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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DoctorTofu
What? New? I've been addicted to these a while ago - at least 2 years ago and possibly more. Sure, they disappeared from the stores for a while, but it's definitely not new - glad to see it back though, I love the stuff.
Posted in: Green tea ice cream from Häagen-Dazs
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DoctorTofu
And now, the Japanese Powers That Be are faced with a very difficult and important decision: what do we ban to solve this problem? No weapon was used, so Houston, we have a problem! Shall we ban unsupervised meetings between young people? Sudden movements of arms and legs? Or maybe we shall institute a new law requiring everyone to be shackled when outside?
Posted in: 15-year-old boy arrested for beating ex-classmate to death in Gunma
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DoctorTofu
Yup, it sure does - it (possibly) brings the real violence down: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080514213432.htm
Posted in: Does violence in movies and video games contribute to violence in society?
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DoctorTofu
skipthesong - I believe all PS3 games (to date) are region-free, but many X360 ones aren't. You can usually work around it by buying an Asian (as in sold in Hong Kong) version online (Google PlayAsia) - most of the time they'll be left in the original English version, but they'll run on Japanese Xboxes and the only difference is that the title on the box might be in Chinese - the manuals (at least for all the games I got and I have most big titles) are bilingual English and Chinese.
Posted in: Microsoft cuts Xbox 360 model price
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DoctorTofu
whoops, submitted too soon - the last sentence should read "Because a study shows that 47,326% of people are morons, and will believe any outrageous claim if it's preceded by "a study shows" without any fact checking or research whatsoever."
Posted in: Britain, Ireland lowest in Europe in quality of life: study
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DoctorTofu
Too bad the article does not provide a link to the study in question - I'd like to see all the criteria, the complete list of countries and all that. Oh well, I guess it's Google time!
On a related note - I think it should be mandated by law that articles on the Internet speaking about "a study" or "studies" always provide a link to it. Why? Because a study shows that 47,326% of people are morons, and will believe any outrageous claim if it's preceded by "a study shows"
Posted in: Britain, Ireland lowest in Europe in quality of life: study
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DoctorTofu
Only tangentially related to this article, but have you noticed how almost always it's the quiet types that cause trouble in the end? How many times do you hear "Oh, he/she was such an extrovert, always loud and energetic!" when neighbors of another psychotic murderer are interviewed on TV? It makes me think - maybe we should get rid of some assumptions, and actually change the belief that the silent, meek people are "good" and the loud, boisterous ones are "bad"? Just something to consider, and I'm not even sure what to think about it myself...
Posted in: Spurned women wreak vengeance
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DoctorTofu
Zen Builder - good point. The ridiculous trend of control-freakism (yeah, I just made that up) is spreading all over the world. We seem to have more and more rules every time I look. I'm not sure about other countries (hell, even my own - it's been a while since I graduated), but in Japan it seems to start in schools - all the rules about the length and color of hair, which buttons can be unfastened on a warm day, what sort of jewelery you can or cannot wear... I had a (very) brief stint as an English teacher in public elementary and junior high schools, and the list of rules regarding appearance for a schoolchild in each and every one of them was literally longer than my job contract! And I just mean the text part - obviously my contract had no pictures with helpful scales to tell me what is the tolerance for tie length and how far my hair can reach below my shirt collar.
Posted in: Osaka postman fights to keep mustache
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DoctorTofu
Sure, companies can change the rules and their employees have a choice to conform or get the hell out, but where do we draw a line between reasonable rules and insane ones? What if a company changed the rules to say that all employees have to dye their eyebrows purple? Or if they changed the rules to say all male employees have to get circumcised? Or that being black or asian is against the rules now?
A small caveat here, I am against dress/appearance codes in principal. I believe that as long as elementary rules of hygiene (e.g. no offensive body odor, mud on your face, rotting food in your beard, etc.) are kept, people should really care less about the appearance, and more about the quality of work. That's my personal opinion of course - I am one of these people that don't really care if a bank clerk has a pink mohawk, facial tattoo and is wearing a sex pistols t-shirt, as long as he processes my check quickly and without errors, while being polite and helpful. AS long as his appearance does not break the law (indecent exposure and all that), I'm basically fine with it and care only about the quality of his work.
Posted in: Osaka postman fights to keep mustache
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DoctorTofu
I'm more of a cold oolong tea fan, but mugi-cha works too. This, and of course plain water - in Tochigi even tap water tastes good enough - no need to buy bottled water.
