A NATION OF YEN-PINCHERS

摘要

It made headline news in Japan. On Sept. l, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda resigned after less than a year in office. One big is -sue: His government failed to fix the economy and rein in inflation. But for many ordinary Japanese, Fukuda's economic ideas are far less interesting than Yuki Wada's. The 35-year-old homemaker and blogger is what the Japanese call a setsuyaku no tatsujin, or master penny-pincher. She recycles bathwater to do her laundry and clean the toilets, tracks how much electricity each appliance uses, and keeps her energy bill low by cutting power to most of her Tokyo home when she goes out. She even saves tangerine peels to polish her shoes.