Philip Brasor - The Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Oct 5, 2000

Celebrate the elderly when they stop saving

On Sept. 15, the country "celebrated" Respect for the Aged Day, when we honor our elders, who pass their wisdom and experience down to us so that our lives and those of our children will be happier and more fulfilling. Of course, nothing is farther from the truth. We in the industrialized world seem to be allergic to the elderly. We talk about how we have to take care of them and how they are a wasted resource but, generally speaking, we would prefer they stay at home knitting or playing checkers and not remind us of our own impending mortality.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Sep 21, 2000

Japan insurance market just a phone call away

For the past several years, the insurance industry has been battered on two fronts by bad publicity. On the one hand, the collapse of almost all the major life insurance companies has been blamed on poor investment choices and even poorer management, while on the other, the spate of recent murder-for-insurance cases points up how easy it is to manipulate the system for illegal purposes.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Sep 7, 2000

Educational TV: PTA knows best?

The Data Watching section of the Sept. 7 issue of Dime contains the results of various unrelated surveys regarding the current state of parent-child relationships. In addition to questionnaire answers about corporal punishment and what constitutes bad behavior, there is a list compiled by the Japan PTA in 1999 of the 10 TV shows parents want their children to watch, as well as the 10 shows they don't want their children to watch.

CULTURE / Music

Sep 5, 2000

Rock 'n' roll high school back in session

The music of the Donnas is cleverer and more enjoyable than most of the retro-pop I've heard lately. Though it's high-school kids who compose the group's fan base, it's boomer music critics who've become their champions. They like these girls from Palo Alto, Calif., because they say they're the first punk band that's successfully built on the deceptively simple premise of the Ramones: fast, melodic, loud songs about adolescent stupidity, though in the Donnas' case it's from a female point of view.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Aug 31, 2000

Frugality boom highlights fun and fulfillment of the simple life

As explained in this column several months ago, Japanese TV often adapts successful programming ideas from abroad. Still, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a local version of "Survivor." Reality-based programming is already available in Japan. Years ago, "Denpa Shonen" moved beyond such simplistic ideas as sticking cameras in communal housing and throwing strangers together on a desert island.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Aug 17, 2000

Support the economy -- take a vacation

If all you knew about Japan was what you saw on Japanese TV, you might think the Japanese are the most well-traveled citizens in the world. No other broadcast culture offers as many travel programs in which happy-go-lucky celebrity guides see the sights, interact freely with the natives and, most importantly, sample the local cuisine.

CULTURE / Music

Aug 6, 2000

Fuji Rock fest hits its stride

After only four years, it might seem premature to subtitle the Fuji Rock Festival a "summer classic," but the event's institutional status was boosted this year by the fact that it was held at the same location as it was the year before. The Naeba Ski Resort was never the organizers' first choice -- as the name implies, it was supposed to be held within spitting distance of Mount Fuji -- but politically the Mount Fuji area has proved too difficult for the Glastonbury-like prerogatives that the organizers envision. For better or worse, Naeba seems to be the permanent home.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Aug 3, 2000

Okinawa seen through the summit prism

It's a common belief that the annual G-7 or G-8 summits accomplish little more than allowing the leaders of the industrialized world to get together and make a show of global unity. Consequently, the only thing you can count on in the post-summit analyses is that they will dwell on what wasn't discussed, which, in the case of the recent Okinawa wing-ding, was the promise made at last year's summit to forgive Third World debt.

CULTURE / Music

Jul 25, 2000

So you wanna be a glam-sleaze superstar?

As befits artists whose chosen mode of expression is more or less a comment on somebody else's mode of expression, Swedish pop groups definitely have the best names. The Trampolines play bouncy, never-less-than-fun British pop while the Wannadies mine the rich vein of teenage angst in straightforward American pop.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jul 20, 2000

Coverup just makes the scandal worse

The Yukijirushi (Snow Brand) contaminated-milk scandal was the product of corporate arrogance aggravated by a bunker mentality. President Tetsuro Ishikawa's apologies meant little after he admitted he had no idea what goes on in his plants. Having helmed the number one dairy products company for several decades and never experienced a year without a profit, the executive couldn't comprehend that something could actually go wrong.

CULTURE / Music

Jul 16, 2000

A guide to the music festivals of summer

The recession has reportedly made concert promoters' lives miserable, and yet it doesn't seem to have affected the flood of foreign acts rushing to these shores.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jul 6, 2000

Law inhibits election coverage and debate

Prior to the Lower House elections June 25, commentators both here and abroad complained that the parties weren't putting forth concrete proposals, but instead only vague assurances that they would rebuild the economy and return Japan to its former glory as the world's last bastion of civility.

CULTURE / Music

Jul 1, 2000

Inciting the huddled masses to Rage Against the Machine

Bruce Springsteen's controversial new song, "American Skin (41 Shots)," about the shooting death of Amadou Diallo by New York City policemen, has split his fan base of blue-collar male boomers down political lines. Bob Lucente, the president of the New York State chapter of the Benevolent Order of Police, publicly denounced the song and called the rock star a "floating fag" and a "f**king dirtbag."

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jun 29, 2000

Marriage guide for men begs the question, 'Et tu, Brutus?'

In the cultural wars secular liberalism continues its slow, laborious march toward victory (two steps forward, one step back), but one bastion of male-centered tradition remains inviolate: the marriage proposal. Men do the asking, and women wait for them to ask. The vector indicated by this dynamic mimics the sex act itself, with the coin of sexual access being the engagement ring, preferably one with a diamond.

CULTURE / Music

Jun 18, 2000

All in the Phish phamily

At first, I felt sorry for the Americans who followed Phish across the Pacific for the band's Japan tour. I live here, and even I find the prices intolerable and the infrastructure unforgiving.

COMMUNITY

Jun 8, 2000

A mouthful of Crazy English goes down very well in Japan

Li Yang seems an unlikely proselytizer for internationalism through English language study. Not only is he not a native speaker of English, but prior to last week he had never even set foot outside of mainland China.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

Jun 1, 2000

Who wants to say he's a millionaire?

Everybody knows that the popular quiz show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" was dumbed-down after it was exported from England to the U.S. Some advertisers, in fact, were very angry because they thought the level of difficulty made it too easy for contestants to go all the way.

CULTURE / Music

May 23, 2000

Steely Dan still rocks, albeit more tastefully

The first two songs Steely Dan played at their May 15 show at the Tokyo International Forum -- "The Boston Rag" and " Bodhisattva" -- come from their second record, "Countdown to Ecstasy," which happens to be their least-selling album as well as my personal favorite. I should have been giddy with appreciation, but I was less impressed by the songs themselves than I was by the fact that they were playing them.

JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX

May 18, 2000

You too could be the target market of a new drug

Every time I visit the United States, I am increasingly alarmed at the number of TV commercials for prescription drugs, which is something I never saw when I was a child. As a matter of fact, between 1994 and 1998, drug manufacturers increased their spending on direct-to-consumer advertising in the U.S. seven-fold.

CULTURE / Music

May 16, 2000

A natural woman, yes, but a soul singer?

One of the more thought-provoking critical observations I've come across lately (Amy Linden's, to be exact) is the claim that the current crop of young black singers could learn something from the 22-year-old singer-songwriter Fiona Apple about soul. That's "soul" as in Soul, as in Gladys and Nina, as in "I Can't Stand the Rain" and "Natural Woman," which, come to think of it, was written by Carole King when she was a skinny white New Yorker just like Apple.

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