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TOKYO — Nearly 5 per cent of Japanese adults are addicted to gambling, a rate up to five times that of most other nations, according to a study.

The study, released to local media on Wednesday, also showed rising adult addiction to the Internet and alcohol in a society long known for its tolerance of boozing and its love of technology.

“If something new becomes available, addiction will only rise,” Susumu Higuchi, Japan’s leading expert on addiction, who headed the study, told local journalists, according to the Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

The survey, taken last year and sponsored by the health ministry, came as the Japanese government mulls controversial plans to legalise casino gambling in certain special zones, with some saying it would boost the number of foreign tourists.

Low public awareness of the perils of gambling addiction — despite a robust gaming industry — separates Japan from other industrialised nations that are relatively more willing to talk openly about the problem, said a campaigner who has worked on the subject.

Researchers estimated that roughly 5.36 million people in Japan — 4.8 per cent of the adult population — are likely pathological gamblers who cannot resist the impulse to wager, the Yomiuri Shimbun said.

The study said 8.7 per cent of men and 1.8 per cent of women fit the internationally-accepted definition of addicts, according to the Mainichi Shimbun.

The wide availability of pachinko parlours — loud, colourful salons that offer rows of pinball-like games — and other gambling establishments is believed to be contributing to the problem.

The ratio of compulsive gamblers in most nations “stands more or less around 1 per cent of the adult population. So Japan’s ratio is high,” a member of the study group told reporters, according to the Nikkei newspaper.

Internet addiction

Gambling is everywhere in Japan, with pachinko halls dotted around train stations and along major roads, attracting many middle-age men, but also women and young people as well.

Betting on racing — horses, bicycles, motorbikes and speed boats — is also common, with horse racing featuring on weekend television.

“There is an absolute lack of preventive education for [gambling] addiction,” said Noriko Tanaka, head of campaign group Society Concerned about the Gambling Addiction.

Japan has allocated insufficient social resources to publicly discuss the problem, while more open efforts are made in the US and Europe, she said.

Open discussion of the matter is rare as Japanese people in general shy away from disclosing what can be regarded as family dishonour, Tanaka said.

“We are not calling for a ban on gambling and we recognise it has its own economic merits,” she said.

“But we must also discuss the negative economic and social impacts” of gambling, she said.

The study questioned 7,000 Japanese adults nationwide, of whom 4,153 gave valid answers.

Around 4.21 million adults are believed to show signs of Internet addiction, the study found, a rate that had risen 50 per cent in five years, the Nikkei said.

Researchers blamed the spread of smartphones and the increasing quality of digital content for the rising number of IT addicts, who often prefer the Internet over other essential activities such as sleeping, the Nikkei said.

More than a million people were believed to be addicted to alcohol, compared with an estimated 830,000 people a decade ago, the Mainichi said.

SEOUL, South Korea — Kim Min-koo has an easy reply to new American research that hits South Korea where it hurts — in the noodles. Drunk and hungry just after dawn, he rips the lid off a bowl of his beloved fast food, wobbling on his feet but still defiant over a report that links instant noodles to health hazards.

“There’s no way any study is going to stop me from eating this,” says Kim, his red face beaded with sweat as he adds hot water to his noodles in a Seoul convenience store. His mouth waters, wooden chopsticks poised above the softening strands, his glasses fogged by steam. At last, he spears a slippery heap, lets forth a mighty, noodle-cooling blast of air and starts slurping.

“This is the best moment — the first bite,” Kim, a freelance film editor who indulges about five times a week, says between gulps. “The taste, the smell, the chewiness — it’s just perfect.”

Instant noodles carry a broke college student aura in America, but they are an essential, even passionate, part of life for many in South Korea and across Asia. Hence the emotional heartburn caused by a Baylor Heart and Vascular Hospital study in the United States that linked instant noodles consumption by South Koreans to some risks for heart disease.

The study has provoked feelings of wounded pride, mild guilt, stubborn resistance, even nationalism among South Koreans, who eat more instant noodles per capita than anyone in the world. Many of those interviewed vowed, like Kim, not to quit. Other noodle lovers offered up techniques they swore kept them healthy: taking Omega-3, adding vegetables, using less seasoning, avoiding the soup. Some dismissed the study because the hospital involved is based in cheeseburger-gobbling America.

