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WEDNESDAY 12 NOVEMBER 2014 • [email protected] • www.thepeninsulaqatar.com • 4455 7741 inside Docs should ask CAMPUS heart patients • Bangladesh School organises Cultural about secondhand Excellence Felicitation smoke: Study P | 5 P | 11 MARKETPLACE • Bang & Olufsen launches BeoPlay A2 in Qatar P | 6 ARCHAEOLOGY • Discoveries from Hafeet Mountain P | 7 Japan’s independent, old- FILM OLD CAFES fashioned little • Darker Hunger Games coffee shops are won’t lose viewers, still thriving despite says star Lawrence the huge popularity LIVE ON IN P 8-9 of big chains like | Starbucks, which pulls in a steady stream of hip, young TECHNOLOGY Japanese. • Which is the JAPAN best tablet for gift-giving? P | 12 LEARN ARABIC • Learn commonly used Arabic words and their meanings P | 13 2 PLUS | WEDNESDAY 12 NOVEMBER 2014 COVER STORY By Katie Forster bove the converging crowds at the famous Shibuya scramble cross- Aing in Tokyo glows the unmissable bright green sign of Starbucks, a magnet that pulls in a steady stream of hip, young Japanese. The American coffee company is so popular in Japan that it recently announced plans to buy out its Japanese partner for $900m and take full control of operations in its second largest market. However, not everyone is a fan of the customisable drinks and free wifi on offer at over 1,000 Japanese branches of the global chain, which will soon be found in every prefec- ture, including the remote, rural Tottori region. “The way they make (coffee) is totally wrong, it's not tasty,” rails Ichiro Sekiguchi, the 100-year-old owner of long-established independent Tokyo coffee shop Cafe de L'Ambre. The dimly-lit wooden interior of his cafe, which sells nothing but coffee, is busy with customers sipping their 700 yen ($6.5) brews, which Sekiguchi claims are the best in Japan. The coffee is strong and rich, with a deep flavour that his customers think is worth the price — at Japan’s dated, least twice that of Starbucks. Like many independent coffee shops, L’Ambre thrives on repeat custom and counts Japanese wres- tler-turned-politician Antonio Inoki smoky cafes unfazed among its regulars, while nearby Cafe Paulista boasts that it was once frequented by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. One of L’Ambre's loyal patrons has drunk a cup of coffee made from by competition beans meticulously hand-roasted by Sekiguchi and his staff every day for fifty years, said the centenarian. Sekiguchi opened L’Ambre in 1948, when occupying American sol- diers made coffee popular in a land where green tea had long reigned. Japan is now the world’s fourth largest coffee consumer (after the USA, Brazil and Germany), drinking 446,392 tonnes of the stuff in 2013. Some of that comes in the form of canned coffee, served hot or cold by the ubiquitous vending machines. One brand has been endorsed by Hollywood star Tommy Lee Jones for over eight years. A growing proportion is being sold in the country's plentiful con- venience stores, where big chains like 7-11 and Lawsons are slugging it out for customers, offering 100 yen cups of freshly-ground coffee. “There are many people who drink coffee in Japan, but they drink bad coffee,” said Sekiguchi, who estimates that there are only “around five” truly good coffee shops in Japan. Naturally, that includes his. PLUS | WEDNESDAY 12 NOVEMBER 2014 3 “In traditional old cafes you can relax, take your time. The A barista of coffee shop Cafe de young people L’Ambre brewing a cup of coffee who go to big in Tokyo’s fashion district Ginza. chains and the like can’t because they’re on their Smoky mist which is decorated with pot plants and Whilst smoking is banned in reproductions of old paintings. computers and 100-year-old coffee shop Starbucks, the acceptance of clouds An ashtray and packets of coffee cellphones.” owner Ichiro Sekiguchi of toxic cigarette fumes may be a fac- creamer piled up in a glass sit on every standing in front of his tor keeping old school coffee shops like table whilst ‘Stand By Me’ plays on the shop Cafe de L’Ambre. L’Ambre afloat. stereo. “Japan is still way behind in An ageing lady drinks her glass of terms of anti-smoking policies, iced coffee through a straw and nibbles especially measures against second- a plate of French toast next to a pair hand smoke,” said Hiroshi Yamato, of chain-smoking young nurses, who a doctor and smoking expert at have chosen to take their break in the the University of Occupational antithesis of the identikit shops run and Environmental Health in by big chains. Kitakyushu, western Japan. “Their style is so impersonal, “You can still smoke in a lot of whereas if you’re on your own here, you public places in Japan such as office can have a conversation,” said 63-year- buildings, coffee shops, restaurants