JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- Financial Advisor
- Select Asset Management KK, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥100,000 ~ ¥999,999 Paid Training Commission Based
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- Corporate Business English Trainers
- ACT Systems, Inc.（株式会社アクト・システムズ）, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥269,500 ~ ¥280,000 / Month
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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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Richard_III
Am sticking with Jack Halpern's Kodansha dictionary. Tried, tested, and very user friendly.
Posted in: No longer lost in translation
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Richard_III
Do Japapanese pornos use condoms?
Posted in: Ami Natsui
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Richard_III
Thing is though, you can normally tell. Go to Motown II in the pong and (granted they don't look as good as Ayana) but you can get a sense that something isn't right if you talk to one of the she-male's up there.
Aethetically, she's the best I've seen and oozes femininity when on telly.
Posted in: Transsexual celebrity Ayana Tsubaki introduces Coppola's new film
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Richard_III
Whoever Surgey is, he's done a good job.
Posted in: Transsexual celebrity Ayana Tsubaki introduces Coppola's new film
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Richard_III
She's actually very sexy, and looks good. I can happily watch some tripe on tv if she's on it.
Posted in: Transsexual celebrity Ayana Tsubaki introduces Coppola's new film
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Richard_III
My thoughts on this are exactly: "so what?"
Posted in: The agriculture ministry estimates 22 million tons of food get thrown out by consumers, restaurants and supermarkets each year in Japan. What are your thoughts on this?
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Richard_III
The thought of being sat next to someone who's obese and liable to be rather sweaty for the duration of a 12 hour flight, is frankly, rather horrid.
Yes, they should pay extra on a per kilogram basis based on weight that exceeds their average height.
Posted in: Should overweight people be required to pay for an extra seat on planes?
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Richard_III
Highlights: UK performance in getting so many golds and medals overall.
Lowpoints: Biased Japanese media coverage so I couldn't see any of my favourite sports; I particularly like the way that they've not presented overall performance in comparison to Athens. Doesn't make them look so good, and they don't want that.
Posted in: What, for you, were the highlights and low points of the Beijing Olympics?
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Richard_III
Fly business class.
It's the only way to avoid it.
Posted in: How do you deal with jet lag?
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Richard_III
There is such a thing as a programme that provides "highlights". In one of these programmes a condensed version of events over a certain number of hours are presented. For instance, you can grasp in say 15 minutes what happened over, say, a 5 hour match or game.
It's a quite unique format that is totally lost on the Japanese television programmers.
Posted in: What do you think of the TV coverage of the Olympics so far?
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Richard_III
Well, this is a news service provided in English.... I wouldn't be surprised if somewhere on the internet there is a Japanese based forum of cyclists, archers, sailors etc. that are equally as disappointed with the Japanese TV coverage as the gaijin.
Posted in: What do you think of the TV coverage of the Olympics so far?
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Richard_III
There's about 30 different sports in the olympics. Watching Japanese TV you'd think it was only 3: judo, swimming, badminton. No mention of any other sports at all.
If I paid for it, I'd be even more disappointed.
Posted in: What do you think of the TV coverage of the Olympics so far?
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Richard_III
Japan is a developed country, but it is not Western.
Posted in: In the world of geopolitics, do you think of Japan as part of the West?
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Richard_III
Mmm, that would be nice. Banks are down as well as everything else this morning. Pure misery.
Posted in: Japanese electronics makers mostly report better 1st quarter results
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Richard_III
A couple of weeks ago I saw that Weens had become a news commentator on one of the news programmes at around 10pm. He was trying his best, and didn't do too bad from what I saw. However, if that was in the UK (not that the news on the TV in the UK is that good) or any other country which aspires to serious news, the accusation of "dumbing down" would probably have made the front page of some newspapers.
In Japan it's perfectly normal. As blvtzpk queries, how these "talents" become so omnipresent really is quite curious.
Posted in: What do you think of the quality of Japanese TV variety programs?
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Richard_III
What really grates is the reaction of the wife when I tell that watching this garbage will rot her brain. According to her, I just "don't understand Japan".
Watching this stuff, I have to admit it's true, I really can't understand Japan.
Posted in: What do you think of the quality of Japanese TV variety programs?
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Richard_III
Japan often produces some good films that regularly win prizes at international film festivals. These can frequently be original, inventive or informative. In fact they are a positive reflection on Japan.
By contrast, the mundane, childish and boring crap that gets put on TV should be seen as an embarrassment to Japan. I'm sure they can do better.
Posted in: What do you think of the quality of Japanese TV variety programs?
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Richard_III
I'm of the opinion that Japan is probably one of the worst developed countries you can move to if you're seeking skilled employment. There's just too many barriers and I sometimes get the impression that Japanese employers aren't really that bothered about your skills or potential, rather which university you went to and, as someone mentioned above, whether you can suck up to the boss sufficiently.
Having worked in a Japanese company I would never like to go back there - there was just so much unnecessary stuff and nonsense to deal with, a highly claustrophic and limiting environment basically because everyone refused to breath unless the boss had told them it was alright.
Actually, when I first came here it was as a researcher on one of the government sponsored programmes. I was accompanied by 7 or 8 foreigners all of us then working at universities, and each of us had respectable PhD degrees in the natural or mathematical sciences (basically the kind of people that most countries are seeking to attract and retain). Of this number, I'm the only one still here. Many of us wanted to stay, and some even took on lesser non-research related jobs in order to stay. However, at the end of the day, most had no option but to return as they basically became jumped up english teachers, even though many of them had better publication records than their Japanese peers. A total waste of talent and opportunity for Japan really. But the emphasis was on kissing the sensei's arse and not rocking the boat.
Careerwise, Japan is good for maybe a couple of years experience, if you do want to stay you need to develop your own business or consultancy, otherwise you'll end up living like the natives - in a miserable 2 x 2 craphole above a conbeni, next to a flyover.
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Richard_III
I guess also that a lot of folk got their fingers badly burnt after Horiemon. Many tech related stocks have never really recovered since then - but they were extremely overvalued around that period.
Mothers and Hercules? I could be missing out but I exclude them from my screening option. Extremely low volumes. Vicious circle I guess.
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Richard_III
I wonder if Africans actually support Bono's advocacy or not. Is increasing the number and size of subsidies really the answer to resolve Africa's problems or will they make them worse? On what mandate does Bono claim to have any expertise, knowledge or experience of third-world development?
Given the record of aid to Africa over the past few decades, from what I've read most subsidies have been wasted and misused. Whatever reforms may be made to how subsidies are implemented, for instance, greater control over use with clearer transparency, they probably have negative effects on the population who become used to easy money and a "hand-out" culture. It's widely known that subsidies generally don't work with firms, appear to have had largely negative effects on those countries where they have been aggressively implemented (for instance, Palestine, or (I have to add) the UK).
It strikes me as odd that Bono's words can carry so much weight when they so blatantly appear to be misguided, or naive. I suppose at least that the advocacy of using other peoples money gives aging rock stars something to do.
Posted in: Based on how well they are keeping their Africa promises, some nations have been really dragging down the G-8 as a whole, questioning the relevance of this group. The irony of their collective increasing impotence is that we have never more needed bold leadership on the big issues of our time.