Nihon Tora comments

Posted in: Trudeau slams Facebook for blocking Canada wildfire news See in context

Is there a clause in the law that says social media sites like FB can share news articles without having to pay for the content if it is related to an ongoing emergency?

If not, then something along those lines might be a sensible compromise here.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Popular S Korean DJ shocked, scared after being groped at Japan event See in context

 I think it's more likely all those involved (including men) got caught up in the moment and it spiraled out of control.

I'd probably agree with that conclusion, but I observe that you only came to it once you started considering the woman's reason for taking part. When it comes to the actions of men, you seem to have very black and white, strident opinions, but as soon as you consider women, suddenly it's all nuance and shades of grey. That dichotomy is probably the reason your posts don't seem to have gone down too well in this particular thread.

7 ( +9 / -2 )

Posted in: Japan leads the world in 'working while aging' with the support of three factors: the high willingness of its senior citizens to remain employed; companies' appetite to hire or retain them; and policies that support the recruitment and retention of seniors. See in context

Really? I thought that in Japan, if you didn't get recruited immediately after leaving university, then it was pretty much impossible to ever be hired by a major company here and you were consigned to a life of working temporary contract positions with no career progression. Who are these companies hiring senior citizens - first I've heard of it - only the exact opposite in fact. Maybe re-hiring retirees to do the same job they had but on half the salary?

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

Posted in: Sales of Japan’s most convenient train ticket/shopping payment cards suspended indefinitely See in context

The last time I left Japan I deliberately left about Y5000 on my Pasmo Card in order to avoid the circumstances mentioned above.

Is that money conveniently going to just DISAPPEAR now ?

Don’t think so - they are just suspending issuing new cards due to a chip shortage, not ending the entire system. Cards should still work including recharging.

9 ( +10 / -1 )

Posted in: Japanese high school kids average 12% correct answers in English oral test See in context

It's like they are trying to find the elixir of eternal youth. This is not rocket science - plenty of countries teach English to their students successfully and are able to assess it properly and fairly too. How about Japan just admits that it isn't good at teaching languages to students and instead just go and find out how those other countries do it? But no, somehow the Japanese language is too different and the Japanese too special and some nonsense about the Galápagos Islands for anybody else's way of doing things to work here.

0 ( +8 / -8 )

Posted in: Singapore hangs first woman in 19 years after she was convicted of trafficking 31 grams of heroin See in context

Then by that logic, life imprisonment should be halted too -- because that, according to the same logic, wouldn't be a deterrent either.

I think the point is not that the death penalty doesn’t provide a deterrent, it’s that it doesn’t provide any more deterrent than other available punishments such as life imprisonment. Think about it. If you are considering committing such a serious crime that you are either facing a punishment of decades imprisonment or the death penalty, then your main concern in either case is going to be not getting caught rather than splitting hairs between those two life ruining punishments.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Posted in: Funabashi Anderson Park: A serene oasis in Chiba Prefecture See in context

Nice place, but an absolute nightmare to get to. Tiny countryside roads except with traffic lights everywhere and Tokyo traffic.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Posted in: Central Tokyo condo price soars to record high in 1st half of 2023 See in context

You are talking money. The value in a home isn't money, it's equity. Do you know the difference?

To be fair, my response was to somebody saying condo owners are making money.

Of course, if you can buy your own property, its almost certainly going to be better than renting. But as a place that you have to live in, increasing property values don't really make a big difference to you - it will make a difference to your kids who might inherit the place, but then you are already dead, and it might make a difference to you if you have to move to a care home in your old age and pay for it - by which point you might as well be dead! So, celebrating rising property prices because you happen to own the place you live in is more like celebrating everyone who doesn't own a home getting poorer, rather than yourself becoming any richer in any useful sense! Generally, house prices rising to levels that many people cannot afford - I mean, look at the situation in London, for example, where the vast majority of young people will never be able to afford to buy a home - I think it's not a good thing for society as a whole.

6 ( +6 / -0 )

Posted in: Central Tokyo condo price soars to record high in 1st half of 2023 See in context

They people who live in Tokyo own their condos, which means they too are making money.

