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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Livvie
Facebook is so bent on making everything more "social" that it's becoming more and more difficult to maintain privacy. Every time they revamp their site I end up feeling more exposed. Google doesn't really have a strong footing yet in the realm of social networking but there is some promise. I don't think Facebook will face total abandonment like MySpace did but I do believe that more and more people will delete their accounts over privacy concerns. Including myself.
Posted in: Google versus Facebook for dominance of the web. Who has the upper hand?
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Livvie
I've lived in Japan for a long time now and must admit that I found the quiet aloofness of J-guys cute at first...but after ten years of "Does he like me? Is he using me for English? Make a move already!!", I've pretty much thrown in the towel. It was fun and exciting in high school. I'm a grown woman now!
I guess it doesn't help that I'm back home on vacation and ogling all the handsome average joes here either!
Posted in: China outperforming Japan in campus romance
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Livvie
I've always loved this piece of architecture and can't wait what they've done to it!
Posted in: Tokyo Station Hotel to begin accepting reservations for weddings, banquets on Jan 30
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Livvie
Are we referring to debris from Tohoku including contaminated debris from near the power plant?
Or just debris from other parts of Tohoku?
If they can confirm that the debris is not radioactive debris from around Fukushima Dai Ichi then there's no problem, but after hearing stories about contaminated tea, baby formula and other products, hundreds of kilometers away from Fukushima...no. At some point some company would get careless. Tohoku does not equal radiation, we mustn't forget that. However we cannot forget how careless the people in charge have been so far in the handling of this disaster.
I voted no, but really like Fadamor, said there should have been a "It depends" option.
Posted in: Should prefectures outside the Tohoku area accept tsunami rubble for incineration or disposal?
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Livvie
A few years ago they won some award for their "innovative and aggressive" dance routine from one of their music videos. At the time I paid little attention, looked up the video on You Tube and was unimpressed. Then one day I saw them perform a medley of their songs with SMAP on TV. SMAP did aforementioned dance routine while the ladies stood in the back waiting for their turn and wiped the floor with them. SMAP. Not a SMAP fan either, but they took that choreography and did it the way it was supposed to be. You know you're doing something wrong when some men pushing 40 who are supposed to be paying tribute to you, end up doing what you do ten times better than you. Sad.
Then one day I saw an AKB show on cable. Watched a bit of it to try and give them a second chance. There were, as expected, lots of mini skirts and boots and hand movements, typical idol stuff. Then the camera panned out to get a full shot of the entire troop. Every single girl had a wireless microphone, every single one of them was "singing" into their microphones. Yet there were only four floor monitors on stage. None of them had ear monitors in their ears. Really now. 48 of them all singing at the same time, dancing and singing at the same time, and they can all hear themselves? They can all dance and sing and stay in key, even the ones in the back?
bicultural, you are absolutely right. Akimoto has used this formula time and time again to make a whole lotta money! I just can't understand why people have been falling for it for so many years. I really don't get it. Yeah the pop world is full of girls and guys with marginal talent, and some of them I actually like. I've just never been able to get into AKB. I do appreciate Akimoto Sensei's skills as a J-Pop songwriter and producer but the material would sound so much better if given to someone else.
I don't really have a problem with people who like them either. I just feel that the media and record agencies end up with tunnel vision, because they see how much money these girls are making and then the people with true hard earned talent, innovation, and ambition end up getting pushed to the wayside because they can't look, act, or sell like these girls do.
Posted in: Singapore singalong
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Livvie
I wonder how many of these "prank" phone calls are actually smartphone misdials? Even if you lock your iPhone you can bypass the lock to call 110. I've almost pressed that button more than once, and I just saw something on the Canadian news about this same issue a few days ago. Perhaps it's best to disable this function if it is causing so much trouble.
Posted in: Prank calls made up over 20% of emergency calls in 2011
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Livvie
Hmm...not a very comprehensive list, so I chose "Other" thanks.
Posted in: Who gets your vote for the greatest rock band of all time?
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Livvie
Um, no brainer. Once again the media and government are trying to buffer the news by releasing it slowly and in small doses.
So how do we know exactly what's safe and what isn't if they are so slow in giving out information? How do I know if the spinach labeled as Hokkaido spinach at my supermarket isn't really from Northwest Fukushima, or another affected area?
My friend bought me some rare organic honey from a farm near the ocean in Chiba and I was so happy to get it until I realized it was harvested this past May. Bees could've collected radioactive pollen to make that honey. So what do I do with that? Use it? Throw it away? Keep it until they finally test the area for radiation?? I wish the government would be more proactive about this instead of taking the "nantoka naru" approach!
Posted in: Parts of Japan too radioactive to farm, say int'l researchers
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Livvie
At first when I saw this I thought - why would he kill his whole family instead of just killing himself? Then I realized that in Japan that if the the father or mother in a family cannot pay off their debts it is inherited by the spouse and then the offspring. I suppose in his crazed and desperate state he thought he was doing the right thing by saving his family from being poor for the rest of their lives due to his mistakes. So barbaric though.
