On June 24, 2020, Tadashi Yanai, chairman and CEO of Fast Retailing Co. Ltd., pledged to donate 10 billion yen (about $94 million) to Kyoto University for medical research. Fast Retailing operates several clothing apparel brands including Uniqlo which has expanded its business to Asia, the U.S., and Europe. During the press conference at Kyoto University, Yanai and two Nobel Prize winning university professors,...
Sanrio Co., Ltd. appointed Tomokuni Tsuji as a new company president. Sanrio is the creator of Hello Kitty, the world famous kawaii character. Tomokuni, a former senior managing director at Sanrio, is a grandson of the founding president, Shintaro Tsuji. This is the first change of leadership for Sanrio since its inception. Shintaro started a silk business in 1960 and expanded to producing a...
A young talent is flourishing in Kobe. A 11-year-old swordsmith, Hinata Kawamoto, started offering a free knife sharpening service in March and has already sharpened more than 140 kitchen knives. On a busy day, he works on 20 knives. His goal is to sharpen 500 kitchen knives. Hinata learned the knife sharpening technique in Nagano Prefecture where he lived for a year as a...
The Japanese government lifted the state of emergency and the country is moving to the next phase of reopening. Onomichi City Museum of Art in Hiroshima Prefecture too resumed its special exhibition. But for some people, it means more than just a museum reopening. Yes, the battle between a man and a cat has resumed after a two-month of peace. A black cat tries...
The latest poll released by a major Japanese newspaper on May 5, 2020 shows Taro Kono is by far the cybercitizens’ favourite to be the next Prime Minister. Taro Kono, a 57-year-old Liberal Democratic Party member and the Minister of Defense, is an influential politician with more than 20 years of political career. He is known for tweeting on a daily basis and...
Khachapuri is a traditional pastry in Georgia, a country located in the Caucasus region of Eurasia by the Black Sea. Bread is often shaped like a boat and filled with cheese, raw egg and butter. On April 22, 2020, Mr. Teimuraz Lezhava, Chargé d’Affaires ad interim of the Embassy of Georgia in Japan, came across a tweet about this Georgian staple food. According to...
Kei Kobayashi, a 42-year-old French chef and owner of “KEI” in Paris, became the first Japanese-born to win three Michelin stars in France. During the MICHELIN Guide France 2020 Star Revelation ceremony on January 27, 2020, Kobayashi said, “I truly respect France. France has accepted me, a foreign chef. Thank you so much.” in French. Kobayashi was born in Nagano; his father was a...
An Interview with Lucinda Cowing Lucinda Ping Cowing is director of the Kyoto Journal, a beautiful and informative magazine that has been published since the late 1980s. Cowing left her native England in 2010 for Kyoto and has been living there, off and on, ever since. The nomadic Cowing splits her time among Kyoto, Taipei, and Faro, Portugal. When in Kyoto, the shokunin culture...
