Innan Sasaki, Lancaster University Japan is home to a number of the world’s oldest companies. There is even a specific Japanese term for companies that have survived for more than a century, retained ownership within the same family and continued plying the same trade for the duration. They are called “shinise” firms. Kyoto, Japan’s ancient capital, holds the highest proportion of these century-old firms. They operate in traditional sectors such as sake brewing, sweet making and arts and crafts. The Gekkeikan sake company, for example, is nearly 400 years old and has been run by 14 consecutive generations of the…
Author: Pride Team
Weeks ago, two mutual male friends came for a visit. They are both married. One had been married for 15 years, while the other, for 3 years. In the course of our conversation, they shared their experience within marriage, a few which was laced with a bit of sadness and frustration. One complained that his wife has stopped wearing heels which were one of the things that attracted him to her; the other complained that his wife barely talks to him and instead, the attention has been diverted to their kids (especially with a daughter who is now of age…
Juliana Claassens, Stellenbosch University This is an edited extract from a chapter in the recently published “Teaching for Change”. In 2016 female students at South Africa’s universities started the #EndRapeCulture campaign to mobilise against the pervasive culture of sexual violence on the different campuses. In Stellenbosch the campaign was marked by two striking occasions. One evening in April 2016, the fire alarms went off at 2am across the Stellenbosch University campus. This was to signal the message that the student community would no longer be silent about their fellow students being raped. A month earlier, a group of young women…
My Darling Daughter, Beware of getting caught up in the “bright shiny objects syndrome”. That is, becoming so consumed by inconsequential things that may sometimes take you off course, or as some will put it, divert our destiny. It is easy to get distracted, my dear. You should be mindful to avoid those distractions, which might be attractive but are not necessary for your growth. In this social media era, it’s harder to be immune to the fabulous and extravagant lives portrayed by people. You may be tempted to strive for the things which will supposedly make your life better.…
Our Woman Crush Wednesday, Omoni Oboli, is an actress, scriptwriter, film director, producer and a trained digital filmmaker. She’s basically a master in a plethora of trades, making her nothing short of a Super Woman, though she might have no cape, neither is she a fictional crime-fighting vigilante. In addition, she’s a mother of three boys, a doting wife, and a fitness buff. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Omoni Oboli (@omonioboli) on May 20, 2019 at 12:45pm PDT Through her movies, her excellence and brilliance can be spotted from a mile away. And what…
Tolu Olarewaju, Staffordshire University Corruption can have a crippling effect on a country’s economy. This is why African businesses have described ending corruption as “priority number one”. Take Nigeria, where the basic infrastructure deficit is huge but funds to improve its infrastructure always seem to end up missing or misallocated. In addition, projects are started and never finished. As a result the country’s roads, rail and ports are in a deplorable state. Nigerians also suffer from persistent electricity shortages. They lack pipe-borne water and proper sanitation facilities. Housing provision is a problem too. The country has spent billions of US…
Dear Dorothy, I am turning 40 this year. I am a divorced mother of three. I met my ex-husband at the university where we fell in love and married after our National Youth Service Corps. However, he has two children with two different women. The first he had as a teenager when he was in his final year of secondary school and the second was during our marriage when he had an affair. His parents are quite well to do and took care of the child he fathered as a teenager. Over the years, he has taken over the care…
Leila Demarest, Leiden University and Arnim Langer, KU Leuven Nigeria has a vibrant press media landscape. But freedom of the press is only rated as “partly free” by Freedom House, mostly due to the fact that news media are still susceptible to political pressures. There is also the external influence from ownership structures and the generally low wages of journalists. Favourable reporting of generous politicians remains a fairly common practice. The extent to which these influences affect the quality of reporting remains insufficiently investigated. To address this gap we analysed how three newspapers with different political affiliations report on conflict…
János Besenyő, Óbuda University Russia has never had an African colony. It stayed out of the scramble for Africa, only engaging with African states in the 19th Century. In 1869, for instance, the Russians gave Ethiopia military support to threaten the position of the British in their quest to control the Suez Canal. They did this because Britain was one of their main European rivals. It wasn’t until the Cold War started in 1947 that Russia began to develop diplomatic relations with several African countries. This was a way to counter the influence of its rivals such as the US.…
Denise Jackson, Edith Cowan University In today’s hyper competitive job market, internships are becoming a must-have on almost every job applicant’s CV. But when should a worker be paid for an internship, and is the rise of unpaid internships simply broadening the gap between those who can afford to work for free and those who can’t? We explore these and other issues in this Internships Investigated series. Students who completed internships as part of their university degree are better at making career decisions and are more satisfied with their career choices, research from the UK and Australia shows. It also…