a patrol car and driven away after she raises her voice to shout some muffled objection.

"That was so weird," Tyebawly whispers. "I thought, 'Should we even be here?' "

They only relax when a Chinese man asks Tyebawly to take his picture. He then drops on one knee and proposes to his date. The marriage proposal, many Chinese believe, is just part of the magic of the flag ceremony.

As quickly as they appeared, the soldiers march away. The flag is gone. Traffic resumes.

Almost immediately, the souvenir vendors move in to hawk Communist Party buttons and hats. They are soon joined by a platoon of police cars, megaphones blaring.

"Dear visitors," a message plays in Chinese and English, "Tiananmen Square is now closing. Please collect your things. Thank you for your understanding."

john.glionna@latimes.com
Kuo is a special correspondent.

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

Technorati Tags: China,Tiananmen Square,Chinese nationalism,tourism in China,flag ceremony

JAPAN: Japanese Authorities Arrest Ozawa Associates

JANUARY 16, 2010, 5:03 A.M. ET

By YUKA HAYASHI

TOKYO -- Authorities arrested a member of parliament and close associate of Ichiro Ozawa, a top ruling party official, on suspicion of violating political-funds rules, a development that could seriously hurt the popularity of Tokyo's new center-left government.

Tomohiro Ishikawa, The Democratic Party of Japan, taken from taken from www.dpj.or.jp

As a probe into Mr. Ozawa's fund raising activity widens rapidly, Tomohiro Ishikawa, a 36-year-old lower house member from the ruling Democratic Party of Japan was arrested and taken to a Tokyo jail by a special investigations unit of the Tokyo District Prosecutors' Office late Friday, according to Japanese media reports.

Mr. Ishikawa, a protégé of Mr. Ozawa since becoming his personal secretary while still in college, served as a caretaker of his fund-raising organization in 2004, when alleged irregularities in its financial records first appeared.

Also arrested was a 32-year-old former aide to Mr. Ozawa who

Technorati Tags: Japan,Japanese politics,Ichiro Ozawa,financial scandal,Democratic Party of Japan,DPJ,Tomohiro Ishikawa,Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama

took over Mr. Ishikawa's job at the fund-raising entity.

Officials for the prosecutors' office and Mr. Ishikawa's office weren't available for comment due to the late hour.

Japanese television networks showed footage of vans reportedly carrying Mr. Ishikawa to a Tokyo jail.

The news of the rare arrest of a current member of parliament is another blow to the waning popular support for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's four-month-old government, which has already suffered from the prime minister's own political-funds scandal. The government's approval rating fell to 48% in late December, compared to 71% when he took office in September, according to a poll by the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun in late December.

According to Japanese media reports, prosecutors say Mr. Ozawa's organization failed to properly record the sources of funds used to purchase a piece of land in Tokyo for 400 million yen ($4.4 million) in 2004 for the purpose of building a staff dormitory.

Mr. Ozawa denied the allegations.

Mr. Hatoyama and DPJ politicians have stood behind Mr. Ozawa, a revered party elder whose election strategies led the party to a landslide victory in national elections last August.

Link to Original Article in The Wall Street Journal

JAPAN: JAL, Delta reach deal over tie-up: report

(AFP) – 15 hours ago

TOKYO — Japan Airlines has reached an agreement on a tie-up with Delta Air Lines as the troubled Japanese carrier readies for a court-led rehabilitation, according to a newspaper.

The two companies are likely officially to sign the deal, which will allow them to run code-share flights, as soon as JAL's new management endorses it, the Yomiuri Shimbun said on Saturday, quoting company sources.

The agreement means Asia's biggest airline will switch from the Oneworld alliance to the SkyTeam group, to which Delta belongs.

JAL and Delta will ask US authorities for antitrust immunity by mid-February, the paper said. If the request is accepted, the two firms will be able to run combined flights over their Pacific routes in what amounts to business integration.

The report came after American Airlines and its partners lifted their proposed investment in JAL to 1.4 billion dollars, from a previous offer of 1.1 billion dollars in a bidding war with rival Delta for a stake in JAL.

Technorati Tags: Japan,Japan Airlines,JAL,Delta,American Airlines,SkyTeam,Oneworld,bankruptcy

On Friday, Japan's government said it would announce a restructuring package for JAL on January 19, when the troubled carrier is widely expected to file for bankruptcy protection.

JAL is believed to be on the verge of seeking court protection from creditors and delisting its shares from the Tokyo Stock Exchange to make it easier to restructure its debt and slash costs.

JAL, which lost about 1.5 billion dollars in the six months to September, is seeking public aid in the face of mounting debts. JAL is reportedly set to slash more than 15,000 jobs and sell non-core assets such as hotels.

CHINA: Chinese children turn to golf in a bid to get ahead

Page last updated at 11:53 GMT, Saturday, 16 January 2010

As China's population continues to soar, wealthy parents who want their children to stand out from the crowd are having to make a special effort. Some, finds Michelle Tsai, are turning to sports that not long ago would have been seen as elitist.

Take-up of golf in China soared in line with the country's economic growth

This looked nothing like the Beijing I knew.

I was just west of Third Ring Road, one of the capital's gridlocked highways, but I could no longer hear the honking cars, rumbling buses, or the rut-tut-tut of the motorised rickshaws.

In fact, I could not even see the massive buildings that dominate this section of the city.

In front of me was one huge expanse of manicured green grass, an anomaly in this megalopolis of concrete.

The only sounds? The thwacks of golf balls being struck.

I was at a golf course in downtown Beijing, and striding toward me was Eddie Shi, who had arrived to fine-tune his long game.

He was flanked by his regular entourage: his father, his translator and his caddy, all of whom towered over him. Because Eddie is eight years old.

