zootmoney comments

sounds like an eikaiwa

Pity Japanese cities do not have the cycling infrastructure to go with this measure. Riding a bicycle around town usually involves cycling with pedestrians on footpaths or dicing with death by sharing the road (and the gutter) with car drivers. There are virtually no (and never will be) specialized cycling lanes in Japanese cities. No space and obviously no inclination by central or local governments to create such space.

Japan has inherent problems that can no longer be overcome by political decisions or attempted political manipulation of the markets. It has an aging and shrinking population that must translate into a shrinking domestic economy and a continuing slow, but inexorable decline in its ability to compete in international markets. The situation for the Japanese people (and anyone living here long-term) has been exacerbated by deregulation of the employment market and the consequent increase in low-paying jobs with no future security (which in turn has contributed to the decline in the marriage rate) and the steep decline in property values, which has left millions of home owning families in negative equity (which has contributed to a decrease in spending, especially big-ticket items) .

Victims should be able to counter-claim in the same manner for damages. All costs such as the paperwork and lost time spent dealing with the false claim and possible defamation as these claims go into the public records.

"In Japan, it seems like every week you read about married middle-class housewives in their thirties and forties killing their children because they can't handle the stresses and strains of parenthood. I don't get it. Anybody care to explain?"

Yes, it's a human trait, not a particularly Japanese happening.

According to psychiatric expert PJ Resnick, in his review of world psychiatric literature on maternal filicide (child murder by the mother) found "filicidal mothers to have frequent depression, psychosis, prior mental health treatment, and suicidal thoughts. Maternal filicide perpetrators have five major motives: a) in an altruistic filicide, a mother kills her child out of love; she believes death to be in the child's best interest (for example, a suicidal mother may not wish to leave her motherless child to face an intolerable world; or a psychotic mother may believe that she is saving her child from a fate worse than death); b) in an acutely psychotic filicide, a psychotic or delirious mother kills her child without any comprehensible motive (for example, a mother may follow command hallucinations to kill); c) when fatal maltreatment filicide occurs, death is usually not the anticipated outcome; it results from cumulative child abuse, neglect, or Munchausen syndrome by proxy; d) in an unwanted child filicide, a mother thinks of her child as a hindrance; e) the most rare, spouse revenge filicide occurs when a mother kills her child specifically to emotionally harm that child's father."

The idea that Japanese mothers in particular carry out these kinds of murders based on the reasoning "Like I said, because they don't get punished -- they get pitied" would seem to be the height of ignorance.

The Apple system is distinct, without competitors for those hooked into it. All those paid apps and Apple-only peripherals can mean quite an investment. Without the intense competition of a same system product, these heavily-invested customers have been left vulnerable to Apple's planned obsolescence (number, number + S, next number). Having said that, their products have unrivaled resale value among tech items.

Are you, zootmoney, in favour of people being denied entry or deported for no seemingly good reason? For that matter, are you in favour of the mass murder of dolphins?

Apparently, lying to Japanese immigration officials is considered a "good reason" to be denied entry. I'm certainly not in favor of that disgusting slaughter of dolphins and I can't believe some people actually eat their mercury-tainted meat. I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of Japanese don't eat dolphin meat and probably many Japanese are not in favor of what goes on in Wakayama either. But the Japanese have to deal with this in their own way, according to their own ways and culture. And sometimes, the result of "outsiders" trying to force change on a group has the opposite effect because that group does not want to seem weak and easily dominated. For example, Japanese whaling may have decreased rapidly years ago if it was not for the antics of Sea Shepherd and co.

When the UK is talking of banning visits by a leading US presidential candidate? Banning a documentary film-maker doesn't come close to that

If Donald was refused entry to the UK at the airport, I guess you'd think he was being held on trumped up charges too.

@jeff,

I think tsukeru is passive and tsuku is the active form of the verb. "ichi ni tsuku" is translated as "take (up) one's position; move into position; station oneself" . (BTW, "ichi ni tuite" is "on your marks, get set...") I can understand your rendition in this instance as coming across as more natural in English.

