Sep. 21, 2009
Norimasa Tahara
Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent (Japan)
PHNOM PENH--Thirty years after the end of the Khmer Rouge regime that killed nearly 2 million people, a former Japanese news reporter has been appointed as a public relations officer at Cambodia's special war tribunal.
Yuko Maeda assumed the post at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, which was jointly set up by the United Nations and the Cambodian government to try former senior members of the regime led by Pol Pot, who died in 1998.
Since taking up the post, Maeda has been up to her ears dealing with media interviews.
"I believe that after these trials end, Cambodia at long last can become a normal country again," Maeda, 45, said.
After working as a reporter for The Kobe Shimbun, Maeda studied journalism at Michigan State University.
She first became interested in Cambodia in 1996, when she came across The Cambodia Daily, an English-language newspaper, while studying war and media coverage in Michigan. After graduating in 1997, Maeda became a reporter for the daily newspaper in 1998.
Maeda worked day in and day out reporting on how the country was rebuilding itself.
During this time, "I started feeling that I wanted to play a role in reconstructing a country," she recalled. This ambition inspired Maeda to go to Liberia in 2005 and work as a public relations officer for the U.N. mission in the African country.
When she returned to Phnom Penh, the skyline showed more high-rise buildings than before as the city showed definite signs of growth.
However, Maeda strongly believes the psychological scars of the Cambodian people have yet to heal.
"That's precisely why the special tribunal's role in helping to settle the past is so significant," Maeda said. "When I have time, I'd love to sit with a group of Cambodian people and listen to their stories about the Pol Pot era."
Maeda's spirit as a passionate reporter remains undimmed.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Once Slave to Luxury, Japan Catches Thrift Bug
The New York Times
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: September 20, 2009
TOKYO — Not long ago, many Japanese bought so many $100 melons and $1,000 handbags that this was the only country in the world where luxury products were considered mass market.
Even through the economic stagnation of Japan’s so-called lost decade, which began in the early 1990s, Japanese consumers sustained that reputation. But this recession has done something that earlier declines could not: turned the Japanese into Wal-Mart shoppers.
In seven years operating in Japan, through a subsidiary called Seiyu, Wal-Mart Stores has never turned a profit. But sales have risen every month since November, and this year, the retailer expects to make a profit.
That is an understatement. Across the board, discount retailers are reporting increases in revenue — while just about everyone else is experiencing declines, in some cases, by double digits.
As a result, the luxury boutiques, once almighty here, are reeling.
Sales at LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, makers of what has long been Japan’s favorite handbag, plunged 20 percent in the first six months of 2009. In December, as the global economic crisis unfolded, Louis Vuitton canceled plans for what would have been a fancy new Tokyo store.
In the 1970s and ’80s, and even as the economy limped through the ’90s, a wide group of consumers spent generously on Louis Vuitton bags and Hermès scarves — even at the expense of holidays, travel and, sometimes, meals and rent.
Now, the Japanese luxury market, worth $15 billion to $20 billion, has been among the hardest hit by the global economic crisis, according to a report by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Retail analysts, economists and consumers all say that the change could be a permanent one. A new generation of Japanese fashionistas does not even aspire to luxury brands; they are happy to mix and match treasures found in a flurry of secondhand clothing stores that have sprung up across Japan.
“I’m not drawn to Louis Vuitton at all,” said Izumi Hiranuma, 19.
“People used to feel they needed a Louis Vuitton to fit in,” she said. “But younger girls don’t think like that anymore.”
In the new environment, cheap is chic, whatever the product.
In supermarket aisles, sales of lowly common vegetables — like bean sprouts, onions and local mushrooms — are up. (Bean sprouts, which sell for as little as 25 cents a bag, are a particularly good substitute for cabbage, which can go for about $4 a head.)
And instead of melons, Japanese shoppers are buying cheap bananas, pushing imports up to records.
“I’ve cut down on fruit since last year, because of the cost,” said Maki Kudo, 36, a homemaker shopping at a Keikyu supermarket in central Tokyo. “Instead of brands, I now look much more at cost.”
Thrift is being expressed even in unlikely measures like umbrella sales, which have spiked as more Japanese opt to brave rainy weather on foot rather than hail a taxi, according to a survey by the Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute.
In 2008, average household spending fell a record 69,509 yen, or $762, to 3.5 million yen, or $38,475, from a year earlier, and is expected to fall again this year, said Toshihiro Nagahama, chief economist at Dai-Ichi Life.
Underlying Japan’s accelerating frugality is a “deflationary gap” of 40 trillion yen in the Japanese economy, a situation where total demand falls short of what an economy produces. When this happens, companies cut prices, but since they still do not make money, they have to lay off workers. Fewer workers mean still less demand, creating a vicious circle, and prices fall further.
The dismal economy encourages thrift, too. Unemployment is at a record high of 5.7 percent, compared with 9.7 percent in the United States. A troubled government pension system, as well as ballooning government debt, has driven a widespread fear of the future, prompting people to save, not spend.