The heated reaction is partly explained by the omnipresence here of instant noodles, which, for South Koreans, usually mean the spicy, salty “ramyeon” that costs less than a dollar a package. Individually wrapped disposable bowls and cups are everywhere: Internet cafés, libraries, trains, ice-skating rinks. Even at the halfway point of a trail snaking up South Korea’s highest mountain, hikers can refresh themselves with cup noodles.

Elderly South Koreans often feel deep nostalgia for instant noodles, which entered the local market in the 1960s as the country began clawing its way out of the poverty and destruction of the Korean War into what’s now Asia’s fourth-biggest economy. Many vividly remember their first taste of the once-exotic treat, and hard-drinking South Koreans consider instant noodles an ideal remedy for aching, alcohol-laden bellies and subsequent hangovers.

Some people won’t leave the country without them, worried they’ll have to eat inferior noodles abroad. What could be better at relieving homesickness than a salty shot of ramyeon?

“Ramyeon is like kimchi to Koreans,” says Ko Dong-ryun, 36, an engineer from Seoul, referring to the spicy, fermented vegetable dish that graces most Korean meals. “The smell and taste create an instant sense of home.”

Ko fills half his luggage with instant noodles for his international business travels, a lesson he learned after assuming on his first trip that three packages would suffice for six days. “Man, was I wrong. Since then, I always make sure I pack enough.”

The US study was based on South Korean surveys from 2007-2009 of more than 10,700 adults aged 19-64, about half of them women. It found that people who ate a diet rich in meat, soda and fried and fast foods, including instant noodles, were associated with an increase in abdominal obesity and LDL, or “bad”, cholesterol. Eating instant noodles more than twice a week was associated with a higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome, another heart risk factor, in women but not in men.

The study raises important questions, but can’t prove that instant noodles are to blame rather than the overall diets of people who eat lots of them, cautions Alice Lichtenstein, director of the cardiovascular nutrition lab at Tufts University in Boston.

“What’s jumping out is the sodium [intake] is higher in those who are consuming ramen noodles,” she says. “What we don’t know is whether it’s coming from the ramen noodles or what they are consuming with the ramen noodles.”

There’s certainly a lot of sodium in those little cups. A serving of the top-selling instant ramyeon provides more than 90 per cent of South Korea’s recommended daily sodium intake.

Still, it’s tough to expect much nutrition from a meal that costs around 80 cents, says Choi Yong-min, 44, marketing director for Paldo, a South Korean food company. “I can’t say it’s good for your health, but it is produced safely.”

By value, instant noodles were the top-selling manufactured food in South Korea in 2012, the most recent year figures are available, with about 1.85 trillion won ($1.8 billion) worth sold, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.

China is the world’s largest instant noodle market, according to the World Instant Noodles Association, although its per capita consumption pales next to South Korea’s. The food is often a low-end option for Chinese people short of money, time or cooking facilities.

Japan, considered the spiritual home of instant noodles, boasts a dazzling array. Masaya “Instant” Oyama, 55, who says he eats more than 400 packages of instant noodles a year, rattles off a sampling: Hello Kitty instant noodles, polar bear instant noodles developed by a zoo, black squid ink instant noodles.

In Tokyo, 33-year-old Miyuki Ogata considers instant noodles a godsend because of her busy schedule and contempt for cooking. They also bring her back to the days when she was a poor student learning to become a filmmaker, and would buy two cup noodles at the 100 yen shop. Every time she eats a cup now, she is celebrating what she calls “that eternal hungry spirit”.

In South Korea, it’s all about speed, cost and flavour.

Thousands of convenience stores have corners devoted to noodles: Tear off the top, add hot water from a dispenser, wait a couple minutes and it’s ready to eat, often at a nearby counter.

Some even skip the water, pounding on the package to break up the dry noodles, adding the seasoning, then shaking everything up.

“It’s toasty, chewy, much better than most other snacks out there,” Byon Sarah, 28, who owns a consulting company, says of a technique she discovered in middle school. “And the seasoning is so addictive — sweet, salty and spicy.”

Cheap electric pots that boil water for instant noodles in one minute are popular with single people. Making an “instant” meal even faster, however, isn’t always appreciated.

At the comic book store she runs in Seoul, Lim Eun-jung, 42, says she noticed a lot more belly fat about six months after she installed a fast-cooking instant noodle machine for customers.