If you live in the condo and you are not planning to sell and downsize, then you are not making any money. If you sell and move to a similar property, the value gained will have to be spent again on the new property whose value will also have increased. If you want to buy a bigger place, you will likely have to spend even more than you would have if prices had not gone up, so you would be losing money. The only way you gain any money by increasing property prices is if you bought the place as an investment or if you are using the value of the property as some kind of security in another investment, or if you sell and buy a smaller, cheaper property.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Posted in: Mother served fresh warrant for claiming money by starving daughter See in context

It's hard to say what's right for this case. 

It is not hard at all. What is right is for this woman to be sentenced to years imprisonment.

Basically, under the law, it is impossible to justify a really heavy sentence for her, and an attempt to force the issue would be to harm the rule of law. 

If Japanese law cannot justify putting a woman who tortured her own daughter to the point of hospitalization multiple times for financial gain into prison for many many years, then Japanese law seriously needs to be changed.

I should hope that this community doesn't get up to its usual hijinks when this case is reported again and the woman given a light sentence.

if this women is handed a light sentence, any right-thinking person should be up in arms about it. Anybody who thinks otherwise is part of the problem.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

Posted in: Shimbashi, a once-popular watering hole for Tokyo salarymen, now a good place to avoid See in context

I can't understand why anybody would just go along to the cash machine after being obviously overcharged and then withdraw and hand over hundreds of thousands of yen. Just agreeing to someone steeling from you! I would simply hand over whatever amount I was told it was going to be and leave. Anybody following me out or threatening me in any way I would start making a video of everything on my phone.

This kind of thing has been a problem for years all over Tokyo and we hear about it all the time - it seems that the Japanese authorities don't take the problem seriously, just excuse after excuse why they can't or won't get involved. There's obviously something wrong somewhere when these people are allowed to get away with it.

15 ( +15 / -0 )

Posted in: Mother, boyfriend who filmed themselves abusing her 3-year-old son before his death go on trial See in context

They should both be spending decades in prison for this, but I won’t be at all surprised if they get something ridiculous like 6 or 7 years. The woman will of course get less than the man because of the misogynistic view that women are always somehow less culpable than men in identical crimes, like they are silly little children instead of grown adult human beings.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Posted in: Wages finally rising in Japan, as inflation eats away at consumer gains See in context

I'm not even close to that, out of school for decades, married, and have a good sized house in Tokyo. Completely opposite on every point you made just there.

not sure your situation - maybe you bought a house a long time ago or have been renting it a long time and your landlord didn’t increase the rent. But go and take a look at a housing rental site now - even a small house in Akabane you are looking at 200-250k a month. Yamanote line or within it just goes up more. If you can manage to buy a place in your 20s or 30s with a 30 year mortgage then it might be doable on 500k a month but how many are on that much at that age?

5 ( +6 / -1 )

Posted in: Wages finally rising in Japan, as inflation eats away at consumer gains See in context

I remember you making that silly comment the other day, and I responded to it. Did you read it? I said your claim of needing that much in Tokyo was a huge exaggeration. Although most working class people including myself in the past didn't make that much per month, it's still possible to live a very decent life. Stop spewing nonsense like this.

if you are a single person in your 20s living a student-like lifestyle, then sure, it’s an exaggeration. But if you want to live in a reasonable sized fairly modern place, support a family with two children and get those children a decent education, go on an annual family vacation, save a bit for retirement, then 500000 a month simply isn’t going to cut it. 8 million a year is still a push and you won’t be living Yamanote line or within even on that much unless you are happy to live in a place that hasn’t been renovated since the 70s.

7 ( +10 / -3 )

Posted in: Kishida unveils new measures to reverse declining birthrate amid election rumors See in context

They’ve got to get jobs away from the major cities Tokyo and Osaka. There must be lots of different types of initiatives that could encourage that, many of them not even costing that much. The prefecture with the lowest birth rate is Tokyo - hardly surprising as it is expensive and inconvenient to raise children there.

If companies embrace more modern ways of doing things - digitally, online, do away with hankos and fax machines then there’s really no reason for many of them to be located in Tokyo. Locating away from the big cities would also reduce pressure to increase salaries - a person trying to bring up a family on an above average salary of 10 million is still going to find it a bit of a squeeze living in central Tokyo, but would be quite flush living in a smaller regional town or small city on that salary.

