Economist, Feb 17, 2018 (I)

choi

(1) Cities and farming | Into the Urban Maw; The explosive growth of cities is changing the agriculture in poor countries.
https://www.economist.com/news/i ... professionalise-how

Quote:

"LOOKING out from Mathabari, a village in northern Bangladesh, the landscape glints and ripples. Twenty years ago this was a rice-farming area, with fields of bright green. Now most of the land is covered with water. Carp, pangasius, catfish and tilapia swim in ponds separated by earth embankments. A few of the remaining patches of dry ground are occupied by sheds, where chickens are raised. * * * with electric paddle wheels to keep the water oxygenated. He [the owner/operator] has even built a feed mill to grind maize, mustard oil cake and other raw materials into fish pellets. * * * He mostly farms pangasius, an unfussy silver-white fish, native to South-East Asia, which can breathe air. In the early years Mr Khamar would haul 20 tonnes from each acre of pond. Now, with better feed and cultivation methods, he gets about 40 tonnes.

"In 2016 Bangladesh's farmers produced 2.2m tonnes of fish (see chart). That is more than its fishermen caught in the wild, and more than fish farmers produced in any other country except China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam.

"Ben Belton, an expert on Asian aquaculture at Michigan State University, estimates that 94% of Bangladesh’s farmed fish are eaten domestically.

"Aquaculture requires about twice as much labour per acre as rice farming, and the demand is year-round. * * * Seasonal hunger, which is a feature of life in some rice-farming regions of Bangladesh, is rarer in the watery districts. * * * food is now so cheap

in both Bangladesh (where fish are farmed) and Nigeria (chicken), "official statistics are so poor. Chicken and fish farmers have little idea what their competitors are producing, so they find it hard to predict what price their produce might fetch at market.

"In a warehouse [(ie, indoor) in a town in Bangladeshi town, a farmer named] Shamsul Alam has installed eight large vats. When he shines his torch in, they are revealed to contain thousands of stinging catfish. Although the fish is tricky to handle, owing to the venom in its dorsal spines, it is a delicacy that fetches at least four times as much as pangasius per kilo. The water in the vats is cleaned by a machine imported from Canada.  It is an expensive, technically complex way of farming fish. The indoor fish farm poses no competitive threat to open-air [fish] farmers.

choi

(2) Customer service in Japan | Taking the Gloves off; Cost-conscious Japanese businesses are struggling to keep up standards.
https://www.economist.com/news/b ... er-service-japanese

Quote:

"Japan prides itself on the standard of customer service * * * Taxi drivers, who often wear white gloves, sometimes get out to bow when they drop off a passenger.

"The human touch is becoming rarer. Lawson, another konbini [Japanese for convenience store; remember Japanese language does not have 'v' sound] chain, is automating payment during the small hours at selected stores.

"Opening times of shops and restaurants are becoming ever shorter. Skylark [Co, Ltd -- whose Japanese name is written in hiragana, not kanji or katakana], a company that owns several popular restaurant chains, has cut the number of its restaurants that are open between 22 and 24 hours a day from 1,000 to 400. Yoshinoya, a favourite haunt for gyūdon 牛丼 [gyū is the Chinese pronunciation for 牛] (a bowl of rice topped with beef), has done likewise. Family Mart, another convenience-store chain, is experimenting with closing some stores at certain hours of the night.

"all those bowing staff and long opening hours make firms inefficient. Japan ranks poorly for productivity among the OECD, a club of rich nations, especially for non-manufacturing industries.

"For some customers the changes are worrying, cutting to the heart of Japanese culture. Children grow up revering omotenashi, the philosophy of providing service without expectation of reward.

A Japanese "notes that 7-Eleven, a convenience store born in Texas, is so named because it used to open from 7am to 11pm [and 7 days a week (which was extended hours at the time of name change to 7-Eleven in 1946): en.wikipedia.org] rather than operating around the clock.

Note:
(a) donburi  丼
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donburi
("literally '[porcelain] bowl' ")
(b) Japanese-English dictionary:
* omotenashi おもてなし 《お持て成し》 (n,v): "hospitality, service"

choi

(3) American memoir | The Art of Survival.
https://www.economist.com/news/b ... eting-memoir-brutal
(book review on Tara Westover, Educated. Random House, 2018)

Quote:

"Ms Westover was the youngest of seven children raised by Mormon survivalists in a town of 234 people [in Idaho]. Like her siblings, she was kept out of school, which her father regarded as 'a ploy by the government to lead children away from God.' * * * the family also avoided doctors.

"He [her father] loathed the idea of 'registering' with the government, so did not obtain birth certificates for Ms Westover and three other children. He spent his meagre income from scrap metal on a cache of huge guns and a giant gasoline tank, for fighting or fleeing when the authorities showed up. Ms Westover slept with a 'head-for-the-hills' [逃难; surrounding hills are considered safer than the home] bag by her bed.

"She taught herself enough algebra and grammar to pass Brigham Young's exam and enrolled in 2004.  At first she floundered, academically and socially. How could people call themselves Mormon and drink Diet Coke [Mormons are not supposed to ingest a stimulant, such as caffeine which is found in tea or coffee also] * * * But in time she excelled, winning a fellowship to study at Cambridge, where she immersed herself in history and philosophy. Then she did a doctorate at Harvard.

Note:
(a) survivalism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivalism
(b) The last sentence is wrong; The Economist is confused with where she got fellowship and PhD. See Bio. TaraWestover.com, undated
https://tarawestover.com/bio/

Gates Cambridge Scholarship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gates_Cambridge_Scholarship
(2001- )