“It’s obvious that it’s not good for my body,” Lim says. “But I’m lazy, and ramyeon is the perfect fast food for lazy people.”

It’s not digital photography that killed photo prints but mobile computing devices.

When digital cameras outsold film cameras a few years ago the media said that it was the end of photo prints and that we would all enjoy be watching pictures on computer screens, without the need to order prints at the lab anymore.

It was gross miscalculation for a computer monitor would not always be available to enjoy the pics or even more importantly to share them with friends and relatives. Moreover, the LCD screen built in the camera was way too small or clear enough to provide any enjoyment and even less sharing.

Because of that printing the photos on paper remained common use. You would either go to the lab and give them a CD or a memory card containing your shots, ordering the prints, or you would try to do the printing yourself on a consumer-grade photo printer. The latter method had always proven unreliable and inexpensive. Indeed to get the right colours you would often have to print each photo more than once, and the cost of quality paper was — and still is — expensive.

Until five or six years ago the main advantage of digital photography was that it saved you the cost of film and allowed you to shoot a myriad of photos if you wanted to and then erase the ones you wouldn’t like, for free.

The widespread usage of web-enabled mobile devices, chiefly tablets and large screen smartphones, along with unprecedented improvement in the quality of the displays, changed it all. Associated with cloud storage, it created an entirely new way to store, to watch and to share digital pictures. The above combination of technologies and devices is what really made printing photos a virtually extinct method.

If the place where you store your digital photos can be accessed anytime, wherever you may be, and if you can display them instantly on any tablet, laptop or smartphone screen in truer-than-life colours and glorious high resolution, why then should you print them at all?

Even TVs now are network-enabled and let you wirelessly “forward” your photos from a smartphone to show them on real big screens.

So perhaps it is in an indirect manner that digital photography contributed to make photo prints obsolete and truly save paper, the trees, ink and the environment, but only with the help of the Internet and countless mobile devices.

The current trend towards 4K display technology is slowly but surely gaining ground, despite the criticism of those who say that we don’t really need it and that the current HD (high definition) standard is enough. Every improvement counts and makes photo sharing easier and more enjoyable.

Here is a scenario. Imagine, in your mind’s eye: two women friends meeting after a gap of few months. They squeal in delight, hugging and smothering each other in affection. For the next several hours they are inseparable, as they talk non-stop in a chatter laced with generous compliments.

Now visualise another scene: two men friends meeting up after a substantial span of time. After the initial hug, they slap one another on the shoulders. And then, grinning broadly, the insults start pouring, fast and furious with no holding back.

Real life is exactly like these two contrasting situations. Females demonstrate love towards the others of their tribe with sweet words, and males, by sour ones. 

For a long while I could not comprehend this disparity. When I was newly married and not accustomed to my brand new husband’s mannerisms, I would be horrified with this kind of behaviour. Especially when I met his best buddy for the first time. 

These two gentlemen were extremely close, or that is what I was made to understand. They had a shared childhood, went to the same schools, colleges and got in and out of innumerable scrapes together. From drinking binges, bunking classes to motorcycle races, there was hardly any escapade they had not done jointly. I had to lend a patient hearing to all the detailed description whenever the chap’s name came up. 

So, I was told about the time they had swiped comics to make a children’s lending library, where the kids had to borrow their own pilfered magazines back, for a small fee. My spouse would laugh uproariously while relating this specific story. It was all his idea, he confessed, and they thought it would fall apart in a week’s time. But surprisingly, it lasted for six whole months before an angry mother came after them with a rolling pin. 

Their unbeatable score in one particular cricket match, the unanimous support during a college election campaign, and the crazy party they had after the win; where they got drunk on cheap beer and were laid up in bed for a week afterwards. The double dates, the mountain climbing fiasco, the cigarette smoking experiments, the rustling of instant noodles at midnight, everything was related to me, in bits and pieces.

Having heard so much about this individual, I was really looking forward to meeting him in person. He had relocated to America so I had to wait till we travelled to that part of the world. My husband wanted to surprise him so he did not call his friend till we touched down in San Francisco. 

But once there, the bloke refused to meet us. He had apparently, worn a thick beard all through his youth, which he had shaved off just that week. The new look did not suit him, he claimed. So he did not want to face us with his unfamiliar appearance. 

My spouse would not have any of it. He put us into a taxicab and we landed up at his doorstep. 

