Raj comments

"Raj, Tibet is in China."

Ofcourse, I have been to Tibet. It may be in China but culturally it is unlike China mainland. It is changing with Han chinese moving in and all that mindless out of place development occuring in Tibet, total disgrace....mainland China has no hints of anything religious atleast in public places (other than language and food), they have given up most ancient customs and traditions....even change their names so it becomes easier for others. I do love Chinese people and Beijing, extremely friendly and helpful while I was there and way more relaxed than what I experienced in Japan. If I had learned Chinese language then it would be a blast to travel in China.

This is becoming a problem and a bit unnatural in many countries as the mass tourism destroys the life of the locals and changes the character of the place and the worst and irreversible thing is that it commercializes the entire place and leads to depression once the fad ends at some point. I would say introduce very high prices for foreign tourists at venues e.t.c and also slightly increase prices for Japan residents during different times of the year. This itself will balance the structure of tourism and may drive people to seek out lesser known places. A decent city with a size of Kyoto should not look at tourism as source of revenue nor should it encourage local small businesses towards that. There is no more pilgrimage tourism in Japan or most countries and most people are consumed with their stupid selfies. We keep forgetting most of the places are sacred at some point. I have noticed this in Tibet also.

"I have a boy, but if it was my daughter, and I caught him, I would restrain for at least 30min before calling police, so every person walking past can look at his shameful face as I explain what he did."

Looks like there are perverts everywhere in Japan....I guess this is a bit less worse than rapes in India or killings in US, disgusting mofos. Before the feminists start kicking my nuts.....why do Japanese females (especially kids) wear such short skirts? I agree it is a female's right but there is also risk calculation in doing most things. When there are so many perverts walking around everywhere why not protect yourselves a little bit or carry a weapon to castrate the offender on the spot. It does not seem like a good idea when you have to literally take escalators, stairs and trains everyday. This is a bit different in US where most generally do not have to do that or dress appropriately.

"I always thought it a bit of a shame that Japan assimilated this part of American culture so readily"

Totally agree....mindless generation, true zombies that catch on to all kinds of junk things (twitter, FB, instagram, halloween, valentines and what not). Hello Japan, it is not your festival or anyone's other than marketing folks, go celebrate your own festivals and have some pride.

Enforce the laws as per the oath to US constitution Mr. President. At the same time force US companies to do fair business with Central and Latin American countries. If US is going to treat it like its backyard then it can not treat those countries only from Monroe doctrine bs. Perhaps American companies can be forced to move their manufacturing to Central and Latin America where it makes sense (I still prefer the hightech to stay within the US), in that way these countries see some prosperity and apply sanctions on corrupt leaders in those countries (a bit of hypocrisy on my side considering full degradation of US politics now on all spectrum's).

What a scam the auto navigation business is....tech packages are $3k to $4k addons. 90% of tech is unnecessary, useless and even dangerous (going all screen). Freaking scammers....You buy a 50k car and the navigation is still an addon.....fig that out. Democracies truly seems to have stopped working in the interest of people.

Hard to take anything Canada does seriously, sorry no one cares. Without US and China, it is pointless to begin with.

Some basic manners would be good for slow drivers too....do not block the fast lines even if you are driving at speed limit or 10 over especially in no traffic conditions. Move over to slow lanes (I think it is the law anyway in many countries). Truck drivers need to be disciplined too when they merge, shift lanes, don't text and don't drive in fast lanes (they are generally decent vs car drivers).

"All vehicles need to start getting auto break sensors ASAP, especially large vehicles, which can cause a pileup."

Not just that but all vehicles need to force some distance between them and then autobraking would be safely used. What an unfortunate accident and a what a loss to the country losing future in 3 young lives...can't change destiny I guess as it does not have to be your fault.

Okinawans have spoken consistently and the US being a democracy needs to fig out other options otherwise I am afraid that US wont have a moral right to dictate to other countries in similar situations. I am not sure if the base is as critical as it once used to be with the progress in technology and hypersonic missles coming into picture. It is an easy target for the current China if it comes to that point. I for one do not want to see US spending tons of money on maintaining overseas nuclear bases. Perhaps a smaller foot print can be negotiated with okinawans as that would still act as a deterrent and reduce the tensions with local people preference. The US currently does not have a very strong moral or ethical standing compared to cold war times to dictate to the rest of the world on freedom or democracy. As an American I would like to see a strong America with balanced economy (vs current financial pyramid and service based consumption economy) that has both strong production and consumption aspects and more efficient defense (vs the unsustainable foot print now).

