gaihonjin comments

smithinjapanAPR. 05, 2014 - 07:18AM JST Interesting, but ineffective. It merely proves the US is Japan's big brother who pities the younger

I disagree with your viewpoint. The USN is at the top of the class and for the USN to refuse to participate in the fleet review in support of its ally, Japan, affirms the commitment to standing by Japan as a partner. Having the world's best navy sit out your own country's naval ceremony in support of a slighted ally is a significant reminder to the CCP that China needs to take Japan-US ties seriously.

Your characterization of this move as "pity" is off the mark.

paulinusaAPR. 02, 2014 - 08:35AM JST "Any move to bolster that support with more outright weapon supplies could irk China, which regularly accuses Abe of trying to remilitarise his country."

Japan isn't remilitarizing itself, it's militarizing the surrounding Asian countries, the same countries that China lectures to about the dangers of Japan

This is all about increasing the profits of the big arms-makers in Japan thereby making more revenue available for more domestic research and development into arms, many of which will be sold in the world arms market. This is certainly a major step in re-militarizing the country.

.

SamuraiBlueAPR. 01, 2014 - 11:47AM JST It's kind of interesting since ROC at the time was recieving military training assistance from Nazi Germany and John Rabe was selling military equipment to the ROC government at the time of the incident.

You make it sound like there was some deep Chinese/German alliance when that is not the case. The ROC was receiving military assistance from France (via Indochina all the way up through the Petain administration) the UK, the Soviet Union and the USA as well (remember the Flying Tigers?)

Lest we forget, there were a lot of imperialists who had their fingers in China's pot and certainly didn't want an Asian upstart imperialist power upsetting the dim-sum cart. Chiang Kai-shek was advised by a German, General von Falkenhausen. General Chang Ching-chong of the Nationalist Army was secretly a Soviet "sleeper" agent. The USSR supplied Chiang with military advisors, fighters, tanks, artillery, machine guns and vehicles.

SIX refugees were taken in by Japan last year. That is absolutely shameful. Shame on you, Japan!

SerranoMAR. 28, 2014 - 07:31AM JST There should be mass protests against this ridiculous tax hike.

I don't know how serious you are, based on your recent comment history. However, other people seem to agree with you and that means there are some who are really unaware of the enormous fiscal crisis Japan faces, right now.

For a very informative primer, check out the video called "Japan's Debt Problem Visualized." It can be easily found with a search on youtube.

The sad fact is, the tax hike, while needed, will likely only serve to buy some time before the cost of Japan's debt drives Japan to default.

The US needs its allies in East Asia to be a united front against NK and Chinese aggression. SK and Japan understand the need to confront aggressive challenges together, thus Abe backed down on retracting any apology for forcing women to live as sex slaves during the war and Park backed down on refusing to meet with Abe.

Abe's little stunt got the recognition it deserves. Anybody can memorize a greeting in a foreign language. It's what you've said before and after that that will dictate the response. Sadly, Abe is a failure in diplomacy. Thank goodness the USA is here to muscle SK and Japan together.

In China, though there was a forced brothel system, most soldiers preferred rape. The high command did not want to minimize the anger of the Chinese general public and so had specific women who were either picked up in the wake of the sweep of the Imperial Army through China, or they were brought in from Korea.

Despite these efforts, Japanese forces preferred to find their own targets from among the civilian population of China, usually murdering the woman when they were finished.

This is documented by the original sources themselves among Japanese veterans.

CrazyJoeMAR. 12, 2014 - 06:55PM JST Everyone on the street has their own story of how they got here. The only common denominator between them is that somewhere along the line they gave up on life.

Many homeless men in Japan are ducking yakuza, usually because of debts.

Been saying this since AKB came out: there is something very wrong going on here with the mass fetishism of underage girls.

Nicccce.

Everybody have a good time, just play it safe! Don't want more than a hangover in the morning...

chucky3176MAR. 04, 2014 - 09:17AM JST

Japan ...is increasingly thinking about going it alone which could very well happen.

Not going to happen in the next twenty years. Japan is surrounded by hostile and aggressive neighbors: Look at Russia in Ukraine, China just about everywhere, NK and its nukes... Yeah, I don't see Japan looking to tell Uncle Sam to shove off anytime soon, even the knuckeheads on the far right.

The same thing happened to me last summer.

My phone was taken from my pocket not too long after I'd taken a couple of photos with it. This happened at night and I was unable to cancel the service until around eleven in the morning the next morning. I understood that I needed to block my service and that I needed to buy a calling card to make an international call to SoftBank to make the cancellation.

The whole process of obtaining the calling card and making the call took a few hours in the morning. In the interim, the thief accrued around 190,000 yen in charges just in phone calls alone. Though all the calls were to numbers that had never been called before and I tried to explain my story to SoftBank upon my return, they informed me that I'd need to pay the money anyway if I wanted to continue my service.

Never mind that I'd been using the same number since the Digital Tsuka days and had been great-great-great grandfathered in, so to speak, as a SoftBank customer. I told them I didn't have the money for it and they repeated that I'd need to pay up right away. To call my level of dissatisfaction "disappointment" would be an understatement.

