The third of February is Setsubun which celebrates the Japanese new year.
The yen has depreciated about 20 percent since the new Japanese government took office at the end of last year.
Still, the upbeat domestic sales figures for the first month of the new business year are likely to fan optimism that Japanese car makers will continue to regain sales momentum after the disruptions caused by last year's Asian natural disasters, which also included flooding in Thailand.
Exactly a year ago this column considered the reform prospects under new Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.
Meanwhile, Hikari has put money into at least four Japanese Internet companies that have already created new billionaires, following market listings this year.
Only 106, 000 cars among the 1.5 million new vehicles the Japanese carmaker sold in the U.S. last year were bought by drivers 25 and under, says J.
For his work, Masuoka says, he was awarded a few hundred dollars from Toshiba and only after a Japanese newspaper gave his new type of memory an award of invention of the year in 1988.
Japanese retail statistics show that purchases by non-Japanese were 2.2 times higher in February, when the Chinese New Year is usually observed, compared with the same month last year at least in part a reflection of growing Chinese buying power.
FORBES: The Chinese Tourists And Their Yuan Are Coming To Japan
No wonder that he felt deeply humiliated when President Nixon suddenly announced his new rapprochement with China in the following year without bothering to inform the Japanese.
Meanwhile, there has been a sharp decline in the Japanese yen, which has dipped almost 20% against the US dollar since November last year, triggered by an aggressive monetary policy stance by the new Japanese government.
Japanese stocks have been marked up heavily this year after the Bank of Japan announced a new aggressive monetary policy to get the country out of its near two-decade stagnation.
Koshikijima no Toshidon, which occurs every New Year's Eve on Shimo-Koshiki Island in the southwestern part of the Japanese Archipelago, is one such ''raiho''-''shin, '' or visiting deity.
The Japanese victory in the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-95 made them the new sole oppressors, only to be checked themselves the following year by the Russians.
Internet users cheered the fleet for posting a New Year calligraphy couplet before setting sail that read: "Golden dragon soars and sweeps away Japanese devils", followed by "Silver snake dances vigorously to display might of China", Oriental Daily News and Haixia Dushi Bao report.
For more on what has really happened to the Japanese economy in the last two decades, here is an article I wrote for the New York Times Sunday Review last year.
FORBES: Is the Bank of Japan Really Easing -- Or Does It Just Want to Depreciate the Yen?
Arch-rival Samsung has its own LTE ambitions and recently introduced an Android-based LTE phone with U.S. carrier MetroPCS. But Park says LTE will drive sales for LG this year and next through its continuing Verizon partnership and new deals to supply equipment to South Korean and Japanese carriers who are starting their own LTE deployments.
FORBES: LG Targets One Million Tablets, 30 Million Smartphones In Comeback
应用推荐