To be a victim of rape must be a horrendous and terrifying experience and these women (particularly those who are still alive) deserve some kind of closure or retribution. This should apply to all perpetrators including the allied forces during their occupation of Okinawa.

"According to interviews carried out by the New York Times and published by them in 2000, multiple elderly people from an Okinawan village confessed that after the United States had won the Battle of Okinawa three armed marines kept coming to the village every week to force the villagers to gather all the local women, who were then carried off into the hills and raped. The article goes deeper into the matter and claims that the villagers' tale - true or not - is part of a 'dark, long-kept secret' the unraveling of which 'refocused attention on what historians say is one of the most widely ignored crimes of the war': "the widespread rape of Okinawan women by American servicemen". Although Japanese reports of rape were largely ignored at the time, academic estimates have been that as many as 10,000 Okinawan women may have been raped. It has been claimed that the rape was so prevalent that most Okinawans over age 65 around the year 2000 either knew or had heard of a woman who was raped in the aftermath of the war. Military officials denied the mass rapings, and all surviving veterans refused the New York Times' request for an interview."

the full article presents more instances of rape by the British and Australians and imposed Allied censorship of reporting these crimes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Japan

@jefflee

位置につける

i think "ichi ni tsukeru" means "to be put in (a) position"

but I think it's time to stop renewing licenses after 70

What a bizarre statement. The assumption that all people have the same behavioral, mental or physical problems at a certain age is verging on shallow, if not delusional, thinking. And why exactly 70? Why not 63, 68 or 72? And even going by accident statistics to create a safer driving environment, a ludicrous situation would arise whereby people would only be allowed to drive between the ages of 35 and 55.

Now the good old phone card scam is long gone these Eyeranians have moved on.

A little background information.

http://observers.france24.com/en/20140228-iranians-deal-drugs-japan-yakuza

His nationalistic, xenophobic, anti-Muslim rhetoric reminds me VERY MUCH of another sadistic demonizing national leader who had to be challenged by the Allies during WWII.

Although I disagree with Trump's comments, your comparison is completely invalid and even insulting to Jews. Jewish people in Germany at the time only wanted to be an integral part of German society. They offered absolutely no terrorist threat to anyone. And most of all, despite Trump's divisive rhetoric, he is not proposing extermination camps.

nuclear vs. coal? According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, in the US, "Coal plants are the nation’s top source of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the primary cause of global warming. In 2011, utility coal plants in the United States emitted a total of 1.7 billion tons of CO2. A typical coal plant generates 3.5 million tons of CO2 per year. Burning coal is also a leading cause of smog, acid rain, and toxic air pollution."

Nuclear power is a really ridiculous way to boil water.

Not if the alternative is a coal fire.

As opposed to a Samsung Galaxy

Most definitely yes, because android phone makers have intense competition; they've no choice but to put the best they have out there as soon as possible. Apple do not have to worry about competition to anywhere the same extent because the vast majority of their "fans" are staying with Apple products however slow or incremental the release of "new" iphone or ipad technology.

Upgrades are particularly important for Apple because iPhones account for more than half of its revenue.

That's why Apple are the masters of planned obsolescence, so those who buy iphones and ipads will never get the absolute latest technology available. Apple know many millions will automatically upgrade to a newer model mainly because of the hype. The iphone has become the only product to be given vast, free worldwide news coverage for each new iteration. In effect, with its huge (many say sheep-like) fanbase, Apple has no competition and can easily control its technological advances so as to be issued in small increments. In other words, when the iphone 7 is released, it can be said with certainty that the 7s and maybe even the iphone 8 has already been planned.