“Hey Man! You made it!” his friend said enveloping us in a warm hug.

“Sure! But how did you become bald?” my husband responded, smiling.

“And you finally developed a paunch, Fatty?” he asked.

“Who is Fatty?” I wanted to know. 

“You haven’t told her? Till now?” he queried.

“Don’t believe anything this rogue says,” my spouse cautioned. 

“Come with me, I will enlighten you about this scoundrel,” he insisted. 

Friends indeed?

WASHINGTON — Steven Spielberg, Justin Bieber and Bill Gates are among many celebrities pouring buckets of ice water over their heads and donating to fight Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), in a fundraising effort that has gone viral.

Since June, several thousand people worldwide have recorded themselves getting drenched, then posted the stunt online and challenged others to do the same, or pledge $100 to ALS research.

Many have done both, in an effort has raise millions of dollars for the ALS Association, which combats amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Some 30,000 Americans have ALS, which attacks the nervous system and eventually leaves victims paralysed.

In just weeks the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” has swelled into a global phenomenon, with dozens of stars getting wet: Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift, James Franco, Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Lopez and Jon Bon Jovi are among them.

Politicians and sports figures went at it too, including New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and basketball superstar LeBron James.

Bare-chested English footballer David Beckham got in on the act, as did World Cup stars Neymar of Brazil and Argentina’s Lionel Messi.

Normally reserved former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan can be seen gleefully dumping ice water over his wife, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates, recorded himself taking icewater to the head, responding to a challenge by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

‘Incredible’ support

Ethel Kennedy, the 86-year-old widow of senator Robert Kennedy, doused herself and challenged President Barack Obama to do the same. The world’s most powerful man declined but promised a donation, according to the White House.

The charitable challenge’s popularity has spread around the globe in recent days, particularly to Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Germany.

Facebook said that between June 1 and August 17 more than 28 million people mentioned the challenge on the social network, and 2.4 million videos were posted.

The phenomenon can largely be attributed to Pete Frates, a one-time athlete in Boston whose struggle with ALS turned the Ice Bucket Challenge into a viral fundraising sensation.

A flood of funds — $22.9 million from July 29 to August 19, compared with $1.9 million for the same period in 2013 — has poured into the ALS Association, which welcomed “the incredible influx of support”.

“We need to be strategic in our decision making as to how the funds will be spent so that when people look back on this event in 10 and 20 years, the Ice Bucket Challenge will be seen as a real game-changer for ALS,” said association president Barbara Newhouse.

About 5,600 new ALS cases are diagnosed each year in the United States.

The Internet has helped raise support for such causes, notably allowing organisations combating lesser-known illnesses to raise much-needed money.

Some experts argue that such groundswell movements are narcissistic and give digital activism a bad name.

“The Ice Bucket Challenge went viral because of the potent mix of celebrity, simplicity and comedy,” warned sociologist Jen Schradie, a doctoral candidate at University of California, Berkeley.

“I doubt most people participating even know what ALS is, and that is the problem with this form of clicktivism: It does not promote a deep understanding or a long-term relationship with a cause.”

PARIS — Danish researchers reported a link Wednesday between a commonly used antibiotic and a “significantly” higher risk of heart deaths, while observers urged caution in interpreting the results.

In a study published online by the British medical journal The BMJ, the team said clarithromycin use was associated with a 76-per cent higher risk of cardiac death, compared to use of penicillin V.

“The absolute risk difference was 37 cardiac deaths per 1 million courses with clarithromycin,” reported the trio from the Statens Serum Institute’s epidemiology department in Copenhagen.

The risk stopped when treatment ended.

Clarithromycin is prescribed to millions of people every year, to treat bacterial infections like pneumonia, bronchitis and some skin infections.

The team had analysed data from more than five million antibiotics courses given to Danish adults aged 40 to 74 in the period 1997 to 2011.

Of the patients, just over 160,000 had received clarithromycin, 590,000 roxithromycin, and 4.4 million penicillin V.

Clarithromycin and roxithromycin are macrolides — antibiotics that affect the electrical activity of the heart muscle and are thought to increase the risk of fatal heart rhythm problems, the researchers said.

No increased in risk was observed with roxithromycin.

While the absolute increase in risk with clarithromycin was small, the team said, it was “one of the more commonly used antibiotics in many countries... thus the total number of excess cardiac deaths may not be negligible”.

