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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- ALT - Mie Prefecture - Yokkaichi City - June start
- NPO法人グローバル教育推進機構（GLAD), Mie
- Salary: ¥230,000 / Month For a full working month. Some months differ.
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- Business Teaching Positions - Part-time - Kanto Region
- Interac, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥3,000 ~ ¥5,000 / Hour
4
Ishiwara
@ Americanforeigner
Not showing your kids Japanese TV because of "all the problems in Japanese society"? I hope once you eventually return to the US, you will show them the real America: homelessness, gangs, violence, drug-addiction, illiteracy.
Posted in: How foreigners’ daily lives change when they live in Japan
2
Ishiwara
"Especially with the all shocking news and cultural issues that we see here, I really think it's better for them kids to focus on being in a US-style environment, as I can't see them having any future in a Japanese one."
I am shocked to read comments like this. We just moved to the US, and we're seriously thinking of going back to Japan since we find it impossible to adapt here. What we miss from Japan: good food, good public transport system, good public health system, good eduction system (American kids are taught nothing but a big ego), good food, tea, kotatsu, silly Japanese TV, izakaya, konbini,...good food.
Also, it is often said that Japanese are workaholic, but Americans are much worse off, they never relax, always talk about work and problems. And the economy is going downhill, but national pride is not. I find it hard to see a future here.
Posted in: How foreigners’ daily lives change when they live in Japan
-2
Ishiwara
Before we start speculating about what this figure means, and what it says about Japanese society etc., it must be pointed out that it is not the highest in the world. Lithuania and South Korea for example are much higher.
Posted in: No. of suicides surpasses 30,000 for 14th year in a row in 2011
4
Ishiwara
@ SSCSforeverJ
I am not convinced. I just saw the video, and it is clear that the SS people positioned their ship in front of the Japanese ship, getting hit in consequence.
Posted in: Do you consider the anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd to be eco-terrorists?
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Ishiwara
I was relatively sympathetic to the Sea Shepherd activists, until I saw the video's of them ramming the Japanese vessels in mid-sea. Extremely dangerous and reckless behavior.
Japan also hunts for Minke-whales, which are not endangered, so (unless you object to killing animals in any form) I don't think that is a problem.
Posted in: Do you consider the anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd to be eco-terrorists?
2
Ishiwara
@China Dragon
Not true. Okinawa paid tribute to the Qing, just like Korea, Vietnam and other places did. The Qing did not own Okinawa.
By the way, the Qing were not even Chinese, they were Manchu.
Posted in: China, Taiwan complain after Japanese politicians land on disputed isles
0
Ishiwara
AKB is obviously not just "music." It is an overkill of kawaii-ness. Love it.
Posted in: AKB48 wins top Japan record industry award
1
Ishiwara
Very much agree! I did not know Hamachan could sing so well. He is from the Tohoku region.
Posted in: 'Kohaku Uta Gassen' sings for Japan
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Ishiwara
To add: I certainly don't want to fall into the "they did it too, so we were right to commit crimes" -type of argument, but probably all war cemeteries over the world have many war criminals enshrined.
Posted in: Yasukuni shrine hit by arson attack
-1
Ishiwara
@Patrick,
I respect some of your arguments, but it seems you want to have it both ways. You agree the Japanese should have a place to console (which is very different from "worship") their war dead, yet that the Japanese have no right to do that in the way they want.
The US occupation had better demolished Yasukuni? More than one historian has pointed out that while the US occupation was benevolent and successful to a large degree, it was also colonialist. Destroying Yasukuni would it have made even more so. Nevertheless, even McArthur (a colonialist with heavy personal financial stakes in the Phillipines), and who hoped to Christianize Japan, decided not to destroy Yasukuni.
If the Japanese had destroyed it themselves, perhaps that would have been better, but then a way to console the dead would have to be found, including of those B/C criminals,unless they become "onryo" and i am sure some people would have found a problem with that.
Concerning the chinreisha:
It was erected by a priest who sincerely hoped to make Yasukuni into a place symbolic of Japan's postwar commitment to peace. That is my point: Yasukuni is a place of many meanings and potentialities, and you cannot just condemn it as a whole, despite it's state-Shinto origins. It is up to the Japanese to decide where this will be going.
Yasukuni, with its links to the Imperial House, was mostly erected to console the dead. Unlike what many foreigners think, most Japanese think that even while the WWII was largely a mistake, the souls of the dead should still be consoled. The fact that Yasukuni still exists and functions while the Emperor has denounced his divinity is a sign that it is not only "a place to legitimize a myth of a divine leader."
