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Gearoid Reidy リーディー・ガロウド Profile picture
Gearoid Reidy リーディー・ガロウド
@GearoidReidy
Columnist with Bloomberg @Opinion, covering Japan and the Koreas. Tweets on ｊａｐａｎｉｆｉｃａｔｉｏｎ, roundabout hate, etc. Retweets ≠ endorsements, all opinions mine.
Potato Of Reason Profile picture 1 subscribed
Jan 31 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
The debate triggered by Ukraine-born Karolina Shiino’s victory in a Miss Japan contest isn’t as simple as it seems.

It's not just about bigotry or old-fashioned ideas - it's a discussion of what 'Japanese-ness' even means. My latest: bloomberg.com/opinion/articl… Shiino, as a naturalized Japanese citizen, is of course eligible to enter and win the contest. But the contest also aims to find "true Japanese beauty." That's a more complex debate.
Mar 2, 2023 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Sales of Nintendo's Switch have peaked, and analysts are cutting their buy ratings on the stock in the absence of any signs of a successor.

The firm should offer investors an exit from "uncharted territory" and start talking about what's coming next.
bloomberg.com/opinion/articl… Buy ratings on Nintendo shares are at the lowest level since before Pokemon Go was released in 2016. Confidence that Nintendo can engineer the "soft landing" into the next generation of console -- whatever that may be -- is dropping.
Jan 26, 2023 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Wow - Akio Toyoda is stepping aside as CEO of Toyota, the world's best-selling automaker. He'll be replaced by Lexus President Koji Sato. Toyoda will move up to become chairman. Toyoda, the grandson of the automaker's founder, is perhaps best known in the west for his testimony in congress over the "unintended acceleration" recalls in the late 2000s.
Jan 26, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Will inflation jolt Japan's stagnant wages out of their slumber? Not if pay hikes are dependent on politicians cajoling firms to act once a year. Everyone's talking about the annual spring wage talks, but they've failed to deliver for workers for years.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl… Everyone was excited about the shunto spring wage talks during Abenomics, and they did deliver a boost - of just 2.38% in 2015, failing to dent the long-term trend of stagnant wages.

By 2016, firms like Toyota were already saying they couldn't meet unions' quite modest demands.
Jan 24, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
There's a growing gap in western understanding of, and even interest in, Japan. As a country, an economic power or simply a subject to learn from, when it comes to Japan, foreigners seem to yawn. And Japan does a poor job of explaining itself, too.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl… This is a subject that has bothered me for some time. Intl newsrooms have reduced their presence in Tokyo over the years. There are few books written in English on Japan's business, economics or politics outside of text books. A knowledge gap is growing.

Jan 24, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Japan 5G iPhone users - is there anything that can be done for the connection delay when switching between 4G and 5G service areas? iPhone practically unusable on the subway sometimes. There used to be an option in Settings to switch off 5G but seems to be gone. Mystery solved - because I have a dual sim set up for traveling back home, the setting to disable it has migrated to another spot. You have to click into the specific sim and choose the option to disable 5G there. ImageImage
Jan 21, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
*opens*

*sees lede anecdote is complaining about house prices not rising, as if that’s really helping to improve things in the BBC’s home country*

*closes* Japanese housing prices might not go up, but unlike the UK, housing is plentiful and affordable - and gets built, as I wrote about here. Tokyo alone adds about three times as many dwellings each year as the entire UK, which has 5x the population.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Jul 8, 2022 • 23 tweets • 7 min read
BREAKING: NHK reports former PM Abe collapsed during a speech in Nara; reporter on the scene reports he’s bleeding and a sound like a gunshot was heard Kyodo report says Abe appears to have been shot and that a man is in custody

nordot.app/91796974532552…
Jul 7, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Didn't this person just start the job like yesterday? I am never taking seriously British criticism of Japanese politics ever again. "Japan still uses faxes!" says country that has bored us to tears with scanned letters for the past 24 hours

Jul 1, 2022 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
As the world clamors for Japan to reopen its borders, one of the country's top virologists is rejecting the notion that we should go "back to normal."

That would mean returning to a world that is fragile and risky, Prof. Hitoshi Oshitani told me.
bloomberg.com/opinion/articl… Oshitani helped spearhead Japan's pandemic response, pioneering the concept of the Three C's in Feb. 2020 and grasping how to reduce the spread much earlier than peers elsewhere.

