Posted in: Kishida urges party debate on amending pacifist Constitution See in context
Pearl harbor for one thing
Holy Cow, man. We just established that it was the Japanese PM who introduced Article 9, and here you are trying to justify why the Americans did it?
Just Wow, man.
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Posted in: Kishida urges party debate on amending pacifist Constitution See in context
Once again, JT commenters are spreading the disinformation that the US imposed Article 9 on Japan.
It was proposed by Prime Minister Shidehara: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09555803.2021.1958902
Think about it: why would the Allies deny Japan a military, while allowing Germany to have one after having plowed through Europe in two World Wars, at the cost of tens of millions of lives? Especially given the escalating situation in East Asia, with China, North Korea, and Vietnam falling to the Communists, and the Soviets even taking Japanese territory?
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Posted in: Judoka Abe calls for fans to be kind; expects rule changes See in context
This is not true, as Japanese she embarrassed me, my friends and my home in Japan.
Why? Why should anyone but Abe herself be embarrassed at her behaviour?
Nobody on Earth thinks it reflects on regular Japanese people in any way.
-5 ( +6 / -11 )
Posted in: Parents of boy who killed himself sue 11 classmates, city for damages See in context
The first mistake was allowing their child to use (((Instagram)))
What's with the triple parentheses?
They're an antisemitic symbol.
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Posted in: The labor ministry is expected to soon require unlisted companies, in addition to those that are already listed, to disclose the ratio of women employed in managerial positions. Is this a good idea? See in context
Or they could just hire the most capable person based on their ability to do the job?
Which is obviously why some companies have 100% males in management positions?
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Posted in: Japan's rice inventory hits record low See in context
Seriously? Over Tourists have gobbled up all the Japanese Rice before the locals could?
The article didn't say anything remotely like this. Nobody's gone without rice, and the prices haven't even risen.
Why are these kinds of comments so common at Japan Today?
-3 ( +3 / -6 )
Posted in: White rice with side dishes isn’t really ‘traditional’ Japanese food. So where did we get this idea? See in context
a tradition that actually isn’t a tradition
So my point went over your head.
How many millennia does a custom have to survive to be considered a "tradition"? And why do you apply this standard only to Japan?
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Posted in: White rice with side dishes isn’t really ‘traditional’ Japanese food. So where did we get this idea? See in context
Who ever calls Ramen "purely Japanese"? Its Chinese origins are no secret in Japan.
It's funny how, in any other country, if you've been doing something since the 1950s, nobody bats an eyelash at calling it "traditional", but if we're talking about Japan, you can't call it "traditional" unless people have done it since the Stone Age.
Can someone tell the writer that Japan is a living, evolving culture that isn't stuck in the distant past?
10 ( +14 / -4 )
Posted in: What is the best way for parents of children of mixed heritage to make sure their kids grow up bilingual? See in context
I simply spoke English exclusively to my children since birth, and pretended I didn't know Japanese. Somehow it filled then, even when they heard me speaking Japanese to my wife (who was not an English-speaker).
It really is that simple, but I see so many people making the same mistakes:
1) assuming that they'll never learn English properly because they're in Japan, as if there's some magic force field keeping the English out of their brains.
2) saying that they speak only English to their kids, but constantly slipping into Japanese with them (often surprisingly simple things like "abunai!" instead of "watch out!")
3) not actually interacting with their kids with any meaningful frequency
4) not exposing their kids to English media, such as books, videos, and games.
5) interacting with their kids in broken ESL-level English instead of native-level English.
6) assuming that if the kids respond in Japanese, it's because they're not understanding the English you're speaking to them. They can understand a lot more than you think, especially if you expose them to it with enough frequency.
7) nagging or punishing the kids for not responding in English. You'll make them hate it and kill their motivation.
My eldest used to respond to me with 70% Japanese until she was 4. Then, after my mother came to visit, there was a month or so when she slowly switched to responding to me almost exclusively in English. I never told her to. She obviously didn't "learn English" in a month. She had built up the ability, and now it was time for it to come out.
Within a couple of months, my second oldest followed her pattern. My youngest grew up in a house where the other two kids always talked to me in English, so she just followed their example.
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Posted in: Tokyo Gov Koike reelected, beating opposition Renho, rising ex-mayor See in context
60.62%? In other news, they said only 34.12% which make sense 60% is too high for Japanese.
The news you read is here:
https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/election/20240707-197252/
Where it says that was as of 6pm, when the polls were still open.
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Posted in: Costco Japan wages provide pathway to firing up nation's low pay, economy See in context
That is a monthly salary of 240.000 yen per month.
Single men and woman get taxed to death in Japan you might take home 180.000. Then your heath insurance.
The income tax is 5% on the first 1,950,000 you make, then 10% of what you make between 1,950,000 and 3,300,000.
240,000 a month comes to 2,880,000 a year, which comes to 190,500 a year, which is 15,875 a month, or just under 7% of their monthly income.
Of course, there are local taxes, but you're taxing them at 25% (60,000)!
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Posted in: Do you think political correctness will be the death of comedy? See in context
The kind of people who say this are some of the most humourless people you could hope to meet.
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Posted in: Death penalty sought again in retrial of 88-year-old man acquitted of 1966 murders See in context
Justice should have no expiry date. Four people, including two kids, were brutally murdered
And they've spent half a century torturing an innocent man, while the real culprit has lived freely, and will probably never be known.
19 ( +25 / -6 )
Posted in: Death penalty sought again in retrial of 88-year-old man acquitted of 1966 murders See in context
11 hours less than they gave their victims!