Posted in: Man suspected of killing wife, son with pickaxe
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Livvie
The same can be said about the industry here. Most of the foreign models hired in the Japanese fashion scene are almost always blond-haired and blue eyed. The argument is the same I suppose, that models from India and other cultures are too curvaceous to wear the average haute couture designers' clothes. I for one am looking forward to the day when I'll see a more realistic representation of all shapes colors and sizes on the runway and in fashion magazines. Why should one have to purchase Indian Vogue or Japanese Elle, or Essence, etc. to see models from their own culture? It's a big beautiful colorful world people!!!
Posted in: Indian models out of fashion overseas
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Livvie
Forgive me if I stray off topic to reply to your post tmarie...but the salarymen are also playing while they slave away. Why do you think there are so many massage parlors and soaplands in this country? Even when they're not paying to play they're playing around with their coworkers, etc. NOT every salaryman of course, but a lot of them. I'm speaking from experience as I have met quite a few Japanese men that were hoping that Super Foreign Girl would come to their rescue and save them from their sexless marriage. No thanks.
It is my assumption that these establishments are becoming popular, particularly for the women mentioned in this article, because there are no sexual outlets for women. People marry for the wrong reasons, or feel sexually unfulfilled. The salary men have their hostess clubs, soaplands etc. and the women have....what?
Having said that, there is an alarming number of people in this country who feel they are immune to STDs, and so using protection would be an absolute must. Otherwise, if the people involved in this kind of activity are emotionally mature enough to deal with it, I can't say anything else about the issue.
Wait, yes I can - If you're married and having marital problems, how's about solving those problems with your partners before you start wandering into dark clubs looking for a good time?
Posted in: The good, the bad and the desperate: Tokyo's raunchy underground clubs
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Livvie
I myself have chased after (unsuccessfully) heat-crazed salary men who decided to use a packed Inokashira Line train to brazenly fondle my chest on their way out the door. I really do think the summer heat, and the fact that women wear less clothing on hotter days, drives men to do stupid things here. The few incidents I've had have all been during the summer. Not like it matters though - gropers are not welcome ANY time of year in my book.
Posted in: Teacher arrested for molesting woman on train
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Livvie
So...have they started checking the milk and cheese, and butter as well? You know that's next right? After that will probably be rice. And what are the chickens being fed? Scratch poultry and eggs off the list as well. The government needs to start putting serious measures in place to check all food being shipped from the affected areas. INCLUDING the repackaged goods! No more "well we thought it was Shizuoka tea but they threw some Fukushima tea leaves in it and forgot to write it down".
Posted in: Japan bans all cattle shipments from Fukushima over radiation fears
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Livvie
In some rural areas, the only light visible at night is the glow coming from the vending machines. Turning them completely off would create a safety hazard Plus shutting them all off would hurt a lot of blue collar workers. The economy is already in bad shape. If the pachinko paroles could switch off those blazing casino lights AND LED displays AND fake fireworks, I'm sure it would make a difference.
Posted in: Pachinko parlors and vending machines use up 10 million kilowatts of power a year, which is just about the amount of the Fukushima nuclear power plants.
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Livvie
So the moral of the story is, "Don't have a 'questionable' background if you are planning on accusing a powerful man of rape". It always comes to this. I can hear the lawyers pleading their case now. " How could he rape this woman? She sells drugs! She launders money! She's from Guinea!". Why do they even need to tell us where she is from? How is it pertinent to this case?
Posted in: Strauss-Kahn rape case 'near collapse'
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Livvie
Just as a man with many sexual partners is called a playboy while a woman with the same habits is called easy or promiscuous, or one other word that sums it up nicely but I'll keep to myself. The playing field will probably never be even. Having said that, I do believe that "sexting" done by married/involed people is most definitely non gender specific and most definitely related to lack of satisfaction (with sex, work, life, partner, whatever!)
Posted in: Can sexting be an illness?
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Livvie
You know what I'd like and expect from a channel with the word MUSIC in it's name? How about some more MUSIC related content? How about that? Or are you just going to make another ten spin off channels to make up for it? At least MTV Japan still plays videos.
Posted in: MTV reinvents itself — again — with new generation
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Livvie
I don't really care for idols and their ilk, but for some reason I liked this girl, her suicide was such a shock. I was really rooting for her to succeed, and it seemed like she was just starting to get regular appearances on television here and there before she killed herself. Her whole reason for working was so that she could save up enough money to build a brand new, barrier free house for her mom and dad to live the rest of their days in in Kagoshima. So so sad.
Posted in: Funeral held for Miyu Uehara in Kagoshima
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Livvie
Both Twitter and Facebook were the ONLY ways I could communicate with my friends and family in Japan and abroad when the earthquake hit. Phones and email servers were jammed. With Twitter I was able to let people know which park I had evacuated to and when I got safely home. So it's not totally useless. It's also an excellent networking/marketing tool for the self employed (the reason why I opened an account in the first place).
Posted in: Do you use Twitter?
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Livvie
Ridiculous. What they need to do is publish "Oxford English Dictionary: The Slang and Semi-Useful Abbreviations Edition" and be done with it.
Posted in: OMG! Online abbreviations make Oxford English Dictionary