poppler comments

I guess Im in the minority. I always choose the squat toilets when I have a choice. Even when I have to use a western toilet, I hover over it to do my duty. No way Im touching that thing. At home, I prefer to sit down.

@browny1

An experienced construction worker makes at least 15,000 yen per day. They make over 4 million a year. Even the "illegal" worker in the article is making 3 million.

construction and hard labour type job command higher wages in most first world countries

Your assumption seems to be incorrect. I checked the average salaries for construction workers in Japan, Australia, and the US. There isn't a huge difference. The average is near $40,000 USD for all three countries. Although the pay isn't great, it's still quite a bit better than working a McDonalds.

There was a special mention for drivers over 70 years old. They were told to be careful when driving (that's all!). The whole thing reminded me of a junior high school principal's lecture. Half of the lecture was just statistics from 2015. In Chiba last year there were 800 people killed in traffic accidents

You should be glad there wasn't a test on the lecture because you would've failed miserably! Those over 70 years old have to take a driving test to renew a license and Chiba's traffic deaths last year was waaaay below 800.

I'm pretty sure when they say "unskilled workers", they're talking about blue collar workers such as those in the construction or farming. There's a severe shortage of those type of workers and stay-at-home moms are not gonna fill it.

@Novenachama

Instead of [almost] cutting & pasting, next time just post the link to the article, lol.

@igloobuyer

I'm not claiming that Japan has better safety records than the US (because I don't know) but your stats don't prove anything. Your stats compares construction worker death rates to other sectors in that same country. The other sectors in the US, such as cops, soldiers, convenience store workers, etc., have much higher fatality rates than their Japanese counterparts. That's going to lower the the overall representation for construction workers. Do you have any stats comparing construction worker fatality rates between various countries?

wearing sneakers and construction tabi (i.e., no toe protection).

How do you know that? Many sneakers and tabi have toe protection.

@cleo Does your husband call himself Jack? That's very different from calling himself grandpa.

I just learned that young people call themselves by their own name recently. We hired a 15 year old girl to help around the office and she'll say, "Jessica's going to the conbini." It sounds strange to my ears.

I am curious if anyone who has been a part of paying this fee has ever been able to cancel that payment. I have never heard that anyone has.

Same with cleo. I cancelled when they switched over to digital.

Japan accepted six refugees during the year, down from 18 in the previous year.

This doesn't tell the whole story. In past years, about a quarter of the applicants received a visa on humanitarian grounds. These people didn't meet all the requirements to be officially recognized as refugees but they basically are refugees.

Japan is indeed no longer a safety country.

Yeah, because someone stealing toilet paper makes me feel so unsafe.

Imagine the top crime story in Chicago or Rio de Janeiro was toilet paper theft, lol.

Everyone at my company got a 5 to 10 percent raise in January.

Aeon’s method is the same as most merchants in Japan. As the cashier rings up the items, if any are age-restricted, a message pops up on the touch panel monitor

Does this guy only buy beer at convenience stores? Out of all the supermarkets I regularly go to (seiyu, yaoko, OK, ito yokado, belc, tobu store, iida, hanamasa, etc) none of them requires any action from the customer when buying alcohol.

It might be interesting to go to costco once in a while but it's definitely not a money-saver for me. The last time I went there, I bought a few things that lasted two years. The savings were minimal compared to the local shops and it definitely isn't worth 8000 yen in membership fees & transportation costs.

I did have a bulgogi bake and it was okay.

I wonder if they bowed and thanked each other after the transaction.

I had food delivered from Gusto the other day and they were 15 minutes late and forgot the salad dressing. Not only did they offer to give me the food for free, but he was going to go back and get the dressing. I took the free food but told him to forget about the dressing.

In America, I've had pizza and Chinese places completely forget about my order until I called them a couple of hours later. I just got a "We're sorry" or "Why didn't you call us earlier?" and that's it. US businesses do not try to proactively make up for their mistakes. They just wait until someone sues them.

Am I the only one who thought we had a mild summer this year in Tokyo? I barely used the a/c this month.

For those who say the customer service is not flexible, can you give a specific example? I'm curious if the problem is with the service or the customer.

The article doesn't say that the 48 year old was living with the father. And even if he was, it doesn't mean he's moving out because he got married.

The 48 year old probably wanted to get married but he was chronically shy and couldn't meet women. He was the real life 40-year-old-virgin. I don't see a problem with the father helping him out. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who chooses to be single and parents should butt out of their personal lives.

helmets, seatbelts, sunscreen, shoes = optional

lights, eyeglasses, insurance, not driving drunk = mandatory

Let's hope other prefectures don't follow Ehime's lead. I support requiring lights at night because it makes the roads safer for other people. Helmets only protect the rider. It shouldn't be mandatory. Let the adult rider decide for themselves.

I never understood why people think bicyclists should use the road instead of the sidewalk. A car hitting a bicyclist will cause much more harm than a bicyclist hitting a pedestrian. This is coming from someone who doesn't even own a bicycle and walk everywhere. I have no problem with bicycles on sidewalks.

I was in the food court the other day sitting next to a Chinese lady. She startled me when she started yelling to her child, who was on the other side of the food court. I thought there was some emergency or something but she was just telling him that his dad was going to be a little late. I guess that's not as bad as peeing at the table.

I think all fat policemen should be retested and sent back to training until they're skinny. We can't have fat people in uniform.

I agree with you 100%. Policemen, firefighters, and soldiers should be in decent shape. The fat ones need to get in shape or find a more suitable profession for themselves.

but to have a full 200+lbs on your back forcing you into a hard ground FOR 20 MINUTES is a lot of load for any normal person

You misread the article. It took them 20 minutes to get her on the ground. It doesn't say how long the guy was on her back.

Yeah, this is place is safe alright.

Are you kidding? The fact that this is the top crime of the day shows how safe it is. The other top crimes involves fake money, underage prostitution, and shoplifting. Yeah, this place is safe alright.

If she's unconscious I'm sure she suffered some serious brain damage. She'll never recover from this. The worst suicides are the failed ones that causes permanent damage to your body. This is what suicidal people fear the most. The humane thing to do is to let her die.

Chromebooks are the easiest to use and most secure computers out there. It's perfect for "grandmas" and others who don't do much with their computers. I don't recommend the Pixel but the $250 Chromebooks are perfect for many of my relatives. I want a Pixel for myself when the price drops.

This happened YESTERDAY in Saitama. It was not 18 degrees or 22 degrees. It was 14 degrees.

Hotmail worked fine with POP3 or IMAP in Outlook 2000-2010.

Hotmail doesnt support imap. Neither does outlook.com. Neither does Yahoo. It's one of the reasons I switched to gmail several years ago.