Given that 16% of all Japanese children (about 2.6m kids) were apparently living in poverty in 2012, we are probably looking at almost a million households of 2-4 people who have to live on JPY2,680,000 a year.

One way to alleviate travel language fears and to give tourists some real depth and perspective to this amazing country would be to open up the tour guiding sector so that more youthful bilinguals could get involved.

The recent success of the sake industry has given farmers and their minders in government hope for food exports, and for that matter agritourism -- because food brings tourists.

Last week, foreigner-related message boards lit up in outrage over the finding of the Japanese Supreme Court, that foreigners are not entitled to receive welfare support if they get into personal financial trouble.