It was, she remembers, a “Hiro” smile. It was gentle, rather than a broad grin, and it showed the 43-year-old was pleased once again to take his expertise on the road to do his job telling the world what was going on.

It was doing that job that cost him his life as he was killed, along with 20 others, during a sudden burst of violence during the protests in central Bangkok on Saturday night.

Hiro was not the gung-ho war correspondent of the movies. He was a careful, loving married Dad of two and a gentle mentor for young colleagues and an expert story teller.

He took his concern for those around him beyond the newsroom to complete two 100-km charity walks (with a third planned this month), raising thousands of dollars for Oxfam along with teammates from Thomson Reuters.

At Reuters for more than a decade and a half, Hiro was witness to many of Asia’s biggest stories. His work brought to viewers around the world the sounds and images of events ranging from Asian financial crises to political protests and the 2002 World Cup.

He was trained and experienced in operating in hostile environments, including the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and Philippine military operations against insurgents on Jolo island.

Greg Beitchman, who took Hiro on as a staff member in 1995, remembers how Hiro eluded government minders during a reporting trip to North Korea, to get out to the world what was really happening in the secretive state.

“While the minders chatted away at me in English – mostly about how the Dear leader ‘loved journalists’ – Hiro pretended not to understand and slipped away to work,” Greg recalls.

“On the surface much of the city looked like a 60′s Godzilla movie set , but underneath Hiro found evidence of poverty and hunger amidst government attempts to show off a ‘flourishing’ free trade zone,” recalled Greg, who is now the global editor of our news agency business.

Hiro’s sense of humour and his gentle personality also made him a natural for coverage of the quirkier side of life. Stories that showcased his professionalism and his sense of fun remain viral hits on the Internet, including pieces on a pair of monkeys working as waiters outside Tokyo (2008) and the first-ever wedding between a man and a Japanese video game character (2009).

“Hiro was a trusted and dear colleague who quietly made those around him better through tremendous gifts as a story-teller, cameraman and editor,” remembers another long-time TV colleague, Dan Sloan. “He visualised the finished product while still shooting — how it would flow from shot to shot to make a better story.”

From my own memories and talking to colleagues who have known Hiro much longer than me, it was his calming, professional influence that comes through again and again — along with that subtle smile.

“Emotions often run high at the scene of news, between the media and authorities, among competing media or even among ourselves,” recalls colleague George Nishiyama, who saw Hiro as his senpai, a Japanese term of endearment for a senior colleague who guides a newcomer. “But Hiro was always there to prevent the situation from getting out of hand.”

“Hiro would somehow diffuse the confrontation at the end, get us into that news conference, through that gate so we can report the news,” said George. “And at the end of the day, when we gathered over drinks and let off steam, sometimes unleashing harsh words at others, Hiro always listened and at the end told us to forgive, saying that no one means harm, that everyone’s doing their best to cover the news.”

Rodney Joyce is Reuters’ Tokyo bureau chief

The contrast with his predecessor was clear from the TV coverage. All but one of the major channels in Tokyo carried him live. Leading up to his election drubbing last month, former Prime Minister Taro Aso could not always get his pressers carried live even on national broadcaster NHK.

Yet amid the ritual and grand opening statements, one minister gave an already strengthening yen another kick up, while a second pushed down the shares in Japanese banks — both before they’d been officially announced and sworn into their new jobs.Banking and financial services minister Shizuka Kamei was the first to move markets.A former police official and anti-postal reform rebel, he was a surprise pick for that job with a lack of markets experience leaving analysts scratching their heads as to what he might do.They did not have to wait long as Kamei said he would push for banks to freeze repayments of mortgages and small business loans.That sent Tokyo banking shares down 1.9 percent as investors wondered what it would mean for lenders already struggling after the credit crunch.But the bigger move came in the currency market where the new finance minister essentially endorsed the yen’s run-up to seven month highs against a U.S. dollar already tumbling in global markets.Hirohisa Fujii has long argued that Japan must wean itself off relying so much on a low yen and exports to grow its economy — but on Wednesday he added that he was comfortable with the yen’s recent rise.Markets promptly sent the yen up nearly 1 percent more against the sagging dollar, and his comments will likely hit the shares of exporters when the Tokyo stock market reopens on Thursday.Perhaps these are just examples of the new government’s drive towards politicians making policy, rather than leaving things to the bureaucrats, and Japan will just have to get used to it.Or perhaps the two ministers — both of whom have served in previous cabinets a long time ago — are adjusting to the difference between talking as opposition politicians and pronouncing as ministers with real power.Photo credits (top to bottom): REUTERS/Chris Meyers; Kamei: REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao; Fujii: REUTERS/Issei Kato

