wbyeats1989 comments

Jenkins' book says Soga was not listed as an abductee by Japan. He claims the Japanese were surprised when the North Koreans told them about Soga. He also gives a version of how he met Soga that differs from your claim that it was through teaching English.

After a year in the UK I got used to smoke-free bars and restaurants and haven't been back to an izakaya since. The restaurant and coffee shop owners who oppose the ban are too focused on losing smoking customers. The fact is there are lots of people like me who will come back when they put the smoking ban in place.

Rather than lashing out, Japan should be pressing for a commemoration of the war's end held jointly by China, South Korea AND Japan, as part of a greater move towards national reconciliation. Remember the iconic photo of Germany's Helmut Kohl and France's Francois Mitterand holding hands in 1984? Just imagine how powerful a photo of Xi, Park and Abe, hand-in-hand, could be...

@timtak I had this guy marked down as a clown, but your take on it is intriguing. I'm not convinced, but you make a good point. They will definitely tighten up the rules after this incident (though it may turn out to be a cosmetic measure), so if that was his intention all along, he is a mad genius.

If not, with the Obokata STAP paper debacle, Tokyo assembly and Diet sexist jeers, and now this, accountability and maturity would seem to be sorely lacking here.

Generally safer and fairly honest here in terms of lost goods being returned, with a wealth of anecdotal evidence of incidences of the opposite, as we see here. Here's one more: A good few years ago I found a solid gold bracelet on the street and handed it in to my local koban. Six months to the day later, I dropped in to ask if it had been claimed. "Yes," they said, after checking the records. "When?" I asked. "Ehm, yesterday," they said.

Hmmm...