The researchers called for their findings to be confirmed in further studies, even as a host of other experts pointed out that the study did not warrant a halt to clarithromycin use.

There were shortcomings in the paper, including that the researchers had no data on whether patients smoked or were obese — which could explain some of the differences in death rates, said Kevin McConway, an applied statistics professor at The Open University.

“Since in any case the cardiac death rate while on these drugs is very small, this isn’t a risk that I personally would worry about anyway,” he wrote in a reaction distributed by the Science Media Centre.

Mike Knapton of the British Heart Foundation said it was already known that doctors should exercise caution when prescribing clarithromycin to patients with a certain heart syndrome.

“The bottom line is no one should be taking antibiotics unless they absolutely have to and doctors should give careful consideration before prescribing them,” he said.

PARIS — Ever felt like your neighbour’s antics could drive you to an early grave?

Well, there may be reason for concern, said researchers who reported a link Tuesday between having good neighbours and a healthier heart.

“Having good neighbours and feeling connected to others in the local community may help curb an individual’s heart attack risk,” said a statement that accompanied a study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Heart and blood vessel diseases are the number one cause of death globally, claiming some 15 million lives in 2010, according to the latest Global Burden of Disease study.

Research into neighbourhoods and health had in the past focused on negative impacts through factors like fast-food restaurant density, violence, noise, traffic, poor air quality, vandalism and drug use, said the study authors.

For the latest research, the University of Michigan team used data from 5,276 people over 50 with no history of heart problems, who were participants in an ongoing Health and Retirement Study in the United States.

They monitored the cardiovascular health of the group, aged 70 on average and mainly married women, for four years from 2006 — during which 148 of the participants had a heart attack.

At the start of the project, the respondents were asked to award points out of seven to reflect the extent to which they felt part of their neighbourhood, could rely on their neighbours in a pinch, could trust their neighbours, and found their neighbours to be friendly.

When they crunched the numbers at the end of the study, the team found that for every point they had awarded out of seven, an individual had a reduced heart attack risk over the four-year study period.

People who gave a full score of seven out of seven had a 67 per cent reduced heart attack risk compared to people who gave a score of one, study co-author Eric Kim told AFP, and described the difference as “significant”.

This was “approximately comparable to the reduced heart attack risk of a smoker vs a non-smoker,” he said.

“This is an observational study so no definitive conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect,” the statement underlined.

Limitations of the study included that researchers did not have access to the trialists’ family history of heart disease and stroke.

But they had ruled out other possibly confounding factors like age, socio-economic status, mental health and underlying ailments like diabetes.

The mechanism behind the association was not known, but the team pointed out that neighbourly cohesion could encourage physical activities like walking, which counter artery clogging and disease.

“If future research replicates these findings, more neighbourhood-level public health approaches that target neighbourhood social cohesion may be warranted,” the team wrote.

TOKYO — Japan’s once-booming pachinko industry, grappling with a greying customer base and the threat of new competition from casinos, is adopting a softer touch and smoke-free zones to lure a new generation of players, particularly women.

Pachinko, a modified version of pinball, is a fading national obsession, with about 12,000 parlours nation-wide and one in thirteen people playing the game.

But that figure is declining as the population shrinks and younger people prefer games on their mobile phones.

To try and reverse the trend, some pachinko operators have built spacious, airy parlours designed to attract more women and younger players to a pastime tarred by its association in the public mind with older and idle men given to chain smoking.

Catering to different tastes to boost an industry that still sees some $185 billion wagered annually, machines in pachinko parlours now feature anime characters, games and idols, ranging from all-girl group AKB48 to Resident Evil, a video game blockbuster by Capcom Co. that was made into a Hollywood film.

“We’re trying to change the image of pachinko as loud, smoke-ridden and male-dominated,” said Tomoko Murouchi, a spokeswoman for one of the largest operators, Dynam Japan Holdings.

Dynam, which has 371 pachinko parlours around Japan, is building new game centres with higher ceilings, smoke-free zones and ventilators, with dividers between machines for privacy.

Rival Maruhan Corp., Japan’s largest pachinko chain by money wagered, has tried opening buffets at parlours and promoting a new kind of pachinko, but has recently shifted focus back to existing players, said spokesman Kenjiro Shimoda.

‘Come alone and focus’

More than half of Dynam’s customers are older than 50, with just 9 per cent younger than 30. But the number of youthful players has almost doubled from 5 per cent in 2006.