Competitive edge

With their wallets fattened by decades of unprecedented economic growth, wealthy Chinese parents have been trying to find new ways to give a competitive edge to their little ones.

One of the latest trends is enrolling children in sports more often associated with well-heeled Westerners, than China's new middle-classes.

Every week Eddie and his father, Shi Jian, make the three-hour drive from the nearby city of Tianjin.

They come to this course for the experienced coaching, Shi Jian, a manager at a Swiss pharmaceutical company, told me.

“It's a gentleman's sport “

Eddie Shi, eight

Here the coaches are foreign, which means Eddie can improve his English while he tinkers with his swing.

"Why would a Chinese eight-year-old like golf?" I asked.

"It's a gentleman's sport," Eddie told me, sounding more like one of those bow-tie-wearing, flannel-suited commentators from decades past.

Then he skipped off to fetch a golf ball printed with the Japanese robot cat Doraemon.

His father had these specially made as a reward, after Eddie hit a hole-in-one a few months ago.

On this Saturday, Eddie's lesson started with practice chips at the driving range.

"Aim for the marker," said his coach, a tall Australian.

I suspected that this was all too easy for Eddie, who has played golf since he was four and heads to a driving range most evenings after finishing his homework.

The previous week he hit a ball 190m with a driver.

Upward mobility

When Shi Jian was growing up, he played football with the kids in his neighbourhood.

Now, he says, there are fewer kids - the result of China's one child policy.

It's hard to get two teams together.

Eddie happens to play golf, but in today's China, cultivating your son or daughter is the true national sport.

Parents hope their daughters' musical skills will help them find a husband

The eight-year-old also takes private lessons for jazz percussion, maths and English, but his parents expect golf to make the biggest difference in his life, and help dispel the stereotype that Chinese people don't know how to have fun.

"China's future is an international one," said Shi Jian.

"If Eddie goes to the US in the future, he'll have more to talk about with his friends there."

Upward mobility doesn't come cheap though.

At this particular school, SGA Golf Academy, a 10-hour package of one-on-one sessions costs 10,000 yuan - two-thirds the average annual salary of an urban worker.

When the lesson ended, I asked Eddie what the hardest thing was about golf. He answered like a pro.

"The bunker," he said. Then he ran off to play video games, free for a little while.

For the first time that afternoon Eddie seemed like a regular kid, someone who gets silly and jokes around.

And although he appeared content during his lesson I couldn't help but wonder if Eddie wouldn't rather be less serious about the sport.

In another district, Shunyi, plots of farmland mix with international schools and gated communities. On weekends, children come here for the Equuleus International Riding Club.

 “There are too many people in China and everybody wants to move up”

Su Lin, mother

The entrance sits across the road from farm stands selling fruit and vegetables, but inside it feels more like the grounds of a boarding school.

On a recent morning, I watched young equestrians on horseback in the indoor arena. Proud parents looked on from the side.

One student, a beginner, didn't appear to be doing anything. Then I realised he was so young that his lesson involved just sitting astride the horse.

Brutal cycle

I met a 12-year-old who was about to head home after her trotting lesson. This girl was the picture of a genteel sportswoman: a riding crop in one hand, her long hair tucked under her riding hat, and cheeks pink from the chilly air.

Her proud mother, government worker Su Lin, rattled off a list of her daughter's accomplishments.

She has mastered all four swimming strokes, has excellent posture, practices tai chi, and has studied books of etiquette and ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement.

These skills will help her get ahead, and maybe even secure a successful husband one day.

Su Lin acknowledged that everyone is caught in a brutal cycle here.

"There are too many people in China. There's little living space and everybody wants to move up. So everyone works harder, which just makes the competition worse," she said.

"What kind of activities did Su Lin do as a teenager?" I asked.

"None," replied the state worker. "I only studied."

Link to Original BBC News Article

Technorati Tags: China,Chinese children,golf,getting ahead

THE KOREAS: N. Korea Threatens to Halt All Talks With Seoul

January 16, 2010

By CHOE SANG-HUN

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea, denouncing South Korea for drawing up a contingency plan to deal with the potential collapse of the North’s government, warned Friday that it would cut off all dialogue with the South and exclude it from all negotiations concerning the security of the Korean Peninsula. North Korea will also wage a “pan-national holy war of retaliation to blow away” the South Korean government, said a statement from the North’s highest ruling agency, the National Defense Commission, which is headed by the national leader, Kim Jong-il.

“It is deeply regrettable that the North makes such a threatening statement against us based on unconfirmed reports,” Chun Hae-sung, a spokesman of the South Korean government’s Unification Ministry, said in a statement.

The threat was surprising less for its stridency, which is not unusual in diatribes against the South and the United States, than for its timing. On Thursday, North Korea had proposed holding talks with the South on reviving joint tour programs, which have been stalled for more than a year over the shooting death of a southern tourist and the North’s anger over Seoul’s policies.

And only minutes before North Korea’s official news agency broadcast the statement, South Korea had announced that the North Korean Red Cross had accepted 10,000 tons of food aid offered by its South Korean counterpart.

The two gestures from the North fit within a recent series of conciliatory signs from the North — until Mr. Kim’s National Defense Commission waded in with its denunciation.

The commission apparently was angered by news reports this week of a South Korean contingency plan for North Korea. According to the newspapers Munhwa and Chosun, South Korea recently dusted off and revised the plan, apparently in the belief that Mr. Kim’s uncertain health and the North’s deepening economic woes under international sanctions have made the country more unstable .

The news reports, which quoted unidentified officials in Seoul, said that the plan addresses five possibilities: the death of Mr. Kim; a coup; a popular uprising; a huge outflow of refugees; and more sanctions or military attacks from the outside. It also envisions South Korea establishing on territory in the North an “administrative headquarters to liberate the North.”

South Korea said that it and the United States had a contingency plan for unrest in North Korea but refused to reveal its details.

