JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Kanto region
- RCS (RCSコーポレーション), Kanto
- Salary: ¥180,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month includes performance bonus
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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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Cos
Miss Legs, if you are a sample, it's not impressive. Unless they need someone to model for stockings.
Great for you if you are immune to loss of linguistic ability. You're a rarity. I bothered to learn a few "additional languages" (done technical translation and interpretation in a former life) and they didn't make the trip to Japan... It's use or lose. I make a rule to use my first language everyday, like I brush my teeth, but it's clear I have lost 30% of ability over 15 years isolated from my language community. I didn't care in the first years. Then I found that I struggled at writing an article or a short story, I was using widgets to check vocabulary at every line, while I used to write full essays or novels effortlessly, without any electronic assistance. Hopefully, I started high, so my compatriots don't notice too much I work on a reduced vocabulary. I try to get back to former level. I can understand it's a serious issue for an expat journalist.
Posted in: Adopting English as workplace language in Japan has its downside
-2
Cos
English workers ? You mean JET assistants ? Or you imagine everybody works for a huge company with different nationality well clustered. Some of you guys really believe Japan will live like the Galapagos forever. It did in 1965. Not so much now. That will be less and less in the future. I know we "gaijins" tend to meet, more often than others, those ridiculous staff specialist in gaijin taming that survive in big companies. It's folklore. If I take businesses in Kansai, 2/3 of the industries work with Asia -not even English speaking countries. They have never seen the mythical "English workers". They either have a branch in China/India/Thailand/etc or work directly with suppliers/customers that are small companies located there. So when stuff is delivered, a guy in the factory notices a defect or needs an explanation, he directly contacts the guy in China/India/Thailand/etc. It's just as if he'd contact the guy in Yokohama or Fukuoka, except it's in English. If they can't manage on the phone, they exchange e-mails or photos. They deal everyday with invoices, etc in English. I don't know where you see Japanese small and medium businesses having interpreters or international coordinators.
But the guy needs it for himself. It's like those that say 90% of the Chinese don't need democracy, 90% of the North-Korean don't need more food... as long as themselves are in the 10%.
A minority needs more "native" fluency, to be diplomats, international lawyers, lecturer at universities, international salesmen, expats directing factories abroad, etc. And yes, they all need other skills than the bilingual ability. It's not a scoop. Is 10% enough ? For a small country like Japan, with declining economy on the long term, I doubt it. 20 or 30% of people able to live abroad (not all life, but like 3 yrs to study or work) would be better in the future.
Everybody has to know English, not to be bilingual but operational. Not to have the useless fluency to exchange idiot jokes in slang with the backpackers in bars, but the level to read a newspaper and get to know what the rest of the world says about Fukushima, for instance. If you are not curious for that or anything the world says about any topic, you probably have the brain of a bird and you can be a tarento. 90% of next generation will become tarento ? On this planet, everybody, even if they don't leave their native village, will one day need to use a booklet, a map or whatever in English. Every service staff in the world will sometimes have to deal with a foreigner (more migrants, more refugees, more expats, more exchange students, more tourists...) and as nobody can know 350 languages, a minimal communication has to be possible in English. Maybe in 60 yrs that will be Chinese, but for the time being it's English. I'll update that message. That people need to write on a memo pad because the accents are too thick is not important, idem if they use the translating gadgets/dictionaries. That's really bad when you can't book a hotel room or the hospital can't get access to your file or can't read it. Real cases. In the sticks in China, I understand as many people didn't go to school at all. In Japan, it's a shame. And I don't blame the J-school teachers, as there are also the assistants, the jukus, the eikawas, all the self-study resources... but you don't force a donkey to drink. I wouldn't hire a donkey. They'll be stubbornly limited for many other things, not only English. It's like computers. If you count on living without having to use a computer or basic English, you'd better be 90 yr old. You'll have the life of a Yamabushi.
Posted in: Adopting English as workplace language in Japan has its downside
-3
Cos
Not at all. There are love hotels and a pair of "adult businesses" in every neighborhood of Japan.
I live in lalaland. I was convinced that in love hotels, people had sex or played electronic games. I was not in the known that was the place to go to get strangled... Half a dozen of my friends work in love hotels (as cleaners) and they never told me about their finding corpses.
Your point is she was suicidal ?
Posted in: Woman found strangled in Osaka love hotel
3
Cos
Nozomi-chan is only ab kaw... I guess Nitendo couldn't afford Joanna Lumley.
It's 55 in model years. They start working at 12. Years ago, some started calling her "bachan" or "Nozo-baba" in her back, and politely listening to her oshare Madame advice. She thinks she has to speak like the kocho-sensei.
