Economist, May 31, 2014 (I)

choi

Japan’s demography  |  The Incredible Shrinking Country; For the first time, a proper debate is starting about immigration.

Quote:

"Less than 2% of the population [in Japan] is of foreign origin, a proportion far below that of other rich countries. Even this low figure includes large numbers of permanent residents with roots in Japan’s former colony of Korea, as well as China, whose families have been in Japan for generations.

"And during the 1990s thousands of Brazilians were recruited to work in car and related factories, notably in Hamamatsu in Shizuoka prefecture south-west of Tokyo and in Aichi prefecture around Nagoya. Japan gingerly opened the door to such workers when it desperately needed cheap labour, says Kimihiro TSUMURA 津村 公博 of Hamamatsu Gakuin University, only to slam it shut when the economy slowed after 2008, even paying many to go home. Hamamatsu’s Brazilian population has fallen from some 20,000 to around 9,000. Those who stayed have struggled to integrate.

"Hamamatsu highlights the challenges. Even though the Brazilians had to have some Japanese blood as a visa qualification (many Japanese emigrated to South America in the early 1900s), they struggled to speak and read Japanese. What is more, says Yasuyuki KITAWAKI 北脇 保之, who was mayor of Hamamatsu from 1999 to 2007 and oversaw the city’s attempts to assimilate the newcomers, locals were not ready for a blast of multiculturalism. The vast majority of Japan’s Gastarbeiter are law-abiding, but Japanese associate them with crime and antisocial behaviour. Hiroyuki HASHIMOTO 橋本 裕之[?], committee chairman of a block of Hamamatsu flats, said Brazilians at first wanted to barbecue on their balconies and—nossa!—samba inside their flats; they were obliged to quieten down.

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest.
(b) Hamamatsu  浜松 市
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamamatsu
(in Shizuoka Prefecture 静岡県)
(c) Aichi Prefecture 愛知県
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aichi_Prefecture
(capital  Nagoya 名古屋 市: in purple color in the map)
(d) Hamamatsu Gakuin University 浜松 学院 大学 (private; founded in 1933)  Wikipedia

(e) Japanese English dictionary
* kimi 君(P); 公 【きみ】 (pn [abbreviation for pronoun in modern time]): (1) (male) (fam[iliar]) (also used colloquially by young females) you; buddy; pal; (n [originally a noun])   (2) (orig. meaning) monarch; ruler; sovereign; (one's) master”
* waki 脇(P[rincipal]); 腋; 掖 【わき】 (n): “armpit

(f) gastarbeiter (noun masculine; gast [noun masculine] guest + arbeiter noun masculine] worker): "guest worker"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Gastarbeiter

(g) Regarding “nossa.”
(i) Nossa Senhora
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nossa_Senhora
(“Portuguese for Our Lady, a reference to the Virgin Mary”)
(ii) Portuguese English dictionary
* nossa is female form of “nosso.”
* nosso (adj; from Latin nostrum, accusative of noster [our]): “our”
* senhora (noun feminine): "lady (aristocratic title for a woman)"
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Senhora
(iii) Abbreviated from “Nossa Senhora,”  “nossa” becomes an interjection meaning “wow, golly, my goodness”
www.wordreference.com/pten/nossa

choi

Tiananmen Square  | Ageing Rebels, Bitter Victims; Twenty-five years after the bloodshed in Beijing, new details keep emerging.
www.economist.com/news/books-and ... rging-ageing-rebels
(book review on Louisa Lim, The People’s Republic of Amnesia; Tiananmen revisited. Oxford University Press, 2014)

Quote: “CHEN Guang 陈光, now an artist in Beijing, was then a 17-year-old soldier with the martial-law troops. * * *Another, unnamed, ex-soldier tells Ms Lim * * *

Note: Louisa Lim; International Correspondent, Beijing  路易莎·林
www.npr.org/people/5383747/louisa-lim
(“a degree in Modern Chinese studies from Leeds University in England”)