About 200 people queued at the recent grand opening of a Dynam parlour in Fuefuki city, 100km west of Tokyo.

Although women make up just 27 per cent of players at Dynam’s parlours, Marina Osada, a clerical worker, said she played pachinko three times a week, sometimes for the entire day when she was off work.

“I still remember the day I hit a jackpot and saw a very rare — the best — scene from the anime ‘Basilisk’. I was so happy,” said Osada, 21, who looks for machines that feature her favourite anime.

“Pachinko used to be just for men, but I like pachinko. I come alone, and just focus.”

Pachinko revenues are falling as Japan’s population ages.

Gross revenue has shrunk to 19 trillion yen ($185.75 billion) from 31 trillion over the past two decades, and the number of players halved between 2002 and 2012, research by investment bank Morgan Stanley shows.

Part of the problem has been a 15-year economic slump just ending. Spending on all kinds of leisure has dropped by almost a third over the past 20 years, but the number of players per machine has roughly halved since 2000 to stand at just over two in 2012, Morgan Stanley estimates.

Japan’s moves to legalise casino resorts could force pachinko out of the grey zone where it has thrived for decades. It faces no gaming taxes, since it is not treated as gambling, which is illegal, but is viewed instead as an amusement.

Pachinko began as a children’s toy in the 1920s, which gained popularity among adults after World War II.

Machines spew out winnings in the form of small metal balls. Most players opt to swap winnings for cash, with 87 per cent of players at Dynam going this route.

Maruhan and Dynam have fared better than the rest of the industry, which is dominated by family-owned firms. Maruhan’s annual revenue after payouts was about 80 billion yen for the fiscal year that ended in March, up about 16 per cent from 2012.

SETIU, Malaysia — One hand clinging to his boat’s gunwale, Harun Muhammad submerges himself, eyes and ears wide open underwater as he “listens” for fish sounds emanating from the blue depths.

Harun is one of Malaysia’s last “fish listeners,” and he and his apprentice son Zuraini are believed to be the only active practitioners of this mysterious and dying local art.

“When you listen, it is like through a looking glass — you can see mackerel, sardine,” said Harun, 68, who has fished the Setiu lagoons on Malaysia’s rural east coast his whole life.

“For us, we only look for gelama [a type of croaker]. But in the schools of gelama, there will be other fish. The gelama is the king of fish.”

Other fish listeners have passed away, retired or turned to modern fish-detection technology as the traditional practice has retreated in the face of dwindling catches and proliferating undersea noise.

Studies show Malaysian waters lost 92 per cent of fishery resources between 1971 to 2007 due to overfishing.

“You can’t copy our technique. You must gain the skill and learn the lay of the waters,” said Harun.

“The wholesalers tell me, ‘if you’re gone, there will be no more gelama’,” which fetches up to ten times the price of similarly sized fish.

Sounds fishy

“Pak Harun”, as he is known locally — “Pak” is a Malay honorific similar to “Uncle” — finds it hard to describe exactly how fish sound, but likens it to pebbles being dropped into water.

“They have a voice. This sound is this fish, that sound is another. When someone is new, they can’t tell one fish song from another.”

Harun and his crew of a dozen can go nearly a week without hearing gelama — which invites scepticism about the claimed fish-listening ability.

But experts in sonifery (fish sounds) say sailors have long heard sounds of whales and fish through boat hulls.

“Scuba divers often do not hear anything because their breathing and bubble exhaust makes so much noise. However free divers, or divers using quiet re-breathers, can hear much better,” said US-based marine ecologist Rodney Rountree.

Former fish listeners describe a range of techniques. Some claim they can feel changes in water temperature.

For Harun, it is a multi-sensory experience requiring eyes wide open.

“After a while, it is as if you can see. Even though the fish is very far, you can sense it in that direction and you go there. Only when you get close, you can hear the fish clearly,” he said.

Though he sports a slight paunch on his sun-darkened frame under a spiky white head of hair, Harun remains sprightly despite his years, deftly clambering in and out of his boat in search of fish sounds.

Once he pinpoints a school of gelama, his crew — who have hung back with engines off — motor forward, drop their nets and strike the sides of their boats to spook the fish into the mesh trap.