A celeb doesn't get older, but botoxer.
Posted in: Nozomi Sasaki's beauty secret - living without stress
0
Cos
" 2,000, TBS reported. Five of those incidents resulted in death."
So please : DO NOTHING. My old country has half population of Japan, cycles are much less used, but they have to be on the road. That gives something like 8 000 accidents and 50 death. OK, give a fine to those that do the jerk on their charinko. But pushing the 2 wheel crowd onto the roads is not a good idea.
Posted in: Police to get tough on sidewalk cyclists
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Cos
Elbuda, I'm French and I have no idea what both this guy and Sarkozy do during their days at work... We don't hear about much politics been done and they are already candidates for next elections. They have been filmed jogging together. Maybe they also play ping-pong or squash, and in the afternoon some games like tic tac toe...
Posted in: French PM visits tsunami-hit Ishinomaki
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Cos
" I'm sure everyone loves him."
As much as everybody loves any pair of smart pants that holds passports/green cards in Australia, US and Hong-Kong, plus the fortune to get away with everything (and rumors that he used that power) and comes to say that Chinese citizens should just be happy with their dictature and not express criticism, that they should be punished for demonstrating, etc. His being in an historic movie screams "cheesy propaganda flick". I have not seen it, I will stand corrected if that's not the case.
Posted in: A century later
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Cos
Make a deal with North Korea. They have plenty of space they can rent to the US and they'd appreciate the money. In addition, I often heard the Oki base was necessary because of North-Korea, so getting closer would just make it more efficient.
Posted in: Can you suggest a workable solution to the Futenma base relocation issue that might satisfy Okinawa, Tokyo and Washington?
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Cos
When that happens to women (to get intimate parts mutilated), that doesn't make the headline news. And for 1 man that gets his bird chopped, there are tens of thousand of women being done the equivalent. A good lawyer could say it's a religious custom and she should go free.
Posted in: Vietnamese woman cuts off husband's penis
1
Cos
She is doing like the Julia Child for French cuisine, adapting the Japanese recipes to American taste, ingredients and... expectations of people that know of J-food only through cliches. I have no problem with adapting any recipe to your taste, as long as you say it, you eat your own food. I also totally understand that some people can't find ingredients, or won't have pork, fish, garlic, due to their lifelong habits, religion, health concerns. But I don't understand how one can claim you make "home-style Japanese dishes" with Sriracha sauce. That's not normal such authors claim they do "authentic" or "teach x-country cooking".
Posted in: My Japanese Table: A Lifetime of Cooking with Friends and Family
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Cos
The truth is Meg' Yokota is living in Japan undercover and she worked for Tepco in Fukushima... where she caused that quake, tsunami and everything... and before, she worked in New-York at the WTC. Megumi is either Catwoman or the Joker.
"Apparently Megumi is in possession of sensitive information."
In real life, that means being dead.
Cleo,
The only serious hope for all the thousands of abducted in North-Korea is to see the country opening up in the quickest delays, as they could travel and recontact families before all their parents pass of old age. And quickest delay... that's overdue, that should have been done around 1970, as they did with China. Megumi wouldn't have been abducted at all. That's why the sympathy I have for the couple of old crazy parents is limited. They are victims, that's terrible. But they don't need to cause unnecessary trouble. It's possible they are manipulated too. Sorry for their fate, now, the son should take them to a doctor for therapy, a prescription of viagra, whatever.
"where do you get the idea that they 'rejected' their granddaughter?"
That was their declaration in front of the cameras the weeks after the girl's existence was revealed. They were talking about the girl and her father as being kind of spies. Then the girl was shown some of the footage, wasn't she ? We saw that on NHK. They got DNA results later, but they were not publicly happy to be grand-parents. Did you hear them say they wanted to buy the little girl a randosel bag to go to school, sending her otoshidama or anything grandparentesque ? If so, I totally missed those news of their joy. I hope to be wrong, but rationally, It's 99.99% chances that Megumi is now dead as the husband and daughter say (suicide or not, historians will research). The affair became such a big pain in the a... that if NK had the possibility to give a Megumi back, dead or alive, in the last years, they would have delivered her in helicopter on the beach where they took her. So if Megumi can't come back ever, the only thing the Yokotas could hope obtaining was meeting and creating relations with the grand-kid and son-in-law... And that didn't seem to be very high on their priority list, that was below getting DNA tests about Megumi. It's their right. I find that extremely "cold". The result is they didn't get anything.
