Economist, Nov 10, 2018

choi

(1) Automation in Japan | Human Endurance; A country obsessed with robots is also oddly resistant to them.
("Machines already do much of the dangerous and repetitive work in Japanese factories, which have one of the highest densities of industrial robots in the world: 303 per 100,000 employees. * * * Yet the future [use of robots in service in Japan] has been slow to arrive. Japanese hotels and banks are, by global standards, heavily overstaffed despite the country's demographic crunch. Most supermarkets have not embraced the automated checkouts common elsewhere, nor airline self-service check-ins The offices of Japan's small and medium-sized enterprises are among the most inefficient in the developed world, childes McKinsey, a management consultancy.   Japan has elaborate service culture, which machineses struggle to replicate. Japanese customers, especially the elderly, prefer people to machines, says Yōko TAKEDA 武田 洋子 of Mitsubishi Research Institute 三菱総合研究所, a think-tank. Employment practices make it difficult to replace workers. And while gimmicky robots abound, Japan struggles to develop the software and artificial intelligence needed to enable them to perform useful tasks, says a report by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) 経済産業省, the cockpit of Japan's post-war miracle. So while the reception at the robot hotel [Henn-na Hotel 変なホテル; hen-na 変な weird, odd (The English name of the hotel deliberately adds an extra n); located in 長崎県佐世保市] is automated, seven human employees lurk out of sight to watch over customers and avoid glitches. [Not just in Japan, but elsewhere in the world also:] Robots still can not make beds, cook breakfast or deal with a drunken guest who will not pay his bill")

My comment: there is no need to read the rest.

(2) Identity in Macau | The Other Official Language; In the former Portuguese enclave, the colonial lontue is back in vogue.
(In 1999, Portugal handed Macau back to China * * * [the year before (1998):] "The vast majority of [Portuguese] pupils were children of Portuguese expatriates, who then dominated the senior ranks of Macau's public sector. Today the [Portuguese-language] school's fast-growing ethnic group is Chinese.  Only 2.3% of the city's 660,000 people claim fluency in Portuguese (about 1.8% of them are wholly or partly ethnic Portuguese). But the language is still in official use, along with Chinese, of which the local spoken form is Cantonese. In recent years interest in Portuguese has surged. * * * At present most civil servants can speak good English, but few have even passable Portuguese. That is partly because Portuguese was never a compulsory subjects in most [Macau] schools. So why the growing interest in it? The answer lies in China's burgeoning trade with Lusophone [Economist does capitalize the first letter] world, about three -quarters of which is with Brazil")

Note:
(a) There is no need to read the rest.
(b) lusophone (adj; FIRST KNOWN USE 1970s; from luso- (representing Lusitania) + [Ancient Greek noun] -phone [sound]): "Portuguese-speaking  <the lusophone states of Africa>"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/lusophone

Wiktionary.com has Lusophone (as a noun --denoting a Portuguese-speaking person -- and an adjective) as an item with lusophone as the alternative form.
(c) Lusitania
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lusitania
(map; name of a Roman province 27 BC–409/410 AD [fell to Germanic tribes])

choi

(3) Chaguan | Respecting Their Elders; Japan's experience in old-age care becomes a source of soft power in China.

Quote:

Li Wangke, a retired academic wanted to choose an old-age home for her husband in the couple's hometown, Guangzhou [Economist does not say what has happened to her husband]. "one newly opened home stood out * * * Rather than pampering her 83-year-old husband, its staff assessed his rare neuro-degenerative illness, then with warmness and firmness pushed him to do as much for himself as possible. They cajoled him to talk, exercise, even play ping-pong. He seems a 'different person,' says Ms Li.  After several visits she discovered that the home's methods had been imported from Japan, a former wartime foe that older Chinese are commonly thought to detest. * * * The home is a joint venture between a Chinese state-owned investor [(央企) 国家开发投资公司（简称'国投'）] and Medical Care Service (MCS), Japan's largest operator of dementia-care homes. MCS opened its first Chinese facility in Nantong 江苏省南通市, a city near Shanghai, in 2014. A third opened in the northern port city of Tianjin last month.

"China's needs are vast. * * * More than 10m Chinese are estimated to have some form of dementia. 'This is a big, almost frightening number,' says Akira WATE, the manager of MCS's home in Guangzhou [广州国投悦康美邸养老服务有限公司 总经理 和手 明].  By 2030, China is projected to have 23m dementia sufferers -- almost the population of Australia. * * * With almost one in nine citizens over 65, China is at the point on the ageing curve that Japan hit in 1987. It [China] has a lot to learn from its Asian rival's experience.

"For Asian neighbours that revere the old, China and Japan turn out [from MCS point of view] to differ -- a lot.Notably China is an exceptional low-trust society [toward everything, the article later says]. But bonds of family duty are stronger than in Japan, says MCS's bosses, citing the frequency of visits and the solicitude of resident's children.

"Historical distrust of Japan has not been a big problem. MCS neither boasts of nor hides its origin. * * * Its home in Guangzhou has a Japanese roof garden [garden on the roof] with benches, stone lanterns [typical of Japan] and an artfully trained pine. * * * Family dynamics cause more headaches than nationalism. In Japan, generous government insurance covers most care-home costs, giving old folk much autonomy [from their children, say]. In China many in need of care must either sell property or ask children to help. Average monthly fees at MCS's home in Guangzhou are 14,000 yuan ($2,224)-- more than a typical pension. That makes entering a home a collective decision by as many as four or five family members. * * * because staying at home is the norm, the average of MCS's residents in China is 85, about a decade older than at its dementia-related facilities in Japan. * * * [Back to Ms Li:] hired helpers [are not] the solution. When her husband loses control of his bowel, no hired helper will clean him, she says matter-of-factly.

My comment:
(a) Unless you have a family member who suffers from dementia, there is no need to read the rest.
(b) Medical Care Service (MCS)  メディカル・ケア・サービス(株), whose website is in English, Japanese and simplified Chinese (according to language choice in the website), but only Japanese-language one works.
http://www.mcsg.co.jp/

, was founded in 1999 and was/based in Saitama, Saitama Prefecture 埼玉県埼玉市 (the prefecture is northern neighbor of Tokyo). The company slogan is 人を彩り, 暮らしを育む.
(c) Jim Breen's online Japanese-English dictionary:
* irodoru 彩る 【いろどる】 (vt): "to colour; to color; to paint"
* kurashi 暮らし 【くらし】 (n, v): "life; living  <海外暮らし (n,vs) living abroad; life overseas>"
* hagukumu 育む 【はぐくむ】 (vt): "(1) to raise; to bring up; to rear; (2) to cultivate; to foster; to nurture  <スポーツは友情をはぐくむものだ。        Sports nurture friendships>"
(d) In the last quotation: For "artfully trained pine" or plant, see tree shaping
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_shaping

Search this wiki page with (train) and you will be, as I was, surprised that people "train" trees.