Word: yamato
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...Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa made the case for using public funds to stabilize the financial sector following similar moves by the U.S. and Europe. Japan's national banks are considered to be in much better shape than counterparts in the West. But after the recent failures of Yamato Life Insurance Co., one of the country's major insurers, and New City Residence Investment Corp. a real estate investment trust (REIT), government officials are pushing to reactivate the law as a precautionary measure. "Huge storms are coming to Japan from abroad," says Masaaki Kanno, chief economist at JPMorgan Securities Japan...
...While the failure of Yamato Life is being regarded as an isolated case and not an indication of an ailing insurance sector, some economists say there is growing concern about Japan's property market and the damage that could be done to the banking system if real estate developers and owners began failing in large numbers. New City Residence Investment Corp. became the first REIT to go under since stocks of property trusts were first allowed to trade publicly on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2001. "The major REIT failure last week has affected the regional banks' balance sheets," says...
...Japan was hit hardest: Tokyo's Nikkei index fell nearly 10%, capping a week that saw Japanese shares plummet 25%, the worst weekly performance in the index's history. Investors fled after the credit squeeze claimed its first Japanese victim: Yamato Life Insurance Co., which filed for bankruptcy Friday after suffering huge losses in its securities holdings. Yamato's collapse, the first by a Japanese insurance company since 2001, sparked fresh worries about the health of the country's financial institutions. "My concern is whether the banks and insurance companies can keep standing," says Yukiko Kanoh, 53, an administrative assistant...
...conservation mind-set is ingrained into Japanese people from birth, and is apparent in little ways throughout society. Ten years ago, when I first visited Kyoto, I was shocked that public restrooms had no soap, no dispenser full of paper towels - sometimes no toilet paper. In their purses, yamato nadeshiko (women who are, among other things, mindful and prepared) make a point to carry packets of tissue paper with them into the stall, and handkerchiefs to dry their hands. What other country would install devices to mimic the sound of a toilet flushing to discourage the waste of water...
...frame-breaking creativity possible when an artist is allowed to use entire sets of rooms as his canvas. In one room, Murata painted scenes from a deer hunt?a common Kamakura-period pastime that frequently took place at the foot of Mount Fuji?in the finely detailed and colorful Yamato-e style, which emphasizes the horses' musculature and bowmen's straining faces. But look through a doorway created by parting two screens in the hunting room and the viewer sees that the next room is connected thematically. There, dominating the back wall is another Murata masterpiece, a gigantic painting...