Is one of the great institutions of Japanese cul- ture succumbing to a slow, gnawing attack? It may be. I tell you, if this icon is lost, all we'll have left of the culture will be a few cartoons and some rusting karaoke machines.
The Asahi Shinbun newspaper reported on March 17 that some schools in the Osaka-Kobe area are methodically cutting costs on students' lunches, leaving them with just two little dumplings and some boiled veggies to sustain them.
For those readers who have not brought up children in the Japanese school system, this may not loom as so large an issue. But having sent my four children to Japanese schools, from kindergarten to high school, I can tell you that there is nothing more important in the educational system than kyushoku (school lunch). Ask any Japanese kid, and I'm sure they'd say the same. In their later years, kyushoku may be the thing they remember with most fondness from their school days.