The Asian reporter., April 07, 2025, Page 2, Image 2

Page 2 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
ASIA / PACIFIC
April 7, 2025
Japan’s cherry blossom season officially arrived March 24
TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s official cherry blossom spotters confirmed the first
blooming of the country’s favorite flower on March 24, declaring the official start
of the festive season in the Japanese capital. An official from the Japan
Meteorological Agency (JMA) carefully examined the specimen tree of Somei
Yoshino variety at Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine and announced that more than five
blossoms — the minimum required for the announcement — were flowering on
it. The opening matched the average year and was five days earlier than last
year, according to the JMA. Cherry blossoms, or “sakura,” are Japan’s favorite
flower and usually reach their peak in late March to early April, just as the
country celebrates the start of a new school and business year. Many Japanese
enjoy walking or picnicking under the trees. Sakura have deeply influenced
Japanese culture for centuries and have regularly been used in poetry and
literature, with their fragility seen as a symbol of life, death, and rebirth. The
announcement in Tokyo, which has enjoyed warmer-than-usual temperatures
of around 66º Fahrenheit, came just one day after the blooming of the nation’s
first cherry blossom was confirmed in the southwestern city of Kochi on the
island of Shikoku. The JMA tracks more than 50 “benchmark” cherry trees
across the country. The trees normally bloom for about two weeks each year from
first bud to all the blossoms falling off. They were expected to reach their peak in
about 10 days. Cherry trees are sensitive to temperature changes and the timing
of their blooming can provide valuable data for climate change studies. In recent
years, Japan’s cherry blossom season has tended to come earlier than the
average, prompting concerns of a possible impact of climate change.
Indonesian sharia clown teaches Islamic values to children
TANGERANG, Indonesia (AP) — Wearing a colorful costume, red nose, and a
turban on his head, Yahya Hendrawan performs as a clown in Indonesian
schools, teaching Islamic values to children and teenagers. He started out
working birthday parties as a side hustle. But in 2010, his religious teacher
encouraged him to become a modern-day Abu Nawas, a legendary Arabic poet
known for his wit, wisdom, humor, and clever wordplay, so he could bring a
cheerful, lighthearted approach to teaching religion. Hendrawan, now known as
Yahya Badut, or Yahya the Clown, has embraced that vision. He founded, along
with some fellow clowns, the Sharia Clown Foundation, a neighborhood initiative
that blends entertainment with religious education. Hendrawan teaches every
weekday afternoon in a library at his house and occasionally at a school or
orphanage with his clown partners. He often begins lessons with a cheerful song,
encouraging children to share a smile. Other clowns open with magic tricks.
“There is a hadith that says: Your sweet smile in front of your brothers is charity.
So we must prioritize smiles and greetings. When meeting friends, shaking
hands, smile … You are good. I am good. Thank god,” Hendrawan said. By being
funny and cheerful, Hendrawan says he hopes the children will quickly absorb
his lessons about morals, manners, and Islamic values.
Rohingya refugees welcome new U.S. financial aid
COX’S BAZAR, Bangladesh (AP) — The U.S. government confirmed in late
March that it would provide $73 million in new financial aid for Rohingya
refugees through the United Nations’ food agency, easing worries among more
than 1 million refugees that essential food rations would be cut. Aid agencies,
the U.N., and refugees have voiced concerns after the World Food Program
(WFP) warned it may be affected after U.S. President Donald Trump’s
administration announced it was cutting international aid. The WFP said that if
it is not able to raise funds, it will have no option but to halve food rations to $6 a
month from the previous $12.50 in Bangladesh’s southern coastal district of
Cox’s Bazar, where the Rohingya live in sprawling camps. Mohammed Mizanur
Rahman, the Bangladesh government’s Refugee, Relief, and Repatriation
commissioner, told reporters that he received confirmation from the WFP that
refugees in Cox’s Bazar — as well as the thousands who have been relocated to
Bhashan Char island — will continue to receive $12 to $13 a month each in aid.
The U.S. had been the largest provider of aid to the Rohingya refugees,
contributing nearly $2.4 billion since 2017 and providing the U.N. with
emergency food and nutrition assistance, according to the State Department.