Some mentioned allowing people to more easily move into Akiya, but you have to consider the reason those buildings are empty in the first place - if there are no jobs close by, nobody is going to want to live there.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Posted in: Japanese officials call for Mount Fuji crowd control See in context

Never fancied climbing Fuji - crowds of people and seems like a rather sparse and uninteresting slog - I guess it would be nice to see the sunrise from the top but that's about it. I think a better idea is to climb some of the surrounding mountains so that you can get a good view of Fuji from a distance. I remember Kumotori-san being a good one. Maybe Yatsugatake would also be good.

For something a bit like Fuji but without the horrendous crowds, Asama-yama is a good one - the Kamoshika-daira area on the way up is spectacular, some interesting sulfur deposits then onto the main volcano cone climb and you can stare into the smoking caldera from the top!

8 ( +9 / -1 )

Posted in: Price hikes will push up average monthly spending for households with two or more persons — excluding rent — by ¥12,116, or 4%, year-on-year in fiscal 2023. See in context

It's only going to get worse - try to get hold of assets if possible - stocks in diverse range of solid companies paying dividends, property, etc. If you don't have cash available to buy those things, try to borrow some. Cash is only going to become less and less valuable over the coming years - holding onto it is effectively burning it. If your employer does not increase your salary each year, consider that a pay decrease and act accordingly.

-2 ( +5 / -7 )

Posted in: Major Japanese firms expect FY2023 net profit to rise 4% to record high See in context

Those hoping that the higher profits will be passed down to working and middle classes to improve the general standard of living will be disappointed. The Japanese government along with governments in most advanced democracies are controlled by the very wealthy, billionaires and corporate interests - those people do not want a large and thriving middle class - they want everybody to be poor and struggling apart from themselves with nothing in between. That will not be changed through the ballot box - the only way it will be changed is through unionization, industrial action, strikes, civil disobedience and even riots in the streets! That's how it was achieved in the 20th century and that is the only way it will be achieved in the future.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Posted in: Mother arrested for leaving 2-month-old daughter in car to play pachinko See in context

What a stupid thing to do. Small babies' bodies can overheat very quickly and they cannot regulate their body temperatures as well as adults can - it is very lucky that the outcome wasn't tragically different - just one or two variables different - the sun in a slightly different position in the sky, a couple of degrees hotter or a short time longer....

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Posted in: Kishida orders ¥3.5 trillion to be set aside for child care See in context

I think the problem is likely to get worse before it gets better - with smaller towns and villages thinning out with the declining population, it means jobs, public services and transportation in those places will also be thinning out. That will just drive more and more people to move to big cities like Tokyo and Osaka - those places are just not good for bringing up families - certainly not larger families - the birth rate in Tokyo is the lowest in the country. If the government is to do something, it would be best to try to stop people from moving to the bigger cities. That could mean tax incentives for companies that locate or relocate most employees to smaller towns and cities well away from the larger cities, paid for by tax increases for those that refuse to do so. The government could take the lead by moving many of its departments away from Kasumigaseki. With high speed internet all over the country, excellent transportation and delivery services, there really is no need for many companies to locate in Tokyo - do away with hankos and fax machines for everything - embrace the digital replacements that are already available and used the world over - its 2023 for crying out loud!

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Posted in: High school student arrested for extorting money from woman by threatening to release video of her naked See in context

It would be perfectly safe for people to take nude photos for their own personal enjoyment if there weren't men who use them to blackmail women.

Paedophiles are pretty much the most vilified people in all of society - pretty much everybody hates them with an absolute passion - it is regarded as one of the most disgusting, despicable, heinous crimes that a person can commit, yet there are still paedophiles out there are children are still abused. Yet you want to stop some men from sharing naked photos of people without their permission by just saying "hey, that's not cool - you should stop that!"

I'm afraid that you will only ever be able to reach a certain percentage of people with that message. Already most of society agrees with you that sharing naked photos of people is wrong, already decent people would have no respect for anyone that did that. But it happens anyway - even if 99.99% of people agree with you, it is still going to happen.

