There is so much to appreciate here, but the status of women is not one. And being a guest in the country, I don’t like to be publicly critical but this is an area in which I refuse to remain silent.

Every year the World Economic Forum publishes a report that measures women’s participation in four key areas – economic, political, education and health. Japan scored highly in education & health but I want to tell you about economic participation and opportunities.

Japan was placed 116th out of 156 countries. 116th!! That is last place among the Group of Seven industrialised nations (next worse ranked was Italy at 63rd place & the others were 10 – 27)), and even within its regional group of East Asia & the Pacific Japan also came last. The average income that Japanese women earned was only 57% of what men earned.

In politics, at the time of the report, only 9.7% of Japan’s parliamentarians were women and a similar percentage held a ministerial position.

However, woman represent 51% of graduates so its dreadful position in the rankings isn’t about ability; it is all about social norms. What a waste of talent in a country that is stagnating economically and suffers from a shrinking pool of working age people.

Marine Day

Monday, Marine Day, was a Bank Holiday – and what did we do? We took a cruise of course! Around Tokyo Bay and up the Sumida River as far as Tokyo Skytree. A few photos –

Random Photos

I love the thought of flashing with toilet paper! The second sign was on the boat – clearly I suffered with too much sun as it took ages to realise that Goup was go up.

Interesting door handles. And as well as having the best toilets in the world, we can also buy seat covers!

A tiny entrance to an Alice in Wonderland themed shop

My lovely visitor last week (his Mum came too) … and I still don’t know what cabbagerolls are.