The Democratic Party, which rode a wave of discontent over the economy to electoral victory last month, has pledged to increase household incomes through tax breaks and generous subsidies for families with children. But economists here worry that the deflationary cycle could prove hard to break as competitive price-cutting rages.
A heated price war has erupted, for instance, in the already cut-rate category of “imitation” beers, a poor man’s brew made with soy or pea protein instead of barley and hops.
In July, Seven & I Holdings Company, which runs the 7-Eleven chain, introduced a new line of imitation beer for $1.35 a can; the same month, the Aeon shopping center brought out its own beer beverage for about $1.09. The Daiei supermarket chain then lowered prices on its beer to less than a dollar.
U.G. — the sibling brand of Uniqlo, the global clothing retailer known for its low-cost fleeces and T-shirts — started a jeans war when it introduced pants for 990 yen this year. Aeon soon followed suit with jeans selling for 880 yen.
Seiyu, the wholly owned Wal-Mart subsidiary, says it plans to sell similarly priced jeans this year.
Of course, for some retailers the circle is more virtuous than vicious.
Thrift has propelled Hanjiro, a secondhand clothing store chain popular among young Japanese, to 19 stores, from just one store in 1992. When Hanjiro opened a new store in Saitama, which borders Tokyo, in April, about 1,000 eager young fans lined up for a door-buster 290-yen T-shirt special. Of course, frugality is good for Wal-Mart, which posted better-than-expected second-quarter earnings last month. Japanese consumers are snapping up Seiyu’s $6 bottles of wine — sourced through Wal-Mart’s international network — as well as $86 suits and $87 bicycles.
In fact, Seiyu has ignited a price war of its own, with its “bento” lunch-in-a-box of rice and grilled salmon for 298 yen. Abandoning a custom here for supermarkets to make their bento boxes on site, Seiyu cut costs by assembling the lunches at a centralized factory.
Seiyu bet that Japan’s frugal consumers would not care about the change, as long as the bentos were cheap. Seiyu was right; the bentos have set off a line of copycat supermarket bentos.
“Price is No. 1 in my mind,” said Chie Kawano, an elderly shopper at Seiyu’s Akabane store in northern Tokyo, a bento box in her basket. “I don’t need anything fancy.”
By HIROKO TABUCHI
Published: September 20, 2009
TOKYO — Not long ago, many Japanese bought so many $100 melons and $1,000 handbags that this was the only country in the world where luxury products were considered mass market.
Even through the economic stagnation of Japan’s so-called lost decade, which began in the early 1990s, Japanese consumers sustained that reputation. But this recession has done something that earlier declines could not: turned the Japanese into Wal-Mart shoppers.
In seven years operating in Japan, through a subsidiary called Seiyu, Wal-Mart Stores has never turned a profit. But sales have risen every month since November, and this year, the retailer expects to make a profit.
That is an understatement. Across the board, discount retailers are reporting increases in revenue — while just about everyone else is experiencing declines, in some cases, by double digits.
As a result, the luxury boutiques, once almighty here, are reeling.
Sales at LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, makers of what has long been Japan’s favorite handbag, plunged 20 percent in the first six months of 2009. In December, as the global economic crisis unfolded, Louis Vuitton canceled plans for what would have been a fancy new Tokyo store.
In the 1970s and ’80s, and even as the economy limped through the ’90s, a wide group of consumers spent generously on Louis Vuitton bags and Hermès scarves — even at the expense of holidays, travel and, sometimes, meals and rent.
Now, the Japanese luxury market, worth $15 billion to $20 billion, has been among the hardest hit by the global economic crisis, according to a report by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Retail analysts, economists and consumers all say that the change could be a permanent one. A new generation of Japanese fashionistas does not even aspire to luxury brands; they are happy to mix and match treasures found in a flurry of secondhand clothing stores that have sprung up across Japan.
“I’m not drawn to Louis Vuitton at all,” said Izumi Hiranuma, 19.
“People used to feel they needed a Louis Vuitton to fit in,” she said. “But younger girls don’t think like that anymore.”
In the new environment, cheap is chic, whatever the product.
In supermarket aisles, sales of lowly common vegetables — like bean sprouts, onions and local mushrooms — are up. (Bean sprouts, which sell for as little as 25 cents a bag, are a particularly good substitute for cabbage, which can go for about $4 a head.)
And instead of melons, Japanese shoppers are buying cheap bananas, pushing imports up to records.
“I’ve cut down on fruit since last year, because of the cost,” said Maki Kudo, 36, a homemaker shopping at a Keikyu supermarket in central Tokyo. “Instead of brands, I now look much more at cost.”
Thrift is being expressed even in unlikely measures like umbrella sales, which have spiked as more Japanese opt to brave rainy weather on foot rather than hail a taxi, according to a survey by the Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute.
In 2008, average household spending fell a record 69,509 yen, or $762, to 3.5 million yen, or $38,475, from a year earlier, and is expected to fall again this year, said Toshihiro Nagahama, chief economist at Dai-Ichi Life.