He knew early that the virus could not be contained and living with Covid was the only way forward. Image
Jun 13, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Japan's success in the pandemic, now with fewer deaths per capita than strict lockdown New Zealand, has engendered caution among its public and policymakers. It's going to take a while before it's ready for mass tourism -- and that's just fine. My latest:
bloomberg.com/opinion/articl… Much of this is stage-managing the reopening. If Japan threw open its borders, domestic media pressure would undoubtedly be intense, and the potential blowback more damaging in the long term. Just one infection in a test group last month made headlines
news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/89357…
Jun 12, 2022 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
Covid deaths per capita in New Zealand have now surpassed Japan. That means Japan, which never once locked down, now has the lowest deaths per capita of all 38 OECD countries. Lessons from the country, that could be useful in future pandemics, have been largely ignored. Media coverage of Japan tended to focus on two events: the Diamond Princess early in the pandemic, and the over-exaggerated threat of the Olympics. Media coverage focused on the fact that Japan didn’t follow the “correct” strategy, ie whatever the west was doing at the time
Jun 8, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Japan to tourists: please follow these basic safety measures like masking and ventilation that we believe have helped make our Covid deaths almost the lowest in the world.

This website: that's racist I am on record as being in favor of Japan opening borders, but the sense of entitlement is overboard. Japan isn't a fictional playground, it's a real place with living breathing people who would like to stay that way. It's pretty common travel etiquette..
bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Jun 2, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Is it Capitalism 2.0 -- or Socialism? Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's "New Form of Capitalism," a diverse set of proposals aiming to chart a new course for Japan's economy, is dividing opinions -- and unnerving investors.

bloomberg.com/news/features/… Many think of Kishida as the LDP continuity candidate, but his economic vision is a radical departure from Shinzo Abe's Abenomics program, which dominated Japan for a decade.

"What Kishida is trying to do is much more important than what Abenomics did” says one of its architects Image
May 5, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Prime Minister Kishida says Japan will ease its border controls significantly next month, saying it will make it as easy to enter the country as other G7 nations.

Think I’ll wait to see the full content of the speech (from London) before expecting too much from this. While the logical conclusion of “easing border controls” is letting in tourists, I’m deeply skeptical of how this report is framed. Suspect he could be talking about something completely different, like entry procedures for existing travelers.
Feb 17, 2022 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
Japan Prime Minister Kishida about to take the stage at a press conference where he is expected to formally announce the easing of border controls, including finally allowing foreign students and workers back in Kishida begins by thanks citizens and healthcare workers for helping to keep the damage from the pandemic lower in Japan than in other nations.
Feb 15, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Woah - Japan may eliminate quarantine entirely for returning travelers who have three shots, depending on where they’re coming back from, in the latest step by the Kishida administration to loosen border policy. Kishida is reported to give a press conference on Thursday. The Yomiuri report is written differently but reading between the lines seems broadly similar.
A 3-day quarantine + negative test will still be needed for boosted travelers coming from high-risk areas -- which, let's face it, is likely to be most places.
yomiuri.co.jp/politics/20220…
Jan 24, 2022 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
Kudos to the NYT for this essay by Hiroshi Oshitani, one of the chief architects of Japan's pandemic response.

If you want to learn how Japan has managed the pandemic with one of the lowest death rates but without lockdowns, this is a good place to start
nytimes.com/2022/01/24/opi… Please read the whole thing but I want to highlight some key points.

Even before the WHO had declared Covid a pandemic, Japan's experts had an accurate working model of how the virus spread. While others were wiping down groceries, Japan knew the danger was close indoor settings
Nov 6, 2020 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
JAPAN IS BACK, BABY

If Japan stonks hold onto their gains so far today, they'll close at the highest level since November 1991, when Michael Jackson topped the charts with "Black or White" Of course, going off the Nikkei 500 -- a broader gauge that includes cos like Nintendo and Keyence -- Japan stonks are already above 1989 peaks and now setting records (the Nikkei 225 is a deeply flawed barometer of Japanese stocks, not that the 500 or the Topix are much better)
Nov 5, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Tokyo coronavirus case count for today is 269.

Last Two Thursdays: 221, 185

There's the statement. Testing presumably low due to the almost-four-day-weekend
Aug 28, 2020 • 32 tweets • 10 min read
Bombshell - Japan PM Abe will step down NHK reports Abe will resign due to his health problems, so that his health won't hold up the business of governing, NHK says. Wow. Shocking