Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
John Spiri
John Spiri is a writer based in Gifu who has self-published the “Asians at Work” series of books and the “Global Stories” series of EFL textbooks. In addition, he is editor and self-publisher of “Travel Instincts” by James Jensen. His hobbies are bicycling and go.
For John Spiri's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Issues | THE ZEIT GIST Oct 23, 2012
Against all odds, Mormons in Japan soldier on
According to the Mormon version of postbiblical events, Joseph Smith, guided by an angel in 1823, found sacred golden plates buried in Manchester, New York, outside Rochester. The plates are claimed to have been buried around the year 400, having been brought from Central ...
Issues | THE ZEIT GIST May 1, 2012
It's just because . . . foreigners know best
You seldom see the sight these days of pairs of crew-cut white males in pressed white shirts and ties pedaling around cities in Japan. The sight is from a bygone age, largely relegated to history: The white man with a burden to educate and ...
Issues | THE ZEIT GIST Sep 15, 2009
Did technology kill the KTO star?
In 1977, nine years after Tony Elliott started the then-alternative media London Time Out magazine, Kansai Time Out printed its first issue, an eight-pager with local listings and a smattering of Japan-related articles. Dominic Al-Badri, chief editor from 1997 to 2004, recalls that the ...
Issues | THE ZEIT GIST Dec 30, 2008
Foreign university faculty face annual round of 'musical jobs'
Universities in Japan force most of their foreign instructors to play an unnerving version of musical chairs. Every year the music starts and instructors with expiring contracts scramble for an opening at a new school. University administrators force teachers to play “musical jobs” by ...
Issues | THE ZEIT GIST Jun 17, 2008
Lawmaker takes 9/11 doubts global
In a September 2003 article for The Guardian newspaper, Michael Meacher, who served as Tony Blair’s environment minister from May 1997 to June 2003, shocked the establishment by calling the global war on terrorism “bogus.” Even more controversially, he implied that the U.S. government ...
Issues | THE ZEIT GIST May 6, 2008
As parent firm posts record profits, Berlitz teachers strike back
Question: How do you get to be on the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires? You might inherit your wealth, take risks and get lucky, or work for it. For Soichiro Fukutake, owner of Berlitz’s parent company Benesse, it’s a case of “all the ...
Issues | THE ZEIT GIST Apr 1, 2008
'Half-alien' group foresees disaster, Japan UFO landing
In December, Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura caused quite a stir with his bold statement that “UFOs definitely exist.” In subsequent clarifications, the government claimed that there have been no confirmed sightings, but if a UFO was to appear, “fighter jets would be scrambled ...
Issues | THE ZEIT GIST Feb 19, 2008
Sitting out but standing tall
In “Japan at War: An Oral History,” Hideo Sato recalls being forced to hoist the Hinomaru flag in tandem with the playing of the “Kimigayo” — “His Majesty’s Reign,” the Japanese national anthem — as a schoolchild in the 1940s. If the flag reached ...
Issues | THE ZEIT GIST Jan 15, 2008
Whatever happened to Yamagishi?
Hideyuki Ikuhara’s main responsibility at Yamagishi is feeding the pigs. It’s a full-time job, but he expects no salary for his efforts. In fact, he quit his work developing high-tech televisions and gave up all his possessions for this lifestyle — and he couldn’t ...
Issues | THE ZEIT GIST Oct 2, 2007
Japan faces hunger pains as poor slip through net
First in a two-part series World Food Day, celebrated every Oct. 16, was established by the U.N. to highlight issues such as food scarcity, agricultural pollution, and food distribution problems that still plague much of the world. So what does that have to do ...