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Ralph Jennings
For Ralph Jennings's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 7, 2006
Shanghai -- all-you-can-eat, sip
Chopped steak, salmon, a few plates of sushi plus enough Japanese beer to send someone home staggering would normally bleed the common Chinese bill-payer of a week's pay.
JAPAN
Mar 14, 2006
Firms recruiting in China find few fits
BEIJING (Kyodo) Japanese companies trawling for new hires at the second annual Beijing job fair have found few skilled applicants among the latest group of graduates.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 28, 2006
Nantong is good home for Japanese factories
NANTONG, China (Kyodo) The late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1984 founded the Nantong Economic and Technological Development Area and 13 other coastal development zones to lead China from communism to a market economy.
JAPAN
Jan 17, 2006
China's Japan smear a hard sell in Taiwan
BEIJING (Kyodo) In a speech to 6,000 dignitaries last September marking the 60th anniversary of the war's end, Chinese President Hu Jintao recalled the anti-Japan alliance between the Chinese Communist Party and Nationalist Party (KMT) before it fled to Taiwan, saying he would not tolerate Taiwan's independence from China.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2006
Japanese company introduces kids books to skeptical China
BEIJING (Kyodo) When people look through "Little Brother Mouse's Waistcoat" at the Poplar Kid's Republic Picture Book Shop in Beijing, they often ask why the pages have so much blank space.
JAPAN
Jan 12, 2006
Pushing the boundaries, JTB courts non-Japanese to grow China market
BEIJING (Kyodo) Westerners traveling in Japan do not like to sleep on tatami mats, Shunichi Okabe has noticed, and in China they prefer to see its rougher, more traditional side rather than the creature comforts preferred by Japanese tourists.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 22, 2005
Gingerly, Japanese business in Shanghai resumes
Whoever owned the Japanese restaurant opposite the Japanese Consulate in Shanghai left within four months after a crowd of people vandalized both the restaurant and consulate in an anti-Japan fury in April.
JAPAN
Nov 24, 2005
Beijing 'snack' bars in fierce competition
After the workers clock out around 6 p.m., most of 41-story Tower A at SOHO Newtown's office complex in Beijing goes dark until the next day. But elevators dedicated to floors 30 and up start running full loads again from 8 p.m. until past 1 a.m.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Nov 11, 2005
Chinese feelings on Japan mixed
When Li Yanmei first hears the word "Japan," she thinks of rightwingers and school textbooks that sanitize wartime history.
JAPAN
Nov 8, 2005
China media fairer toward Japan
When Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Tokyo's war-related Yasukuni Shrine last month, two local Beijing newspapers reported his explanation of the visit alongside the Chinese government's accusation that he had hurt China's feelings by honoring war criminals enshrined there. After Sino-Japanese talks last month on natural gas exploration in a contested area of the East China Sea, the official Xinhua News Agency covered the basics without editorializing on the outcome or on either side's position. It said both sides discussed joint exploration.
JAPAN
Aug 23, 2005
Japan wages uphill media campaign in China
Few things make Keiji Ide, minister in charge of press relations at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, happier than a chance to show Chinese news clippings that quote him on sensitive issues of Sino-Japanese politics or history. One clip, from the April 18 issue of China Newsweek magazine, played Ide's comments on Japan's contentious history textbooks across the bottom of two pages.
JAPAN
Jul 21, 2005
Eatery in China dumps sushi nudes for 'healthy' entertainment
Haitun Road, a two-lane suburban street lined with auto repair shops and business selling building supplies, leads most traffic out of Kunming, southwestern China, to mountains and farms. Taxi drivers in the city, the capital of Yunnan Province, say they seldom go out that far and those who do risk not finding a fare back to town.
JAPAN
Jul 8, 2005
Aid reveals Japan's grand designs for Asia
Japan's recent $1 million technical assistance grant to upgrade a coastal transit corridor from Vietnam to Thailand looks at first like typical governmental largess, a slice of the hundreds of millions of dollars Japan gives to developing Asian countries. But to Southeast Asia, the grant indicates again that Japan has strategic economic designs on the five countries that make up the 200-million-strong Mekong basin -- Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam -- according to officials at the Second Greater Mekong Subregion Summit in Kunming, China. The two-day summit ended Tuesday.
JAPAN
Jul 8, 2005
Aid reveals Japan's grand designs for Asia
Japan's recent $1 million technical assistance grant to upgrade a coastal transit corridor from Vietnam to Thailand looks at first like typical governmental largess, a slice of the hundreds of millions of dollars Japan gives to developing Asian countries. But to Southeast Asia, the grant indicates again that Japan has strategic economic designs on the five countries that make up the 200-million-strong Mekong basin -- Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam -- according to officials at the Second Greater Mekong Subregion Summit in Kunming, China. The two-day summit ended Tuesday.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 15, 2005
Mongolians fete Japan ties but fret future
Common ethnic roots, a mutual passion for wrestling and a sizable amount of development aid money tightly unite Japan and Mongolia, but over the past year Mongolians have found a reason to worry.
JAPAN
Apr 5, 2005
China yanks books about ties with Japan
Two books on Sino-Japanese history and modern political relations have been pulled from shelves in China for undisclosed reasons, after selling about 50,000 copies apiece. "Ambiguity's Neighborhood" and "Iron and Plough," both by author Yu Jie, disappeared from major bookstores in late December after four months of normal circulation, Yu said this week.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jan 22, 2005
Japan to end China retraining program
BAOTOU, China (Kyodo) After a bankrupt state-run steel factory laid him off in 1995, Zhou Peng set up an auto repair shop, attracting customers he knew from his old job of eight years.
JAPAN
Jan 11, 2005
Japanese aid message lost on deaf Chinese ears
Over the past four years, the Japanese government has spent at least 350 million yen on drugs, scopes and syringes to strike down tuberculosis in China, where there are 4.5 million active cases. Supply packs note that the contents are paid for by a Japanese government grant, so patients know where the unexpected donation has come from. Media in tuberculosis-affected areas also cite the source.
JAPAN
Oct 29, 2004
Chinese consumers warming to Japan
When Xia Sheng goes shopping for mobile phones, TV sets and other electronics goods he always checks the country of origin on the product in question. If the product comes from Japan, the graduate student at Beijing International Studies University will not buy it unless he is sure no alternative offers the same quality at an equal price.
JAPAN
Feb 10, 2004
China suspicious of moves to alter Constitution
Still not over World War II in many ways, China is on the lookout for any moves to introduce militaristic elements into Japan's Constitution after 60 years of peaceful foreign relations, according to Chinese scholars and media. Japan advanced its economy to the top spot in Asia and gained the trust of former World War II enemies in Asia because its Constitution forbids military action abroad, the observers said.

Longform

High-end tourism is becoming more about the kinds of experiences that Japan's lesser-known places can provide.
Can Japan lure the jet-set class off the beaten path?