zentraedi comments

Ah yes, let's blame a big faceless entity. That's an easy way to shrug off responsibility.

What a coward.

Uemura’s grandmother told her that there was a god of beauty living in the toilet and that if she cleaned the toilet carefully, she too would grow up to be beautiful.

I find the grandmother to be morally reprehensible. She just makes up lies in order to manipulate others into serving them. I've seen quite a few women here try to pull that. Sorry, I don't care about that Kami-Sama you just made up. I'll do the job based on honest and logical reasons... ...or we can have it your way, "There's a Kami-sama that brings good luck when you give money to foreigners. 10,000 yen notes especially make Kami-sama happy!"

Doesn't change the fact that it's still Western New Year.

French bread is still french bread, even if you eat it in Japan.

It's also the Japanese New Year..:)

Not really. The traditional New Year, will fall on the 3rd of February, 2011 though. ;)

Wow, so many people here rushing to celebrate the Western New Year.

Point of order: The real, official name is "Côte d'Ivoire", for all languages using roman characters.

You wouldn't go around referring to Australia as, "Kangarooland" in this type of article, would you?

Clapping upon landing? Really?

LOL, that's such a Filipino thing. That happens every single time I land in Manila. Yes, even when it comes to short domestic hops.

Don't expect to find any hotties there. Was watching this on TV the other night with my girlfriend. After they introduced the girls, we were both like "ブス、ブス、ブス".

She then asked me if the girls were actually supposed to be attractive at Hooters in the US.

This "flexible" thing might depend on the person asking. Seriously, my girlfriend asks for 割引 EVERYWHERE and sometimes gets it at places you would never imagine, such a Bic Camera. It's a lot easier to say no to some random foreigner than a super pushy and aggressive local.

Anyway, one thing I really appreciate is the quick service you can get in China. Every thing is just BAM, next customer, BAM, next customer.... That is until a Japanese national comes along and gets all picky, and takes 5 min just to pull money out of their wallet.

Unlike Starbucks much of the staff at these two places are "seishain" and care about their jobs and regular customers.

Nail on the head. Huge difference between mindless バイト work and 正社員.

borscht,

Nope. Windows is the formal name and those are normally butchered in every language, using the local phonetic equivalents. Seven is just a version number. They wouldn't say Linux kernel 2.6.32 with the version number Japanese.

I'm not so upset the service industry workers as I am appalled by the customers. I've Japanese customers rant and berate service staff for the tiniest mistakes--in fact ESPECIALLY for tiniest mistakes. Even with when they are at completely fault, they seem to get their way.

There have a few times when my girlfriend has messed up or broken sometime I purchased. As it was her fault, I'd expect her to pay. Instead, she tells me "Take it back to the store and get a replacement". Huh? They weren't at fault. "OK, then I'll do it." And she does get the replacement--for free. WTF?

OMG, this annoys the hell out of me. It's not so bad with average Japanese speaker, just people who think they're in "cool" industries.

For example, my girlfriend is in fashion industry and whenever we go into a high end boutique, more than half of the words that come out of her mouth are katakana English. It's just so bizarre. She thinks it's cool and uses the excuse "this is how people in the industry speak". Well, my response is that it doesn't seem cool or fashionable at all. My impression is that I'm hearing either deaf or mentally handicapped English speakers.

If you're gonna throw English words to look cool or worldly, why go half-assed about it, butchering the pronunciation?

Happens in the computer world all the time too. Try saying "uindozu nana", those snide sales staff will correct you saying "uindozu seh-bin". Oh you mean "seven"? If you're gonna pull that crap, then actually say "seven"...

Very sad, why they have to kill their children is unknown to me. Shows to me a self centered immature women.

Well, what do you expect? That sort of thing is seen as desirable by the majority of men here. If that weren't the case, there would probably be fewer parents raising their daughters like that and more women realizing they need to grow up if they want a decent man.

"No! Drugs."

Wait, so you want drugs?

I wish the taxis everywhere were like New York. Touchscreen computers with the weather, GPS maps and TV, plus several payment options.

Before work starts, be explicit on what everyone's responsibilities are and how to do them. If someone has to answer the phone, then yes that someone might have to be you. Making duties clear beforehand would surely smooth things out rather than give the appearance of being bossed around on the spot.

This would be nice. Seems like at quite a few places here bosses are somehow averse to giving proper orientation and would much rather get their jollies from watching subordinates fumble about in the dark.

Now, I would agree that asking "why?" is sort of back talk, but in Japan, asking "how?" is also taken the same way. That's what's absurd.

I would think upper management should hold these middle management types responsible for their poor communication skills.