“You think it’s just stupid fish but they can see you coming. When they hear the sound of the boat, they run. The fish cry or shout and then their friends swim away,” he said.

Listening in vain

Landing a rich catch was easy when stocks were abundant, Harun said.

But after decades of overfishing, he now “listens” up to several dozen times under the scorching equatorial sun before catching a snippet of gelama song.

Modernisation, including sand dredging, aquaculture, factories and fishing trawlers have transformed the Setiu wetlands, a rich but threatened coastal ecosystem centering on a 14-kilometre long lagoon along the South China Sea.

The state of Terengganu is seeking to make it a protected park.

But Harun’s catch is increasingly unpredictable, averaging about $2,000 per week gross, leaving little left over after all crew are paid, and fuel, maintenance, and other costs are deducted.

“Each year, the catch has reduced. But I’m not good at anything else, so I still have to do this,” said his son and apprentice Zuraini.

Malaysia ranks among the top consumers of seafood in the world.

Intergovernmental industry researchers Infofish say Malaysians eat an average of 56.5 kilogrammes of seafood per person annually, more even than Japanese.

The global average is 20 kilos.

WWF-Malaysia chief Dionysius Sharma said overfishing threatens to leave Malaysian waters “vast and barren”.

The organisation warns Malaysia’s waters could run out of seafood by 2048.

Despite the long odds, Zuraini, 44, said someday he will train one of his own sons.

“I don’t want to see this practice die off,” he said.

LOS ANGELES — After five decades in show business, the man who shaped Motown with instantly recognisable hits like “My Girl” and “Tears of a Clown” says he can’t stop writing.

Smokey Robinson says he scribbles down lyrics on a pad or leaves a fragment of a tune on his own voice mail whenever inspiration hits.

“I write on the plane, on the bus, on the train, I write in the bathroom,” Robinson said in an interview. “I do have a bunch of songs that I’m very anxious to record.”

But you won’t hear any of that material on his latest album, “Smokey & Friends”, out Tuesday. The collection of Robinson tunes pairs the legendary singer-songwriter with Elton John, Mary J. Blige, James Taylor, CeeLo Green, Miguel, Steven Tyler and more.

Robinson, who is on a US tour, talked to The Associated Press about his duets collaborators and his love of being on the road.

Getting a hold of friends

On “Smokey & Friends”, Robinson sang “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” in-studio with longtime friend Steven Tyler, while the other tracks were pieced together electronically from separate recording sessions.

Each collaborator picked a favourite song written by Robinson. Elton John, a Robinson friend for three decades, chose “The Tracks of My Tears”, first recorded by the Miracles in 1965.

“When we’re around each other, we have a great time. Neither one of us is from affluency,” Robinson said of John. “So when you come up like that and your dream is to be in show business or to sing or play and you get the chance to really do it and earn your living, and it’s your life — it’s a wonderful thing.”

Back into the storm

Robinson heard John Legend cover his song “Quiet Storm” in concert and told the 35-year-old soul crooner backstage that he should record a version of it.

“I look at people like John and I know that the future of show business is in good hands,” Robinson said. The two join up on a new version of the tune, which in 1975 marked Robinson’s return to the industry after a brief hiatus.

“I’m very close to that song,” he said. “It became a radio format and there are ‘quiet storm’ stations all over the country now.”

Mary’s metamorphosis

Robinson says he’s been watching and listening to Mary J. Blige since she debuted in 1992 as the “queen of hip-hop soul”.

“Mary has done a metamorphosis from when I first met her,” he said. “She came from having the image of the hip-hop world into what she has now. And that’s a whole other vision of her. ... She’s very spiritual. And she’s one of the greatest singers ever.”

On the duets album, Blige sings “Being With You”, first recorded by Robinson in 1981 on his solo album of the same name.

Generations 

of Smokey fans

Robinson, 74, has been performing for over five decades and won’t be stopping anytime soon. He gets a spark of energy from seeing parents in the audience holding infants.

“The first time I saw those people, they were on their parents’ laps. There’s everybody there from 6 months to 100, and they’re of all races,” he said. “I’m not going to get that anywhere else. I’m not going to get that same feeling, that same vibe, that same energy, anywhere else.”

There’s no after-party after each two-hour show nowadays, though.

“That was the party for me. I’m going to my hotel now. I’m going to watch some TV until I wind down and go to sleep. But it is a party,” he said. “That’s why I still do it.”