Jean Pearce - The Japan Times

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Jean Pearce

For Jean Pearce's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:

COMMUNITY / How-tos

Feb 20, 2000

A gentleman tells us that he is puzzled by the term suspended sentence, often seen in newspapers. He encloses a copy of a headline: "Accountant gets 28 months suspended sentence for poisoning." The accused had put poison in the water for making tea. Nine of his coworkers became ill, and while no one died, several were hospitalized. The sentence was suspended for five years. He asks: Does this mean punishment is postponed for five years until he gets his affairs in order? Or that he can choose a time within the five years that will be convenient? Or that "he is scot-free if he'll just keep his head down?" He also wonders if ordinary people are as likely to receive such sentences as prominent people.

COMMUNITY / How-tos

Feb 16, 2000

Computers, continued

Continuing with computer questions, a gentleman asks where he can find an iMac with an English language operating system (OS). The manufacturer explains that English OS Macs are not sold here because of various U.S. and Japanese regulations. Still, they want to help their hopeful customers so there is a conversion kit to use with the Japanese models that adapts the keyboard and provides the English OS. New versions will be available March 10 and can be purchased through the Apple Store at www.apple.co.jp Kit information is in English but otherwise the site is mostly in Japanese.

COMMUNITY / How-tos

Feb 13, 2000

Decision-making

A gentleman set out on a full-day quest in Akihabara with a Japanese friend acting as interpreter ("with a patient and flexible persistence which is the hallmark of your column's advice," he adds) looking for an iMac computer with an English-language operating system installed. The end result: a long list of maybes and perhapses.

COMMUNITY / How-tos

Feb 9, 2000

Some time ago I wrote of the passing of Tokyo Theater for Children, an organization with a long history of exciting, well-staged performances for adults as well as children. My report, fortunately, was premature. It needed new people to take over, and they came, drawn by the enthusiasm of Jude Kaye who sent me periodic reports of their progress. Now their first performance, "Aladdin," is about to be staged. Jude wrote of the challenges of revitalization: One day when she was walking her dog in Arisugawa Park, it occurred to her that there must be a great source of talent among other dog walkers. She talked to them and to those who just stopped to pet the dogs and the idea took off, resulting in a multinational group of men and women working together to bring live theater in English to children in Japan.

COMMUNITY / How-tos

Feb 6, 2000

When you need it most

A reader read about the benefit of influenza shots and called her doctor, who told her there was no vaccine in Japan. That seemed unlikely in a country prone to flu epidemics, so she asks why.

COMMUNITY / How-tos

Feb 2, 2000

Maintaining traditions

A gentleman is doing research on fireflies and asks about a service that provides fireflies for parties. He tells us he lives on a small hill surrounded by trees with a huge expanse of rice fields below. Ideal for fireflies, he says, but they are exceedingly rare; his son has seen more on a single night in a back yard in Pittsburgh than he has in his span of seven years here. "Their fate is a tragedy most people seem to consider minor, but I think it is part of a much larger loss of the healthy relationship once shared by agriculture and the natural world in rural Japan," he adds.

COMMUNITY / How-tos

Jan 30, 2000

While no one can possibly take in all the exhibitions in Tokyo, some of you may be interested in a showing of Yoshihiro Kubo's oil paintings today through Tuesday at Ginza Art Plaza, phone (03) 3289-2345 for directions. If you don't know, Dr. Kubo opened what was perhaps the first dental clinic in Japan where people could make an appointment, wait for only a few minutes in a pleasant reception room, and have their dental care administered in a private area that was both relaxing for the patient and convenient for the doctor. Take the opposite of each of these and you will have the standard dental clinic of those days.

COMMUNITY / How-tos

Jan 23, 2000

A woman writes of her problem. It is likely to remain one. She has a collection of what she calls bark pictures, produced in Japan after World War II. She describes them as landscapes composed of mountains made of tree bark, trees made of moss, and painted water and skies. She doubts if they were considered as art in Japan but says they are done with great skill and are very attractive. She wants to find people who are knowledgeable about Japanese "kitsch" or popular culture who would know about such exports to the United States in the '50s and '60s. She has been unsuccessful in her research in the U.S.

COMMUNITY / How-tos

Jan 19, 2000

New opportunities

I have a letter from a 15-year-old girl in Germany. She has blue-gray eyes and dark blond hair. She speaks English, French and German. She tells me of her school and her hobbies. She has a cat called Blacky. She is looking for pen-friends in Japan.

COMMUNITY / How-tos

Jan 16, 2000

Effective action

Now I know how we can rid our cities of crows. I have a wooded area behind my apartment where they gather to caw about their day, and all morning they have been especially raucous as they settle there for a short rest before taking off on another forage. Then suddenly, quiet. I looked up from my desk and saw they had disappeared. Then I saw why. Another kind of bird had frightened them away. I checked my bird book and decided that it was a falcon -- or perhaps a hawk -- settling down to his feast, a luckless pigeon. I wonder where he came from, if he is a professional or an amateur, if he is lost. I hope he likes it here and decides to stay.

COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE

Jan 12, 2000

Win some, lose some

Like many of our readers, I continue to miss Gary Larson's The Far Side cartoons. Now I have 366 of them in a millennium collection brought up to date with color and appropriate historic dates which the publisher, Andrews McMeel of Kansas City, calls "a refreshingly irreverent retrospective of the last thousand years." It is ecologically correct because the calendar and the box it came in are made of recycled and recyclable paper, a new claim to me. The first cartoon shows a burning village in the background, a Viking boat beached far above the shoreline and a group of Vikings. The leader says, "Everyone can just put down their loot and plunder, and Sven here -- yes, Sven, who was in charge of reading the tide chart -- has something to say to us all." The historical note, dated 1003, says, "Vikings begin a three-year visit to the northern continent in the Western Hemisphere. Indigenous people thought it was only going to be for a couple of weeks." It is going to be a great year.

COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE

Jan 9, 2000

Have you seen a mumsettia? They were apparently big sellers during the Christmas holidays this year in the United States. It is a poinsettia in a pot surrounded by white chrysanthemum plants. "It's lovely and very Christmasy," a friend writes. We will probably have them here next year.

COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE

Jan 5, 2000

I wrote this column before Y2K became a reality instead of a speculation. I had water, a charcoal stove, six cans of tuna, batteries, and the hope that since I was ready, nothing would happen. But I didn't know. Now I do: Being prepared pays off again. Perhaps there was a hint of disappointment. We were expecting something!

COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE

Dec 26, 1999

Here is a count-your-blessings column for the yearend, reminders of what we may miss but also of what we gain by international exposure. First, a list of what Japanese like best about the West, and then, Western views of living in Japan.

COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE

Dec 23, 1999

Yearend nostalgia

There is something about the holiday season that brings out nostalgia. Old times are recalled. We reach out with Christmas and New Year's cards to friends we haven't seen for years. A lot of conversations begin with, Do you remember . . . It seems that although most people anticipate the opportunities and challenges that will come with the new year, there is a reluctance to let go of the old. This is especially true when we are not only readying to welcome a new year but are also adjusting to the idea of a new millennium. As one of my cards so aptly put it, Here's wishing you a very happy New Year; may it last for a thousand years.

COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE

Dec 8, 1999

Certain products come in many shapes and sizes, and a reader must thank the Italian Trade Commission in Tokyo for the successful ending of her search. She was looking for a special kind of Italian support hose made by IBICI and she wondered where she could buy them in Japan. It could be an endless search, but it only took a phone call to the trade commission and a fax explaining exactly what she wanted. A short time later, I had the answer, and the reader now has the name of a person who will help her at Yoyo Corporation, the company that imports that brand.

COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE

Dec 5, 1999

I have long relationships with some of my readers. One contacted me first with a challenging project -- teaching her cat to use a scratch post -- and moved on through a wedding at a shrine and later a divorce, and finally the establishment of her own business. We have never met but we are friends so when she wrote about her new career I was interested, especially since it was with a company whose name I knew well in other days when home was Indiana: Rexall Drug Store. Before megastores and discount outlets, Rexall had a reputation for reasonable prices and quality products. Now Rexall has become international and Rexall products, focused on health-care and diet supplements, are sold to customers by trained distributors through direct marketing -- a sales technique used by many companies that accounts for some $30 billion in annual sales in Japan. Her enthusiasm about Rexall products is well founded. She had worked for many years with cardiac surgery patients and reports that many former colleagues are using Rexall preventive health-care products with excellent results.

COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE

Dec 1, 1999

Recently I quoted letters from a university English writing class commenting on a column about General MacArthur. That prompted a letter from longtime resident G.A. Chandru who has done much over the years to promote his adopted city of Yokohama as well as Indian culture and products. A few years ago when I complained about the poor quality of typewriter ribbons now that nylon has replaced cotton, he sent me several cotton ribbons from India that produced the clear, dark letters I remembered. Today he adds to our store of knowledge about MacArthur. He tells us that the general landed first in Yokohama and until he moved to the Dai-ichi Insurance building in Tokyo, he used the Hotel New Grand as his office/home. His room was on the third floor and Chandru says he sometimes takes people interested in Yokohama's history there to see it. He reports that the bed, desk and chair are the same ones used by MacArthur.

COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE

Nov 27, 1999

Unwelcome companions

Thanks to e-mail, a vast assortment of unsolicited information comes my way. Some of it is even interesting and occasionally I share it with you. My amazement is not so much with the information I am sending your way today as it is with the person who noticed it and then did the necessary projection. I wonder if anyone would answer yes to the question in the first sentence: "Did you know that Friday, 11/19/1999, was the last date with all odd numbers we will have until 1/1/3111? On a more positive note, 2/2/2000 will be the first all-even day we've had since 8/28/888." I wonder what people were projecting then. I suppose it depended on where you were. In China, there were the fading glories of the Tang dynasty, and Japan was starting its rich Heian era. Where I come from, I suppose people were gathering acorns and hunting buffalo.

COMMUNITY / How-tos / GETTING THINGS DONE

Nov 24, 1999

The ultimate solution

This notice was posted recently on my neighborhood bulletin board -- To people who feed stray cats: Please also take care of spaying or neutering them. While strays have become a problem recognized by the government, little has been done to eliminate it by the most obvious way: providing an inexpensive spaying/neutering service since few people will pay the usual 30,000 yen to as much as 100,000 yen for an operation for a stray cat. What to do! Even rounding them up and disposing of them, a solution which many strongly oppose, is not effective since cats can now produce three or even four litters a year.

From easily navigable train stations to the helpfulness of its municipal staff, Tokyo has earned high praise for its commitment to accessibility for disabled travelers.

[Rebroadcast] Japan is doing better on accessibility than you may think

When trying to trace your lineage in Japan, the "koseki" is the most important form of document you'll encounter.

Climbing the branches of a Japanese family tree

By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

Prize winner Maki Imoto catches light with glass

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