“This is a plan to topple our republic,” the North Korean statement said on Friday.

“We will start a pan-national holy war of retaliation to blow away the den of South Korean authorities, including the presidential Blue House, who have led and supported the drawling up of this plan,” it said.

North Korea did not elaborate on what a “holy war” might entail, but said it would involve “all our revolutionary military power and all Korean compatriots both in the North and the South and abroad.”

The North also demanded that South Korea apologize. Otherwise, it said, it would exclude the South from “all talks on improving ties between the North and the South and negotiations on securing peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.”

North Korea had previously threatened a “holy war” against its external enemies, especially the United States.

On Monday, North Korea proposed new talks to negotiate a peace treaty with the United States that would formally conclude the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a truce and left the peninsula technically in a state of war. Seoul and Washington rejected the proposal, insisting that they can start such talks only after the North returns to six-nation nuclear disarmament negotiations and begins dismantling its nuclear weapons programs.

View Article in The New York Times

CHINA: Where U.S. Internet Companies Often Fail

Published: January 15, 2010

By DAVID BARBOZA and BRAD STONE

SHANGHAI — If Google pulls out of China because of frustration with government restrictions, it will not be the first time an American Internet giant has retreated from the country.

Hyungwon Kang/Reuters

Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo, looked at Gao Qin Sheng, the mother of the dissident Shi Tao, at Congressional hearings in 2007. Yahoo reported Mr. Shi to authorities.

EBay and Yahoo arrived with high hopes for a market that failed to live up to their expectations. Social sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have never managed to gain a significant foothold in China, partly because of government blocking and censorship and partly because most major Chinese Internet companies offer popular social networking features of their own.

In fact, no major American Internet company has dominated its field in China, which by some measures is the world’s largest Internet market. Many experts thought Google would be the first.

“There’s no U.S. Internet company close to being a leader here,” says Gary Rieschel, founder and managing director of Qiming Venture Partners, a venture capital firm. “And most of the wounds are self-inflicted.”

While each failure has been different, analysts say the cases may help explain why Google is frustrated — not just by government censors but by its inability to catch its big Chinese rival, Baidu.

Google, an Internet Goliath with $22 billion in revenue and some of the smartest people on the planet, is getting clobbered in China, holding 33 percent of the search engine market to Baidu’s 63 percent. Google has gained significant market share since it formally entered China five years ago, but almost all of that has come from smaller rivals. Baidu also gained market share in that time.

No one expected it to be this way. America’s bleeding-edge technology giants came here armed with cash, intellectual property and an ability to manage complex networks and introverted workers. They each bought or invested in local Internet companies and hired Chinese executives, and they worked to show sensitivity to the byzantine social customs of the world’s most populous country.

But all of them were outsmarted in different ways.

Google set up its China business in 2006, after it invested in Baidu and then reportedly tried and failed to buy it outright. Baidu, founded in 2000 when the Chinese Internet was just beginning to bud, carved out a strong presence by offering something that Google, at first, would not: easy links to download pirated songs, TV shows and movies from Chinese Web sites.

Baidu claimed this was legal because the media files were not on its own computers. Google itself finally introduced a free online music service in China in 2009, with the permission of the music labels, but it has never managed to make up the lost ground.

“Searching for music is what people did early on in China,” said Felix Oberholzer-Gee, a professor at Harvard Business School who has studied the Chinese Internet market. “It was huge, and Google didn’t have it.”

Google has said that its threat to leave China has nothing to do with financial considerations.

Perhaps no company tripped up as badly in China as Yahoo. It bought a local Internet company in 2004 to expand its Web presence and compete with Baidu and the local portal Sina.com. After it failed to gain ground, Yahoo abruptly reversed course, paying a billion dollars for a 40 percent share in Alibaba, a local Internet giant, which then took over its Chinese business.

Yahoo reaped a financial windfall when Alibaba stock soared in an initial offering in 2007, much as Google did when it sold its stake in Baidu. But operationally Yahoo had failed in the country — and it was only beginning to pay for that failure.

In 2004, the nonprofit group Doctors Without Borders reported that Chinese dissidents had been jailed because Yahoo released the contents of their e-mail accounts to the Chinese government. In subsequent years, Yahoo executives, including Jerry Yang, a co-founder, were hauled before Congress and berated over the incident.

EBay was the only technology giant that got a fast start in the Chinese market. In 2003, eBay bought EachNet, the leading Chinese auction house, and briefly controlled 80 percent of the Chinese e-commerce market.

Then it was completely outmaneuvered. EBay charged for listings, while a local upstart, Alibaba’s consumer-oriented auction site Taobao.com, did not. EBay also did not offer ways for buyers and sellers to chat online, fearing they would close their transactions off the site to avoid paying fees. Taobao executives understood that live conversations were necessary for Chinese consumers to cultivate trust, and offered an instant-message service to allow them to haggle over deals.

EBay also put its Chinese auctions on Web servers outside the country, resulting in a sluggish service that was difficult for some Chinese citizens to access.

EBay surrendered and left China in 2006, leaving the market to Taobao, which also now dwarfs Amazon’s Chinese e-commerce site.

The most recent underachiever in China was MySpace, owned by the News Corporation, which set up a locally owned Chinese business in mid-2007. But millions of people already use the social services of local Internet companies, like Tencent, which operates an online entertainment bazaar and has a stock market value of $37 billion, bigger than eBay’s. Tencent’s QQ instant messaging software is a huge cultural phenomenon in China, used by hundreds of millions of people.

Tencent has also led the way on social games and virtual currency, a field in which American social networks are only now beginning to catch up. MySpace shook up its Chinese subsidiary in 2008, and its chief executive departed.

