JAPAN: Sentence & more – 18th Jun 2024

ndidates up for selection. Only forty-five percent of residents turned up to vote, which was a record low.

The Liberal Democratic Party and neutral parties like the Japan Innovation Party and Komeito won twenty-eight seats. It was the first time in sixteen years that the Liberal Democratic Party’s side won the majority in Okinawa’s assembly.

The three political parties supporting Governor Denny Tamaki, which include the Japanese Communist Party, the Constitutional Democratic Party, and the Social Democratic Party, only won twenty seats, which is four less than they expected from pre-election polls. On Monday the 17th, Tamaki apologized for losing seats but said he is still against the central government moving a US military base within Okinawa.

The people have spoken in another place, too. On Monday the 17th, Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward assembly approved revisions to enforce a ban on drinking in public at night near Shibuya Station. The ban will start in October and forbid people from drinking alcohol in any public space, such as parks and streets, from 6 p.m. to 5 a.m.

Many local shop owners have asked for the ban because young people and foreign tourists drinking in the streets and leaving empty cans behind have become a problem in recent months. Ward authorities will have security guards patrol the area, but those who violate the rules won’t be fined or punished.

The most recent revision will expand the ban to include areas near the Shibuya Ward Office and the east side of the Shibuya Station.

But a little drinking won’t be nearly as big of a problem as the upcoming weather. The Meteorological Agency said there would be heavy rain in the Okinawa-Amami and Shikoku regions from Tuesday the 18th until at least Wednesday the 19th. They warned that there was a high risk of landslides, flooding in low-lying areas, rivers swelling, and lightning strikes. They also said that there might be a chance of tornadoes and gusts from high winds.

The agency said that people should take precautions, such as moving into sturdy buildings, if they see any signs of thunderclouds in the sky.

Moving onto business, the Narita Airport, Tokyo’s biggest international airport, posted its earnings for the twenty twenty-three fiscal year and showed that it had made a profit for the first time in four years. Its sales were up by over sixty-five percent compared to last year at 217 billion yen or over a billion dollars. After factoring in costs and overhead, the airport’s net income was 63 million dollars.

In the twenty twenty fiscal year, the airport posted its first-ever profit loss since becoming private, and this continued throughout the pandemic. It wasn’t until the government eased COVID restrictions in twenty twenty-two and that overseas tourists started coming to Japan that things started to improve. In fiscal year twenty twenty-three, the total number of travelers went up by seventy percent or thirty-five million compared to the previous year.

That’s not the only company moving up. On Saturday the 15th, the Yamaman Yukarigaoka Railway Line launched a new facial recognition ticketing system. The Yamaman is a short railway that is four kilometers or two and a half miles long in Sakura City, near Tokyo. The new system will let passengers board trains after registering their facial photo, credit card, and other details online. Cameras at the gates will confirm passengers' identities and charge fares to their credit cards.

The railway will still offer old-fashioned paper tickets, but except for discounted tickets, the magnetic strip will be replaced with QR codes. The railway made their system with a facial recognition technology firm for about sixty million yen or 381,000 dollars. It hopes that going paperless will lower ticketing costs by thirty percent.

Meanwhile, on Friday the 14th, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met during the Group of Seven summit in Italy. The two leaders talked about working together since Modi will soon visit Japan.

Kishida said that now the Japan-India Special Strategic and Global Partnership is ten years old, they should try to deepen their countries’ relationship. Modi said that India also wanted to strengthen bilateral ties.

Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force also kept relations strong with other allied countries by conducting joint drills. The country’s latest drill took place on Sunday the 16th in the South China Sea with the United States, the Philippines, and Canada. It was the first time the four countries conducted a Maritime Cooperative Activity together, testing coordination, communication, and navigation.

On Friday the 14th, the Cabinet approved a Japanese government report focused on domestic policy and gender equality in the country. The report said that companies need to look at women’s health issues to help women employees balance work and their well-being.

The report found that, while most men don’t get male-specific illnesses until their fifties, women get issues like menstrual disorders during their prime working years, from their twenties to their fifties. The report said that companies should be more supportive of women’s health issues in the workplace, so as to create a better environment for all employees. They also said that society needs to support workers with young children more and that flexible work, such as remote work, might help.

In entertainment news, on Wednesday the 12th, a Japanese music firm released a video for Mrs. Green Apple, a popular J-pop group. The video was for the song Columbus and had the group dressed as historical figures such as Christopher Columbus. In the clip, they visited an island and met people who looked like apes, and taught them how to ride horses and use rickshaws.

Many people on social media criticized the video for being discriminatory. By the next day, the music firm took it down and apologized for not checking it enough before releasing it, and because there was no cultural and historical understanding in the video.

However, there was some positive news in entertainment. On Saturday the 15th, the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France gave the Paul Grimault Award, one of its top prizes, to the Japanese film Totto-chan: the Little Girl at the Window. The movie is about a little girl’s childhood before and during World War II.

Need some more positivity? Consider visiting the Himeji Yukata Festival in Himeji City, Hyogo Prefecture. The festival is free of charge and runs from Saturday the 22nd to Sunday the 23rd. The festival has been going on for over 250 years. Attendees who wear traditional summer kimonos called yukata can get discounts at certain attractions and half-price fares on the local Shinki Bus. The festival takes place at several places around Himeji, including Himeji Castle and Jonan Park.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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