Recently, as one of the ways to solve the problem of smoking of under 20 years old, card which is called “taspo” come up in Japan. When people buy tobacco by vending machine, people need to stick this card to vending machine. This card is built-in function which distinguish under 20 or not. Without this card, adult cannot buy tobacco by vending machine. Therefore, they need to obtain this card. When people obtain this card, they need to take picture and write their information in application form.
This card is developed by three groups: corporate juridical person of Japanese association of tobacco, the union of cooperative of tobacco sale in the whole country and industry association of Japanese vending machine. Those groups are not related to Japanese government. Those groups are admitted their existence by Japanese law but they are moved by government. Some countries way of politics are communism or socialism so that country’s direction are decided by government. However, Japan is a country which principle of politics is mixing of socialism and capitalism. Therefore, some companies are left administration by their own way. The reason why Japanese government introduce both socialism and capitalism is that to keep the balance of economy and gap between poor and rich. Japanese government believe that if companies can do their way, competition between companies occur and thanks to this competition, Japanese economy will increase. However, Japanese government forbid monopoly of company. That is because if only one company win the competition with other companies, other company bankrupt. Then, a lot of people lose their job and homeless will increase. To avoid those situation as possible Japanese government introduce both socialism and capitalism. Japanese want to enrich economy but they do not want to increase poor people who do not have something to eat in their daily life. Not only Japan but in other countries, this way is introduced.
This way is reflect Japanese thinking. Japanese tend to obtain part of good point in some things. For example, Japanese celebrate Christmas but the most of them are not Christian. The most of Japanese just want to enjoy that day.
Like this, even in politics Japanese characteristic is reflected.
The pictures are vendingmachine which have function of "tasopo"http://www.taspo.jp/taspo/Management.html
1 件のコメント:
I think tobacco and the new restrictions on youths purchasing it are interesting topics for politics week. Did you know that the Japanese government still owns 50% of Japan Tobacco? So this certainly is a political issue. The Tasbo card has not been so popular, so driver's licenses will also be used for age verification at vending machines. Your professor blogged about these issues recently.
http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2008/04/pre-earth-day-activities-in-nagoya.html
You are to be commended for presenting many complex issues, but it is a little confusing to follow. Perhaps it might have been more useful to focus on tobacco and the new restrictions rather than bringing up capitalism, socialism, Christmas, etc. In these short posts, quality is preferred over quantity.
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