American high-tech companies declined to comment this week on their China misadventures. But many high-tech executives and American experts on China complain that it is not an even playing field. American companies must operate in China through locally owned firms, creating a cumbersome ownership structure that limits their flexibility. They are also handicapped by one factor completely out of their control: government censorship and favoritism of local firms.

Google executives have said they are frustrated by censors who constantly scrutinize Google’s local search engine and try to control or erase its contents. Access to Twitter and Facebook is routinely blocked by the Chinese government. Local companies, on the other hand, often maintain close ties with regulators, which helps them anticipate new policies as the government increasingly worries that the Web might become a forum for antigovernment dissent.

Some in China say the American companies could work harder at thinking locally. Tu Jianlu, who used to work at Yahoo China, says Yahoo struggled here because its executives did not understand the Chinese market, did not trust local executives and often brought in outsiders to run things.

“When Yahoo China came up with new ideas and strategies, we had to report to the headquarters and wait for their feedback,” he said. “It usually took a long time to get their agreement. And when we got it, it was too late, too late for us to compete with local competitors.”

Ultimately though, Chinese Web entrepreneurs have done a good job of building Web sites that are tailored to the Chinese market.

Despite government restrictions, the Chinese Web over all is both vibrant and chaotic. There are thriving local blogs, entertainment and online gaming sites, a booming trade in virtual currency and even pornography (nude video chat rooms come and go).

Meanwhile, Chinese Internet tycoons like Jack Ma of Alibaba, Robin Li of Baidu and Pony Ma of Tencent are national figures, celebrated for their instincts and intelligence, much as Jeffrey P. Bezos, Sergey Brin and Larry Page are in the United States.

“The problem here is when you get down in the weeds and talk about flexibility and tactics, Chinese entrepreneurs are hard to beat,” says Mr. Rieschel at Qiming Ventures.

Bao Beibei contributed research.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 16, 2010, on page B1 of the New York edition.

Link to the Original Article in The New York Times

Technorati Tags: China,Internet,Google,Yahoo,Baidu,EBay,MySpace,doing business in China,censorship

JAPAN: New Arrests in Japan Fund Raising Scandal

January 16, 2010

By MARTIN FACKLER

TOKYO — Prosecutors arrested two former aides of a leading member of Japan’s ruling party on Friday, adding to a growing scandal over campaign finance that has dogged the new government.

Prosecutors also requested an arrest warrant for a third former aide of Ichiro Ozawa, the secretary general of the ruling Democratic Party, as they investigate some $4 million in improperly reported money used to buy land in Tokyo.

The arrests, announced late Friday night, highlight the financial problems that have plagued the administration of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who last month faced a similar investigation by prosecutors into fund raising irregularities. While the scandal failed to unseat Mr. Hatoyama, it did erode public support for his administration, which swept into power last summer with promises to end money-driven politics.

Friday’s arrests seem certain to feed calls for the resignation of Mr. Ozawa, a shadowy political operator who is perhaps the most controversial and powerful figure in the new Japanese government. Respected by some, reviled by others and feared by all, Mr. Ozawa is widely seen as the organizer and strategist who helped the Democrats end the Liberal Democratic Party’s half-century rule.

Mr. Ozawa has so far rejected a request by prosecutors that he appear voluntarily for questioning, saying he was too busy. But the pressure seems to be rising on him, after prosecutors raided his office two days ago for evidence in the investigation.

Mr. Hatoyama has so far stood by Mr. Ozawa, telling reporters on Thursday that Mr. Ozawa would stay on as secretary general, the party’s No. 2 spot after Mr. Hatoyama himself.

“He is a unique politician, a one-of-a-kind,” Mr. Hatoyama told reporters. “He worked hard for the Democratic Party to win power, and we want him to continue to work hard for us in the future as well.”

Still, the arrests of Mr. Ozawa’s former aides appear certain to embarrass the Democrats, coming just a day before the party’s first convention since taking power. The investigation has drawn public attention to Mr. Ozawa’s use of similar financing methods and backroom deal-making as the now discredited and demoralized Liberal Democrats.

It is the second investigation by prosecutors into Mr. Ozawa’s campaign finance practices, following a probe last spring that forced him to resign as party head.

On Friday, prosecutors arrested Tomohiro Ishikawa, 36, a Democratic lawmaker, and Mitsutomo Ikeda, 32, and requested a warrant for Takanori Okubo, 48. All three men are former political secretaries for Mr. Ozawa.

According to reports in the Japanese news media, prosecutors have focused on the role of Mr. Ishikawa, who did record keeping at Mr. Ozawa’s political funding raising group. Mr. Ishikawa is suspected of failing to record some or all of the 400 million yen, or some $4 million, in question, much of which was used to buy land in a possible effort to hide the money, the reports said.

Reports said Mr. Ishikawa has already told prosecutors that the cash was handed to him by Mr. Ozawa himself.

View Article in The New York Times

CHINA: A Chinese Imperial Feast A Year In The Eating

January 9, 2010

by Anthony Kuhn

Ninety-nine years after the fall of its last dynasty, China is experiencing a resurgent interest in things imperial. If you care to taste this fascination, there are restaurants in China that purport to recreate imperial feasts, in which scores of exotic courses were served over several days.

You may find the price astronomic, the authenticity questionable, and the animals on the menu too cute to eat, but the feast remains a legendary part of China's culinary culture.

In a traditional courtyard not far from Beijing's Forbidden City, two waitresses in elaborate Manchu costumes bring a first course for me to sample into a private room at the Cui Yuan restaurant.

A waitress announces a soup said to be a favorite of the 18th century Manchu emperor Yongzheng. The little brown cubes in the soup, she points out, are deer's blood.

Sun Xiaochun is the restaurant's head chef and vice chairman of the Chinese Culinary Association. His specialty is the Manhan Quanxi, or Manchu and Han imperial feast. The Han are China's ethnic majority.

