{"id":2359,"date":"2008-12-17T17:37:34","date_gmt":"2008-12-17T17:37:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=2359"},"modified":"2008-12-20T19:15:05","modified_gmt":"2008-12-20T19:15:05","slug":"witlife-9-fake-takenoko-and-new-year%e2%80%99s-nesting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/17\/witlife-9-fake-takenoko-and-new-year%e2%80%99s-nesting\/","title":{"rendered":"WITLife #9: Fake Takenoko and New Year\u2019s Nesting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>WITLife<\/strong><\/a> is a periodic series written by professional Interpreter\/Translator\/Writer Stacy Smith<\/strong><\/a> (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03).\u00a0 In her recent posts, she’s been watching the news in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends along with her own observations.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

While watching the Japanese news this morning, the story that headlined hit a bit close to home.\u00a0 It profiled a recent scandal regarding takenoko<\/em> (bamboo shoots) that took place in Kumamoto City, where I served as CIR for three years.<\/p>\n

This vegetable was being marked as “Made in Kumamoto,” when in fact supplies had come from China.\u00a0 Even worse, when representatives of the parent company came to visit the local supplier, Kumamoto Cannery, they made three employees pose as farmers and had them take a commemorative photo in a bamboo grove.\u00a0 This picture was then used on the packaging with the caption “Kumamoto Prefecture Bamboo Grove Farmers,” creating a wholesome image for a product that was different than what was being advertised.\u00a0 They claim that their bamboo shoots were selling so well that they had to resort to other sources as their own production couldn’t keep pace.<\/p>\n

Food safety is a topic of immense concern in Japan, though in the beginning of the year the threat was largely from abroad.\u00a0 Now that the scandals are domestic in origin it will be interesting to see what measures are taken…<\/p>\n

**********<\/p>\n

The trend for this year’s holidays in Japan is \u5de3\u7bed\u3082\u308a (sugomori<\/em>), or “staying close to home” (literally confining oneself to one’s nest).\u00a0 With the Japanese economy reacting to ours and doing just as “well,” many people are thinking of ringing in the new year not at a local shrine but in their own homes.\u00a0 Bonuses are expected to be 7.5% less than last year, and there are no signs of immediate improvement.<\/p>\n

On the upside for department stores, sales of Christmas cake are up 25% compared to last year with people anticipating more at-home celebrations on Christmas Eve.\u00a0 The same goes for sales of osechi<\/em> or the traditional New Year’s meal, which some dedicated cooks still make, though many resort to store-made.<\/p>\n

A spirit of \u795e\u983c\u307f (kamidanomi<\/em>) or “asking of the gods” is prevalent in Japan during this season, and there is even a lottery ticket with this name that is selling like wildfire.\u00a0 Being Japan, there are even special shrines you can go to in order to pray for winning numbers.<\/p>\n

Another popular item of these trying times is maneki<\/em> neko<\/em>, or cat figurines that are supposed to usher in riches.\u00a0 These lucky feline charms gain special attention during difficult economic periods.\u00a0 The official Manekineko Museum in Aichi Prefecture has seen its sales go up 25% compared to last year.\u00a0 A spokeswoman for the museum said there are many who claim to buy winning lottery tickets right after leaving the premises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Interpreter\/Translator\/Writer Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03).\u00a0 In her recent posts, she’s been watching the news in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends along with her own observations. While watching the Japanese news this morning, the story that headlined hit a bit close to home.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,30,18,36,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-career","category-japan-trends","category-translatinginterpreting","category-wit-life","category-writers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-C3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2359"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2454,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2359\/revisions\/2454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}