Uehara comments

When the "You-machine" wants to take over the "You-human", and eventually succeeds.

It's only obvious that one should care about their elders and their younglings. But unfortunately people are so desperatedly busy trying to make "a life of their own" that they don't really think twice to do something really dumb.

And the worst part is that we, the poor peasants, can't do anything, about it since anything would be illegal, because that's how society works right.

"Sacrifice the present in the name of the future!"

Then, when you are old and lonely, you can have your incredible future with 80.000-120.000JPY a month as retirement! What a bless!

It's really easy to spot people willing to suicide online. The internet brought people really close together, no matter if you are living in Shizuoka, Kyoto, Yokohama or Neverland. Be it on social-medias, forums, communities or even arbitrary chat, things are really easier nowadays.

Pick a place, go together and die. Dying is so much easier than living, especially when you are feeling recluse from this Perfect-ish society and suddenly you find some people who are going through the same problems that you are... And they are willing to do something really extreme to make it stop.

And nowadays living is not really so charming, right? I mean, working 12-18 hours a day every day on the week to receive a mediocre paycheck to live a life-- that you wont live at all (you are working 12-18 hours everyday right?).

One way or another you aren't going to live. The difference is basically the time you'll spend suffering.

Pessimistic as it may be. It's the reality of a big share of people around Japan.

Be it...

Japanese with their responsibilities towards society;

Foreigners with their lame jobs and salaries;

Young people are seen as useless and lazy;

Middle-aged people are seen as losers with a bad job (and if they do quit, their bosses are really straight forward telling that they won't find any other job at their age);

Old people with their loneliness and emotional emptiness.

more than 17% said they couldn't get promoted because they were foreign.

That's a good number "more than 17%" so it's somewhere near 18 up to 100, an average of 59%, still, a surprisingly small percentage.

long hours, low pay and the power harassment of underlings

Well that's awkward..

This describes exactly what it means work in Japan, doesn't it?

Or am I the unlucky one that worked in about seven corporations and in every single one of them, all of these "traits" were basically a company motto.

Well, i just remembered the first year i was in Japan, i was at a real estate and i was looking through some apartments, since i had no Japanese conversational/writing/reading skills whatsoever i had to stick with the cheaper ones, then, i found a cozy one 1LDK near a convenience store and was quite cheap. But the agent insisted "外国人だめ".

Too early for April Fools' i guess-- right?

"Just like always, working overtime at Sunday."

Unfortunately, this, exemplifies accurately Japan nowadays.

Well, that's odd, I find it hard to surpass the 2M barrier. rofl

With less than 180.000 a month without any kind of bonuses adding to that, i find it quite easy to survive. But i don't feel bad about it since-

I can eat sort of properly. Plus going out to cheap popular restaurants once or twice a month.

I can get dressed on cold/hot weathers. (gotta love shimamura rofl)

I can have a bike (although i can't use my phones while pedaling :sigh:)

I can pay my rent and bills.

I can get a little sick about once a year and my budget won't be hurt so badly.

Well, that's not a fancy lifestyle, but, it is quite nice.

But what i do feel bad about is that- it's not peaceful as i thought it would be.

I can't get to a gym (it seems that there aren't any around here in Shizuoka-Fukuroi)

I can't get a good night of sleep. (It seems that all the corporations around love to make the employees to work over 10+ hours a day)

I can't socialize. Since i'm not japanese (born-in-japan), and my japanese (language) is remarkably awful. Seems im not quite the sharpest tool in the shed on any friendlist.

But with all the problems, Japan is a nice place to live. Even without money.

(Although the corporate-guys are always trying to take all the peace away with their Zangyo-loving policy)

Perhaps we shouldn't blame the consequences, but, try and find the source of the problems.

Why do these "elderly" keep driving?

I've been in Japan for quite a time and i've seen lots of things, i've always found easier to speak with elder people, they tend to be much more friendly.

I've seen cases where a octagenarian were put out of her house by her son and his fiancée, and she was left living inside a 15sqm house in the garden without AC or a proper bathroom. Her son argued "Since father is gone You've been here by yourself, you don't need a house that big anyways.".

And she felt happy, because she was going to live once again with her son nearby. She hasn't even talked to him since he left to Tokyo a few decades ago.

But even now, he doesn't speak to her, neither his fiancée. So everyday she picks up her little car and drive to the park, feeding the birds and talking to strangers out of loneliness.

She told me her story with teary eyes and since that day i feel very uneasy when people mistreat the elderly.

The government should treat them right. But it won't work if their kids doesn't do the same.

People keep mistaking this limit of "65 hour a month" with "65 effective hours a month".

How nice their lives must be... To think that no one would ever do 65 hours overtime.

As a matter of fact it is 160 a month [40 a week] plus 65. Which means about 3 hours overtime a day, which is quite low for nowadays standards. Me? Zettai teiji. Never been bothered by threats.

I always believed that if a day has 24 hours. 8 is used to work, 8 for basic needs [sleep eat drink and bath] and 8 for whatever you want. This is the balance. It's not quite possible to achieve it, but, you can get very close to it.

May not be profitable but it's quite fun, as long as I don't have any Fancy plans for the future. Well i dont need them, Japan is quite a nice country to wander around anyways.

We live in an age, an awkward era that there are smartphones, smartTVs, smartCars and even smartHouses, yet, some people aren't smart enough to learn how to live without all of it, giving reason to some smartAss to come and mock.

- What a time to be alive.

The same with dating websites. I can't blame them, pity is the only thing that comes to me.

People doesn't want marriage nowadays, too much work, too much things to do and very little to share.

And yet, some of them manage to get married, just to go after websites like this afterwards, it seems. I won't say everyone, but, well, 40 million users is a quite high number, less people died from HIV AIDS.

And to think that all of this could be arranged by communicating with your pair, on a regular basis.

If there were more communication, i'm pretty sure websites like this would not be just useless, but, senseless as well.

That's the reason why many people opt to stay single-- forever.

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. What happens in the Battlefield, stays in the Battlefield.

People should really try to move along from the past. Mistakes are made and we must learn from them instead of living them for the rest of our lives...

If we were to blame every-single-thing into everything that already happened in history, we would spend all our lives mourning and blaming one another. People should learn to forgive, heartily.

They should have questioned the boar before killing it! There wasn't any proof it was the same boar, you damn oppressors!

rofl,

The boy’s father, interviewed by Japanese media, said: “I knew that my son had been subjected to bullying at school, but I didn’t know it was so bad that it would lead to something like this.”

Well, i can't say that i didn't saw this coming. When it comes to Japan, there's always the idea that bullying has a good side. That it has the child to stand up for himself.

I understand that everyone have to "man-up", but there are many other ways of doing it, but, let me share my story, in my case, my father put me to work with him at the family's store since i was eleven. He'd give me a bigger allowance for every day i worked there, i've understood since then, that i had to work in order to get anything i want.

They started to bully me because i was able to buy expensive bentos with the money provenient of my so-called "big-monthly- allowance" of ¥25.000, back there it was a LOT, till some of them, with their parents, saw me working at the store, picking crates and products, stacking them on the shelves, cleaning the floor..

Since then, bullying no more. Work works. Least it did for me.

Of course, it's just an option i've wanted to share, pretty sure there are many aspects that could've make it fail. But, it's a far better option than bullying i guess.