OSAKA--The dingy, tumbledown streets of the Airin district in the city's Nishinari Ward have long worn the poor face of an otherwise wealthy nation।
Thousands of day laborers, many of them elderly and homeless, endure grinding poverty here with occasional shifts on construction sites and other stints of hard labor।
One of Japan's biggest slums, however, has now found an unlikely and potentially lucrative source of revenue: young, foreign tourists looking for cheap accommodation and keen to see another side of the world's second-biggest economy।
To cope with the increase in curious visitors from abroad, a group of students has set up the Foreign Tourist Information Center, a makeshift tourist information center, to provide guidance to some of the more interesting sights in the neighborhood and beyond--including Tsutenkaku, a landmark tower in the Shinsekai district, and the electric town Nipponbashi।
The team of four to five volunteers from the tourism and geography seminar of professor Yoshihisa Matsumura at Hannan University created a temporary office in the remodeled warehouse of the budget lodging house, Business Hotel Chuo, in January। They will stay there throughout February to hand out pamphlets and maps with information about tourist attractions across Osaka.
Airin's many cheap lodging houses, which typically charge between 1,000 and 2,000 yen per night, were once almost exclusively the domain of struggling day laborers who came to the area for work।
At its busiest, in the mid-1980s, the number of day laborers residing in the Airin district stood at 25,000। Now there are just 3,500.
In 2005, 13 lodging house operators launched the Osaka International Guesthouse (OIG) Area organizing committee to devise ways to stay in business। Owing partly to the efforts of Hannan students, who designed a website in English, Chinese and Korean, the volume of foreign visitors to the area increased sharply from 10,000 a year to about 70,000. Most are backpackers who travel on their own.
More than 30 percent of foreign visitors said the area urgently needed a tourist information center, a joint survey conducted in 2006 by the OIG committee and Matsumura seminar found.
Jose Garcia Perez, a 22-year-old student from Barcelona, who visited the office, said, "I came to Osaka to see Osaka Castle but I'd like to visit the Nishinari neighborhood after hearing from the staff members about the area।"
"I hope tourists see the ordinary life of Osaka people, not only tourist spots such as Tsutenkaku and the Osaka Castle," said Ryoko Ishibashi, 20, one of the Hannan student volunteers.(IHT/Asahi: February 23,2009)
http://www।asahi।com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200902230049.html
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Monday, February 16, 2009
Kyoto Univ. opens industry-gov't-academia liaison office in London
Japan's Kyoto University held an opening ceremony Friday for its European liaison office in London to promote global cooperation among industry, government and academia.
The office is intended to reinforce collaboration with major universities in Britain and other European countries as well as to promote and implement joint research with international companies, the university said.
It is the university's first overseas industry-government-academia liaison office to which members of its staff are posted.
"Now is the age when it is important for academic and research organizations to exchange information," said Hiroshi Matsumoto, the university's president, at a press conference.
"We will send out activities of Kyoto University in English" with the launch of the office, Matsumoto said.
Kyoto University has made preparations for opening a similar liaison office in the United States, it said
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96B00IG1&show_article=1
The office is intended to reinforce collaboration with major universities in Britain and other European countries as well as to promote and implement joint research with international companies, the university said.
It is the university's first overseas industry-government-academia liaison office to which members of its staff are posted.
"Now is the age when it is important for academic and research organizations to exchange information," said Hiroshi Matsumoto, the university's president, at a press conference.
"We will send out activities of Kyoto University in English" with the launch of the office, Matsumoto said.
Kyoto University has made preparations for opening a similar liaison office in the United States, it said
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D96B00IG1&show_article=1
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Panel says spend more on universities
The government's advisory panel on education submitted its third report to Prime Minister Taro Aso on Monday, calling for a drastic increase in public subsidies to national and private universities।
The panel, the Meeting on Education Rebuilding, also recommended a ban on students bringing cell phones to primary and middle schools and reform of the board of education system।
In the report, the panel analyzed the current situation: Universities are dependent largely on private funds such as tuition fees for their operating budgets and because of this they tend to secure students for the sake of stable flow of funds, regardless of their scholastic ability, resulting in the degrading of the quality of students and education।
The panel emphasized the need to greatly beef up public subsidies for national university corporations and private universities।
However, the panel recommended the amount of funds injected into universities should depend on evaluations of the schools and their research programs, saying support and approval of taxpayers are essential।
On reforming the board of education system, the panel proposed that those in charge of personnel matters be hired from the private sector or chosen from among officials in fields not related to education, to avoid personnel affairs at boards of education being conducted on the basis of professional favoritism or personal ties।
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20090210TDY02311.htm
The panel, the Meeting on Education Rebuilding, also recommended a ban on students bringing cell phones to primary and middle schools and reform of the board of education system।
In the report, the panel analyzed the current situation: Universities are dependent largely on private funds such as tuition fees for their operating budgets and because of this they tend to secure students for the sake of stable flow of funds, regardless of their scholastic ability, resulting in the degrading of the quality of students and education।
The panel emphasized the need to greatly beef up public subsidies for national university corporations and private universities।
However, the panel recommended the amount of funds injected into universities should depend on evaluations of the schools and their research programs, saying support and approval of taxpayers are essential।
On reforming the board of education system, the panel proposed that those in charge of personnel matters be hired from the private sector or chosen from among officials in fields not related to education, to avoid personnel affairs at boards of education being conducted on the basis of professional favoritism or personal ties।
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20090210TDY02311.htm
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