suomitheway comments

Well, I suppose the solution is to take up Japanese citizenship... though that would entail a different set of problems.

If you're going to live in Japan for 30+ years like some posters here, you might as well.

However, the ideal solution is dual citizenship between Japan and other smart, trustworthy countries.

The last time I remember something like this was when General Amin of Uganda expelled all the Indians and grabbed their wealth on the way out. They were only 80,000 but Britain accepted them.

Thankfully, or else the world would have been deprived of the great talents of Freddie Mercury.

Lots of respect to Britain for what they are doing for their former colony. I hope Japan can be just as generous to the Taiwanese when China invades Taiwan.

Because the small island of Okinawa has the greatest burden of American troops. More should be located on the mainland.

Is there a reason a base wasn't built on a sparsely inhabited island like Tsushima?

My daughter said to the restaurant manager that she was mixed and a Japanese citizen his face turned pale and said then we have no choice but to let you in but not the 2 gaijins, not sorry no choice by law and they did not like the idea.

I'm sorry this happened to you antiquesaving. I have said this for a long time but I think the change in attitudes has to start from the top. This is why I have long advocated for a visible member of the royal family to marry a non-Japanese similar to how Prince Harry marrying Meghan Markle helped changed British opinions. A hafu member of Japanese royalty will advance the cause I think.

Beware the Ides of March.

There’s only one way and that is the CCP way...

There is no spoon...

Just building and making hospitals will not solve the problem, as already stated somewhere above, there's a shortage of medical personnel.

One of the great advantages to building a new hospital in the year 2020 is that you can build a "smart hospital" that utilizes advanced information technologies, artificial intelligence, robotics, tele-surgery, 3-D printing, drone delivery facilities, etc. to help alleviate personnel and equipment shortages. These are the things companies like Softbank and Sony and Toyota should be working on.

Also, in an emergency, medical personnel can always be flown in from other regions and even other countries but it is very difficult for the medical infrastructure to scale up overnight.

I am really worried about cities like Tokyo not being prepared for the upcoming great Kanto earthquake.

It shows Japan needs to build more public Hospital. Japanese Government needs to spend more money on public health than before.

Japan needs to build a large, super-hospital on the old Tsukiji Fish Market site and make the emergency room accessible by water to water taxis and water ambulances.

Japan needs to buy a used shipping tanker and repurpose it into a floating hospital and natural disaster ship. Build a large superstructure hospital above deck and store emergency supplies below deck.

These two things need to be done not just for pandemics but also for the upcoming great Kanto earthquake that the experts are predicting.

And still they want to keep their narrative to be the most clean and unique in the whole planet.

I don't know about the whole planet but I have been all over the world and Japan is definitely the cleanest country among countries with over 100 million people, by far.

Why is Japan not blowing up with deaths like New York or elsewhere? Look forward to that question JT.

Japan and the Nordic countries have similar assets in a pandemic including strong sense of personal space and hygiene, relative geographic isolation, reluctance to hug and kiss strangers, taking shoes off indoors, slender builds, a diet rich in fish and in Japan's case, no shaking hands and no stigma in wearing face masks.

Also, the Korean travel boycott to Japan ironically probably saved Japanese lives.

My question, though, is why was Iran struck so hard and so fast considering Japan gets more Chinese tourists than Iran.

Get well soon, Mr. Prime Minister.

well yeah, when youre never told of the atrocities, scheming, and corruption that has plagued your history you probably would be proud of it.

You would be surprised at how many English people are unaware and not taught of the atrocities they committed against the Irish.

And Abe san is endangering Japan's future generation because Japanese youths do not know why all of Japan's neighbors hate Japan and wouldn't hesitate to turn to wars to settle past scores whenever opportunity comes.

I'm pretty sure the whole world hates China right now, not Japan.

Another thing to consider is that most Olympic venues tend to be smaller than football stadiums so flooding the venue with UV-C light at certain intervals or allowing spectators that can only show they were negative from covid testing to be allowed in could work. The city could also use the extra time of postponement to build a large quarantine center maybe at the old Tsukiji fish market.

If they postpone American collegiate and professional football in addition to European football, broadcasters and advertisers like NBC might be open to have the olympic games in october because people will be so starved for sports.

Does UV-C have to be stationary to be effective? Can they attach it to a roomba or a drone?

If they can use these to clean planes, cruise ships and trains that would be great!

In difficult times like this is even more important to meet and discuss issues and how to handle them.

The problem is that a lot of resources, energy and political attention needed to handle the virus will be redirected towards Xi's visit. It also doesn't look good for either leader if they are having a party while people are dying.

Help the Chinese people but don't give political cover to Xi or the communist party for their incompetence and bungling of the situation.

In the future, Japanese government should buy a used tanker/cargo ship and convert it into a large hospital/quarantine/natural disaster shelter ship and keep it in Tokyo Bay ready to be deployed at moments notice.

I attribute part of that to social factors like not much talking, physical contact.

Good point. Japanese are hypochondriacs by nature and have always practiced cleanliness in daily living. In fact, if I am not mistaken, Japanese started the surgical mask wearing trend decades ago before anyone else.

If this pandemic isn't solved by August, the world will be in a nasty great depression and we will have more things to worry about than a virus with a low mortality rate.

What about Okinawa? Didn't the cruise ship stop there first? Is it because Hokkaido is very cold and the virus loves the cold?

Despite all the drama, Japan still has less deaths than Italy or Iran, so that is comforting and also a little strange.

The poster claimed that "endless meetings" and "nobody wants to take responsibility" are uniquely Japanese.

I am saying otherwise. In fact endless meetings and consensus-driven decision making is very common in Nordic countries, too.

In all, it took Japanese officials more than 72 hours to impose a lockdown after they were first notified about the case connected to the ship." Nobody with the power to make a decision. Nobody wants to take responsibility. Endless meetings. The Japanese way.

Watch the tv series Chernobyl and get back to us about the "Japanese way".

i am disturbed that Japan didn't have a quarantine center ready and built as part of the preparation for the olympics. in the future, the government needs to do 2 things:

1) create a Japanese version of the CDC

2) find a couple of isolated islands with runways like Mage Island or Iwo Jima and build quarantine and emergency supply centers there.

Quarantine didn't work for the dinosaurs either in Jurassic Park because of something called Chaos Theory.

Maybe it'll be like being arrested - each new case will bring an additonal 14 days of quarantine, whether you're sick or not.

Welcome to the Hotel California...

How are foreign health care workers going to communicate with their patients if they can't speak Japanese or read prescriptions? As for agriculture and construction, I think AI and automation can help alleviate some problems with labor shortages.