JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
-
- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
-
- Full-time English Teacher - Osaka
- Epion English Language Schools, Osaka
- Salary: ¥200,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month Depending on your ability and experience
-
- Part-time English Teacher - Osaka
- Epion English Language Schools, Osaka
- Salary: ¥10,000 ~ ¥15,000 / Day Depending on how many days a week are worked
0
Seiharinokaze
Wasn't the peace treaty a means to keep the Emperor's Golden Lily as booty and not to distribute it?
Posted in: Should the 1951 Treaty of San Francisco be amended to allow surviving ex-POWs and their kin to take legal action for compensation against the Japanese government?
0
Seiharinokaze
The fox is the messenger of the god Inari. Fushimi-Inari is the guardian god of Hata-clan who originally believed in Nestorianism. Some argue that Inari is a corrupted form of I.N.R.I. or Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews (John 19: 19). It's interesting that Christ changed into a god that grants people's worldly request accompanied by a messenger animal of Dakini a tantric goddess of eros who helps us chasing after dreams and pleasures.
Posted in: Good luck
0
Seiharinokaze
OK, I will rewrite, moderator. Yasukuni issue perhaps won't go away easily because the Kellogg-Briand Pact was something applied for once in a way to the prosecution/judgement on Japan at the Tokyo Trial. Not something applied consistently or equally. That's why many Japanese are rather non-judgmental and equivocal if not clearly affirmative about legislators' visit to the shrine.
If the Yasukuni Shrine won't transfer the 14 Class-A convicts' souls elsewhere for something like the above reason or because of some mythological technicality (though I believe they could as Masakado's soul was once transferred from Kanda Myojin shrine), we can only wait until the people, mostly Chinese, who make a thing of it will regard it as less of an issue like people of the other countries. And I think it has more to do with the domestic affairs of China rather than what they really think about present Japan.
Posted in: What is the best way to settle the Yasukuni Shrine issue?
0
Seiharinokaze
Underneath all its bluff, I heard somewhere, Islam is a world of polytheism and strong women.
Arabic race began from an offspring born out of wedlock because of his father not really believing God's words and instead agreeing to take a concubine. He swayed and quivered not before God but actually between two women. And this may have something to do with polygamy often practiced in Islamic societies which is supposed to be a relief measure to save mother-and-child families. Perhaps Islam is full of the common touch on the inside.
Posted in: Can Islam and the Western world coexist peacefully?
0
Seiharinokaze
smithinjapan
The region is not returning to what it was. It is always as it was. A Japanese writer once said that where there is no electricity, there is no democracy. 2 billion people of the world have no electricity and patriarchy still rules in such places. It's like when the floor manager begins to lead us when the power supply stopped suddenly in our present society. The moment the light goes out, patriarchy begins to rule. What she meant to say is perhaps you cannot force them to buy electricity (western value) in the region.
Also this commitment by Japan to the region is a kind of passive resistance against the U.S. demand that Japan show the flag and put their boots on the ground.
Posted in: Japan considers $1 billion of aid to Pakistan to help fight terrorism
0
Seiharinokaze
Well, Japan made Iran an ally for fighting terrorism too. I don't think Japan wants to so look good on the international front. Perhaps Japan believes in rajajumar's way of approach, that is, plowshares (means of livelihood) rather than guns is the best for a foreign country like Japan to help bring peace and stability in that region in the long run.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20090411TDY01301.htm
The British raj made Afghanistan cede the southeastern part of its territory with the Ghandamak agreement in 1876, which is the reason for the borderline between Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as separation of Pashtuns' living area.
Posted in: Japan considers $1 billion of aid to Pakistan to help fight terrorism
0
Seiharinokaze
Patrick Smash
The six nations' talks have stalled not over Japan's abduction issue but, as written in the above article, Pyongyang’s refusal of a verification process that would confirm it had dismantled its nuclear programs as earlier promised. And wartime impressment cannot be talked on a par with abduction issue. FYI Japan-DPRK Pyongyang Declaration in 2002 has the basic principle that both Japan and the DPRK would mutually waive all their property and claims and those of their nationals that had arisen from causes which occurred before August 15, 1945.
North Korea also confirmed in the same declaration the necessity of resolving security problems including nuclear and missile issue by promoting dialogues among countries concerned. Isn't launching a rocket over Japan which is no different from a missile a violation of the agreement with Japan? Do you still say it's time for Japan to just shut up?
Lastly I would like to ask you how Japan's attitude including its motion to specify the names of 10 companies believed to be helping enable NK to carry out its missile testing is not helpful to the end of world security and non-proliferation of nukes.
