Japan Today

fenris777 comments

Posted in: 3-year-old boy falls to his death from 8th floor of condo See in context

Again! It seems that some parents don't care about many same incidents happened in the past and they assume such a thing never happens to my child.

You never leave a child alone for a second.

Completely avoidable if any one of them gave a cr@p about the child. I guess carrying that extra bag of groceries was way too important.

How does it feel being so superior all the time? It's easy to judge. It's much, much more difficult to live through something like this. You all should be ashamed of yourselves. Compassion and understanding are helpful; not holier-than-though statements of admonition.

8 ( +10 / -2 )

Posted in: Things that foreigners find annoying about life in Japan See in context

Things I find annoying about life in Japan. I think it is counter-productive to write a tit for tat list of every annoying thing about Japanese culture. Let me assure you Japanese readers/bloggers, there are many. Every culture/country has its idiosyncrasies and ways of doing things that foreigners might find weird or illogical. However, this fact is especially pronounced in Japan, as its culture is not unlike a religion- only that it, Japanese culture, has all of the dogma of a religion without spiritual belief attached to it. Now to be clear, not everything about Japanese culture is illogical. Many things have sound basis to it, it’s simply that there are many other things that seem to contradict logic, and when those are questioned, explanations are more often than not, unsatisfactory. One thing, that is extremely important to Westerners is to understand why something is done. “Why” is a very important question to us. This question seems to matter very little or not at all here. Consequently, “it’s Japan,” “it’s Japanese culture,” or my favorite, “you’re not Japanese, so you wouldn’t understand” are not satisfactory explanations for doing things that seem wholly illogical. How is this kind of behavior any different than a very religious person performing his/her rituals or espousing beliefs that might seem to contradict reason. We have a word for the kind of religious person who follows his or her religion without question: fundamentalist. If the Japanese can’t give foreigners a decent answer that has a logical basis for some method or ritual, which happens all the time in Japan, foreigners think the method under discussion should be seriously looked at or questioned. When that method is not questioned at all by the Japanese, foreigners are often dumbfounded, puzzled and sometimes frustrated. I think this is nowhere demonstrated better, than by Japanese fashion. I live in Yamagata, where it can be quite cold in the winter. This winter has been especially brutal as we have had an unprecedented amount of snow. Yet despite all this, I cannot count the amount of times I have seen young women wear mini-skirts or even shorts! It is below zero outside, yet they are wearing shorts! I have asked many of my own students, “why do you wear shorts or mini-skirts in the winter?” Without fail, they have all replied, “it’s fashion” as if that were reason enough. They wear and buy these clothes without even thinking about how illogical it is to wear them when it’s freezing. The media has told them “it’s cute,” and they collectively say, “okay.” Well, as a man, I would like to say to all the young Japanese women “thank you,” for providing me with such eye-candy at all times. But as a human, I would like to say “ARE YOU CRAZY!!?? It’s cold out! Put some clothes on for Pete’s sake!”

2 ( +3 / -1 )

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