loggediin comments

and the BIGGEST sacrifice the women will make is to pass their whole career in a male-starved environment (basically) that leaves them with the extra challenge of finding a partner to settle and have kids of their own. Of course some -or perhaps even most- should have a decent network of peers or family, none the less it is a professional hazard in my opinion

i know the staff has alot of work and high energy demands on a daily basis ( plus weekends from time to time). Honestly though, the time with the kids is greatly reduced by change time, pee time, play time (outside), and what remains is story time and piano/singing time. What i mean is that actual group -teacher centred time is comparatively low, and caregivers get to roam around and enjoy their job at times. So they are judged as a professional group to not 'deserve' such enormous pay. I disagree, but what can ya do? Also the laundering of employment is an issue...a big issue, and i hate it ( organised C )

They do have to get up super early in the morning to make it to the nursery...like 5 am?

Sorry everyone. third time lucky with subsequent posting, i hope... hire teachers from The Philippines and Zimbabwe . That's good. They are excellent people ( good christians). Anyway, i do suspect that regardless of the pimping going on ( sub-contracting middlemen penny-pinchers cow-towing to the BOE), there is a shortage of born-into English- people. Maybe we all won't accept the low wages and bullshat working conditions. Maybe we are too individualistic or spoiled or unpatient to make a sacrifice. Or Maybe we just see that life is too short and Japan is of too little interest in the long term ( i.e. waste of time).

Don't come to Japan and stay here without realizing that you could very well regret wasting years of your life for next to nothing in wages and social stimulation, etc.

Do come and start a family, though. That is worthwhile.

Also, it is amusing to see job postings where some schools ask for advanced Japanese ability AND a teaching certificate (this can mean from your homeland,i.e. B.Ed. OR a temporary Japanese teaching permit ). Also, some postings ask for your university transcripts!! Now that is ridiculous ( unless it's for obtaining a permit, but then they should just say so ) So my advise to newbies is before you come to Japan ( to make peanuts ) get a bachelor in education and bring an official sealed letter of your transcripts. No joke! serious advise...don't overlook the peanut part, though... that won't ever change, that is to say, by comparison to what you would make back home...unless you are coming from the African continent, which might advance you into an elite income bracket, right? ( no offense, just the facts)

What to say what to say...first thing, i don't need to finish reading this article. I new all about this talk back in 2003 when I read a similar, VIRTUALLY identical article... i know and am sure because i distinctly recall being motivated and inspired to continue teaching here WITH THE HOPE OF GETTING HIRED ON AT A PRIMARY SCHOOL TO TEACH THERE EACH- AND- EVERY- DAY... same old same old...nothing will change and now it's getting to be too late for me ( I'm getting too old, i mean...). it is truly like a gaadang broken record!

The ministry goes on and on, but nothing advances for us longtimers. I will say that the push to hire native Japanese 'people' who are functional (instead of us foreign English speakers) is better. Things are moving from bad to worse though (i'm afraid) 'cause only teachers can teach. Do i need to expand and explain what that actually means?? If you are not a teacher, what the heck are you doing there in the classroom?? You know, American teachers cannot teach German or Danish or Polish, right? The poor primary school teachers here in Japan will be headed for an extended leave of absence (clinical depression, that is...) as a result of the added stress to their workload. ( A slight digression but, seriously, there is a desperate situation with overworked single women teachers over here-who unlike the men (men won't stand to remain single)- will tough it out until their ovaries are all washed up (sorry). From my humble experience, primary schools in Japan are kinda pathetic environments for the adults...they slag it out for decades and remain lonely throughout. I won't wait any longer for a chance to TEACH A FIXED GROUP OF KIDS DAILY.( how else could the kids ever ever learn the language, man? Bloody hell!

shout "fire"not shoot. sorry

whose gonna read down this far... fire alarms should be silent (hold your horses) at schools. if you shoot fire people come look and check. So, the alarm is pulled and the school office is alerted and checks cameras around the activated alarm. Then send out the armed guard/office staff/ administrator. the difference is between smoke in the hall and a heat triggered ceiling alarm

Just stopped reading to flash down here and knock off a comment. Land registration is not mandatory? wWhat? i'm paying taxes on my land for nothing? ( cheapo tax level,but still ) How can that be?

People have great respect for Britain. Every schoolchild knows the birthplace of the English language and they all are told of the benefits of its mastery. I am constantly amazed at how average people react to me and my Jaguar rolling down the street ( high street folks are snobs and don't want little ol' me behind the wheel ). Basically, the Japanese love all things British, and those countries of Great Britain - primarily England- are often their first choices for overseas study or vacation.

Personally, me, i feel that paying thru the nose for imported cheese may be healthy ( in that i can't go overeating the stuff) but i sure don't wanna hand over hard -earned cash on extortionary pricing. It makes me sick when i see it. So i buy economy priced New Zealand, pizza type cheese ( now that will make me fat!) . I want some of that orange stuff that's older than my wine...aged cheddar!