Sun himself is an ethnic Manchu. His teacher's teacher, he explains, was a court chef at the summer palace in Chengde, a mountain resort town northeast of Beijing.

Xiao Kaijing for NPR

Deer's lip, garnished with vegetables.

"The Manchu emperors would spend the summers hunting and drilling troops at this summer retreat," Sun says. "This place produced a unique source of ingredients, cooking methods and dishes."

Sun's menu is heavily populated with wild game.

The $54,000 Feast

Next up on my plate is a deer's lip, soft and smooth with a chewy outside layer. After that there's sea cucumber with the meat of a swan goose, a rare waterfowl found in Manchuria.

The swan goose tastes almost too light to be meat. I have to go ask the chef about this.

In the kitchen, chef Liu Yabin puts down a large wok and explains that the breast of the swan goose has been mashed into a puree, then formed into little white nuggets. That explains that.

Back in the dining room, Sun says that his modern-day imperial feast is free of endangered species.

Xiao Kaijing for NPR

Sea cucumber with swan goose meat.

"There are many ingredients we can no longer use, such as tiger meat," Sun says. "The imperial feast used to include a tiger's tail. Some rare species can now be raised on farms such as hazel grouses, swan geese, deer and mandarin ducks."

His point is well taken, as I am next served chunks of peacock drumsticks, stir-fried with hot peppers and peanuts.

You can forget about getting a quick takeout from Sun's restaurant. His imperial feast contains 268 dishes, not including appetizers and deserts. His clients take up to a year to sample all 268, for which Sun charges them just over $54,000.

Sun dismisses popular lore about the imperial feast, which holds that the events lasted for three days and comprised the auspicious total of 108 dishes. He says weeklong banquets were the norm, usually for the emperor's birthday and similar events.

Imperial Hubris

For a dispassionate eye — and palate — on all this, I turned to Eileen Wen Mooney, author of the book Beijing Eats. She says Chinese imperial cuisine in general tends to be gimmicky and reliant on fancy presentation. She argues that locals order it more to impress guests than for the taste.

Xiao Kaijing for NPR

Chunks of peacock drumsticks with chili peppers and peanuts.

"That's kind of misleading; people think Chinese people love to eat this kind of thing," she says. "It's not like Chinese people really have this habit of loving exotic [foods] …You call it 'exotic' in quotes …That doesn't represent what Chinese people like to eat."

As for claims of authenticity, Mooney says this is a moot point, as nobody alive today has tasted a real imperial feast.

Chef Sun adds that while recipes for all 268 of his dishes can be found in imperial court cookbooks, imperial cuisine has evolved over centuries, and it continues to do so today.

"There may be some dishes which have lost their original taste," he admits. "It may be the same dish, with the same ingredients and the same name and the same preparation, but we have to improve it to satisfy modern people's tastes."

For all his compromises to contemporary tastes and wildlife laws, Sun seems to be doing well at preserving a tradition of what you might call imperial hubris of the culinary variety.

CHINA: Chinese Government Warns Internet Companies To Obey Controls

January 14, 2010

by Louisa Lim

One day after Google threatened to leave China, the Chinese government is warning Internet companies to obey government controls. A foreign ministry spokeswoman said China welcomed foreign companies to take part in Internet development, according to the law. Google says it wants to stop censoring its Chinese-language search engine; and if this isn't possible, it says it will leave China.

TRANSCRIPT

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

Well, China's not going to give up right away on Internet censorship. As we've been telling you this week, the giant search engine company Google says it may leave China if it has to keep censoring its service there. The Chinese answer is that Google should do as it's told and go along with government controls. NPR's Louisa Lim reports from Shanghai on a test of wills.

LOUISA LIM: Two years ago, civil rights lawyer Teng Biao found his Gmail account had been hacked into and his email addressed used to send viruses to contacts. And the electronic interference didn't stop there. He's convinced the Chinese authorities are involved. He describes what happened when he typed up a plan to investigate labor camps and detention centers in China.

Mr. TENG BIAO (Civil Rights Lawyer): (Through Translator) I saved this research plan in my mailbox and I didn't tell anyone about it. But when the police came to talk to me, they mentioned this plan. This shows they know clearly what's in my mailbox, even draft documents. I asked them how they knew, and they said they had all types of methods.

LIM: Such interference is the reason behind Google's threats to leave China. If it does so, it will be sacrificing any potential profits in the world's largest and fastest growing Internet market. China has an estimated 360 million Internet users. That creates a search engine market worth $1 billion last year. Google, in second place, enjoys around 36 percent market share behind market leader, the Chinese search engine Baidu. But the operating environment for Western businesses has been changing.

Mr. DUNCAN CLARK (Chairman, BDA China): There has certainly been a hardening of the climate in terms of foreign businesses in China over the last six to 12 months.

LIM: Duncan Clark, chairman of BDA telecoms consultancy in Beijing. He says multinationals are battling a Chinese attempt to enforce domestic encryption technology on their operations.

Mr. DUNCAN: There has been a sort of queasy feeling developing that protecting their own intellectual property or protecting their customer's IP has been called into question, as well as a raft of other measures, such as Chinese government agencies seeking to buy China - limiting the sales of Western companies in China. China is awash with cash. They don't necessarily need multinationals, perhaps, as much as they used to.

LIM: But some local Internet users certainly still feel they need Google. For a second day, they presented flowers at Google's office here in Shanghai.

Unidentified Man: (Foreign language spoken)

LIM: So this is a very high-tech type of action. There's a couple of people here who've all got mobile phones, and they're tweeting, they're taking pictures of everything. And now security has arrived, and they're escorting us out of the building.

Some like Sun Lee(ph) are unhappy about the prospect of Google's departure.

Mr. SUN LEE: (Through Translator) If they really cared about information freedom, they'd stay in China and resist the Chinese government. The biggest beneficiary of Google's move is the Chinese government. And the biggest victims will be us netizens.

