Pidestroika comments

Strangerland-Still talking about my country...How do you know what they do in the "Western media"? Do you know how they report the news in all the "Western" countries? If no, talk about YOUR country. And I'm talking about the constant use of the word. Too difficult to comprehend?

Strangland. I'm talking about the constant need to add the term "yogisha" which is peculiar to the Japanese reporting. Even after a criminal has been found guilty by a court and sentenced you never hear any "name-murderer" or whatever. It's one thing to report "police claim..." and another to constantly add the "yogisha" thing as if there are no actual criminals in Japan.

In Japan if you follow the way the news is reported by the media there are no actual criminals in this country. Everybody that gets arrested is a "yogisha" (suspect). Name+yogisha. Even the guy that got caught on the spot in Akihabara trying to kill as many people as possible with his car, was called name+yogisha. Ever heard of a "Name+satsujinhan (murderer)" or "Name+setohan (thief)"? And how about the "mozaiku" (blur) everywhere? You see the reporter saying "in this house...", and the house is completely blured. What's the point then? Or the stupid interview of the neighbours through the intercom...is supposed to show what? Just report what they said.

@noriyosan73 with the 6 thumbs-up

Nobody retires in Japan at age 50 with full health benefits unless he or she wins the lottery.

Would you like to tell us at what age in your country do single mothers with one or two underage children retire? 67?

If the problem is yakuza with irezumi and these are Japanese, then only Japanese with irezumi should not be allowed. This is far more logical than the blanket ban of everyone in the world with tattoos. Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Sean Connery and millions of other people are obviously not yakuza members.

When I first came to Japan and was home-staying in Tsukuba I used to go to Tokyo by bus. When I got back home from my first ride I asked my J. friend: "today I heard on the bus the driver saying "orinasai wa ashimoto gotsui kudasai" (get off the bus and watch your step). Why the attitude and what's with the grammar?" She explained that it's "orinosai wa" (when you get off...) but to my defense bus drivers always garble their words with the mic stuck next to their mouth.

In my J. language school I once said that I love J. food, especially "tonkachi" (hammer), instead of "tonkatsu" (deep-fried pork cutlet). My J. teacher didn't notice but a Korean classmate asked me later if I eat nails and screws too. Never made that mistake again.

I was there too. On Sunday. Absolutely horrible organization. Paid 13000Yen to sit on a piece of sand on the overcrowded beach. No score or any kind of announcement boards. Impossible to tell who was flying, their time, their position or anything. The loudspeakers were supposed to tell you all this but they were far from where we were sitting and couldn't hear a thing. No event schedule, no programme. Extremely hot, 35+ Celsius, no shade, no tents. I definitely wouldn't like to be in the shoes of the guys that paid for STANDING for 5-6 hours. You were not supposed to bring your own drinks but inside the place they were all extremely overpriced and from some time on they were all gone. A total rip off. These guys (and I mean the Japanese organizers) really worked hard to make the most with providing the absolutely least. Terrible. Loved the race but I'm never going again. Pity because there were thousands of people and great interest.

Germany and Japan are the war criminal states which massacred innocent people by the most brutal and heinous methods after getting engrossed in aggression against different countries in the first half of the 20th century. Germany has made efforts to relieve victimized countries of pain and redeem its crimes even a bit. But Japan has behaved quite contrary. Japan's rulers have never made sincere apology for the past crimes but totally denied them. It has incurred suspicion and hatred, not trust and respect of many countries. It's because Japan's morality and conscience are very vulgar. If Japan does not follow the example of Germany, it will suffer only insult and isolation.

The above is from Rodong Sinmun. Not really surprising how similar the N. Korean and Chinese rhetoric sounds.

The zoo is discussing what to do

The simians are taking a hard stand declaring they were not consulted about the name. The equids (zebras) count their stripes, the felinae (lions, tigers etc) don't give a rodent's posterior, the giraffes have a headache. The discussions have reached a critical point and hippos are expected to pull their weight. Where will the insects and reptiles stand? So far the strongest opinion is to ask the parents! Don't know about you but I honestly can't wait for the discussion results.