Japan (13th in the list of world net minimum wages, calculated with "purchasing power parities") would need an 80% increase to get to the same level as Australia and about a 25% increase to equal the UK's minimum wage.

http://www.businessinsider.com/minimum-wage-around-the-world-2015-5

This guy wrote an article for the Diplomat last year. His opinions now appear to be in conflict with those in this piece. He stated that

"many Japanese politicians don’t know how the rest of the world thinks" and "Japan has an excellent but minute corps of diplomats and bureaucrats who excel at interaction with foreigners. Beyond this, though, most of its officialdom, including many in the Foreign Ministry, have not received the necessary training to, as the American expression goes, “make friends and influence people” overseas. The root causes lie in the inward-looking education system. Unfortunately, the government is blind to the requirement to provide extensive multi-year “remedial education” to the graduates it hires to ensure they are capable of functioning in a non-Japanese setting."

Makes you wonder if fluency in English would help to address these problems.

http://thediplomat.com/2014/04/japan-a-sheep-in-wolfs-clothing/

A lot of people seemed to have been stopped by the police here. I am a white American male who has lived in Japan for nearly 30 years. I live in a big city, drive a car (and ride 3 different bicycles!) and get out a lot, but I have never once been stopped by the police. I can only guess that getting questioned by the cops in Japan is a matter of luck or possibly the color of your skin. Or maybe I just look intrinsically innocent. However, knowing the Japanese proclivity to "tar everyone with the same brush" (a carry over from the group mentality?), when the 2020 Olympics come round, expect some racial profiling from the boys in blue.

Kato, a father of four, gave few clues to how he planned to achieve his ambitious goals

Probably because he hasn't got a clue. The only way to increase the birthrate sufficiently is through the carrot of money. Bigger tax breaks for having more kids, certainly, but especially creating jobs where a couple can look forward to a healthy and secure economic future with confidence.

In this respect, Japan is going backwards, with an amazingly huge percentage of the working population (37% and increasing every day) in "non-regular" 非正規 jobs. i.e. poorly-paid jobs with no bonuses, no social security insurance and no future. For example, there are now 2,730,000 men aged between 35 and 54 in part-time, temporary or contract work. For those interested, check on the Recruit scandal in 1988 (Recruit are publishers of job-finding magazines who wanted to legalize the temporary worker employment agencies that are now like a giant leech on Japanese society) and the subsequent full legalization of the temporary worker system in 1999 to comply with Japanese industry's thirst for cheap labor without social responsibilities.

You live longer if you never worked in your life ~ or worked in a stressful environment ~

And most of these 100-year-old women never smoked like a chimney or drank like a fish or ate junk food nearly every day. Future governments might not need to purchase so many silver sake dishes (or their tight-fisted alternatives). BTW, all of the present-day centurions lived through the extremely stressful pre-war, war and post-war years in Japan.

Last photo guy wants to get a close-up experience. But he doesn't look too happy

Forgot his camera, didn't he? Now he'll have to rely on his memory when he gets home.

First and foremost, in Japan, are the patient’s safety and health. That is paramount.

The Japanese regulatory process is very safety and health conscious, so they want extensive studies on safety, health and efficacy.

But...

In Japan, you can buy contact lenses without a prescription on the Internet and that is not good for your eyes. In particular, selling colored contact lenses to children without professional consultation has risks…and it is growing because it has become less controlled.

Seems to be a conflict between his first two statements and his last one. Japan is so safety conscious but not for its kids? Could it possibly have anything to do with the fact (and this definitely is a fact, believe me) that a lot of these contact lens outlets (which are completely unregulated) are yakuza run?

How come he only got 18 years for not only taking the life of a 17-year-old girl but also casting her family into the life-long pain and misery of losing a loved one in such despicable circumstances?

And people cheer this result? I was not shedding a tear over my tax money being used to keep him miserable.

I don't know about this poor girl's parents, but if I were the father, just the thought of this piece of human garbage being free on the streets again might well have tormented me.

Can we reasonably expect them to also keep a 24-hour watch on their children as well?

I think parents of children aged between around 10 to 16 can be "reasonably" expected to keep about a 9-hour "watch on their children" (e.g. from 10pm to 7am). There might also be a legal responsibility to ensure these kids are home by 10 (I think in Japan it depends on the prefecture). Without wishing to appear "sanctimonious", I have to say if my 13-year-old daughter hadn't come home by midnight and I wasn't sure where she was, I'd be going up the wall with worry and out on the streets, with the police, searching for her.