Posted in: Japan, U.S. differ on how to punish N Korea
0
Seiharinokaze
Well, the model continued after 1945. And it tends to drift about when the world power shift occurs. But anyway I am rather bearish on Japan unless we put an end to the puppet regime of LDP and bureaucrats who are howling with wolves at their back.
Posted in: Why I’m bullish on Japan
0
Seiharinokaze
taniwha
Globalism is what stronger world powers has to force for their own interest on lesser nations. Modern histories in Asia is full of such schemes and martial outcomes. Afghanistan is a good example. The world players often sent troops there since early 19th century all to little purpose. Will they ever learn?
The samurais of Satsuma, however, knelt down to globalism after the Anglo-Satsuma War in 1863 amidst the national movement calling for the expulsion of foreign powers, and with backup from Britain they eventually usurped the government (the shogunate) by holding up the Imperial brocade. Even the victory of the Russo-Japanese War was not feasible without help of the British Navy officers and the good offices of Rothschild. Whereas in Afghanistan and China the expulsion of foreign powers remained a chronic imperative disturbing the process of modernization. Neither the Opium War nor General Gordon's victory over the Taiping rebellion let the Chinese take "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude as easily as the Anglo-Satsuma war did with the samurais. You can call it Japan model.
So Japanese leaders submitted tamely to the trick of globalism. Anyone who opposes to selling away his souls and country to the world power is regarded as backward and excluded as a social outcast. Such is what globalism is all about. But now it's getting questionable as Koizumi's structural reform was mostly to let outflow the national wealth and monetary globalism devastate the domestic economy. Japan model is loosing its validity.
Posted in: Why I’m bullish on Japan
0
Seiharinokaze
taniwha,
To be honest, imperialism was not Japan's speciality though I don't think there were plenty of resources to snatch from our neighboring countries compared with other great empires. Since earlier on the century before last, Russia tried to come down southward to the Indian Ocean in the Central Asia and also through Manchuria to the Korean peninsula in the Far East. Whereas Britain conquered India and was encroaching China from Shanghai and Hong Kong. In this Great Game, Japan was picked out perhaps for her ingenuity and drive as a promising chessman for Britain to contain Russia in this region. The Meiji Restoration was even realized with backup from Britain. And halfway through the game the U.S. joined by setting Japan against China and eventually pulled down Britain from its position. Postwar Japan then became a chessman or chest for America. Should Japan be proud of herself for being picked out two times or should know better?
At least it's high time anyway we knew that Anglo-American style management doesn't fit or save this country as there are scarcely any business corporations that have not come to a dead end which had introduced globalism and by-result management in the last decades after the bubble economy collapsed.
Posted in: Why I’m bullish on Japan
0
Seiharinokaze
The largest business connection to AIG is said to be Goldman Sachs. That's why they could not allow it to become insolvent before settling CDS (credit default swaps).
But who owns 54 trillion dollars worth of CDS insured by hedge funds? How could they pay hundred times as much as what AIG could not? Geithner and Bernanke have yet to seek to prevent transparency or clear view of the whole spectrum. Otherwise the banks, Central banks and even the states in the world would go bankrupt.
Bailout or not, however, 600 to 700 trillion yens of precious savings of the Japanese people that were entrusted to fund managers of foreign-affiliated financial companies to be invested in New York are now vanishing and will never be returned.
Posted in: Taxpayer fleecing must be stopped
0
Seiharinokaze
Though I still think the trees outnumber the tourists, I do not recommend noted places for seeing cherry blossoms. Instead stroll in some obscure corners of Tokyo and you will find yourself on a hushed back street possibly with a cherry tree or even a grove of them blossoming from over the fence of a tiny park or a schoolyard. For a moment you will be spared some space where you can enjoy solitude though you may hear children's voices somewhere. And what you might feel then, I believe, is not so different from what Basho might have felt hundreds years ago.
さまざまのこと思い出す桜かな
Posted in: When tourists outnumber the trees
0
Seiharinokaze
Seeing more Hollywood films than domestic ones and listening to more overseas musicians than J-pop artists is not globalization. Nor more sales of American cars either. And of course the reverse is not to be called nationalism or cultural pride or non-tariff barrier. It's a matter of taste and choice in a free society.