I think you confuse respect for young soldiers who gave their lives believing they were serving their country with the idolization of them by modern day nationalists. I've met kamikaze pilots (those who did not fly their final mission) and not even one of them idolizes those who died or even considers them heros. Solemn respect is what they offer. Respecting kamikaze pilots does not make one automatically a nationalist. There are more shades in life than black and white. If Matsuyama is a nationalist and you disagree, I think you should protest against what he says and how he says it, without showing disrespect towards the dead by calling them "dumb".

No, they showed that people who are young and uneducated save by propaganda are dumb enough to be duped into losing their lives so that the people in power who profit from it don't need to.

Interesting. Therefore no respect is necessary to all the soldiers who died during the British (French, Dutch....) colonial wars. No respect to all those who died during the First World War or in Gallipoli. Or to the US soldiers who lost their lives in the war in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia in the 60s. The list of people who gave their lives for the wrong idea can be rather long... Perhaps you are from Switzerland? You should know that Germany pays respect to all those German soldiers who gave their lives in WWII. There are monuments in every German city etc. Or perhaps the suggestion is that only the Japanese soldiers who fought in WWII should not be respected. Interesting.

Theo, kyo hima desu ne! Mizutani should definitely ogoranakya

"Statistically" based on whose statistics? Where does it say the restaurant based their decisions on records they keep. Treating a customer based on their name some call it "racism" others "discrimination". You water it down and say "xenophobia" (fear of strangers). How about the Japanese singer who was recently sat in the back of a European hotel's restaurant because he was "asian". I guess you could call that "xenophobia" too, right? Exactly the same people who criticized and condemned that hotel's behavior, condemn Mizutani's. And you know, they don't have to sit and eat at that hotel's restaurant to "review" it.

And since you like examples (usually irrelevant) so much here's one for you: Was at a fairly big Japanese restaurant in Ikebukuro's "Sunshine city" waiting for our menu. A Japanese customer with a friend of his showed up on a wheel chair. The restaurant did not have any ramp and "apologized" for not being able to serve them as there was "no space" for the wheel chair to maneuver, even though the restaurant was almost empty. They left and so did we. Following you logic this is not discriminatory and nobody should criticize the restaurant for this. It's just "xenophobia". Thankfully that one closed down after a while.

Get a life dude.

A. In this restaurant a Japanese name automatically makes you a trustworthy customer who would never make any cancelations. Everybody else, the rest of the world that is, is automatically potentially unreliable and troublemaking customers that need to follow specific rules to dine there. Some people can insist that this is the restaurant's policy and they have the right to accept and refuse whoever customer they want and on whatever terms they choose but the customers and the readers here have also the right to label this kind of thinking as discriminatory and racist (which it is) and slam the restaurant for this policy.

B. Can someone explain how "not accepting bookings by non-Japanese customers, unless they are made through a hotel concierge or a credit card company" ensures there will be no cancelations? Because it just sounds ludicrous to me.

C. Following what logic a restaurant accepts bookings made through a credit card company but also accepts only cash for payment?

D. If they prefer Japanese customers so much, they should simply remove themselves from Michelin.

E. For every 100 perfectly friendly and wonderful Japanese establishments there is always bound to be one that is stuck to the isolation era of the 17th century choosing narrow-mindedness and vacuity.

I have issues with any term describing an individual by the color of their skin or their "blood". Best of luck to Ariana.

On many trains around Tokyo:

"Warning! The train may stop suddenly in case of emergency"

I think they should put a voice-warning on cars, bicycles and bikes too. "When you hit the breaks the vehicle may stop. Please be alert"

Looking forward to this one. Note: Harrison Ford has never won an Oscar!

Flumpool : "The band's name is derived from the English word "four", since there are four members, they took the first letter "F", along with the word meaning mass, "lump" and the word "pool"."

Hysteric Blue

Orange Range

Sons of All Pussys, abbreviated as S.O.A.P.

and the marvelous Morning Musume

Abe too? Every PM the past 10 or so years "pledges" the same thing. When they start receiving bullets in the mail, if you know what I mean, they pass the potato to the next one.