old owner Junko Koshiba, who runs the and bars,” he said. Sekiguchi, who cafe with her daughter. smokes a pipe, said that he thought “There’s a warm feeling here,” she new cafes that ban smoking have added, giving out free bananas to the got it wrong, as “after drinking cafe’s customers. delicious coffee, you want to smoke Whilst the blend at Aroma is no tobacco.” match for L’Ambre’s smooth brew, A smoky mist also fills the air at Koshiba is adamant that the popularity Aroma, a cafe tucked away on the sec- of Starbucks and home-grown chains ond floor of an old building near Tsukiji like Doutor and Caffe Veloce, won’t fish market in Tokyo. spell the end of old fashioned cafes Aroma opened 30 years ago in the like hers. glamour of Japan’s boom period and, in “Here you can relax, take your line with many of Japan’s local coffee- time,” she said. “The young people houses, hasn’t changed much since — who go to Starbucks and the like can’t round glass syphons bubble behind the because they’re on their computers counter of the mirrored beige saloon, and cellphones.” AFP 4 PLUS | WEDNESDAY 12 NOVEMBER 2014 CAMPUS The Stars of Science Stars of Science finalists speaking to finalists visit Qatar Academy students. Qatar Academy he season 6 finalists of Stars of TScience – the Arab world’s first and foremost edutainment real- ity television programme – visited Qatar Academy to talk about their inventions and share ideas with the Primary School pupils. The visit was specifically timely for the grade 5 students who are now beginning to work on their Primary Years Programme Exhibition. Haya Kano from 5B believes that meeting imaginations and inquiries as cata- Industrial Engineering student and realise your dream. Stars of the inventors would help her “by get- lysts for their respective inventions. Rania Bou Jaoudeh, on the other Science is a golden opportunity and ting ideas on projects that can help For Thieab Al Dossary, inventing hand, has taken her interest on everyone is winner because everyone the environment”. Similarly, Noor is fun and it can start from some- ergonomics to invent the Automatic lucky enough to be on the journey has Al Sulaiteen of 5A thinks that the thing as simple as a drawing or, in Zucchini Corer which is ‘a machine learned and grown and come closer television programme helps viewers his case, with the question that if we that aims to automate the process of to success”. realise that “if you need something can see and hear our technological preparing zucchini, a staple of Arab Finally, Sultan Alsubhi created the and you don’t have it, you can invent devices, how come we can’t feel it cuisine’. Wudu’ Area Robotic Cleaner which or create it yourself”. even in this day and age of wearable Speaking about his experience, has special sensors and a water Like these QA students, contest- technology? The result is the Tactile Mohamad Al Housani shared: “The dispensing mechanism that cleans ants Mohamad Al Housani, Rania Communicating Bracelet which uses journey of Stars of Science seems the Wudu’, the designated area in Bou Jaoudeh, Sultan Alsubhi and electro-tactile pads to communicate difficult before it starts but once mosques where Muslims perform the Thieab Al Dossary are young and information from the user to his it starts the difficulties disappear washing ritual before prayer. driven individuals who used their mobile phone. behind the motivation to succeed The Peninsula Kitchen garden project irlasphere (Eco Club of Birla BPublic School) formed a group for kitchen garden project called Sowers & Growers. There was a meeting of the group members with Ambhara Pavithran, who specialises in growing vegetables. Under her guidance, the students have decided to grow vegetables in the comfort of their home as well in the school. To begin with, the school Vice Principal George Edison had ena- bled the club to get a suitable space near the main gate, where they can start the kitchen garden project in the school itself. Around 150 students have received their parents’ consent in this regard. The Peninsula IIS students excel in literary competition Students of Ideal Indian School excelled in the Poem Recitation Competition organised by Al Khor International School recently. Ayusha Gandhi of Class IV bagged the first prize in individual performance while the school team emerged as overall winners with other three schools. CAMPUS / COMMUNITY PLUS | WEDNESDAY 12 NOVEMBER 2014 5 Bangladesh School organises Cultural Excellence Felicitation angladesh School organised the Cultural Proficiency Felicitation and Prize BDistribution Ceremony at the school premise to honour and encour- age the students for their performance in Qatar National Day, 2013 cultural competitions and for wining first prize.

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