Japan Today

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Posted in: Toyota exec in Japan resigns over drug arrest See in context

This is so depressing... Pour me another double scotch!

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Posted in: Japan's sozzled salarymen: the lost tribe in a modern pickle See in context

Cleo: simple lack of imagination. Oh the things a bunch of men will do to please their boss, the things a boss will come up with to gauge his men's dedication...

2 ( +4 / -2 )

Posted in: Man arrested after child's skeletal remains found in apartment See in context

Is the mother dead too? That would be the only acceptable excuse.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Posted in: Gov't discusses measures to stop crop damage by wild boars, deer See in context

Reintroduce natural predators. Hokkaido and Nagano: perfect new habitats for Siberian tigers.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Posted in: 7 things that surprise Japanese people working in offices overseas See in context

"Vietnam" Sure, Southeast Asia isn’t known for its enthusiastic workers, but these guys are just plain lazy.

Excuse me?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Posted in: Man arrested for riding brakeless bike in first such case See in context

Oh the stultifying reverence for absurdly detailed rules in this country...

-7 ( +4 / -11 )

Posted in: The sexes, especially in Japan's giant cities, are spiralling away from each other. Lacking long-term shared goals, many are turning to easy or instant gratification, in the form of casual sex, short- See in context

@gaijinfo have you been to any other country recently? Demographic shift from having a multitude of babies to having 1.8-2.1 child / woman (the sort of average you see in Europe, the USA) and demographic collapse as seen in Japan are 2 very different beasts. Interestingly I think only Germany is in a situation comparable with Japan w regards to both social attitudes towards working women and very low birth rate, but with influx of immigrants from neighbouring European countries a very real alternative to natural generational replacement it's still in a very different position than Japan.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Posted in: Hokkaido onsen bars Maori woman over her face tattoos See in context

The irony is Japan has contributed more to the art of tattoo than any other place on earth, and that's a sincere comment with someone without even a pen mark on his body... http://selvedgeyard.com/2010/04/20/ancient-art-of-the-japanese-tebori-tattoo-masters-ink-in-harmony/

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Posted in: If I were a young Japanese and I could speak English, I would probably choose to emigrate. See in context

I have family in Japan (my dad listened to Lee's advice roughly 45 years ago), and sadly I see no hope in the new generations. My older uncles who'd lived through the war had guts, curiosity, personality in spades, with the younger generations I find myself shaking my head in disbelief at the level of apathy, cluelessness... If anything they don't speak English any better than the old geezers did.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Posted in: Mother ordered to pay Y95 mil after bicycle-riding son collides with elderly woman See in context

When I was about 10, I rode my bicycle around my grand father's garden and coming quick around a bend slammed into an unexpected obstacle: my grandpas' slow-moving octogenarian cousin. I fell off the bike, he fell to the ground, no-one was badly injured, but that could have been otherwise. I was sincerely sorry, the old man gave me an ear-full and I learnt that my bicycle control skills could greatly be improved. I wasn't even the reckless type, more the bookish, stay-in-front-of-the-TV-all-day boy... But I still caused an accident. How on earth could you blame my parents for this?

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Posted in: Teacher tapes up mouth of girl, 7, to stop her spreading germs See in context

Instilling a sense of responsibility and understanding that there are consequences for failing to live up to your responsibilities starts at a young age. If we take your approach, that's pushing the responsibility to Mom, which does not help Kid grow.

Remind me again what was the sentence passed on the guys who hid billions of losses at Olympus?

Sometimes, however, humiliation is a very good teacher. We are forgetting this and constantly trying to treat kids as if they are made of glass.

What exactly is humiliation supposed to teach? Abuse as a way to build sound individuals? Give me a break!

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Posted in: Man jailed for a year over 10 yen theft at temple See in context

As somebody mentioned earlier Victor Hugo covered this already in Les Miserables 150 years ago... This is just plain absurd, why even call the police in the first place for 10 yen? For temple people: if you catch somebody doing something like that, give him an earful and a threat on his karma, end of story.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: NRA breaks silence, pledges to help prevent future gun massacres See in context

Couple of incidents come to mind: 1) knife-wielding guy in NYC shot dead by police and 2) the guy who started eating that homeless person.

And precisely because they were using respectively a knife and their bare teeth could they not possibly have gone on the same rampage that we just witnessed. If everybody had a nuclear arsenal the law of probability simply dictates that somebody would eventually nuke everybody else 'because they can do it'. Same with guns. It doesn't matter how many responsible gun owners are out there, just the fact that there will be irresponsible, criminal or angry ones presents a danger to the community at large, that the US is paying for dearly.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Posted in: Despairing correctly about Japanese agriculture See in context

'In addition to the problem of obtaining land, Japanese farming communities are notoriously exclusionary, making it hard for newcomers to be accepted, perhaps even more so if they are experienced farmers rather than humble greenhorns.'

'it seems some farmers would rather noone farm the land if it's not themselves or their own family'

That's very much part of the problem, I experienced something similar when I was young and my father wanted to buy a derelict house in a ghost village in northern Spain (a REAL ghost village = last inhabitant gone for over 20 years), the owners of the houses that were starting to fall apart and who had deserted the place a generation before simply refused to sell at any cost properties that had 0 commercial value. I think they simply clung to them out of guilt for having abandoned the land their ancestors had lived on for countless generations.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Posted in: Women could save Japan's economy: IMF's Lagarde See in context

I think people arguing that "housewives work, they just can't be taxed for their work" are missing something: you can sweep the floor like a madman (or woman) 24/7: it doesn't actually add anything to your household income! So yes there are household chores (that may, in case you have never tried to fry an egg or broken a glass doing the dishes, be shared) but for them to amount to a full time job, you'd better be looking after a family of 10, living in a palatial house; just spending a lot of time polishing stuff for the 10th time and tracking down any particle of dust with your laser dust remover gizmo in your 40 square meter flat with no kids around actually equals underemployment. And just to prove wrong those who argue that there aren't any jobs around, just go and create some! Women of Japan if you're bored at home and your husband is bringing in good income, do something! Invest in a shop (try to make profits, hire salespeople), import your favorite gelato from Italy, try to re-create the unique taste of the takuwan your grandma made at home, write code for revolutionary new i-pad applications! just do it, don't wait to be given a job, become entrepreneurs and you'll see the magic thing is you will help lift the economy, choose to do things the way you want and have fun!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Posted in: Japan, Russia see chance to clone mammoth See in context

Call it reintroduction... a lot of very interesting megafauna became extinct when men started going on their big rampage a few tens of thousands years ago (moas, the largest birds ever became extinct in New Zealand just a few centuries ago after being hunted to extinction). Recreating species could bring back some select ecosystems to something resembling their prehistoric condition. I find this very exciting. Also think of the touristic potential: compare 'tour Siberia' with 'tour Siberia: watch herds of mammoths!'

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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