Japan's elderly get half their assets taken away when they die. So their kids have to convince them to sign everything over to them and hope for the best ( especially that your kids don't abandon you to an old age home...)

Japan is a mono-lingual and mon-cultural and nearly mono-minded nation... besides a few bad eggs, they never rebel or go against the towable line.

My solution is to allow kids to work part-time with full pension security ( regardless of incomes) and let them be a host- residence for the elderly. So imagine a bunch of hippie kids in an old rundown country house with a custom communal bath and shared/rotating duties ( late night poopoo watch included), give them what they want ( the WHOLE package of hippie life- god knows those old folkies need a bit o' the green) and the whole thing will run on a room and board fee system. It will happen eventually with the increase in single elderly folks ( no children, thus they are left all alone with no one to bear the costs of burial even...) The hippies will find a local temple priest to come, the state covers the cremation, and the remains can be buried out back the side o' the mountain...amongst the cultivation of sacred plants...ha Gonna happen, too!

A simple polarisation between the haves and have nots. if you make alot of money from hard work-sweat and tears, then you hate paying high taxes.  if you are a useless unlucky teet, then you wanna free lunch 'til your sixty five...people who are vehemently opposed to capitalism should revisit and reevaluate their socialist values...or put their money where their mouths are and go marry some poor Siberian woman...and stay over there!  Seems to be a lot of left learners on this site...down voting...you really and truly think you are unmistakenly correct about everything, right?

You go pay 37 percent of your hard earned income.  See how you feel. 

Any useless teet with no hope, skill, or education can complain, but when a rich dude- soon to be further in the black- comes knocking and opens a nice little factory in your town,  you'll understand then that the money is better kept out of the governments coffers, right?  The government won't open factories, etc. .  Even if you were a useless teet with bundles of cash, you would hire someone to grow it all- and for the good of society in general.  All these clever downvoters here can't muster the effort to picture a real capitalistic system with nearly zero taxation, cause they wanna stay put on their arses next to the heater.. They go on imagining a bunch of rich dudes who can't muster the courage to flip a coin at a begging street bum.  A king wants a wealthy and prosperous realm, and a rich dude hopes for a great community ( they woudn't need to hide away in walled enclaves if it weren't for bad government policy wrecking havoc on the poor).

Business is where there are people (expert technicians, etc) working at hugely profitable companies with huge capital and huge banks to support them...like in Japan.  Expert in transportation and with maritime strength to match any other nation, Japan is unsurpassable.  I remember riding the airport bus to downtown Seoul and passing thru areas that reminded me of Mexico...dirt roads.  Same in Shanghai; back street dirt roads. 

Japan is an indispensable partner for such a vast project as one that envisions reviving the Silk Road of yonder...bring on the downvotes peabrain...

I really can't wait for the chance to chaffeur people around ( foreign tourists) without the heavy cost of getting a taxi license.  And i wanna break their pimpy system by registering car 1 and showing up in car 2...let me elaborate: car one is your standard run of the mill Japancar, whereas car 2 is my Bentley, ha!  Now just imagine that you are out front that cool cafe with your crazy girl/guy and i pull up- rather a heavenly Bentley does- and next your gonna get in a fight with me because i'm now asking for cash upfront?  No you won't- not if you wanna keep that chick hangin' off your shoulder...Ha!  Down with pimpubber  or Pooper or whatever else they should be called

China holds american promisary notes, you know? I.O.youze!. They are only superficially in the black and are not an authentically prosperous and wealthy nation, whereas Japan IS that ( next to no foreign owned debt).  Japan's infrastructure is immaculate, well essentially so- besides old hotel resorts and abandoned homes. 

It is like trying to compare Canada to the U.S. . The former is a vast wasteland!  Can/U.S. populations and internal economies differ drastically.  And Japan has tech way above the Chinese.  Way above and vast and deep like an ocean.  No comparison.  So, China really needs Japan ( nearly as much as Cambodia or Myanmar does ).

80 years ago...back when ya granpa was a baby!

Those guys are stupid, but the law is stupida! just legislate that all and any human activity and consumption is not the concern of the police or the jailer ( excepting harmful behavior...the obvious ones, alright?).  Send out nurses and social workers in place of the Coppers to persuade the young and weak to avoid excess, etc.  Sell it or anything from government stores ( to keep an eye out for addicts and victims, etc ).  These guys should have been fined heavily for breaking a government monopoly on distribution of stimulants, etc.  80 years ago this kind of thing would be taxed/fined and permitted to continue...

