Word: stills
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...These facts are so hard that the nation's grubmongers are being advised to give up on pleasing a broad swath of society and instead concentrate on small, specific segments of the market. It's narrowcasting for the stomach and makes perfect cultural sense, but it's still a great loss. I, for one, am sad to see the Average Diner go. I related to him; he took me out of myself; I measured my appetites against his. Sometimes I gloried in my conformity, as when writing hosannas to the universal white-bun hamburger of old. At other times...
...Japan's two-decade economic slump is not helping. The collapse of the bubble economy after 1990 shrunk the size of Japanese firms and led to a restructuring that is still playing out today. The percentage of the workforce employed in part-time, temporary and contract work has tripled since 1990, forcing workaholic Japanese businessmen, many of whom never married, into a lonely early retirement. "Their world has evaporated under their feet," says Scott North, an Osaka University sociologist who studies Japanese work life. "The firm has been everything for these men. Their sense of manliness, their social position, their...
...unglamorous and oft-maligned profession, as depicted in Departures, the Japanese film that won an Oscar last year for Best Foreign Film, which follows an unemployed cellist who takes a job getting corpses ready for funerals. "The film has created interest in this profession," says Ichinose, "but most people still tend to avoid the topic...
...rates of newborn deaths. According to national estimates, for every 1,000 live births, 39 babies die in their first month; a third of these don't survive their first day. In Jharkhand and Orissa, two of east India's most impoverished and underserved states, the numbers are worse still - 49 and 45 deaths per 1,000 live births, respectively. The neonatal mortality rate in China, by comparison, lingers under 15. "Just improving health services will not do," says Dr. Prasanta Tripathy, who founded the Indian social welfare NGO Ekjut with his wife Dr. Nirmala Nair. "Communities need...
...live births, thanks also to the work of other NGOs and governmental organizations in the region. Two years ago, the Institute of Child Health withdrew funds and left, but the women kept on going. When Costello returned to visit recently, 75% of the groups were still active. "It's really impressive that our groups are still running," he recalls telling a cluster of women. "They're not 'your' groups," one answered. "They're our groups...