Underlying Japan’s accelerating frugality is a “deflationary gap” of 40 trillion yen in the Japanese economy, a situation where total demand falls short of what an economy produces. When this happens, companies cut prices, but since they still do not make money, they have to lay off workers. Fewer workers mean still less demand, creating a vicious circle, and prices fall further.
The dismal economy encourages thrift, too. Unemployment is at a record high of 5.7 percent, compared with 9.7 percent in the United States. A troubled government pension system, as well as ballooning government debt, has driven a widespread fear of the future, prompting people to save, not spend.
The Democratic Party, which rode a wave of discontent over the economy to electoral victory last month, has pledged to increase household incomes through tax breaks and generous subsidies for families with children. But economists here worry that the deflationary cycle could prove hard to break as competitive price-cutting rages.
A heated price war has erupted, for instance, in the already cut-rate category of “imitation” beers, a poor man’s brew made with soy or pea protein instead of barley and hops.
In July, Seven & I Holdings Company, which runs the 7-Eleven chain, introduced a new line of imitation beer for $1.35 a can; the same month, the Aeon shopping center brought out its own beer beverage for about $1.09. The Daiei supermarket chain then lowered prices on its beer to less than a dollar.
U.G. — the sibling brand of Uniqlo, the global clothing retailer known for its low-cost fleeces and T-shirts — started a jeans war when it introduced pants for 990 yen this year. Aeon soon followed suit with jeans selling for 880 yen.
Seiyu, the wholly owned Wal-Mart subsidiary, says it plans to sell similarly priced jeans this year.
Of course, for some retailers the circle is more virtuous than vicious.
Thrift has propelled Hanjiro, a secondhand clothing store chain popular among young Japanese, to 19 stores, from just one store in 1992. When Hanjiro opened a new store in Saitama, which borders Tokyo, in April, about 1,000 eager young fans lined up for a door-buster 290-yen T-shirt special. Of course, frugality is good for Wal-Mart, which posted better-than-expected second-quarter earnings last month. Japanese consumers are snapping up Seiyu’s $6 bottles of wine — sourced through Wal-Mart’s international network — as well as $86 suits and $87 bicycles.
In fact, Seiyu has ignited a price war of its own, with its “bento” lunch-in-a-box of rice and grilled salmon for 298 yen. Abandoning a custom here for supermarkets to make their bento boxes on site, Seiyu cut costs by assembling the lunches at a centralized factory.
Seiyu bet that Japan’s frugal consumers would not care about the change, as long as the bentos were cheap. Seiyu was right; the bentos have set off a line of copycat supermarket bentos.
“Price is No. 1 in my mind,” said Chie Kawano, an elderly shopper at Seiyu’s Akabane store in northern Tokyo, a bento box in her basket. “I don’t need anything fancy.”
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Phchum Ben Days in Cambodia
Men wrestle during an annual ceremony at Virhear Sour village in Kandal province, 50 km (31 mi) northwest of Phnom Penh September 19, 2009. The ceremony, which started more than 70 years ago, is held to honour the Neakta Preah Srok pagoda spirit.REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA SOCIETY ANNIVERSARY)
Cambodian men ride buffaloes during an annual buffalo-racing ceremony at Virhear Sour village in Kandal province, 50 km (31 mi) northwest of Phnom Penh September 19, 2009. The ceremony, which started more than 70 years ago, is held to honour the Neakta Preah Srok pagoda spirit. After the ceremony, the buffaloes are auctioned off to the highest bidder.REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA SOCIETY ANIMALS ANNIVERSARY)
A Cambodian man prepares to race his buffalo during an annual buffalo-racing ceremony at Virhear Sour village in Kandal province, 50 km (31 mi) northwest of Phnom Penh September 19, 2009. The ceremony, which started more than 70 years ago, is held to honour the Neakta Preah Srok pagoda spirit. After the ceremony, the buffaloes are auctioned off to the highest bidder.REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA SOCIETY ANIMALS ANNIVERSARY)
A Cambodian boy rides his buffalo during an annual buffalo-racing ceremony at Virhear Sour village in Kandal province, 50 km (31 mi) northwest of Phnom Penh September 19, 2009. The ceremony, which started more than 70 years ago, is held to honour the Neakta Preah Srok pagoda spirit. After the ceremony, the buffaloes are auctioned off to the highest bidder.REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA SOCIETY ANIMALS ANNIVERSARY IMAGES OF THE DAY)
Cambodian men prepare to race buffaloes during an annual buffalo-racing ceremony at Virhear Sour village in Kandal province, 50 km (31 mi) northwest of Phnom Penh September 19, 2009. The ceremony, which started more than 70 years ago, is held to honour the Neakta Preah Srok pagoda spirit. After the ceremony, the buffaloes are auctioned off to the highest bidder.REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea (CAMBODIA SOCIETY ANIMALS ANNIVERSARY)
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