LIM: It's difficult to gage how widely that sentiment is shared. One local paper, The Global Times, ran on online poll asking if Google should be allowed to run an unfiltered search engine. At first, only 30 percent of respondents said yes. Then the number of those calling for an uncensored search engine suddenly soared dramatically. The paper stopped the poll and blamed the result on interference.

Louisa Lim, NPR News, Shanghai.

Google Executive Weighs In On China, Censorship

January 14, 2010

Melissa Block talks to David Drummond, senior vice president for corporate development, and chief legal officer for Google, about Google's announcement that it would stop censoring its search results in China. Google has said that they recognize the move may lead to shutting down operations in China.

TRANSCRIPT

ROBERT SIEGEL, host:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

And I'm Melissa Block.

In Beijing, Internet users have been leaving bouquets of flowers and notes of support outside the offices of Google. This week, Google threatened to pull out of China and shut down its search engine there after it discovered what it called a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on its network. Specifically, hackers targeted the email accounts of human rights activists. Many other large companies were targeted as well. We are joined by Google's chief legal officer, David Drummond, to talk about what happens next. Mr. Drummond, welcome to the program.

Mr. DAVID DRUMMOND (Chief Legal Officer, Google): Well, thanks, Melissa, for having me.

BLOCK: And Google has said it would stop censoring search results in China. Have you actually lifted the filters that you've had on your search engine?

Mr. DRUMMOND: No, we haven't done that yet. What we've said is that going forward, we're going to end that practice. We have asked the government to start some discussions with us about how we can operate an unfiltered search engine in China and failing that, we will have to shut it down, but - or do something else. But as of right now, it's sort of operating as we were until we talk to the government.

BLOCK: Well, it seemed like you got rebuffed from the Chinese government today. They said foreign Internet companies have to follow the law. They didn't seem to be offering any concessions on your demands. So, how does Google respond to that?

Mr. DRUMMOND: Well, we hope that there will be some more conversations. We understand that was an initial response and, you know, at the end of the day, if it's their view that an uncensored search engine - you know, that we can't do that in China, then we will have to do something different, could be shutting the site down.

BLOCK: Just to be clear here, is Google holding the Chinese government directly responsible for the hacking, for these cyber attacks?

Mr. DRUMMOND: No. We don't have definitive evidence, one way or the other, the government was involved. We know that it was a highly sophisticated attack. It was an organized attack and it was politically motivated in the sense that there seemed to be clear targeting of human rights activists who were interested in China.

BLOCK: Let's talk about the whole censorship issue here because when Google started up in China four years ago, you agreed to censor certain sensitive topics, such as Tiananmen Square, the massacre there, or the Dalai Lama. Looking back, would you say that Google scarified principles and essential values of free speech in favor of a business deal, making money in China?

Mr. DRUMMOND: No, I don't think that's accurate. You know, it's never been a big market for us, you know. Even now, it's an immaterial portion of our revenues. I think we wanted to serve the Chinese market and feel that we had a responsibility to do that and there are sort of two different moral arguments you can make, you know. One of them is to say, look, there is censorship and we're not going to have anything to do with it, which was our position for a longtime with China.

And the other one is to say, well, maybe it's better in a place like China, given its scope in the world, its impact in the world, to go there and try to be a force for opening it up and though temporarily you might have to - you might have to do something that you normally don't want to do, perhaps you could be on the side of more openness, by being there and that's the position we took.

BLOCK: But do you think that, that with those initial agreements where you would censor your search engine, did Google send a message to the Chinese government that said basically, look, stepping on free speech and Internet freedom is fine, maybe you contributed to the restrictive environment that you're talking about now?

Mr. DRUMMOND: No, I don't think that's really true. Yeah, I think we've been a bit of thorn in the government side since we've been there. You know, we've always censored quite a bit less than any of the local competitors. We didn't locate any of our Gmail servers there, for instance. So, it would be impossible for the government to come to us and get information. We operated in a different way and we pushed back at every opportunity.

BLOCK: We were looking - we were sort of fishing around on the Google.cn site today, searching for terms, such as Tiananmen Square massacre, and stories were coming up. One site that did come up was the official site of the Dalai Lama, for example, which was surprising to me that I could have access to that.

Mr. DRUMMOND: Well, it's certainly possible. You know, the Internet is an unruly thing.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. DRUMMOND: And which is one of our points when we - whenever we talk to censors or those who have an interest in censoring content. In other words, it's a difficult thing to do really well, which is good.

BLOCK: Do you have people on Google's staff who are actively filtering information in China?

Mr. DRUMMOND: Well, we - in order to operate the site as we have, there has been, you know, variety of mechanisms to comply with the law there. So, we do have people who work on that.

BLOCK: And you're saying that even with this recent standoff with the Chinese government, everything is working exactly the same, those same people who are filtering sites before are still filtering sites now?

Mr. DRUMMOND: As I said, this is not going to be the - in other words, we will stop doing that. We're going to end the censoring very soon.

BLOCK: Very soon. Can you give some sense of the timetable for that?

Mr. DRUMMOND: Can't give you an exact timetable. But it will be - I expect that this will resolve itself relatively quickly.

BLOCK: David Drummond is the chief legal officer for Google. Mr. Drummond, thank you very much.

Mr. DRUMMOND: Thanks very much for having me, Melissa.

Copyright ©2009 National Public Radio®

CHINA: Police In Beijing Block 'Mr. Gay China' Pageant

January 15, 2010

by The Associated Press

Police shut down what would have been China's first gay pageant on Friday an hour before it was set to begin, highlighting the enduring sensitivity surrounding homosexuality and the struggle by gays to find mainstream acceptance.

