JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- English Instructor (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe)
- Berlitz Japan, Inc. (ベルリッツ・ジャパン株式会社), Kansai
- Salary: ¥125,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month
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- FT English Teachers for Kids - Osaka
- Kohgakusha Co., Ltd. （株式会社興学社）, Osaka
- Salary: ¥255,000 ~ ¥275,000 / Month Travel Expenses, Encouragement of Japanese learning*
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- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
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Alan
"This was at a time when more Japanese people smoked than those who didn’t."
I find this a bit surprising. When I first lived in Japan in the early seventies, I recall reading that only about one-third of Japanese smoked. While the majority of men smoked, few women and no children did. More young women seem to have taken up the habit, but I still would doubt that smokers have ever been in the majority. Of course, the prevailing stink spread by smokers and smouldering ashtrays always made it seem that smoking was universal.
Posted in: Japan’s 'polite' tobacco war rages on
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Alan
In addition to poisoning the air and inflicting their toxic habit on everyone around them, smokers are responsible for the majority of fires. Historically the Japanese have had an intense phobia of fire because of the combustibility of their cities, so I'm surprised that they tolerate this filthy and dangerous habit. How many children have been burned to death in their own homes because their fathers smoked in bed or tossed a smouldering butt into waste basket? Smokers should be extinguished.
Posted in: Japan’s 'polite' tobacco war rages on
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Alan
Samsung makes brilliant phones. But the innovation I'd most like to see right now is a cure for the bug (either in the phone or its Android Gingerbread software) that prevents my brand-new Galaxy S2 from interfacing properly with most Bluetooth headsets and car kits. My impression is that they are so busy pumping out new gadgets that they have no time to make sure the existing ones work right.
Posted in: Samsung bringing super-size smartphone to U.S.
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Alan
Why not move the old folks who live in the palace to a rest home and turn the whole area into a park? There'd be plenty of room then for walking, running, biking in a much nicer environment. It seems a shame to reserve such a big and beautiful area of central Tokyo for a few useless anachronisms.
Posted in: Rules considered to cope with increase in Imperial Palace joggers
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Alan
On the few occasions I've flown with Qantas I found the service lousy. The employees seemed to think that the planes were flying for the benefit of the cabin crew and pilots and to hell with the passengers. And over the past few years we regularly see TV news items about traumatized passengers disembarking from Qantas planes that have experienced major mid-air dramas. So as far as I'm concerned those dinosaur unions can stay out on strike until hell freezes over, because I'll never fly Qantas again. I suspect that about 70,000 people feel the same way right now.
Posted in: Australian court ends Qantas strike, fleet grounding
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Alan
Noda is wrong. Serious as this scandal may be, it is not a reflection on the Japanese business community as a whole. Situations like this have always arisen in large organizations, including not only corporations but also government agencies, in many countries. Some result from personal greed, others from misguided attempts to find shortcuts to good outcomes. The shame in this case belongs solely to Olympus. On the positive side, Olympus has created wonderful scientific and medical instruments that have saved countless lives.
What Noda should really be ashamed of is the complete lack of leadership and commonsense among Japan's corrupt, squabbling, small-minded, shortsighted politicians. I believe that any Japanese corporate board, including that of Olympus, would have far higher ethical standards than Noda's cabinet or party organization.
Posted in: Olympus scandal not good for Japan's image, Noda says
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Alan
During the past 40 years, I've flown into and out of Japan through Haneda, Narita, Kansai and Fukuoka. I've had occasional bad experiences, but on the whole I've found the process quite efficient and reasonably quick.
If you want to see arrogant, lazy, inefficient immigration officers and check-in staff, destructive baggage handlers, and appalling disorganization, take a trip to Rome. As a tourist in Japan you're an honored guest. In Italy, you're prey, a cash crop, or road kill.
Posted in: Japan eyes simpler immigration procedures, including automatic gate
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Alan
The tax cut-tax revenue equation is hard to argue either way because economic conditions are never identical before and after tax cuts. However, I believe (if memory serves) that the Kennedy tax cuts in the 1960s and the Reagan tax cuts in the 1980s also resulted in (or were followed by) higher revenues (either in absolute terms or as percentages of GDP).
Posted in: What do you think is the fairest method of income tax?