what the heck....don't Japan have their own legends? Whats up with Japan? It is not a big deal but still....most people in the world let alone Japanese probably never heard about this greek legend

Japanese, please protect your language by not encouraging english medium of instruction or transacting in everyday life. It will kill your language in a short period of time and the extended culture before you even realize. It is easy to catch on to not so useful things in life....celebrating valentines day, Halloween, christmas e.t.c in a non native country like Japan. Have you every heard of western stores celebrating any asian festivals in their country? I wonder what will happen to all those english teaching careers that turn into japanophiles first and later on end up commenting on JT how japan does not fit into their mould....AI is real, it is on its way and it is just good enough to solve problems like these.

Divorce is where the true character comes out of both sexes....

Greed to get hold of other person's assets in an unfair manner

Child custody where one parent tries to make it as difficult as possible for the other

Family interference generally in a bad way

Not all couples are like this but there is a pretty good trend across the world. Actually educated ones are the worst I have seen...

While I sympathize, divorce is painful even in the USA and generally the laws are very unfairly enforced against the males. Knowing the risk why do you European descent folks get into a situation by marrying Japanese?

Regarding respecting human rights and treaties and how Japan does not respect, would you like me to list how the champion countries where you come from value them in various circumstances? I am afraid this comment box will not be enough. More than laws and their enforcement my complaint is with people involved and their lack of human empathy. Where is the civility and the best interest of the child?

Why should he, it is not like they have been exactly working with him to solve problems. Trump did bring pressing issues to the table, whether he can execute it to a workable win for all is the question:

Immigration -- something needs to be done, people in congress should not be encouraging people to break our laws. Legal and illegal needs to be addressed once and for all and start enforcing once the lines are drawn very strictly. I am with Trump on this at high-level.

America first: Trade imbalances needs to be corrected with each and every partner that is growing at US expense but he also needs to address the greedy US Inc and twist their arm to get in line. Wage imbalances also needs to be addressed. Trump seems to be only going after one dimension mostly. Stop being an Isreali or Saudi henchman. It is pathetic and disrespectful to every patriotic citizen.

Foreign Wars: US needs to disengage and reduce defense budget by eliminating some bases and save money whereever possible and invest in new R&D. Make the giants explain every $ given to them. Less is more philosophy to avoid the massive corruption. Get rid of blackwater inc e.t.c...in the long term it will eliminate our moral standing (it already did). He is not being allowed to disengage by power circles and congress for politics.

Social Prgrams: No social program in concept should be designed without an incentive to be productive in one's lifetime. The only ones should be the truly unfortunate ones that are not healthy enough to contribute and needs to be supported.

For god's sake hire people that are objective and capable to make decisions in the interest of people and wont think a second to resign if politically pressured

While it is sad and probably negligent, we take it for granted the luxury of A/c's and so on. All it takes is a month of neglect for modern civilization to fall back to desperate conditions. I for one would prefer building some natural tolerance even if you are from developed world. People around the world used to survive decently not long ago without some of these amenities. How is the body going to adapt if you are used to A/c everywhere (cars, offices, home, restaurants e.t.c)?

"I thought Japan was less violent country than others..."

I guess you do not believe in statistics, less violent does not mean zero incidents....percapita sir. Hideous crime....older generations may be correct in that no more than 5 to 7 years gap man vs woman? I am presuming that part of the problems may be due to age differences and what not...

I agree, it's almost a default attack to call someone an "anti-semite" instead of debating the issue. Lot of people got massacred and entire populations have been decimated (native americans, european colonial atrocities, US aggression in Vietnam, Korea, Japanese WW2 crimes, islamic brutalities, isreali crimes and so on) but it seems like Jews do get the privilege (perhaps because they are white or they are just too powerful behind the scenes). It is time to tone it down and be objective before calling someone some thing. It feels like there is no real freedom in the first or second world now a days to debate anything. I blame people for consuming all sorts of nonsense from these 24 hour networks. Get rid of that stupid tv.

The ospreys come for maintenance once in a while in my city in the US and they have a very distinct sound and loud vs an apache or some other helicopter. I would not want to live near a base....it gets tiring day after day but I guess it is necessary and justified in some cases. Japan is too small and don't have the luxury of picking base real estate in every case....I guess they have to deal with it one way or other.

"Why on earth are you ashamed, Raj? Were you seated next to the guy and could have stopped him?"

Because he is carrying US passport and is expected to try and not shame our country. This incident is not something that is unavoidable and I feel sorry for the gentlemen at the receiving end of this man's offence. If not ashamed, should I be proud?

