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.

Direct sales is about the only way for such health-oriented products to go here in Japan, where regulations strictly limit claims that can be made for efficacy, and even explanations of what they might do are limited. Yet articles on health and nutrition in newspapers and other publications inform the public of new developments and of supplements that show promising results in treating such problems as hypertension, diabetes, vision disorders, anxiety, insomnia and allergies/asthma, the latter a product that is especially popular in Japan. Such health-care items have been both overpriced and difficult to find here, while ordering from abroad can be complicated. At present, some 40 products, including a wide range of skin-care products, are available through Rexall Showcase International and others are gradually being added to the list. The company is especially recognized for its anti-aging and preventive health-care products.

Here in Japan, it is necessary sometimes to change the formulation of products to comply with the demanding requirements for marketing health-related goods. The careful manipulation of approved ingredients assures that the altered products have the same effectiveness as the products sold in other countries. And since companies are not allowed to make claims concerning possible benefits on labels, or even verbally, because in general the effectiveness of most supplements cannot yet be scientifically demonstrated, most labels are vague. That is why you often find statements suggesting that a medication is good for you if you are tired, or helpful if you work too hard.

Rexall headquarters is in the new Tokyo Opera Tower in Shinjuku on the 14th floor. There is a salesroom on the first floor. For the more personal attention provided by your own distributor, you can call either Angelina Angeles, at (03) 3779-3896, who has been in Japan for 20 years and speaks both English and Japanese, or Phyllis Borner, who first wrote to me about her cat and somewhat later about Rexall's early plans to bring its fine products to Japan. Call her at (045) 984-4722 for the Tokyo area or (072) 621-4360 for Kansai in English or Japanese.

A woman would like to have a list of Japanese nongovernmental organizations -- NGOs -- for her Japanese students. There is a better suggestion. She can do her students a favor by asking them to find a list of NGOs. It will be good for them to find the information themselves instead of having a list provided for them. It could also be a subject for a class discussion on how to do it.

Here are some suggestions. Have them read newspapers. They will find reports of NGO activities and then can contact those groups for information. They can ask at ward offices, the Tokyo metropolitan office in Shinjuku and the information office of the central government, asking where such information is available -- and then go get it. Phone numbers are available in directories or dial 104. And don't forget the Internet. Her students will be helped far more if they are asked to help themselves. (She also knows where such a list is available if self-help doesn't work.)