@smithinjapan No. You are absolutely wrong. The women have ZERO "responsibility". The police and the authorities have actual responsibility to protect them from scum like this guy. You and other commentators here pre-suppose they were too stupid or they weren't careful etc and you don't know how this guy did it. He raped more than 100 women in 2 years, that's more than one woman per week on average. He got 10mil, which would be 100,000 for each victim. This is a full time job. 2-3...a dozen women duped yes, would make some sense that only one guy did it. Here, in order to dupe 100 women there must be a whole group working with him creating a whole set-up. So before you go out and say the women should have known better and should be "responsible" not to go to such places, consider that maybe they were indeed careful and responsible and got raped regardless because they couldn't defend themselves or they didn't see any danger in the situation. Enough of your ludicrous reasoning. Try to learn the meaning of the word "responsible".

@smithinjapan: from MW

responsible 1 a : liable to be called on to answer b (1) : liable to be called to account as the primary cause, motive, or agent (2) : being the cause or explanation c : liable to legal review or in case of fault to penalties

2 a : able to answer for one's conduct and obligations b : able to choose for oneself between right and wrong

3: marked by or involving responsibility or accountability

4: politically answerable; especially : required to submit to the electorate if defeated by the legislature

In what exact way are these women responsible for being raped? Do you know the exact details of how and if they were lured by a single man or they did take precautions but were raped nontheless? And what if they indeed behave in an irresponsible way, what does that mean? That "they should have known better"? You mention the child example. How about the victims of an airplane crash accident? Should they have used common sense and take into consideration that airplane accidents happen and therefore should not have boarded an aircraft? Would you call them irresponsible?

@lllKyo - "mind blowing" is the level of fatuity in the video you posted suggesting that the burqa is the solution to the problem and that the defencless should be left to their peril.

Horrible comments.... This scum didn't work alone. He wasn't your average joe who just woke up one morning and said I'm gonna have some fun. He definitely had at least a couple of female "nurses" accompanying the victims to the hotels, a small office...No woman the world over would ever go alone with any unknown man to a hotel for "clinical research". He placed ads asking for volunteers. How many thousands of women replied and from them how many hundrends were raped by this piece of #$%&? I'm sure some women were even extorted to pay him up not to reveal photos or videos to husbands and family and that's how they got him. This is difinitely the work of a gang not just one individual. Nothing is mentioned in the news about any porn producers getting arrested either.

In this case the cane was mightier than the sword and I wonder if we'll see a lengthy trial...

From the costumes I saw:

Best: Great Britain and Colombia

Coolest: Thailand, Ireland and South Africa

Most WOW: Argentina, Finland and the US

Sexiest: Lithuania

Most Borring: Slovenia, Brasil and Israel

Worst: Canada and Dominican Republic

Back from Athens and Rome. In Athens forget about public toilets. Very very few and you don't really want to go there. Stores don't usually let you use their WC. You're trained from childhood to empty yourself completely before you leave the house. We used one in a coffee shop, the mens' was ok because it was early in the morning, the womens' was told it was horrible. Lucky if you could find toilet paper. In our hotel WC was top notch. Rome also has no public WC I could find. You need to go to a restaurant of coffee shop. Sometimes good, sometimes terrible. I didn't use the Vatican WC. The cue was longer than the one for St. Peter's cathedral.

My absolutely worse public WC experience in Japan was at the train station in Mobara/Chiba where the "drop, drop deep tank" was full to the brim and had to battle a cloud of mosquitoes for the few seconds I had to be there. Having said that I have no major complaints about the WCs in Japan. Easily accessible everywhere and most in excellent condition. For those who say they find only dirty ones, they should perhaps start visiting other stations than Shimbashi or the like where sararimen flock. Never found a dirty toilet in any store, restaurant or coffee shop. My only complain is that occasionaly in the "western" WC booths the door is too close to the toilet boul making it extremely difficult to sit down or stand up without hitting your head and to get your clothes proper again. Don't even want to imagine what a sumo wrestler would do in such a tiny booth.