Hakamada is the victim. Did you not read the article? Jesus.
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Posted in: Japan lower house OKs bill to reform foreign trainee program See in context
That's another way to say, Japan want cheap young labor but don't want them and other foreigners to stay that long in Japan or even thinking to retire in Japan.
In other words, you didn't read the article. The bill provides a path towards permanent residence:
As the new system would help increase the number of permanent residence permits...
The new program aims to develop foreign trainees over three years to a level where they can shift to the specified skilled worker system, launched in 2019, that allows for stays of up to five years with the potential for obtaining permanent residency.
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Posted in: Eyes on Bank of Japan as unions announce big wage hikes See in context
@proxy Like many people, you're confusing UBI with GBI. GBI is just another way of doing welfare; UBI is a total rethinking of a nation's complicated, expensive, and inefficient systems of tax collection and social payments.
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Posted in: Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni Shrine picks ex-admiral as chief priest See in context
"more than 250 years of isolation"
The isolationist policies began in the 1830s under Tokugawa Iemitsu, the third Tokugawa shogun. The Edo period lasted more than 250 years; the isolation did not.
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Posted in: The Japanese government is offering families 1 million yen to relocate from Tokyo in an effort to revitalize towns across the country. Do you think this is a good idea? See in context
To be clear, the programme explicitly defines 東京圏外 as outside Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama, and Kanagawa.
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Posted in: The Japanese government is offering families 1 million yen to relocate from Tokyo in an effort to revitalize towns across the country. Do you think this is a good idea? See in context
All the comments here are jumping to the conclusion that people are being encouraged to move to remote rural areas. The term being used is 東京圏外, which just means "outside the Tokyo area". This includes urban areas with six- or seven-digit populations.
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Posted in: Everyone has a home office now. So who's paying for it? See in context
This website is called "Japan Today", but these stats don't seem to be Japanese, and the article also doesn't bother to tell us what country they're talking about (though I assume it's American?) This article doesn't seem to be aimed at most JT readers, who most likely reside in Japan, and are also likely not Americans.
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Posted in: A Japanese government panel has proposed amending the juvenile law to put 18- and 19-year-old criminal suspects on trial as adults. Do you agree with this? See in context
http://asaa.asn.au/japans-youth-crime-wave-subsides-to-a-ripple/
-1 ( +0 / -1 )
Posted in: A Japanese government panel has proposed amending the juvenile law to put 18- and 19-year-old criminal suspects on trial as adults. Do you agree with this? See in context
In a country with the death penalty? The only reason to do this is for sadists to put more people on death row. And to feed the fears of those who believe the thoroughly debunked canard that "youth crime is on the rise" (it has plummeted precipitously over the past several decades in Japan).
Otherwise, I'd say the cutoff between age of minority and agree of majority was arbitrary, whether 18, 20, 21, or whatever.
-24 ( +3 / -27 )
Posted in: 80% of Japan mayors oppose, wary of shift to Sept start of school year See in context
There is negligible reason for Japan to feel any pressure to change their school year ...
You haven't been following the news, then. It was proposed to make up for the three months of school that have been lost due to the school shutdowns. Other reasons include moving exam season out of the flu/allergy season, etc. There are actually quite a few reasons to do it that have nothing to do with foreign "pressure".
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Posted in: Ruling bloc to urge gov't to retain April start for academic year See in context
Abe and his Nippon Kaigi, buddies were not going to allow anything like this to happen
What are you talking about? Abe was one of the loudest supporters.
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Posted in: 4 era names the gov't rejected before deciding on Reiwa See in context
Since when is "orderly" a translation of 令?! Can anyone give even a single example of this?
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Posted in: Japan's whalers back treaty withdrawal See in context
Gotta love them delicious subsidies! They more than make up for the utter lack of demand!
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Posted in: Osaka cuts sister city ties with San Francisco over 'comfort women' statue See in context
Woohoo! Watch them bridges burn!
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Posted in: Japan to propose resuming commercial whaling at IWC meeting in Sept See in context
So, you buy the line that whale is this ancient, traditional Japanese cuisine. While whaling has existed in Japan since prehistoric times, it did not become widespread until the 20th century, and eating whale did not become common until the late 1940s, when whale meat was introduced into school lunches to make up for nutritional shortages in the post-WWII period. By the 1970s the population had already moved on from whale meat---today, most Japanese who didn't grow up in the post-war period have never even tried whale meat. Those who have, typically consider it inferior to other meats, such as beef. It cave 5th this state of affairs a generation before the moratorium cane into effect.
Don't be fooled. Pushing for whaling is strictly political.
-1 ( +0 / -1 )
Posted in: What do you think of the planned revision of the Civil Code to lower the age of adulthood in Japan from 20 to 18? See in context
What is the obsession JT commenters have with tying age of majority to age of drinking/smoking? How common is that, even? In the States it's 21, in many Canadian provinces it's 19, and in many parts of Europe it's 16.
The rest of the world doesn't care. Get over yourselves.
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Posted in: Do you believe marijuana, which was legalized in California on Jan 1, is a harmless drug? See in context
Loaded question—no drug is "harmless", including all the prefectly legal over-the-counter drugs that aren't criminalized.
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I play chance, go bankrupt due to inflation, or win some money to pay for food.
Posted in: Record number of online casino users detected by Japan police in 2024
Posted in: U.S. Space Force to beef up Japan unit amid growing threat in region
It's a pity we can't link videos and so on here. I saw a clip this morning from a French…
Posted in: Hawaii is the rainbow capital of the world. Here's what that means
Posted in: German car attack may have been religiously motivated, prosecutors say