Our goddamned poor ability to communicate in English has scarcely anything to do with globalization too. Globalization means in most cases to deregulate the domestic market up to what is called "global standard" which is often no more than some other foreign domestic standard so that foreign capital can come in. Without speaking any bit of English, therefore, you can feel irresistible tide of globalization washing over Japan as we see, for example, frequent TV commercials in Japanese language for foreign-owned insurance companies. So creeping isolationism in a globalized 21st century is actually a laughing matter. We better raise the rate of self-sufficiency in food and boost domestic demand than try to improve our English ability probably in vain.
Posted in: More Japanese shunning the outside world
0
Seiharinokaze
Nakagawa insisted on using the profits of foreign reserve to invest as an intellectual fund in the strategic development of technology and nurturing of researchers. He said it is a more appropriate way of using the foreign reserve, far better than being obsessed with the idea that Japan has no choice but to continue having the US treasury bonds out of consideration for the U.S. This type of politician seems destined to be strangled in a grisly fashion casting caution to the winds by warning of a deadly fraud devised by the A-chielfs?
Posted in: Nakagawa seen 'misbehaving' at Vatican; Russian official says he acted like 'brain was turned off'
0
Seiharinokaze
The Trojan priest might have aroused his strong sympathy. Nakagawa always warned his fellows against a wooden horse or anything that undermines national wealth. It's interesting that he resigned while Hillary stayed in Japan who somehow looks like a Minerva.
Posted in: Nakagawa seen 'misbehaving' at Vatican; Russian official says he acted like 'brain was turned off'
0
Seiharinokaze
Triple888
Goma (護摩) is transliterated from a Sanskrit word, "homa" which refers to any ritual in which making offerings into a consecrated fire is the primary action. Refer to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homa_(ritual)
Shingon (esoteric) Buddhism is 80 percent Hinduism and 20 percent Buddhism. I don't know why Japan still keeps this kind of ritual which was introduced from China where it's long since extinct.
Posted in: Burning prayer sticks
0
Seiharinokaze
As far as Japan is concerned, homogeneity is not so much a matter of biological, linguistic or ethnic purity as that of how Jomon people (the indigenous tribes such as Kumaso and Hayato tribes in the south and Emishi tribe in the north) forgot being subjugated by Yamato tribe. Perhaps that's why I sometimes feel that the people in the Tohoku region seem to live in their own world having a bit of inscrutable mopes in themselves.
What had actually happened before Emperor came along with its mythology and Shintoism always intrigues our curiosity. Homogeneity in this country does not seem to be something given since the beginning of things. It's if anything has more to do with the process of letting go of grudge and mortification than of anything to be boastful or hypocritical about as being inherent.
Posted in: Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity
0
Seiharinokaze
What's in store for us? Huge government borrowings to be forced on Japan, China and Saudi Arabia by Geithner and Summers team? And when it comes to a showdown, will the principals and interests of those US Treasury bonds be offset by sharp depreciation of dollar value? But then it only will save America, not the world.
If something not remotely comparable is unavoidable, then at least we should keep in mind the history as described in the essay as a lesson of how for us not to be involved again: the ultimate in short, frightening answer to who was eventually to pay for the all great experiments in the federal spending to get you out of the Great Depression was actually "war".
Posted in: We shall all have to pay - eventually
0
Seiharinokaze
Then what about Mark 12:41-44? I personally am doubtful about the effect of throwing money there for your wishes though, not necessarily because they all seem to put in out of their surplus.
Posted in: Prayers
0
Seiharinokaze
How kind of them to care about the health of eaters of whales which they do not seem to eat. They may as well care about the health of eaters of quadruped too.
Sonars sent from the US Navy battleships during military practices in the northern Pacific Ocean disturbed whales and dolphins having them stranded dead on rocks and reefs. Ecoactivist groups filed a suit demanding for the restriction of the military practices in the ocean and won the case in the 1st and 2nd courts that acknowledged the damage to the whales and ordered the US Navy to suspend the use of sonars. But recently the Supreme Court overruled it. Did the US media and ecoactivists oppose to the judgment?
According to "Brainwash by the name of Ecology エコロジーという洗脳" by Soejima Takahiko + SNSI, the true reason to lead the public opinion toward anti-whaling is the procurement of the cerebrospinal fluid of sperm whales. The whale's cerebrospinal fluid is still used as valuable anti-freezing solution for fuel oil and lubricant of combat cars and tanks. It takes enormous cost to make artificially anti-freezing solution that does not freeze even lower than 60 degrees below zero. Those anti-whaling activist groups have been made good use of from the viewpoint of national security too haven't they? Brainwash or not, I am sorry to say, Japanese with an ineffable hunch feeling in our bones tend to take this kind of anti-whaling narratives with a grain of salt.
Posted in: Protests or not, Japanese keep eating whale