"(due to Japanese gov. pressure?) "
Uh ? The Yokotas are free to tour Europe and the US with to PR their movies, so they can go to China (and fly to NK from there) anytime they want. Then North-Korea may accept their visit or not. But what is North-Korea's interest in letting the Yokotas in at this point ?And what is Japan's interest in asking NK to accept their visit ? Both countries could only get more diplomatic troubles as the Yokotas cannot be satisfied anyway. If they saw Megumi on her deathbed with all the evidence, they would ask to sue half of North-Korea, with endless appeals. Some other families have been able to meet "abducted" relatives, because they had not an agenda of activists.
Posted in: Megumi Yokota still alive: N Korean defector
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Cos
If I were Megumi and still alive, I'm not sure I would want to reappear... and meet the Yokota parents. Look at their attitude with the grand-daughter. I really found them abominable to reject the kid because they had no proof she was the grand-daughter. They had no more proof that she wasn't. So if Megumi showed up, they'd ask her to take a DNA test before talking to her ? They seem to have lost their sanity over the years, so why would she come back to a family that can only hate her daughter and her husband (since they are North-Koreans) and that want the war against the country she calls home ?
Posted in: Megumi Yokota still alive: N Korean defector
1
Cos
"What kind of serious business would open a face book account?"
You think there are businesses (except the shotengai granpa stalls) that don't have a facebook ?
Posted in: Would you go bananas for Y877,000 an hour?
0
Cos
Wahhh ! Sour grapes. We don't even know if she killed that baby. She is arrested for abandoning baby's body. The rest of the story is not known. Could be she didn't know she was pregnant (that happens even to sane people, and yes, it also could be she was not mentally fit), gave birth at her surprise, was scared, didn't what to do (would you know ?) and the baby died in her arms in a few minutes... But well, Bluewitch in brownshirts, if mentally ill people were to be taken out of society as you suggest, you're sure you wouldn't be in the gomi bag yourself someday ?
Posted in: Woman arrested for abandoning newborn's body in library toilet
0
Cos
This guy, and his company are really magalomaniac. In decades, they will have ben replaced by the 20 next ones and people will even forget FN ever existed... and the way they act now, that will happen even sooner than expected. Do you remember,,, usenet ? 15 years ago ? 30 years ago, in my country we all had a sort of terminal for the telephone that would take 30 seconds to display a page and the telephone company was saying would stay for life and keep paying per minute.
Posted in: Facebook rolls out big changes to 'lock in' users
0
Cos
"E-coli and other meat-borne bacteria is what kills people, and cooking until well-done will kill it all."
Cooking it in a laboratory, yes. It's proven that in a kitchen, particularly at home, people can't possibly cook everything to that level of safety... and you recontaminate the cooked food with the little bit you couldn't get or with your cooking instruments. Some practice make the risk of big outbreaks bigger : big batches, grind the food (it disseminates bacteria), preparation in advance, take-out (and bento, doggie bag...). Tropical climate is also a factor. Eating raw comes far in the list, even if that counts. One of the country with the most food borne outbreaks and death per inhabitant is the US where "raw food" is not in the habits. But look, they have all the other factors of risk... Last week, some infected melons made 60 (?) victims in Colorado...and I hear nobody saying to cook the melons.
Posted in: New regulations take effect for restaurants serving raw beef dishes
3
Cos
Sure raw meat is not the safest.... but statistically, cooked hamburgers kill more.
Posted in: New regulations take effect for restaurants serving raw beef dishes
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Cos
Plastic bottles ? Don't they contaminate the water with BPA ? Are imaginary radiations worse than, the scary bisphenol A that gives cancers in their 80's to babies fed with plastic bottles ? A tough choice...
Posted in: MotoGP champion Lorenzo avoids showering due to radiation fear
2
Cos
That's right. In Chernobyl and the many other contamination disasters (not nuclear), that appeared that besides the illnesses/conditions due to the contamination, they have a much larger occurrence of psychological distress, at all levels. I was totally mad (now water has passed...) on the Western media coverage as they really made people get crazy. Covering up brings nothing, but there are ways to bring the information to people, especially to the non-specialists, or anybody not used to deal with figures. Media, authorities and everybody that may get involved should really take classes of psychology. And education should emphasize on developing skills of people at given relevant weight to different data. Also, everybody should join the breathing yoga practice, learn to cool down their mind. The sky can fall, I won't stress much. I'll die relaxed as I think that even if the worst happened, adding worries brings no improvement.
Posted in: Rumors, lies may kill more of Japan’s rural and working poor than radiation itself
0
Cos
P.S. : The sect Nakayama Shingo Shoshu says on their page that Kumamoto Center was closed just after the girl's death. But they give as reason that they are repairing due to damages by rain. Of course, they don't want publicity about the case.
Posted in: 2 arrested after teenage girl dies in 'exorcism'