I wish I could think of even a single instance of Japanese government historical revisionism that provoked the same response its citizens.

http://www.japan-press.co.jp/2006/2498/diet5.html

This guy, Shii, represents the political views of about 7 million Japanese citizens. And I think Chinese netizens have a little more to complain about their government than their Japanese counterparts.

A bit long, but an interesting read and adds a little detail and relevant facts to the article's line "Hundreds of thousands of Koreans were forced to fight as front-line soldiers"

"Japan did not draft ethnic Korean into its military until 1944 when the tide of WW II turned dire for Japan. Until 1944, enlistment in the Imperial Japanese Army by ethnic Koreans was voluntary, and highly competitive; only 6,300 were chosen from 303,294 applicants. From a 14% acceptance rate in 1938, it dropped to a 2% acceptance rate in 1943 while the raw number of applicants increased from 3000 per annum to 300,000 in just five years during World War II.

Of note, during 35 years of colonial governance by Japan produced 7 ethnic Korean Generals and countless field grade officers (Colonels, Lieutenant Colonels, and Majors) in the Japanese Army despite institutionalized discrimination. The first and the best known among them is Lieutenant General and Crown Prince Yi Un and Lieutenant General Hong Sa-ik, the Commander of all Prisoner Camps in southern Philippines in 1944-1945.

Starting in 1944, Japan started the conscription of Koreans into the armed forces. All Korean males were drafted to either join the Imperial Japanese Army, as of April 1944, or work in the military industrial sector, as of September 1944. Before 1944, 18,000 Koreans passed the examination for induction into the army. Koreans provided workers to mines and construction sites around Japan. The number of conscripted Koreans reached its peak in 1944 in preparation for war. From 1944, about 200,000 Korean males were inducted into the army.

During World War II, American soldiers frequently encountered Korean soldiers within the ranks of the Imperial Japanese Army. Most notably was in the Battle of Tarawa, which was considered during that time to be one of the bloodiest battles in U.S. military history. A fifth of the Japanese garrison during this battle consisted of Korean laborers who were trained in combat roles. Like their Japanese counterparts, they put up a ferocious defense and fought to the death. The Japanese, however, did not always believe they could rely on Korean laborers to fight alongside them. In Prisoners of the Japanese, author Gaven Daws wrote, "[O]n Tinian there were five thousand Korean laborers and so as not to have hostiles at their back when the Americans invaded, the Japanese killed them."

After the war, 148 Koreans were convicted of Class B and C Japanese war crimes, 23 of whom were sentenced to death (compared to 920 Japanese who were sentenced to death), including Korean prison guards who were particularly notorious for their brutality during the war. The figure is relatively high considering that ethnic Koreans made up a very small percentage of the Japanese military. Justice Bert Röling, who represented the Netherlands at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, noted that "many of the commanders and guards in POW camps were Koreans – the Japanese apparently did not trust them as soldiers – and it is said that they were sometimes far more cruel than the Japanese." In his memoirs, Colonel Eugene C. Jacobs wrote that during the Bataan Death March, "the Korean guards were the most abusive. The Japs didn't trust them in battle, so used them as service troops; the Koreans were anxious to get blood on their bayonets; and then they thought they were veterans."

source:wiki

She'll probably be selling her story in the not-too-distant future like the recently "rehabilitated" and quickly-released-back-into-society, still-anonymous psychopathic 14-year-old murderer who decapitated one of his victims a few years ago and placed the severed head of the 11-year-old boy in front of a junior high school in Kobe. I'm sure the parents and family of Aiwa Matsuo will be overjoyed at any future rehabilitation of this girl and being able to read things like those of Seito Sakakibara, the pseudonym of the aforementioned juvenile serial killer: “Let me confess something: I thought the sight (of the severed head) was a beauty, I felt like I was born just to see the ethereal beauty of what was in front of my eyes. I thought I could die." I just hope this guy, now 32, is not living in MY neighborhood.