The simple fact is, beyond those working in the porn industry or those that would have no problem with their naked photos being distributed to the public, nobody should be making photos or videos of themselves naked, not for their own enjoyment nor for anyone else's. Just don't do it - use your brain - you could get hacked, you might send them to someone by accident or when you are drunk, your phone could get stolen... I really don't understand why this seems to be difficult for people of a certain age. Its a simple message about taking personal responsibility, about looking after your own interests. There is a very good reason why it is younger people that tend to be the victims of crime or misadventure, whether it be sexual assault, physical violence, muggings, drug/alcohol overdose etc. - it is because older people have learned how to avoid getting themselves into those situations in the first place.

I agree with you that we can't assume in this case she shared that video without somehow being intimidated or bribed into doing it. But just generally - no naked photos or videos - it really isn't that difficult!

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Posted in: High school student arrested for extorting money from woman by threatening to release video of her naked See in context

Aly...

I'd say she is pretty messed up too. Why else would she do that?

Victim blaming.

Ah, the victim blaming thing again. If someone left their 2000 dollar bike unlocked in the middle of the city and it was stolen, most people would call that person an absolute idiot for leaving the bike unlocked. Many would go so far as to say they deserved to get their bike stolen. Is that victim blaming? Why shouldn't a person be able to leave their bike unlocked somewhere? Have you seen the price of good quality bike locks? Why should an innocent person have to spend money on those things and go to the inconvenience of adding an extra kg of weight to their bike in the form of a lock when they had spent an extra 1000 dollars to save 400 g on the bike itself? But no, everyone would blame the person for not taking the sensible step of locking up the bike. The victim blaming thing only seems to apply when it's a crime that happens to women (or one of the progressive left's other groups with "protected characteristics") specifically.

We don't know from the information given why the girl agreed to that crazy request from someone she'd supposedly already broken ties with, but unless he had some sort of control or leverage over her that we don't know about, it does seem like an incredibly stupid thing to agree to.

How about instead of painting women as victims all the time, wouldn't it be more empowering to just teach some basic common sense to avoid getting themselves in these situations in the first place? Lock your bike up - there are thieves out there. Don't go distributing naked pictures or videos of yourself - there are bad guys out there. It's a simple, pragmatic argument.

How about men don't take advantage of women to sexually abuse them?

How about bike thieves stop stealing other people's bikes? It's a request that is idealistic to the point of being ridiculous - it is never going to happen - there are always going to be some bad people out there, unfortunately.

Having said all of that, I do hope that the guy involved in this case is punished to the fullest extent that the law allows. What an absolute moron.

14 ( +15 / -1 )

Posted in: Japanese people urged to travel abroad to help airlines, tourism industry See in context

I could afford to take my family to Europe even with the current prices, but I just refuse to do so. I won’t pay these rip-off prices.

I hope we’ll start to see prices normalize over the next year or two. Last year airlines opened flights but the airport ground staff couldn’t handle it as most of them had been laid off during the pandemic. This year airlines canceled thousands of flights and slowed down bringing routes back online after the pandemic to avoid the same problems. That plus fuel prices, Russian airspace’s closure etc. is causing current crazy prices. Next year airlines should feel more confident to increase capacity hopefully bringing down ticket prices.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

Posted in: Around 80% of shoppers at our stores still wear masks. It’s not our stance to allow employees to remove masks before our customers do so. See in context

I think that we took the masking thing about as far as we really needed to quite some time ago. Quite a lot of people died from COVID and many more are left with long-term health issues as a result, so it is understandable that there will be people who feel more comfortable wearing a mask for a bit longer. For those in that category, I totally understand and respect their decision. However, I can't really understand the mentality of a lot of people here - many saying something similar to the Takashimaya president - I won't take my mask off until at least 50% of people have taken off theirs etc. Well, if more than 50% of the population say the same thing, that means they will never take off their masks! It's just ridiculous, there is no real logic to it. If you are an adult human being with your own functioning brain and you honestly believe that wearing a mask is no longer necessary, than just go ahead and take the thing off! You have the J government and most experts backing you up at this point and most other countries got rid of them long ago with no disastrous results. Just wearing one when you don't want to or don't think you need to just because you are worried that some random stranger might not approve is rather immature in my opinion.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Posted in: We’re trying to hire drivers by offering higher wages, but we can’t recruit people. If we’re still in this situation when 2024 comes, our company may not be able to continue operations. See in context

Are you kidding? I’ve ordered five little things from Amazon and two are still outstanding after several weeks. The delivery and logistics system , once a highlight and strong point of Japanese economy, isn’t just anymore existing here.