I am ashamed as an American too. I hope this person gets banned from flying for 5 years in non-emergencies (pleasure and work) in addition to serving whatever other punishments for this offence.

"This trading in an endangered species should end. Shameful it's not an issue in the media here."

Agreed, Japanese people seem to think there is an endless supply of marine life. Everything in moderation taught and practiced at an individual level is the only way to live a sustained life. One thing I do like is that there seems to be minimal waste once they murder a living thing....seems like they eat pretty much every thing vs some other cultures.

Those complaining about smallness of Japanese housing in Tokyo, I am always disgusted at how wasteful people in west are in their lifestyles (water to keep their lawns in green, every little space occupied by some junk, big automobiles, food wastage and so on). In general they have no respect for what they take out of nature and having a recycle bin makes them feel great and exporting their trash to other countries seems to be their right. Japan does not have much space and prone to disasters, it is a miracle that they do what they do. In America, the mighty Colorado river does not even reach the ocean anymore. USA is a beautiful country but people need to get over their obsession of living their life jumbo sized. This is nothing but robbery of the future generations at grand scale and sounds like China and India also want to follow this unsustainable model.

How about India, people there seems to think relieving themselves anywhere and everywhere seems to be their god given birth right (men mostly).

It has the potential to look good as a classic in 12 to 15 years.

This is pure hypocrisy with respect to commentators that are passionately passing judgement about democracy and what not....Japan would be much more harsh if some foreigner interferes in their affairs (right or wrong). We all know how US is making a big deal about some stupid ads (unproven) on FB/Twitter that no one cares to influence the legitimate victory of Trump. No one likes some one else to iterfere in their affairs (family to friends to countries). I am not a fan of China or detest most of what communism offers but do not try to ride your sky high moral horse, it really looks stupid. I have hard time now a days to seperate communism and socialism and capitalism. While US or Japan are more free compared to other countries, you will only know the full power of system and its unfairness/helplessness/hopelessness towards the little man when you have an unfortunate chance of running into trouble with the system. Also being taxed to death so they can support lazy ass segments of society like in US or Europe is also not capitalist character. Captitalism is supposed to generate motivation through the light handedness of government involvement.

The people have given Mr. Trump 4 years and it is his discretion to set a foreign policy. I think he is acting reasonably well in general US interests. I wish he would try not to be an Israeli or Saudi dog and stop rallying for war with Iran. He should instead capitalize and sell US business deals to Iran and profit from it and outdo Russia, China and EU. In other words put US interests first....I would prefer competition over confrontation with a major nuclear power. The US culture has a great edge over any other country in terms of prolific innovation, creativity and business acumen. No reason for US to bully or use big stick all the time. Only idiots use violence to achieve goals (it should be last resort and use with extreme caution). Also stop throwing sanctions at everyone, sooner or later it will have no punch and puts dollar under threat. Our media will and should be marginalized as long as we as a country think objectively and issue based rather than ideology or feel good factors.

Japan is way better in crime stats than the nuts randomly shooting up people in US. We Americans do have issues, drugs everywhere, cities totally unsafe once it gets dark, mindless aggressive behavior (fights occur so frequently now a days even on flights) and mindless shooting murders. Japan is not perfect but it has it way better. Fair is fair....they do seem to have society induced isolation that eventually leads to random acts. Good parenting, common sense laws, reasonable teachers and work life balance e.t.c are the only measures to minimize or prevent these incidents.

Japanese cars are generally very good overall and efficient. German cars are hyped up and cost an arm and leg over time (recent ones). I call German engineering BS and they absolutely suck at UI and software development (all European software...SAP is an example). Japan seems to have a problem with competing with Germans in sports luxury segment (old man's Lexus wont cut it). Germans do have M3, S4, RS4 e.t.c. WRX is a great value in budget performance but it is showing its age. I do not like anything Detroit pumps out in general....hideous cadillac and ridiculous and wasteful trucks. Ford RS is good though....Japan and US needs to get into M3 and S4, RS4 segments....instead of tariffs, I hope Detroit steps up quality in both design and materials and compete with Japan and Germany.

I am an American of Indian descent and I support Trump on this issue, it is about time for US now or never. At least he is getting it some attention but its a whole different thing whether he has the full strategy to wage and win the tariff war where it is fair to allies and us. Our congress is sold out and so is the media and people are getting dumber and dumber as they do not objectively discuss anything good or bad except to protest and profit aimlessly for small politics.