proplrhed comments

Y'know, there are ways to deal with this...

19th century way: send diplomatic letters, stamped in vermillion, to beg for understanding and goodwill from the bureaucracy in the hope that the people will listen.

21st century way: engage in active anti-disinformation campaigns in the digital world. We all know the reason that people are freaking out in Korea and the Chinese world is that aunties and uncles love to forward memes of questionable scientific accuracy to each other. Like Taiwan did with covid, create some equally shareable memes with good information so they can do their thing.

Japan is two centuries behind and needs to catch up!

Eh, I was just at a baseball game last week and there were plenty of male beer/drink sellers, mostly college students just doing a fun part-time job. The ratio was definitely not 100:1 ... where was the fact-checking?

Please no

Wait till he tries to apply for a bank loan or other credit-sensitive service. He will quickly find out that even if he intends to invest his life in Japan, many institutions won't recognize that.

Yeasts are not bacteria.

Nicely said livvy :)

Nice photos from the archives, very illustrative and entertaining.

Why are empty-homes taxes so trendy among local governments these days?

It hasn't helped people get housing in Vancouver,

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/taxing-rich-peoples-empty-homes-isn-t-helping-the-housing-crisis-1.1640831

But the thing with these kinds of taxes is that they are so slow to produce an effect that they will surely lag behind changes in housing market supply and demand the housing markets. And no one has data on the chilling effects that these taxes produce. Investing in Kyoto just got marginally less attractive across the board but how do you tie that to the specific tax...

These are pretty bad deals compared to the cards available in the U.S. It would seem that the credit card market is less competitive in Japan, despite users' propensity to thoroughly research card benefits before applying.

Batteries degrade quickly when they're left in hot sunny places. These kinds of integrated solar rechargeable lights become junk in a few years for that reason.

Except it's not pronounced bai-den, it's pronounced bee-den. 美田

Did he have to pay ~50,000 yen for his pre-departure covid test or did we (taxpayers) cover that?

"The four countries and Taiwan"

Wow, just wow.

New Zealand recorded no new cases of coronavirus for a 11th consecutive day on Tuesday, and has just one active case in the country.

Meanwhile, Taiwan has had no domestic transmission for 50 days. And Japan still restricts travel from Taiwan.

Per: http://www.staralliance.com/en/round-the-world?view=tc/

Please note that the Special Economy and Special Business Round the World Fares are not offered for travel originating in Japan.