I love Charlie Hebdo. I love their sense of humor and I am offended by those who say it's trash. Do I need to get my kalashnikov and deal with you? Who decides what is offensive and what isn't? Obviously the courts of each country judging by the laws of EACH different country which were placed by the people of that country. If France accepts and allows CH to come out, who are you to say otherwise? Sue them and sue them again to eternity. That's democracy. Just as I respect the laws of S. Arabia and I don't go out in Mekka and shout obscenities against Allah, just as I don't go out in the centre of Bangkok and curse their King, just as I don't throw chewing gum on the streets of Singapore, in exactly the same way I respect the laws of France and everybody else should. You are absolutely free to disagree but just as the "muslims" (which ones exactly of the 23% of world muslim population?) demand respect for their religion, France demands respect for their democracy. Are these terrorists the representatives of the muslims of the world as they are made to be? Obviously not. Anybody, for whatever reason might get offended by something. If a Christian gets offended by the latest joke about president Bush, does that mean that all Christians are offended and therefore Bush is out of bounds? Or perhaps his voters (people he represented and believed in him) should start protesting. One more thing. In Afghanistan, the very first demonstration after the fall of the Taliban was when the US forces handed out football balls with the flags of all the countries of the world. The demonstration, during which 2-3 people were killed if I remember correctly, was because the S. Arabia flag has verses of the quran and therefore the demonstrators were offended because the children would kick that ball. Ignorance and religious fanaticism are offensive and obscene. Unless you want all of us to abide by the shariah laws. What if some muslims come out and say that they find the Christian depiction of god, which is the same god with Islam, offensive and demand that all churches around the world remove any images of god? Should the rest of the world yield? Where would this stop?

How short-sighted to see “Je suis Charlie” as only about freedom of expression. It's a symbol against intolerance, religious fanatism and terrorism. It's all about freedom, democracy and respect to the victims and their ideas of "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité". So, I have absolutely no reservations to say “Je suis Charlie”. I wonder what those who agree with J-M Le Pen and say "Je ne suis pas Charlie" are for. And how about JT? Will we ever hear if JT is "Charlie"?

Apparently one more posting is necessary as obviously some here are too opinionated... Putting aside the "gaijin" that "atarimae" don't understand the language therefore their opinion is "not worth listening" (then why do you reply to them?) I posted that among Japanese viewers "only 8% really find the J-TV interesting. 32% are towards finding it interesting and the overwhelming 60% find the J-TV little or not interesting at all (10% hate it)." In other words 92% of the Japanese find their own TV of average or bad quality. "afanofjapan" admits that "TV in general is mindless crap" but has issues if someone says so. "ebisen" has difficulty to understand that the existence of a few good documentaries does not mean the J.-TV as a whole is good. "Disco" keeps repeating the same mantra without proving us that his/her Japanese is good enough to form an opposite opinion. People keep telling him "we understand Japanese perfectly well" but somehow it doesn't register. To him/her Japanese TV is full of unique philosophical ideas that only a native Japanese could understand and therefore no "gaijin" should ever say anything. It's extremely difficult to understand the "concept" of tarento going to a restaurant eating food and yelling "oishii", every day on every channel. Only he can understand and appreciate. Enough with this. Keep watching!!! Have a good one everybody.

One final posting from me with some food for thought. Found on the net that only 28% of the Japanese, who obviously don't have any "language or cultural problems" really like their TV, 46% are inclined to like it, 20% are inclined to not like it and about 5% don't like it at all. On the other hand only 8% really find the J-TV interesting. 32% are towards finding it interesting and the overwhelming 60% find the J-TV little or not interesting at all (10% hate it).

DiscoJ, apparently you are confusing TV with Radio. You don't need to understand the language to form an oppinion whether a program is boring or fun to watch. If the acting is horrible or great. If the director has done a good job or not. If the music, the costumes, the plot and many many other things are of good guality. I enjoyed so much a music show on Indonesian TV and a game show for teenagers on Taiwan TV even though I couldn't understand the language. Excelent rhythm, presentation, director and decoration. Overall great fun to watch. When 10 of the 20 minutes of a Japanese drama is close-ups and the rest are shot in a house or school this should tell you how cheap the production is. If different actors perform in exactly the same way in every drama (and yes, my Japanese is enough to understand drama language) then obviously there are issues with quality. Two "commedians" standing on a stage doing nothing else except talking and constantly hitting each other on the head could be hilarious to you but to me it's RADIO. Not TV. Somebody out there is very confused. You and a few others presuppose none of us visiting here understand good enough Japanese to enjoy J-TV or we have cultural issues. You're wrong.