Yabanjin Australians

...There was a wave of brutal rapes in the city of Hiroshima, occupied at that time by the BCOF consisting of New Zealand, Australian and Indian soldiers under British command.

In the words of a Japanese prostitute talking about soldiers who had landed at Kure, the port of Hiroshima, in November 1945:

Most of the people in Kure stayed inside their houses, and pretended they knew nothing of the rape by occupational forces. The Australian soldiers were the worst. They dragged young women into their jeeps, took them to the mountain, and then raped them. I heard them screaming for help every night.

For such actions the Australian troops earned the disreputable name 'Yabanjin' or 'barbarians'.

Allan S.Clifton, interpreter and member of the intelligence force serving in Japan, witnessed the reaction of Japanese medical personnel after a Japanese nurse had been raped by twenty Australian soldiers. 'So, we are barbarians, and you are civilized, and this is your way of life that you fought against us to preserve.' he inferred from their looks of reproach. After all throughout the Far East, military tribunals were court martialling Japanese servicemen for similar crimes. The raped nurse was 'not a soldier', Clifton recalled, adding that she 'had no part in the war. Besides the war is over.' He admitted that, at first, he felt able to respond to Japanese critics. 'This is not the act of a typical Australian,' He imagined telling them. 'Brutes' could be 'found among all peoples, in all crimes. It is a question of proportions. There were so many more of them in your army.' But as the rapes mounted up, Clifton became less convinced of his own rationalization.

The mass rapes of these Japanese women only came to the attention of the authorities when they were considered to threaten the image of 'democracy' that the occupation forces were attempting to encourage.

RAPE: A history from 1860 to the Present
Joanna Bourke
Chapter 13: The military
Virago 2007

Another thing that makes me proud to be Australian

While wondering around Melbourne's CBD this summer i did notice a few starbucks coffe shops, and even in sydney we did pop into one to ask for directions, but i still felt a mild stealth loathing build up inside me from seeing so many around. I think my response may be due to having spent so many years in Dubai- where its normal to have up to 3 starbucks within the one shopping center- and always seems to be the number 1 meeting place as well as the first option to spend an evening out for most students- so yes ive spent my fair share of hours there.
But now i was back home...I did not find this as such a welcoming, tho familiar, sight.

A few months ago starbucks closed down about 61 of its 84 coffee shops in Australia; This is the reason why;

The chain has been the victim of an ill-fated push in Australia, a market it only entered in 2000. Starbucks was snubbed by many Australians who have grown up on a diet of quality European-style coffee introduced in the last century to Australia by immigrants, especially from Italy.
The Financial Times

While the company's British and Asia expansion took it to markets without strong coffee traditions, Australia, with its history of European immigration, was always going to be a test. Starbucks has been trying to sell a watered down product in one of the most sophisticated and lively coffee markets in the world. As one of my students (who, incidentally, had worked at a Starbucks) put it, "why would you want to sit around a pretend lounge room drinking a weak and expensive coffee, when you can go around the corner and have the real thing?" Ironically, it seems that the thing that made Starbucks successful in the first place, its ability to adjust the original (European) business model to local (US) conditions, is the thing that let it down the most.
Sydney Morning Herald

The simple truth is that Australia has got a sophisticated coffee culture, a simple thing that people at Starbucks did not fully understand. “I never really felt the need to go to a Starbucks shop,” says Elise from Sydney. The coffee lover never really felt Starbucks had more to offer or more reasonable prices than its competitors. “I have always felt like we had been invaded by Starbucks. The proliferation of the shops has been fast and intrusive in my opinion.”

Since the opening of the first shops back in 2000, Starbucks has never really breached the difficult Australian market. The general feeling is that they tried to sell a coffee culture which already existed.
When selling coffee is not enough
by Maurizio Corda

Wordy Women

Former president of Harvard University Larry Summers got into a lot of trouble in 2005 for suggesting that women were innately inferior to men in the sciences. But what he didn't say - and what might have gone over better with some of the female faculty who ultimately helped oust him - was that women are on the verge of taking over word based professions, like journalism, law, marketing, and communications.

In public relations - the art of helping people express themselves in just the right way - women make up something like 70 percent of the field, up from 30 percent in the 1970's. USA today recently observed that PR may well be the first traditionally male white-collar profession to be redefined by women.



Work Life: Wordy Women
Microtrends, the small forces behind tomorrow's big changes
By Mark J.Penn with E.Kinney Zalesne
Twelve 2007