After a few weeks, I finally got a hit on my iCaughtU app. I was emailed a snap of the perp trying to unlock my phone. The iphone's gps data showed it's location to be in Lahore, Pakistan.

This type of sales method is more common than non-Japanese think. I was a manager for a company whose sales team were all women. I learned over time that their means of bringing me customers was not limited to activities out of bed.

I was really moved by her final performance which was truly a triumph. Few people are good enough to get to the Olympics and fewer still could have picked themselves up after crashing to the lowest of the lows in just a 24-hour period. She didn't medal but her legacy is intact and she'll go down in sports history as one of the great female figure skaters.

I'm a Kim Yu-na fan and now an Asada Mao fan, too!

I don't want to see Mao Asada fail and hope she can rally herself for one final performance.

That being said, long live the Queen!

It's a shame that most Japanese will not be able to fully appreciate the once-in-a-lifetime talent that is Kim Yu-na. Kim's performance was flawless grace in motion and her expression a thing of rare beauty.

With Japan and Korea being from the same East Asian part of the world, you'd think that Japanese would appreciate another phenomenal skater representing for the millions upon millions of East Asian girls who see a woman looking very much like themselves holding the world enthralled. Sadly, national rivalry will not allow it.

Another emotionally immature child-man. "Mommy won't listen to me so I'm gonna pull her hair." Same selfish line of thought.

Regardless of how you think it should be used, I've found that the way that it's actually used is pretty interesting. Basically, anytime there is an element of patriotism, nationalism or jingoism that is expressed in the statement, whether it's implicit or explicit, then you'll hear the "Nippon" version. When the country is being named in a more ambivalent or neutral tone or being used to speak generally about things related to the nation or its government, then you'll hear "Nihon."

The name change can even be as fluid as to use "Nippon" when "Nihon" would otherwise have been used, when the context is one that is tinged with national chauvinism. This isn't something I was taught, but it is something that I learned.

Educator60, those posters are often on electric power poles along the street or on fences in front of vacant lots, sometimes on bridge crossings...in others words, placed in public view with no clear ownership. These are left in place for months on end, even when no election is being held. I'd say that they are sometimes a nuisance and need to be removed.

I can't help admitting that I've been of the mind to do so myself--but I am not a citizen and it's really none of my business.

This seems like a pretty crazy idea, but of course she's not really in a good state these days. A 23 year-old Italian bartender is suddenly marriage material? He must be a very good listener...

I wish her all the best, she's one of Japan's most talented entertainers.

I love dolphins and all the creatures of the Earth. However, I disagree with people's attempts to prevent the dolphin slaughter at Taiji. These people have been living this way for a long time and this is how they put food on the table for their families.

House AtreidesJAN. 18, 2014 - 04:00PM JST

I hope the revised textbook devotes a chapter to what the Chinese did at Tsushima, Iki and Hakata in 1274 and 1281.

To be fair, those were Mongols and everybody knows that the Mongols were on a tear. How about Hideyoshi and his failed invasions of the continent?

Japan and China battle for the favor of Africa: Africa wins.

This could be the best movie I've seen in a decade. Leo and Martin are fantastic this time.

TorafusuTorasanJAN. 12, 2014 - 10:32AM JST @olrik, that sounds like a line from a Bruce Campbell movie.

It's the famous line by Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper in the seminal political black comedy, "Dr. Strangelove."

With the tinted-up windows, it looks more like a police van than a taxi. Not sure I'd like to ride in that taxi...might not know where or when you'll be let out!

presto345, you are quite right. There are many variations on what we call beer.

For a look at the kind of drink the ancients quaffed, have a look at the excellent documentary "How Beer Saved the World." A quick google search and you can find it. There is a lot of information on the original Egyptian beer entertainingly presented. An expert recreates the ancient style of beer and passes it out to some beer lovers at a pub to garner their reactions. A delightful, informative look at one of the world's great beverages.

Just yesterday an oldster gave me an anti-base flyer at a demonstration in downtown Naha. I can't help but feel that this is a good thing for Okinawa. The people have suffered for a long time for the sake of the Japanese mainland. Any victory will help to mollify and heal the people. And they certainly can use the cash.

That photo of the hugging Kim is so incongruous, it's hilarious. Truth is stranger than fiction!

This poll is poorly framed, nullifying the results. Online polls are generally pointless, as there is no means to have an even distribution of samples: only people that care enough to reply do so, meaning that the sample is limited to people who are invested enough to answer. That will skew results one way or another. However, this poll is junk based on the question alone.

Clearly, there is a difference between civilian and military aircraft. Civilian aircraft must identify themselves when entering airspace where failure to do so can result in military action. Several civilian aircraft have been lost due to entering airspace that brought military response due to this confusion. In the case of the new China ADIZ, military flights like those by the USA, Japan and South Korea have the option to refuse to comply. Civilian airliners do not have any option but to ID themselves.