Posted in: What drink do you recommend to help cope with hot, humid days?
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DoctorTofu
Too bad there's no "I don't really care" option to vote for...
Posted in: Should world leaders attend the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony?
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DoctorTofu
thepro - amen, brother (sister?). It's the しょうがない attitude of so many Japanese that bothers me. Too many of them with go along with anything. Oh, I'm expected to work 20 hour days? Shouganai na... I'm not getting paid extra for it? Well, what can you do - shouganai... My boss wants me to repeatedly sodomize myself with this here splintery broomstick? Shou [ouch!] ga [owwww!] nai [ugh!] na...
Posted in: Labor bureau rules that Toyota engineer died from overwork
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DoctorTofu
I have something even better. Yesterday, in a store I saw a summit commemorative bottled water from Hokkaido, with a blue label featuring flags of the G-8 countries.
Bottled water. In a plastic bottle. With a plastic label. Brought all the way here to Tochigi from Hokkaido, probably in a big friggin' truck. To commemorate the summit that was supposed to be the most eco-friendly one ever. I wonder, if I buy 10 bottles of Hokkaido water, will I also get a commemorative "F%$k the planet" T-shirt made from synthetic fibers and dyed with toxic inks? Pretty please?
Posted in: How green was my G-8 summit?
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DoctorTofu
Haha, I might actually get that one. Softbank commercials with that dog are the only ones I unmute (I developed a reflex of hitting the "mute" button on my remote as soon as the commercials come up. Watching TV is fun again). More o-toosan is always good ;)
Posted in: Softbank Mobile's 'Oto-san' dog to release DVD
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DoctorTofu
Well, the wave of unemployment caused by that move would certainly cause some suicides, thus reducing the CO2 that all those newly unemployed and freshly deceased people would emit to the atmosphere if they lived longer. Executing some government members would decrease CO2 emissions even further.
Posted in: Do you think curtailing convenience store hours would be good for the environment?
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DoctorTofu
RepublicofTexas - not to sound too harsh, but how exactly do you imagine Olympics could address the problem of aging population? People won't start having babies en masse just because there's a big sporting event in the vicinity...
Posted in: Tokyo public lukewarm on bid for 2016 Summer Olympics
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DoctorTofu
Well damn, I guess soon I'll start receiving offers for "orriginaal cheapp watremelons" in my spam box together with offers from Nigerian princes and ads for cheap Rolex replicas...
Posted in: Watermelon yields Viagra-like effects
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DoctorTofu
Right. As we all know, Chinese don't use chopsticks - in fact, I haven't seen a pair of chopsticks once when I was in China - everyone was eating their Thai rice with a plastic fork and knife.
Posted in: No soy sauce! Japanese athletes forced to adapt to Olympic menus
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DoctorTofu
Zen Builder - agree. Also, because their approach to teaching English closely resembles one for teaching math or kanji - memorization, memorization, memorization. This simply doesn't work for languages. This, and the fear of making mistakes - many people will not speak unless they're ABSOLUTELY sure that what they are going to say is correct, and since you can never be sure... well, there you go.
Posted in: Why don't Japanese speak English better than they do?
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DoctorTofu
Tatanka - good point, although it doesn't prove anything. On the contrary - it shows that people overwhelmed by strong emotions should not create or even influence laws. I'm pretty sure if my loved ones were killed by, say, a freak lawn-mover accident, I'd want the maker of that lawn mover and probably also the store clerk who sold it to me drawn and quartered - should such law be created?.
I am not comparing brutal murderers to lawn-movers - I am just giving the most ridiculous example I can think of (air conditioning was switched off in my office to conserve energy - it's really the best I can come up with right now) to show that strong emotions, especially grief and the desire for vengeance, are never good advisers when matters of law are concerned.
Personally I am still not sure if death penalty is a good way to go - my animal instincts tell me it is, but logically thinking about it, there is no conclusive data on death penalty being a crime deterrent and killing criminals doesn't really change much - it doesn't bring murder victims back to life. Of course there's still the question of what to do with all these murderers, but honestly I have no answer to this one - it's too complicated for me to comprehend and that's why I'm very glad I'm not responsible for law creation in any country.
Posted in: Serial child killer Tsutomu Miyazaki, 2 others executed