Organizers said they were not surprised when eight police officers turned up at the upscale club in central Beijing where the pageant, featuring a fashion show and a host in drag, was set to take place.

"They said the content, meaning homosexuality, there's nothing wrong with that, but you did not do things according to procedures," Ben Zhang said. Police told him he needed official approval for events that included performances, in this case a stage show.

"I kind of saw that coming," Zhang said.

Chinese police frequently cite procedural reasons for closing down gatherings that are deemed to be politically sensitive. Though the pageant did not have any overt political agenda, similar events in the past — such as a parade during the Shanghai Pride Festival last year — have been blocked by authorities.

"It totally has to do with moral standards and culture," said contestant Emilio Liu, 26. "If most people can't accept it, then the government won't let it happen."

Zhang had said he hoped the pageant would raise awareness of homosexuals in a country where gays are frequently discriminated against and ostracized. Eight men were competing for the title and a spot in the Worldwide Mr. Gay pageant, to be held next month in Oslo, Norway.

The Mr. Gay China pageant had attracted a great deal of press attention and even the normally staid state-run media reported on the event this week. Tickets, which cost 100 and 150 yuan ($14.60 to $22), sold out three days ago.

"I feel really sad. This was going to be a very good event to show a positive image of gay people," said Wei Xiaogang, a pageant judge and host of Queer Comrades, a popular Internet talk show on gay issues.

Guests began trickling in after Zhang's announcement to the 50-plus journalists at the club. Some guests hugged each other after learning the show would not be taking place after all, while suit-clad club staff members began stacking up the chairs. Still, the mood was not entirely somber.

"I'm a bit disappointed but I can also relax now. I don't have to be on a diet anymore," Liu joked.

Contestant Simon Wang, who had planned to perform a self-choreographed dance to Lady Gaga's "LoveGame," struck cheeky poses for the cameras, while wearing green trousers and black straps across his bare chest, topped with furry maroon shoulder pads.

Someone had scribbled on the black backdrop behind him: "The revolution has not succeeded, comrades need to work harder." Comrade is the slang term for gays in China.

Organizers still planned to send a China representative to Oslo and will probably ask the pageant judges to choose someone from the contestants, organizer Ryan Dutcher said.

Gay rights in China have come a long way since the years just after the 1949 communist revolution when homosexuality was considered a disease from the decadent West and feudal societies, and gay people were persecuted. Sodomy was decriminalized in 1997, and homosexuality was finally removed from the official list of mental disorders in 2001.

But tellingly, most of the contestants interviewed asked The Associated Press to use their English names instead of Chinese names, to better protect their identities at home. While treatment of gays has improved in recent years, many are still reticent to draw attention to their homosexuality, particularly in the workplace.

Chinese authorities had appeared to be more open toward addressing gay issues in recent months. The country's first gay pride festival was held in Shanghai, the nation's commercial capital, last June. That month also featured the five-day Beijing Queer Film Festival — an event that police blocked in 2001 and 2005.

China is officially atheistic, and without religious reasons for opposing homosexuality, attitudes are slowly shifting among city dwellers from one of intolerance to indifference. Gays living in big cities, like nearly all the men participating in the pageant, said their biggest challenge was dealing with parents and deeply ingrained expectations for them to get married and have children.

But Liu said he thought it would be 10 years before anyone can successfully organize a gay pageant in China.

"Cultural change needs time, society isn't going to change tomorrow," he said.

Link to Original Article on NPR

S. KOREA: Seoul Is Asians' Favorite Travel Destination

Jan. 14, 2010 09:33 KST

Seoul is the preferred travel destination of Chinese, Japanese and Thai tourists. According to a straw poll of 800 Chinese, 500 Japanese, and 300 Thais in their respective countries in December, 11.4 percent, 9.8 percent and 20 percent said Seoul is a city they want to visit within the year, the Seoul city government said Wednesday.

Regardless of actual travel plans, the largest percentage or 14.3 percent of Thais chose Seoul as their favorite city, while the second largest proportion, or 7 percent of Japanese respondents picked Seoul after Honolulu (8 percent). Seoul was the third favorite city of Chinese people with 7.3 percent after Paris and Tokyo.

In multiple answers to the question why they wanted to visit Seoul, 57.4 percent of Chinese respondents, 50.2 percent of Thais and 36.8 percent of Japanese said they were attracted by watching ads for Seoul or Korean soap operas on TV or the Internet. This indicates that the Korean pop culture boom and the city government's overseas TV ads have proved effective in attracting foreign tourists.

The number of foreign tourists to Seoul stood at about 7.8 million last year, up 13.2 percent from the previous year's 6.89 million.

The three countries had different ideas about what image the city should promote. Most Chinese respondents suggested a city "with many things to enjoy"; most Japanese a city "where shopping is fun"; and most Thais a "traditional city."

Link to Original Article in The Chosun Ilbo

JAPAN: Tokyo: Eat Your Heart Out

JANUARY 15, 2010

Venturing To Japan For A 72-Hour Marathon Feast

By YUKARI IWATANI KANE

A year after moving from Tokyo to San Francisco, my husband and I craved good Japanese food so much that we ditched our families for Thanksgiving in late November and flew to Japan for three nights of eating.

Geoff Johnson for The Wall Street Journal

A chef cooks at Japanese restaurant Hakone Akatsukian.

San Francisco isn't exactly a culinary wasteland. It has great wine, an abundance of fresh produce and many good restaurants. But in Tokyo, restaurants create beautiful dishes that are assembled to play up the natural flavor of seasonal ingredients like bamboo shoots in the spring and pike eel in the summer. After months of fruitlessly seeking a San Francisco restaurant that would give us a taste of that experience, we decided we had no choice but to travel.

Autumn -- known as the season for strong appetites in Japan -- was the ideal time to take the trip because of the abundance of seasonal foods like mushrooms, scallops, persimmons and delicious bonito fish, fattened up after a summer of feeding.

