JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- Assistant Language Teacher - TOKYO - late-March start
- Interac, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥230,000 ~ ¥255,000 / Month
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- Assistant Language Teacher - Kanagawa Prefecture - late-March start
- Interac, Kanagawa
- Salary: ¥230,000 ~ ¥255,000 / Month
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- Part Time Assistant Language Teacher - Kanagawa Prefecture - late-March start
- Interac, Kanagawa
- Salary: ¥9,000 / Day per 4 class shift
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ACrowe
Living downtown as I do, it’s not uncommon to see homeless men rummaging through the garbage in search of empty cans. Some of the more industrious of these vagabonds can amass such a stash of crushed cans—all crammed into large plastic bags and lashed together on the backs of bicycles—that from a distance they can look like camels accoutered for an expedition.
It always made me wonder how much a vagrant could earn in this manner so I was delighted when a local news program did a story on the city’s homeless.
One kilogram of used cardboard, according to the reporter, can be sold to the scrapyard for about seven yen, or just under a buck (US), meaning that even the most determined homeless man can only earn about two hundred yen ($2.50) a day. Every kilo of aluminum cans, on the other hand, brings in ¥140. After collecting cans all day long, a hobo might make about ¥1000 ($13), or enough to buy a bentô and perhaps a couple cans of happôshu.
A friend told me that one of the happier moments in a homeless man’s foraging life is when he comes across an alluminum alloy wheel for a car. One wheel in good condition can be sold for about ¥500 ($6.40).
Posted in: Can collection
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ACrowe
Japan Today and the Japan Times need to work on their headlines. The often read like Buddhist kôans and have me scratching my head for a minute before reading the article. How about "Scientist unveils world's first thinking robot"? Saves you two words that you can use later. Waste not, want not.
Posted in: Scientist unveils 'thinking' robot in a world first
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ACrowe
That price can't be correct. $764,000 for a boat? Are you sure it isn't 5.9 million yen?
Posted in: Toyota cruiser
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ACrowe
Could we keep up this as a special picture of the week?
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ACrowe
In my next life, I'd like to be a San-ai bikini.
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ACrowe
I prefer the girl in the bra ad at the bottom of this page. Grrr.
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ACrowe
Bobcatfish, good thing I swallowed before reading your comment. Otherwise I would be cleaning bits of curry and rice off my monitor right now.
By the way, Mr. Watanabe's neckpiece looks like it is made of silk. Bad form.
Posted in: Cotton club
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ACrowe
I'm in there among those stats. I tend to do much of my "newspaper" reading on my iPhone via Facebook at the detriment of my poor eyes. Perhaps Apple can come out with an iPhone that's half the size of a iPad. They could even call it a "Big iMac".
Posted in: Facebook sending readers to big news sites
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ACrowe
If only the other ten Mariners played like Ichirô.
Posted in: Eye on the ball
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ACrowe
As if the LDP could have done a better job.
Most of the problems facing this country today could have been addressed by the government over ten years ago if the Liberal Dems, who know very little about liberalism and democracy, had shown true leadership. Instead they let them fester and fester. Shame on the bastards for using this dire moment in Japanese history to try to gain some political points!
Posted in: Gov't under fire for disaster response; TEPCO chief heckled in Diet
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ACrowe
Ditto what tkoind2 said.
Let me add that once they get this messed settled I hope they will challenge the koseki data-imput system next so that it finally allows for middle names. (What a revolutionary idea!) My poor son as an affliction of a first name (his actual first in kanji+my family name in katakana with no space between the two) because of this. What we applied for and what we got were very different things and now to scratch my family name off we'll have to go to court. Good grief.
Posted in: Women file suit to keep their surnames after they marry
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ACrowe
Nice one, DentShop. Good thing I wasn't drinking anything when I read that. It would've all come out my nose.
Posted in: Happy birthday
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ACrowe
You'd think that Darth Vader would have been able to use the Force to cut the tape.
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ACrowe
"Thick and lush" eyebrows, that's how they were when I first came to Japan 18 years ago (Yes, I know: time to leave). Women looked like they had caterpillars on their foreheads. I welcomed the plucking at first, but it's gone too far. Wash their faces and most women now have punctuation marks where they ought to have eyebrows.
Posted in: Things Japanese girls do that make guys go, 'Huh?'
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ACrowe
That chick's displaying more than enough biodiversity for my taste.
Posted in: COP10
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ACrowe
Please open up Store No.2 in Fukuoka, and preferably on the first floor of my building.
Posted in: A Hooter here and a Hooter there
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ACrowe
If I am not mistaken, I believe some of these dancers may be the very same ones that were in Fukuoka a few months ago samba-samba-ing through the underground arcade here. That would also explain the trail of boa feathers that leads from this city to the nation's capital.
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ACrowe
Ditto what boboh says.
Let me add that I think the high number of absentee-fathers thanks to the practice of tanshin funin (単身赴任) is far more pernicious to Japanese society than a few kids smoking herb and have told the cops so when I was being interrogated for drugs smuggling. (For more on this search Google for Aonghas Crowe No. 6 Cuckoo )
This is a myth. You know what is a real gateway to drug use? That beer resting on the coaster to the right of your keyboard.
Posted in: Is Japan becoming a 'drug heaven?'
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ACrowe
"That is why successful companies making great products don't have any employees, just one guy pushing buttons and eating donuts."
Classic!
I wonder if they teach that business model at the Harvard Business School. It would go a long way in explaining why their most famous graduate, W., drove the U.S. economy into the ground.
Posted in: Kan warns of Greece-like debt crisis
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ACrowe
There, but for the grace of God, go I.
Posted in: Pair sustain minor injuries after tumble down Ginza subway escalator