surely I am for this...A man and a woman get married and have no children...so a woman can marry another woman and they can do the same.  I stormed straight to the point here asuming that those who feel strongly against samesexmarriage believe the purpose of traditional marriage was for procreation...well, historically society may have been based on this need to grow a population, etc., but given our modern prosperity, childless couples may exist and multiply without any threat to traditionalists, who will  surely continue to breed (btw  i am a proud breeder, so no offense to anyone...)  people have a ceremony as a display of attachement and promise to commit for life...those who disagree with that are misguided.   They should rather argue that children need their father and their mother to be around for at least 20 years or so and push the point that this  is the ideal or even that it is a human developmental need (that should not be substituted by two 'parents' of identical gender...)  of course alot of people will jump down your throat for putting forth such a view

this really makes me laugh. what a waste of money for that guy.  as if Fox viewers can be affected by such an advert. they just sit back and chuckle it off.  Fox staff just thinking ' sure we'll take the money.  like trying to advertise pork to saudis, i think.  AND Fox triumphs twice ethically by turning down the money after they had initially given fair airwaves to opposing views ( Fox is for conservatives, right?).  Oh, and tucker carlson rules

If you had been in that church AND you had a firearm on you, would you have taken a dive into the pews? Or would you have shot that crazy, sad  mfr?  Give your granny a snub nose and make sure she knows how to use it. ( i ain't American btw...)  Gun haters don't realise their argument is like saying that because we men all have a peanuts in our pants,  we're all gonna think about using it to assault a woman.  Keep poison, pornography and firing pins away from kids and crazies. 

and i agree to eliminate high power weapons.

I mostly hear mothers saying ' no. that's too dangerous for you to try"!  (with or without 'dear' on the end...)

I agree that it seems strange that animals are "captured". How can the writer actually write that without realising in his/her head the immense difficulty of escorting a 100 kilo boar or half-maimed deer out of a trap and into that marvel of a truck?!

I can only imagine, but I guess the truck has a crane-like winch that swings out to raise the carcass up and load it.

Please stop using that word mariwhatever.  It's cannabis

I brought my records from home ( and packed my turntable for the plane, too).  Remember AAD? Now it will be reversed to DDA.  That's so ridiculous.  Tom waits recorded a double album completely analog from the start.  But even Neil Young gave up on analog recording.  It's too expensive and time consuming. And you gotta be a real old artist to endeavour it...

I think a colony needs to have settlements, not only bases.

Japan is a sovereign nation that does not suffer from foreign government intervention.

Haiti is devastatingly poor, but so is eastern Canada, for example.  Canada has serious poverty issues of its own.  We cannot take in people fleeing from an illegal situation, then just forgive and forget.  Welfare support in a place like the Maritimes where you followed your papa onto welfare (who followed his own papa, too) could not be much below $1000.  Even there rents will not be below 300 a month for a rooming house.  The city of Saint John, New Brunswick is full of young people on welfare ( who marry others on welfare and have children who pretty much grow up to be adults on welfare).  Very few immigrants choose to live in the eastern provinces for this reason.  Hamilton. Ontario is another...

Canada has such long-term poverty that social assistance rules and guidelines are extremely precise and controlled.  Every possible situation is regulated, for example, your soon to be adult son can receive welfare while still living at home ( i.e. he is not forced to leave home and rent in order to be covered). 

It is a pretty hopeless life for many Canadians....not unlike the Haitians ( still, an unfair comparison, I know ((so don't jump on my head, please)) ).

Considering our long history of warring, it is hard to imagine that a huge international war would not eventually occur again.  It is very sad that we humans are pretty much destined to suffer a world war lll of epic proportion.  The live and let live credo is obviously dying off.  The only option is to appease The North be going in to help bolster their economy.  Look at Myanmar.  They never hated the Japanese so never had an issue being helped by Tokyo over all these decades, and now they are opening up AND Japan has a leg in over many other nations.  So, Tokyo should get down on one knee and beg for forgiveness to the little fat guy and he will be fooled into believing he won.  Swallow our pride and save the region and the world from destruction...

clothe...

M3,

I believe Canada gives money to support Haiti.  Is it called a foreign aid programme?  One thing a Canadian welfare cheque is covering is heating in wintertime.  Haitians don't suffer the cold.  Also Haitians don't pay rent to live on a freezing rock like Canadians do. A check for a single person in Canada for say $1000 could surely support a few families in Haiti I guess, but it's a misguided question/comparison, right? I do like what you said before that, though

I think the fear of same-sex marriage is that after it is established as a cultural norm, some of these couples will gracefully move on to adoption as being a right without prejudice or refusal.  Traditional couples  ( man/woman) may already try to argue that marriage is to secure the future safety, etc. of children, further stating that marriage is not needed unless a couple will have children.  Absurd of course.  Anyway, I only mean to project myself into the mindset of those against equal marriage rights.  I imagine they think that just being married for awhile doesn't give you the right to be a parent UNLESS it is a male\female union that can naturally produce offspring.  These types probably would agree that the following hypothetical is appalling: 

two married women who want children go out bar-hopping until they conceive.  The state can do nothing to 'protect ' children of these women who could argue that they are bi-sexual. Extra-marital sex is not a crime, right?

This aspect of a potentially drastic and differing lifestyle is a threat to the traditionalist mindset.  Of course here the idea that marriage is not necessarily a monogamous relationship will cause fury for some.  Fooling drunken men into sex for the secret motive of childrearing might be forgiven ( artificial insemination clinics are an option of course), but marriage is a priori a union that excludes sex with others, by definition.