Word: osaka
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Forty-four young women in wide hakama pants stand on stage at the Takarazuka Grand Theater, a 30-minute train ride west of Osaka. With faces framed by boyish bobs or slicked-back hair, they announce in unison that they are the newest members of the Takarazuka Revue, an all-female musical theater group. And while these women - all graduates of the group's own school - might seem unaffected, their performances are anything...
...Since May 16, when Japan confirmed its first instance of the flu being transmitted among the domestic population, the virus has hopscotched through the western prefectures of Osaka and Hyogo, where more than 4,400 schools and some businesses have been temporarily closed. Initially, efforts to contain the disease - which included the establishment of a special committee chaired by Prime Minister Taro Aso - appeared to be successful. But now that the virus has reached the greater Tokyo area, home to 35 million, concerns are growing over the speed of transmission. (See pictures of thermal scanners hunting for swine...
...sudden surge that took Asian health officials by surprise, the Japanese health ministry confirmed on Monday at least 125 new cases of the H1N1 virus - or swine flu - in the country's Western prefectures of Osaka and Hyogo. Officials have shut down about 1,000 schools, since many of the infected were high school students. Japan is now, along with the U.K. and Spain, one of the few countries outside of North America where the World Health Organization (WHO) fears sustained human-to-human transmission of the virus could lead to the onset of a full-blown pandemic. "We must...
...spike in Japan's cases shows that swine flu can infiltrate safety nets there and elsewhere, lingering beneath the radar of health monitors. Government officials are still unsure of how the virus reached Osaka and Hyogo, or how long it has been circulating in the region's highly populated urban centers of Osaka and Kobe. In addition to schools, movie theaters in the outbreak-hit prefectures were advised to close today, and Tokyo has blocked its own educational institutions from visiting the areas on field trips. "We must be prepared for a further expansion [of the virus]," says Toru Hashimoto...
During the summer of my 13th year, my father took me to Japan as a bar mitzvah present. One night in Osaka, we met one of his Japanese business partners at a restaurant, where I was thrilled to learn two geisha awaited us. But my excitement quickly turned to disappointment: the geisha were hardly the sexpots I had envisioned; they were very old, at least 30, and their idea of a good time was getting everyone to play a variety of childish games involving twisted paper napkins...