David Brent comments

It is absolutely disgusting that the whole thing is being held in Qatar.

I’ll do my best, even though I have zero experience.

Yes, the job certainly requires a lot of experience! Pouring drinks, lighting cigarettes, and talking.

No engineer in semiconductors would refer to himself as 'semiconductor engineer'. There is no such job description.

People like you wouldn't know what I mean if I wrote "spinner module engineer", hence using the layman's term. Incidentally, what is the preferred term these days for "English teacher" in Japan? "Education consultant" or something? Do tell!

David, you are utterly misinformed. TSMC is building a 20 and 28 nm fab in Kumamoto together with Sony and Denso. It's called Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing.

I know. I'll be working there once it's opened, seeing as I am a semiconductor engineer. Your comment shows you know nothing of who is pulling the strings behind the scenes.

I'm not joking, amongst all of my many foreigner friends in Japan who got married to a Japanese person (be they male or female), most are divorced or living in an unhappy marriage. I just think the clash of cultures (way of thinking, mainly) is too big here for most couples to bridge. I have come to enjoy being single, and I hope to stay that way.

Japan is good at making the machines required to manufacture semiconductors. No semiconductor fab in the world would work without the likes of TEL, SCREEN, etc.. However, Japan has long since dropped the ball on actual semiconductor manufacturing. Sure, the likes of SONY and KIOXIA still exist, but no way will there ever be a Japanese version of TSMC or Samsung; the Japanese just can't get it together, and that ship has long since sailed.

Man, the ring girl is smokin'.

If the parents didn't pander to them so much (cooking meals, doing laundry, not charging rent etc.) then this phenomenon would cease to exist.

Excellent news for Italians. More and more people are realizing that "far" right actually means nothing of the sort. Most of the policies of such parties are simple common sense measures which most of the electorate want (non-open borders, for example). After the Swedish elections last week, I hope this heralds in a new era of right-wing victories across Europe. Heaven knows most of us are sick to death of the left-wing parties and their disastrous policies in recent years.

I sure hope the “far” right win, for the sake of the future of Italy.

A fantastic way to show the rest of the world just how stuck in the past Japan is!

The emperor studied at Oxford University.

So? I know plenty of people who have studied at universities in Japan, and none of them can speak Japanese very well. He didn’t get into Oxford on merit for goodness sake!

As a young man working in a car repair shop told me why even to look out for a girlfriend, he has nothing what he could offer to her and if she meets any other guy she will leave him anyway.

Spot on. Rare to hear someone with their head screwed on this much in Japan.

She is fluent in English, but he isn't. Looks like he is asking her what to write.

I seriously have no idea how the average Japanese person affords kids.

our real sex ed. came from magazines we found in the woods

Haha! Yep, spent many an hour carefully drying out sodden pages so as not to tear the tissue-paper like consistency of the jazz mag!

I work for a respectable company and earn a decent wage (for rural Kyushu). Yet after paying the mortgage, bills, buying necessities, saving a bit etc., there is not much left over. I see coworkers who earn less than me, maybe around 230,000yen per month, who have four kids and two cars, wife not working etc., and I just have no idea how they afford it.

I would never have kids here unless I was pulling in at least 800,000yen per month after deductions. And that is never going to happen.

How on earth anyone can think Japan is a good country for refugees is beyond me.

Empress Masako will also attend if her condition allows, reports said.

My goodness. What excuse are they going to come up with now to prevent her from escaping Japan? Poor woman.

I see it all the time here.

Someone who actually deserves a state funeral.

Don't give people hard cash. Many will just spend it on ciggies or booze. Give it in the form of food vouchers or vouchers for gasoline.

You should see what the Japanese manual laborers do to their Vietnamese coworkers on the construction site.

I work for a traditional Japanese company, so about three days out of five I am paid to do pretty much nothing.

Will it be Japanese style "security", like they have at my bank? i.e. a guy in his 80s with fancy fake epaulettes and a glo-stick?

Too bad Patel resigned. At least she tried to get all the illegal economic migrants sent off to Rwanda.

There is no labor shortage. There is a pay shortage.

I can live in Japan quite well as a single guy. But no way could I afford having a wife and kids here.

Japan will just become more and more like South Korea, where unless you dedicate your life to a huge conglomerate like Samsung or Toyota or Tokyo Electron etc., you will always be looking at a crap salary with scant chance of a meaningful raise or bonus.

Companies will literally do ANYTHING to avoid paying a living wage to a human being.