Hatoyama certainly campaigned on that basis, raising eyebrows as he attacked “unrestrained market fundamentalism” in a magazine article that was subsequently translated and published in the New York Times.Attacking markets is not unusual after the financial crisis, particularly in Europe, but Japan is hardly a carbon copy of U.S. free-wheeling capitalism. So it was interesting to see Hatoyama backpedalling a bit even as the votes were being counted and the reality of government set in.”We are not saying that the market principles are all bad,” Japan’s new leader said. “But the current economic situation is one where there need to be corrections in areas where reform went too far.”So the Democrats have cleverly left themselves a lot of room to move Japan in whatever direction they want — from strengthening a threadbare social safety net to ending Japan’s heavy reliance on exports.Whatever they do, they must be more savvy in their marketing than their predecessors.For the LDP, the disgust of voters was so ingrained that even a giveaway of around $130 cash to each voter as part of economic stimulus efforts earned ridicule rather than gratitude.Photo credit: REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

Needless to say the 4.0 percent contraction in GDP (an annual rate of 15.2 percent, if you speak American) from January to March was not pretty — especially when you see that the pain has spread from Japan’s big autos and tech factories to the broader economy.

Much has been written about Japan’s heavy dependence on exports from its powerful manufacturers and how the slide in orders from the United States and Europe has forced factories to curb output, lay off staff and slash capital investment.

But that GDP figure is looking backwards to a time we know was bleak for the economy.

Just as the West is looking for signs of “green shoots” of new growth to see if the worst is over, so Japan is looking to see if its economy is now starting to sprout cherry blossoms — the traditional sign of spring in this part of the world.

The good news is that companies are starting to see a tentative pick-up in sales.

A senior executive of Konica Minolta, which makes key parts for LCD TVs as well as its brand name photocopiers, says his firm hit bottom in January and has seen some recovery since then. But he adds it is not really clear yet whether this is sustainable.

The recovery seen in recent months, Shoei Yamana says, is due to companies replenishing their stocks after running them down in a hurry when business turned south late last year.

The real recovery will only come when final-buyer demand for Japan’s cars, TVs and other machinery returns.

“We have not really seen any strength in end-user demand for large-screen TVs in Europe and the United States. If panel makers turn bullish and start flooding the market again, the industry might have to go right back to the inventory adjustment phase,” Shoei Yamana told the Reuters Global Technology Summit in Tokyo.

How well government stimulus efforts in China, Europe, the United States and so on succeed in getting consumers to shop will play a key role here in the short term.

Longer term, Japan’s ageing consumers are unlikely to ramp up spending unless unemployment falls and wages start rising again.

That suggests the fate of Japan, the world’s No.2 economy, will remain in the hands of Toyota, Panasonic and other big exporters for quite a bit longer to come.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Toru Hanai; Graphic credit: REUTERS/Catherine Trevethan

Men are turning to the traditional art of making boxed lunches, or bento – compartmentalised boxes with a mix of rice, vegetables and meat dishes.

This is radical stuff in Japan, where legions of salarymen leave it to their partner or mother to make their meals and eat out if there are no females around to cook for them.

But with Japan deep in recession, men are getting domesticated and making their own bento to save the $8-$10 or so they might otherwise pay each day for lunch in a restaurant.

But while the newly frugal males try to save money, marketing campaigns are targeting them to spend the cash they save in new ways, such as cooking classes or a flashy new $25 lunch box with matching chopsticks.

After all, who knows what the other men in the office are cooking up?

Men working at a Tokyo Internet company say they are getting up before dawn to work on their lunches, then compare notes over lunch at a bento club meeting.

Even in the kitchen, it seems traditional male competitiveness still rules.

Photo credits: REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao