{"id":28379,"date":"2013-01-03T14:36:28","date_gmt":"2013-01-03T18:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=28379"},"modified":"2013-01-03T14:36:28","modified_gmt":"2013-01-03T18:36:28","slug":"wit-life-224-%e6%98%8e%e3%81%91%e3%81%be%e3%81%97%e3%81%a6%e3%81%8a%e3%82%81%e3%81%a7%e3%81%a8%e3%81%86%e3%81%94%e3%81%96%e3%81%84%e3%81%be%e3%81%99%ef%bc%81","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2013\/01\/03\/wit-life-224-%e6%98%8e%e3%81%91%e3%81%be%e3%81%97%e3%81%a6%e3%81%8a%e3%82%81%e3%81%a7%e3%81%a8%e3%81%86%e3%81%94%e3%81%96%e3%81%84%e3%81%be%e3%81%99%ef%bc%81\/","title":{"rendered":"WIT Life #224: \u660e\u3051\u307e\u3057\u3066\u304a\u3081\u3067\u3068\u3046\u3054\u3056\u3044\u307e\u3059\uff01"},"content":{"rendered":"

WIT Life<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/a> is <\/strong><\/em>a periodic series written<\/strong><\/em> by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator <\/strong><\/em>Stacy Smith<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>(Kumamo<\/a><\/strong><\/em>to-ken<\/a> CIR, 2000-<\/strong><\/em>03). She starts<\/strong><\/em> her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she sha<\/strong><\/em>r<\/strong><\/em>es s<\/strong><\/em>ome of the interesting<\/strong><\/em> tidb<\/strong><\/em>its and t<\/strong><\/em>r<\/strong><\/em>ends together with her own observations.<\/strong><\/em>\"\"<\/p>\n

Happy \u5df3\u5e74 (hebi doshi<\/em>, or year of the snake)!\u00a0 In Japan there are 15.2 million people who were born in the year of the snake, making them either \u5e74\u7537 or \u5e74\u5973 (toshi otoko\/onna<\/em>).\u00a0 Not sure what the numbers are here in the States, but Chinese astrology says that we’re likely to see significant developments in the area of science and technology this year.\u00a0 According to astrology.com, “Research and development are apt to flourish, making 2013 a very special year for scientists and scholars.\u00a0 The snake is a great sign, a positive one, with energy that can help us face all of the challenges ahead of us.”\u00a0 Also, the snake (which has the alternate kanji of \u86c7, as shown in the image) is said to be the yin to last year’s dragon (\u8fb0, tatsu<\/em> or \u9f8d, ryu<\/em>) yang.<\/p>\n

\"\"Speaking of feminine\/masculine elements, two recent articles in the New York Times focus on women’s issues in Japan.\u00a0 The first<\/a> marks the passing of Beate Gordon, “who almost single-handedly wrote women\u2019s rights into the [Japanese] Constitution.”\u00a0 She was the last living member of the American team that wrote Japan\u2019s postwar constitution, and had served as a member of General MacArthur’s staff as an interpreter (she later married a fellow government interpreter who was also involved with the constitution’s creation).\u00a0 Thanks to her contributions, women were provided with legal rights which they had not been previously entitled to related to marriage, divorce, property and inheritance.<\/p>\n

On the yang side of the spectrum, an article<\/a> in today’s Times discusses the new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his attempts to rewrite history.\u00a0 Abe is known for being inflammatory in regard to the \u6170\u5b89\u5a66 (ianfu<\/em>, or comfort women) issue, such as when he asserted that his previous administration (’06-’07) had found no evidence that the women had been coerced into service.\u00a0 After coming back into power, he again stirred things up by saying that he might modify Japan’s 1993 acknowledgement and apology.\u00a0 This would not only cause great consternation to Korea whose women were the primary victims, but to surrounding Asian countries as well, and could have a detrimental impact on the regional cooperation necessary for challenges such as North Korea’s nuclear posturing.\u00a0 In terms of the domestic nuclear issue, Abe has come out in support of building new nuclear reactors, despite a campaign pledge to move away from nuclear power (\u8131\u539f\u767a or\u00a0datsu genpatsu). \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WIT Life is a periodic series written by professional Writer\/Interpreter\/Translator Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken CIR, 2000-03). She starts her day by watching Fujisankei\u2019s newscast in Japanese, and here she shares some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations. Happy \u5df3\u5e74 (hebi doshi, or year of the snake)!\u00a0 In Japan there are 15.2 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"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":[18,36,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-translatinginterpreting","category-wit-life","category-writers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-7nJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28379","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\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28379"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28409,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28379\/revisions\/28409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}