TRADITION THREATENED. Fishers retrieve a net on Nguyen Tat Thanh beach in Da Nang, Vietnam. Warming
oceans threaten the ocean ecology and the marine life that inhabits it. It may result in the proliferation of smaller, less nutri-
tious fish and increase costs of fishing and consequently food. Anchovies, for instance, have an outsized role on marine
ecology. They’re food for other fish that people eat, like mackerel. They are also vital to make fish meal, which is used to
feed farmed fish. (AP Photo/Yannick Peterhans)
Climate change and overfishing
threaten Vietnam’s ancient
tradition of making fish sauce
By Aniruddha Ghosal
The Associated Press
A NANG, Vietnam — Bui Van Phong
faced a choice when the Vietnam War
ended 50 years ago: Stay in his small
village, helping his parents carry on the
family’s centuries-old tradition of making fish
sauce, or join the hundreds of thousands of
people fleeing his country for a better life.
Phong chose to stay behind and nurtured a
business making the beloved condiment,
known as nuoc mam in Vietnam, that is now in
its fourth generation with his son, Bui Van
Phu, 41, at the helm. Fish sauce from the
village has been recognized by Vietnam as an
indelible part of the country’s heritage and the
younger Bui is acutely aware of what that
means.
“It isn’t just the quality of fish sauce. It is
also the historical value,” he said.
But that heritage is under threat, and not
only from giant conglomerates that mass-
produce fish sauce in factories. Climate change
and overfishing are making it harder to catch
the anchovies essential to the condiment that
underlies so much of Vietnam and southeast
Asia’s food.
Anchovies thrive in large schools in
nutrient-rich waters near the shore. But
climate change is warming the oceans,
depleting oxygen levels in the water.
Scientists have long feared that this would
lead to smaller fish, as large fish that need
more oxygen may migrate or adapt over time
by shrinking. Renato Salvatteci, who studies
D
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Marathon organizers apologize for gun-shaped prizes
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The organizers of a marathon in southern Taiwan,
including a member of the self-governing island republic’s legislature, have
apologized after giving out prizes in the shape of a golden Chinese machine gun.
Legislator Hsu Chi-chieh of the ruling Democratic Progressive party that favors
the island’s independence from China apologized and said the use of the image of
a Chinese QBZ-95 on trophies for top winners was an unintentional mistake.
Those given the trophies would be given the option of choosing a different one.
China claims Taiwan as its own territory and threatens to use force to bring it
under its control. In an address to the island in mid-March, President William
Lai Ching-te reminded residents that Taiwan law designates mainland China
as a “foreign hostile force” and said tougher measures were being taken to
prevent Chinese subversion through the media and civic exchanges. Lai warned
also of the danger of influential figures and serving and retired members of the
military selling secrets to China. Underscoring the apparent incompetence
behind the incident, the Fengshan Marathon held near the major southern port
of Kaohsiung wound its way through the Taiwanese Military Academy, the
Army Infantry Training Command, and the Chung Cheng Armed Forces
Preparatory School, all affiliated with the Defense Ministry. The Fengshan
Road Running Association apologized for the use of the Chinese rifle.
fisheries at the Christian-Albrecht University
of Kiel in Germany, said his research into
warmer periods millenia ago found support for
this in the fossil record.
“If we continue with this trend of deoxygena-
tion, anchovies will not be OK with that,” he
said. “Every species has a limit.”
Breaching that limit will have global
consequences.
Warming oceans threaten the ocean ecology
and the marine life that inhabits it. It may
result in the proliferation of smaller, less
nutritious fish and increase costs of fishing
and consequently food. Anchovies, for
instance, have an outsized role on marine
ecology. They’re food for other fish that people
eat, like mackerel. They are also vital to make
fish meal, which is used to feed farmed fish.
Overfishing compounds the problem, and
geopolitical tensions in the contested waters of
the South China Sea — responsible for about
12% of the global fish catch — make
management difficult. The destructive
industrial fishing practice of dragging large
nets along the seabed, scooping up everything
in a net’s path, has prevailed since the 1980s.
But despite increased fishing, the amount of
fish being caught has stagnated, according to a
2020 analysis of fishing trends.
Even if the world can limit long-term global
warming to 2.7º Fahrenheit (1.5º Celsius)
above pre-industrial levels and halve fishing
intensity, the South China Sea will still lose
more than a fifth of its fish stocks, warned a
2021 assessment by scientists from the Uni-
Continued on page 4
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121.27
3984.3
7.2816
2.319
7.7748
85.533
16745
42029
146.99
21640
4.437
136.83
280.6
4.098
57.344
84.44
3.7526
1.3473
1459.5
295.43
33.18
34.4
25803