Japanese lifestyle, green energy and rainbow families

Here are a few of the stories we will bring you during the week starting on May 15.

This content was published on May 14, 2017 - 12:00

1 minute

Monday

From La Chaux-de-Fonds to Osaka: what is life like as a Swiss expat in Japan? Pierre-Yves Donzé is a professor of economic history specialising in the watch industry, and he currently teaches in Osaka university. We speak with him about cuisine, cultural differences, and cosmopolitan identities.

Tuesday

Like Switzerland, Japan has been grappling with the issue of nuclear energy, especially since the Fukushima accident of March 2011. To begin the run-up to the decisive Swiss energy vote next weekend – which swissinfo.ch will be reporting on – we compare the nuclear strategies of the two countries.

Thursday

Rainbow families – families in which at least one parent is lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender – are increasingly common in Switzerland. Yet in contrast with the US, where television shows have featured such diverse ways of living for years, LGBT parents are almost non-existent in mainstream Swiss media. We look at whether a recent scene in a popular TV show could change this.

Friday

Does the rise of right-wing populist leaders like Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen and Viktor Orban pose a challenge for democracy as we know it? We hear the opinion of political scientist Hanspeter Kriesi, an expert in democratic processes and European integration, currently based at the European University Institute in Florence.

What you may have missed last week:

Which languages will Zurich’s young schoolchildren learn?

This content was published on May 9, 2017 French, English or both? Zurich is the latest canton to decide on whether to teach just one foreign language at primary schools.

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