I don't now why you started off about Judge Pal and liberating Asia and so on, since I never mentioned this. you are right that Pal never denied the Japanese committed war crimes, and his legacy is sometimes abused by rightists. Nevertheless, his judgement leaves a large mark on the whole tribunal: the random way in which it was done, the limitation of arguments for the defense (fear for communism was not to be mentioned) the selection of accused, and the fact that all except Pal where representatives of colonial powers makes the trial more than a little ambiguous. One Dutch and one American judge also found the whole thing bizarre. No wonder the Tokyo Tribunal arouses ambiguous feelings in Japan.
Posted in: Yasukuni shrine hit by arson attack
-1
Ishiwara
@Patrick & GW
Interesting points, but do not change the fact that it is not the case that the existence of the shrine as such is controversial. Nobody is calling for its abolition. The main function of the shrine is to console (not "glorify") the spirits of the dead, according to Japanese rituals and sensibilities concerning how to deal with deceased spirits.
The shrine was indeed erected to console the spirits of those who fought against the Tokugawa. But the warriors of Aizu and other domains who fought against the Meiji government also did so in name of the Emperor. (The new Chinreisha was erected to console them as well (not "supposedly"). ) So it honors the all those who died for the country, just as Arlington does in Washington.
Enshrining the class B/C war criminals was not very controversial. Criticism from China and other countries only started after Nakasone's visit in 1985, precisely because of the 14 class A war criminals.
One of Chinreisha's "za" is indeed dedicated to all the war dead regardless of nationality: British, US, Chinese, Korean, South East Asian, and rituals are performed for them. (This has made it controversial for some nationalist priests.)
@ GW. So let's turn it around: you cannot take bits and pieces of the shrine and therefore condemn the place as a whole.
Do you have a solution how Japan can console the dead without controversy?
Posted in: Yasukuni shrine hit by arson attack
0
Ishiwara
Nothing justifies the Japanese war crimes.
Having said that, on a different level, it is also necessary to think of the reasons of war & indeed why the British were there in Hong Kong and Malaysia, the Dutch in Indonesia, the French in Indochina, and the Americans in the Philippines.
Most Dutch and British I have met are full of the aggression of the Japanese, but have no idea of the Opium wars, or the Atjeh wars, or the American wars on the Phillipines in the 1900's, just to name a couple.
Posted in: HK remembers 'Black Christmas' of 1941 when Japan took over
0
Ishiwara
Myanmar is China's route of access to the Indian ocean, and it has lots of natural resources. Bringing Myanmar somehow into the West's (US and Japan's) orbit, rather than China's, is the strategic objective. Myanmar is in the fortunate position of juggling between both China and the US.
Posted in: Japan moves toward better relations with Myanmar
-3
Ishiwara
Some clarifications are in order for some mis-informed comments:
In short: the Yasukuni problem is a bit more complex than it looks like at first sight...
Posted in: Yasukuni shrine hit by arson attack
-7
Ishiwara
@Ayler What's so difficult to understand about this? It is this kind of reporting that spreads false information that the whole shrine is somehow a glorification of Japanese war crimes in WWII. It is not.
Posted in: Yasukuni shrine hit by arson attack
0
Ishiwara
It is interesting that recently Chinese nationalist historians discard the allied effort in the war as attempts to gain back their colonies, and that actually the Chinese won the war against Japan.
Posted in: HK remembers 'Black Christmas' of 1941 when Japan took over
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Ishiwara
It is good that these events are brought up to be remembered in the media.
However, concerning Japanese apologies in general, here is a long list with official apologies Japan has given over the decades:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Listofwarapologystatementsissuedby_Japan
Posted in: HK remembers 'Black Christmas' of 1941 when Japan took over
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Ishiwara
@Ayler
Nobody made a problem of this shrine until the war criminals were enshrined there in the 1970's. So no, the shrine itself is not controversial.
Posted in: Yasukuni shrine hit by arson attack
0
Ishiwara
Bad idea. It totally does not fit with the rest of the program.
Posted in: Lady Gaga to appear on 'Kohaku Uta Gassen'
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Ishiwara
"Tokyo’s controversial Yasukuni shrine, often seen as a symbol of Japan’s wartime aggression"
Typical of today's style of reporting, and some gaijin-observations are not helping here. The shrine itself is not controversial, and was made to honor the dead in Japan's civil war (the Boshin war).
I agree that the war criminals are a problem, but there should also be some more understanding that the Japanese have a right to honor their war dead like any other country. The British reacted pretty hysterical last year when a drunken student climbed a war monument in London.
Posted in: Yasukuni shrine hit by arson attack