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A chef cuts Soba dough at Hakone Akatsukian.

So my husband, Patrick, and I put together a 72-hour itinerary of multiple dinners, and a trip to a hot-springs inn an hour away from Tokyo. Our goal was to pack in as many of our favorite restaurants (strictly Japanese ones) as possible. Multiple sushi meals and tempura were musts. And while it's possible to eat well on a budget in Tokyo, the brevity of our trip led us to throw cost to the wind. Lunches cost roughly $10 to $20, but we calculated dinners would cost $200 or more per person including drinks.

Day 1: Sea Urchin and Bordeaux

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A chef places soba noodles into a bamboo basket.

Patrick and I left San Francisco on Thanksgiving morning, Thursday, Nov. 26, which got us into Tokyo on Friday afternoon, in time for dinner. The journey -- 15 hours door-to-door -- was all worth it as soon as we took a bite of the deep-fried tofu skin layered with mountain potato chips at Taku, a tiny sushi restaurant discreetly located in our old neighborhood in central west Tokyo. That was the start to an almost 30-course meal of bite-sized dishes including uni, or sea urchin, from Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido, and a white fish called halfbeak that was gently steam-grilled between bamboo leaves.

After a brief stop at wine bar Elevage, where I had a 1982 Bordeaux, we concluded the evening at Shomin, a traditional Japanese izakaya bar that serves little plates of food with drinks. We stayed up long enough to have another drink and a snack of grilled rice ball, crunchy and toasted on the outside and moist on the inside and flavored with soy sauce. By the time we got back to our hotel it was 1:30 a.m.

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Vegetables, shrimp and a square of fresh homemade tofu accompany zaru soba, or cold noodles dipped in broth.

Day 2: The Joy of Soba

A mere seven hours later, we were at the Tsukiji Fish Market, the world's largest. Our favorite sushi bar inside the market was packed, so we ended up at Uogashi Senryou in the outer market. Their specialty: a three-in-one rice dish topped with many kinds of raw fish, including uni, salmon roe and small pieces of tuna. The first serving is eaten by itself with soy sauce and wasabi, the second serving is mixed together with chopped braised vegetables, and the third is eaten in a light broth. The dish, known as hitsumabushi, is a take on the traditional version made with cooked eel.

After that heavy breakfast, our plan was to have a light soba lunch at another old standby, Hakone Akatsukian, near Roppongi, which is famous for its nightlife. But temptation got the better of us, and we ordered soba sets with a square of fresh tofu and a side of tempura vegetables. True aficionados swear by zaru soba, or cold noodles dipped in a broth, rather than the hot noodle soup, to fully appreciate the chewiness and the earthy buckwheat flavor. The dark dipping broth is later diluted with the hot water that the soba was cooked in to make a simple soup.

Geoff Johnson for The Wall Street Journal

Fresh seafood at the Tsukiji Fish Market.

The second day concluded with a lavish tempura dinner at Sushi Tempura Aki in eastern Tokyo, where our favorite chef served us lightly battered vegetables and seafood gently fried in 100% pure sesame oil and placed before us one by one. Real tempura is nothing like the greasy, batter-heavy version that is common outside Japan. Highlights included a fresh scallop that was fried so quickly that it was still raw on the inside to preserve its delicate flavor.

The challenge of planning a weekend trip to Japan is what to eat on Sundays, when most restaurants that are serious about food are closed because the fish market is shut. Our solution was to hop on the bullet train and travel to the seaside city of Atami, about an hour outside Tokyo. We planned to spend a night at Horai, an old hot-springs inn known for its lavish meals.

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Squid, toro, and mackerel sashimi at Kyubey.

After soaking in big baths overlooking the Pacific Ocean, we were treated to a 10-course meal in our room that started with a sesame tofu and clear soup. That was followed by an array of sashimi including langoustine slices that were so recently cut that the head we were presented with was still twitching. After more courses that included a deep-fried rice cake with radish sauce and grilled scallops, we finished simply with a steamed bowl of rice, miso soup and pickled vegetables.

Day 3: Gourmands on the Ginza

The next morning, the inn made a miso soup for us with the head of the langoustine. That accompanied a traditional breakfast of grilled fish, vegetables, rice and a small omelet made with a delicate broth.

Geoff Johnson for The Wall Street Journal

A slice of duck with roasted chestnut, fried lotus root and gingko nuts at Horai, a Japanese hot-springs inn known for its elaborate food.

After breakfast, we sped back to Tokyo for lunch -- our final meal of the trip. Kyubey in the tony Ginza district is one of the city's most venerable sushi establishments, favored by countless politicians, executives and Hollywood stars like Will Smith. Rare for a restaurant of its caliber, Kyubey has several locations mostly in Tokyo, which gives them the scale to afford the highest-quality fish (the owner made news last January when he participated in the purchase of a bluefin tuna for $105,000). When we sat down, head chef Mr. Taira immediately served us bright orange pearls of marinated salmon roe in a small bowl as we informed him that we were there for the dinner course.

Taking up the challenge, he served translucent slices of various white fish, bonito stuffed with minced garlic and scallions, and a mixture of minced Japanese mackerel, miso, chopped scallions and ginger known as "Namero," which is loosely translated as "plate-licking good."

After cleansing our palates with a sandwich of thinly sliced radish and sour plum paste, we moved onto sushi. The sea urchin was sweet and creamy, the seared tuna was fatty and flavorful and the raw shrimp was so fresh they were jumping off the counter as they waited to be peeled.

As we wondered how we could get on an eight-hour plane ride after the meal, Mr. Taira pushed one final square of melt-in-your-mouth omelet on us. "Think of it as dessert," he said.

Write to Yukari Iwatani Kane at yukari.iwatani@wsj.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page W4