It's the drivers that Amazon uses - it's like Uber delivery service - just regular blokes trying to find your address with google maps. Every other company has no problem delivering to our address, but with Amazon, they've sent to the wrong address or sent other people's things to our address despite having our names clearly written on our delivery box.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Posted in: Singapore hangs prisoner over cannabis trafficking See in context

Disneyland with the death penalty.

I remember my first visit there, sitting outside at a bar on the boat quay. I'd just put my beer down on the table and the waitress came over, picked up my beer and placed it on a beer mat - she fired my the most disgusted look as she did so.

No counterculture, no bohemianism, no underground, no creativity, just bland consumerism, a completely U-rated experience - everybody just goes to work and spends their money on the latest products like mindless automatons, never straying from the path that the authorities programmed them to follow because if they do, they might receive a disgusted stare, or they might just end up executed like this poor fella.

10 ( +12 / -2 )

Posted in: What are your plans for Golden Week? See in context

Taking the kids camping provided the weather is OK. Long range forecast is currently calling for a complete washout of the main block of holidays, but it's still a long way off....

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Posted in: Japanese gov't ordered to pay damages to Kurdish asylum seeker See in context

If it happened once, you could say mistakes happen, things got a bit out of hand etc. etc. But we read stories about brutality in Japanese detention centers all the time. These places are run by a bunch of foreigner-hating fascists.

-8 ( +10 / -18 )

Posted in: 51-year-old man arrested for allegedly paying minor for sex See in context

The Venn diagram of the men who put all the blame on young women who are paid for sex by older men and the people who fully blamed the older man who took sex in payment for making teen boys famous are also two overlapping circles.

Teen boys being groomed by someone in a position of huge power over their lives, who can decide whether or not their dreams of fame and wealth will come true or not, inviting them to his apartment to stay over and then sneaking in their room to sexually abuse them - that is completely different to a girl choosing to advertise on a website to get older blokes to pay to sleep with her. The former would have been an outrageous abuse of power irrespective of the boys age, the girl's culpability in the latter case is purely an issue of her age/maturity.

Obviously the guy is in the wrong here and he bares the most responsibility, the girl is probably too young to understand that 30,000 yen isn't a lot of money in the grand scheme of things or to really get a grip on the full gravity of what she did and how it might affect her. But she is old enough to know what was going to happen in that hotel room and that sleeping with someone you are probably repulsed by for money isn't a good thing, yet she made the choice to go out and do it anyway with someone who presumably had otherwise no power over her. I'm not having it that just because someone is just 16 years old, or because they are female, that gives them automatic immunity for any responsibility for poor choices that they have made.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Posted in: Children need to be raised by society as a whole, not only by their parents. For example, nurseries can be currently attended only by children with working parents but, given the number of households with full-time housewives, all parents should have access to the service. See in context

If we wanted to put our children in the nursery on a Saturday, we'd both have to make a declaration that we are working on that day. I wouldn't want to do it so often, but once in a while it would be nice to put the children in nursery on a Saturday, so that I could spend a day just with my wife. With both of us working all week, there is no time for either of us to ever catch a break. Looking after two small children, although a privilege and often a pleasure, is also a lot of hard work - it is a full-time job very stressful to do alone and even as a couple. In Japan, there is also no culture of family and friends helping out at all like you would typically find in the west - nobody offers to babysit - not once has anyone from my wife's family ever offered to take our kids even for an hour or two. In the UK, my parents would be jumping at the opportunity to spend more time with their grandchildren.

Others might also consider the advice that "Children need to be raised by society as a whole, not only by their parents" before they start complaining to the parents of children that are being "meiwaku", when they are hardly misbehaving at all, just playing around like healthy, well-balanced children are supposed to do.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Recent Comments

Popular

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites


©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.