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Alan
Junnama: I'm a "true believer" in emperical evidence. I lived in New Zealand in the 1990s. The government of the day (which ironically was nominally left-wing) cut income taxes radically but still achieved higher income tax revenues in subsequent years.
Your comment on "public goods" is interesting. Like "human rights," it is a vaguely defined concept that has provided the excuse for endless government expansion.
Posted in: What do you think is the fairest method of income tax?
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Alan
Junnama: A good CPA won't protect you from paying taxes. They just help you to keep on the right side of some insanely complex laws. I agree that "rich envy" is a class warfare tactic. But it's one used by left-wing politicians to build their own power bases.
Posted in: What do you think is the fairest method of income tax?
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Alan
No. The "envy of the rich" phenomenon is real and fundamental. Politicians seek to win votes by appealing to envy. They then put up tax rates to punish the rich. Unfortunately, the real rich can easily avoid taxes, and so it is the hard-working middle-classes and small business owners who take it on the chin. Bad for them. Bad for the economy. But really good for politicians.
What do you mean "run a country." Who does that?
Posted in: What do you think is the fairest method of income tax?
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Alan
Fair income tax is an oxymoron. Progressive income tax is the symbol of the politics of envy. Income tax punishes people for the crimes of hard work and success, and rewards greedy, power-hungry politicians. It is theft and slavery in disguise, and it perverts the principles of justice by forcing individuals to prove their innocence under laws so complex that no-one can understand them. Why not force politicians and bureaucrats to prove that they need our money?
Posted in: What do you think is the fairest method of income tax?
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Alan
Waterworld
Posted in: What are some of your candidates for the worst movie of all time?
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Alan
This looks about a generation out-of-date. There are lots of services in Japan and elsewhere that will give you a local number where people can send you faxes. The faxes are then emailed to you as attachments, so you can look at them on screen or print them out. I used one for years but finally cancelled about 3 years ago after I hadn't received a single fax for 18 months. Multifunction printers with built-in scanners are so cheap these days, it's easier and cheaper just to scan and attach.
Posted in: Send fax without using paper
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Alan
The bodies of this evil pair shouldn't be allowed to pollute the good green earth. I still remember those scenes of children in "orphanages" under their disastrous regime.
Posted in: Remains of ex-Romanian dictator Ceausescu and wife exhumed
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Alan
In the title it says the men "let" the girls work. In the first paragraph it says they "made" them work. And in the second paragraph it says they "had" the girls work. These are all likely to be translations of the Japanese word "saseta," but in English they have quite different meanings. Although a crime has obviously been committed in any case, there is a significant difference between forcing 14yo girls to work against their will and letting them work of their own free will.
Posted in: Two men arrested for letting young girls work at cabaret club
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Alan
"haven't you ever heard Japanese co-workers say that English is more direct than Japanese, and that communication is often easier?"
No. But I've heard them say they couldn't figure out what their President/Chairman was talking about in Japanese until I translated his speech into English.
Posted in: Rakuten's decision on English not welcomed by everyone
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Alan
No state has any business telling people what to wear or what not to wear. Nor does the state have any justification for preventing people from commenting on what other people wear or believe through so-called "hate crime" laws and other restrictions on free speech. The state's job is to protect Danish cartoonists and writers of Satanic Verses from violent reprisals from medieval god-botherers.
Posted in: In some countries, there are moves to ban or restrict the wearing of religious clothing and symbols such as burqas, veils, head scarves, skullcaps, turbans and crucifixes in public places like schools, recreational facilities and so on. What’s your stance?
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Alan
I hope they teach them to speak and write Japanese properly first. I've observed a serious decline in the quality of corporate Japanese over the past couple of decades. If Rakuten's staff can't communicate well in their own language, they haven't a hope in Hades of using English effectively. Rakuten will end up with people who are half-capable in two languages, and that adds up to nothing.
Posted in: Rakuten's decision on English not welcomed by everyone
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Alan
The burka is just another example of ridiculous apparel designed by men to make women look ridiculous. The French fashion industry has been doing it for centuries. Are they afraid of the competition?
If people want to walk around dressed in tents, good luck to them. No government, especially the French government, has any business telling people what to wear.
Posted in: French parliament debates ban on burqa-style veils