Many of you are approaching this from a non-sensical standpoint. Japan is a sovereign nation and doesn't have to respect the laws of other countries. The real problem is reciprocity. Japan shouldn't expect to have things only one way. Take for a example the recent case of a Czech father taking his half Japanese child out Japan against the wishes of the mother. The Japanese side deserves no sympathy if they're not willing to deal in the reverse situation. Holding them to their own standards, is the only way you get them to question their position.

When someone kidnaps a person from Japan, Japan should only expect the cooperation of the destination country if Japan would cooperate in the reverse case.

Neither one as they both suck. There just isn't an American carrier worth a damn, so they really need to find a different way to survive.

And just how else do you expect them to serve the US and all the little towns scattered about the country? Hundreds of direct flights from Japan? Single flights from Japan with extensions that stop in hundreds of cities throughout the US?

This isn't about American or Delta taking over JAL. It's a partnership to link their respective markets and provide their customers with better worldwide intra-alliance flight options.

Thai Airways, Singapore Airways, Cathay Pacific....any Asian airlines which still value the customers and care for them. No US airlines please.

What are you talking about? This isn't a merger. This is about a partnership to deal with Japan-US traffic. The US partner would feed passengers into JAL asian network and JAL would deliver passengers to their US partner's network.

How would partnering with Thai Airways, Singapore Airways or Cathay Pacific help serve US destinations? Huh? How are they going to help JAL get to places like Memphis or Portland? What about the huge market originating from the US to Asia? What? People will fly US-->Singapore-->Japan-->Japan Domestic?. Yeah, right.

It seems like you're not too familiar with the concept of airline alliances.

If I read this agreement correctly, it means U.S. carriers are able to service additional routes between any city in Japan and off-shore. Great..one of the biggest draw-backs is flying to Fukuoka from any point in the U.S.

No one cares about this. If the airlines can't make US-KIX or US-NGO work, what makes you think they'll add US-FUK? All they want are access to NRT and HND.

We have our own path to follow. We wish to be peaceful members of the world community in harmony with all.

Oh the irony! That was the path forced up on Japan by GHQ.

It is over and America has to understand invading a country does not give it unlimited privileges.

The US knows that perfectly well. It's Japan that needs to learn to stand up for itself and learn to play the game of international politics.

Again we do not wish to be a warlike nation ever again.

Really? Seems like quite a few uyoku would like to restore Japan to its glory days and attack North Korea.

There is a time for everything and the time is for American troops to leave.

Yet you don't actually ask them to directly... It's fully within Japan's power to ask the Americans to leave. Look at the Filipinos. They did it. This whining without taking any real action only serves to make Japan look more impotent.

Hopefully Japanese attitudes will change. It kind of makes me sick when Japanese people say it's against their culture to give an organ, yet would happily accept one should their life depend on it.

Personally, I think their should be some sort of registry in each country and only people signed up to donate are eligible to receive. Then perhaps, registries could be linked internationally. None of this, "Giving organs is terrible and un-Japanese. BTW, let's raise money for my sick son so we can get a new kidney in America/China/India/etc."

Things I can't stand:

Manners don't seem to apply to "everyone". Why is it that no one will condemn an obnoxious high school girl or an elderly man/woman?

I can't stand it when elderly men are making loud noises, playing with their saliva. Is that really necessary?

People who turn up the volume on cheap headphones which leak noise. Seriously, quit it. That volume is too loud for your crappy headphones. If you want to listen to that music, buy a decent pair of in-ear (canal) noise isolating headphones, so you're not annoying everyone else around you.

Loud high school girls... It seems as if there is some sort of unspoken social contract. School girls can be as loud as they want and even do things like eating highly aromatic foods on the train, but in return they should expect to be felt up by roaming perverts.

Grannies with their "cute" grandkids. I see this all the time. On a packed train, 4 and 5 year olds will lie down on the subway seats, taking up several spaces, all the while their obachan looks on with praise and adoration. Kawaii, ne. WTF? Some people get upset with the kids, but really, those old hags are the ones who deserve to be told off and publicly shamed.

Mt Rainier is in Seattle, not Sierra Leone.

The coffee beans they use aren't grown anywhere near Seattle.

These days you can get brewed coffee cheaper at Doutor or Mister Donuts, but a cup of coffee in a coffee shop used to run at least 300 yen. No refills.

It's still 300 or more at many places. Which reminds me...I've never understood why people in Nagoya rave about how great a deal Komeda is because they throw in a "free" piece of toast and boiled egg with their 500 yen cup of coffee.

I bet these are the same oyajis that are always smacking their saliva in the seats next me.

Anyone here ever been to a hotel overseas and watched NHK World? I found their international satellite channel to be much more interesting than any I can tune into off the the air here in Nagoya