Cultural and political information on Japan?

[Bob]

I haven't seen a member from Japan here. But I would like to make this topic so that anyone can ask me about my country. Does anyone have questions about my country?

The hottest topic in Japan now is the election of the congress. Jyunichiro Koizumi administration has been taking its power for almost 3 years so far. He had become the prime minister saying that he would break the old convention of The Liberal Democratic Party. Most people have been thinking that it is the only party to be able to take the administration. On the other hand, a new party has just been born as a merger of two existing parties. The main issue of this election is whether we can have alternative administration other than The Liberal Democratic Party.

[Clark]

Hi Bob
How does the Japanese government encourage its people to consume? Do you get a handful of subsidies when buying goods? Japan has fallen into recession for more than a decade, and yet the recent economic recovery seems illusory. I study economics, could you explain why this is happening? Thanks!

Clark

[Bob]

Hi Clark,

It seems to be a tough question for me, but I will try to describe it. As you've mentioned in your message, some say that the last decade was lost in Japan because the all economical policy taken by the Japanese government haven't worked well at all. Instead of recovering of the economy, the government made a huge debt. How big is it? It's about 700,000,000,000,000 Japanese YEN which is almost equal to US$ 7,000,000,000,000.
After breaking of the bubble economy in 1990's, the government has been spending a lot of money on trying to recover the economy. The government at that time believed in effectiveness of John Maynard Keynes theory. But the theory didn't work in 1990's in Japan. Here is a chart of Japan stock market for the last decade. As you can see, the graph has been falling down by 50% in 10 years.
Jyunichiro Koizumi administration is trying to both limit the debt and recover the economy by changing the structure of the society. This is what is happening in Japan now.

[Torsten]

Dear Bob,

Please try keeping our forum English language and cross cultural related. You see, most of the visitors of our site are here because they want to test and improve their English. Hence the name of our site:
english-test.net
Of course we can discuss business issue too so long as we focus on the relation between language and economy. Or language and mentality.
For example, Japan is the first country that introduced the TOEIC test. As a matter of fact the TOEIC test was developed because the Japanese government realized a standardized English language test would help to measure an employee's ability to communicate in an international environment. It's interesting to see how the TOEIC test spread from Japan to all over the world.

There is a constant up and down in any country's economy. The same holds true for the stock market. It's like the weather: After rain comes sunshine and vice versa. If someone is interested in the current Japanese stock details I'm sure they'll find lots of appropriate places on the internet.
Let's discuss learning methods and language issues here. Thanks
_________________
Test Of English for International Communication
TOEIC Preparation & TOEIC Vocabulary

[yzscholar]

I'm from P.R.China, and I've known a little Japanese language. Could you tell me something about Tokyo?
_________________
Contact me at yzscholar@tom.com
ICQ 106553248

[Bob]

Hello, yzscholar.
I was living in Tokyo for 10 years and came back to my home town. Tokyo is a place of crowded and noisy, but very exciting. It is very hard to describe the city because there are lots of people and places. Please let me know the specific erea that you are interested in.
B.T.W.
Have you ever been to Tokyo? How come do you learn Japanese?