Anyone reading about the failure in letting married women use their maiden names in their family registers, or watching the latest to-do over whaling, could be forgiven for concluding that nothing ever changes in Japan. Quiet currents of change, however, are running under the surface.
Not so many years ago, smoking was accepted as a matter of course everywhere, even in hospitals. Now Japan has largely become a smoke-free zone. On July 1, Osaka became the 40th of Japan’s 47 prefectures to ban smoking in taxis, and Japan’s universities are increasingly imposing a total ban throughout their campuses. (Japan Times)