WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Translator/Interpreter/Writer Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03). Recently she’s been watching Fujisankei’s newscast in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her
own observations. Today's NYT features an interesting editorial from Joseph Nye about the Okinawa base location issue threatening this year's 50th anniversary of the US-Japan Security Treaty. This Harvard professor and former assistant secretary of defense coined the term "soft power," but his article focuses on how he believes our hard power should be used in regard to this matter. Basically he is urging us to not throw the baby away with the bath water, and advocates a more patient and strategic approach in order to prevent "a second-order issue our long-term strategy for East Asia." PM Hatoyama (who Nye describes as being "caught in a vice") wants to push off resolving this issue until May, but we'll see what the new year (decade!) brings. In weather news, we are experiencing quite a cold winter and Japan is going through the same, with Hokkaido getting hit especially hard with snow. People on the street interviews revealed various methods of keeping warm. In addition to scarves, gloves, turtlenecks, tights and other clothing commonly sold here, one popular item is haramaki or belly bands that you wrap around your stomach. Another effective warming up method is trips to the onsen. I miss being able to go for a soak in my local onsen when the temperature starts dropping, but the Korean and other types of spas throughout the city are a nice substitute.
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