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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- FT English Teachers for Kids - Osaka
- Kohgakusha Co., Ltd. （株式会社興学社）, Osaka
- Salary: ¥255,000 ~ ¥275,000 / Month Travel Expenses, Encouragement of Japanese learning*
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- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
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ThonTaddeo
I'm pretty impressed with a taxi driver that can get from Uji to Tokyo by way of Hikone in just 7 hours -- it shuld take longer that that!
Nisegaijin, I'mnot surprised about the low fare. There are some very cheap taxi companies in Kyoto compared to the insane Y710 that they're taking in Tokyo. I once asked a driver how they were able to stay profitable with such reasonable rates (Y550, I think, but this was before the '08 oil shock), and the driver chalked it up to larger numbers of tourists making short runs, and the fact that the streets are well-laid out and easy to manage, so you can get to places quickly.
Posted in: Man arrested for refusing to pay taxi fare from Kyoto to Tokyo police HQ
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ThonTaddeo
A "warning"? Sixty-four days in jail is somewhat more than a "warning".
And it couldn't really have been probation if the authorities then grabbed him and imprisoned him for 19 months.
Posted in: Asylum seekers find little refuge in Japan
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ThonTaddeo
Niijima is great -- I made a big pale-green glass mug out of that island sand -- and the surrounding islands like Shikine aren't half bad either.
If only those ferries were a little cheaper; I'd go all the time.
Posted in: Niijima: Idyllic getaway from Tokyo -- without technically leaving Tokyo
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ThonTaddeo
Cleo, we can quibble about what constitutes "the third degree", but the fact is that instead of lecturing our author about traffic safety, which is what the cops should have done, they instead made a bunch of irrelevant and insulting demands that had nothing to do with red lights.
They first pretended not to understand that changes to information on the front of alien cards are made on the back. Anybody with the authority to look at these things knows full well that people don't have "two addresses" -- plenty of other ID cards work the same way! The cops were just trying to confuse Jahrine here -- it's not like she can afford to get angry about their deception.
Then they took it upon themselves to decide that it's a long way from Jahrine's apartment to Jusco, as if our authors were lying about it or something.
They then follow this up with questions about our authors' monthly salaries -- we're getting further and further away from traffic safety, now aren't we?
Next they start opening up Jahrine's bags -- they need a warrant for that! Notice also that they didn't even ask for her permission, which legally they must do. Maybe they thought that since our authors played fast and loose with the traffic light laws, the police are allowed to disregard their own laws. And here I was thinking that there should be higher standards for the police.
"Stop embarrassing yourself"!? "Too busy"? Cleo, I don't know where you live, but in central Tokyo (where I worked until recently), at night, koban cops aren't busy in the least. And there are a ton of young trainees whose bosses love to have them stop innocent-looking cyclists to give them practice in questioning people.
I invite you to join me in riding my bicycle past a few of them after hours. The first few times they stop us for no reason at all, you might think it's just good neighborhood police work. After that you'll be ready to tear their heads off.
Again, I admit, the authors of this piece were in the wrong, traffic-light-wise, and a traffic safety reminder was deserved. But the other accusations and harassment were out of order. And cops do this all the time. I'd rather pay a traffic fine on the spot and then ride off than put up with that insulting garbage.
Posted in: My first run-in with the police
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ThonTaddeo
Raise the retirement age to 75 for women (who already live 7-8 years longer, karoshi being unknown for them) and 70 for men.
Do it now before the baby boomers get to that age and stop anything like it from happening. That generation will happily bankrupt the world as long as they get theirs.
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ThonTaddeo
Jahrine, while the cops had no business giving you the third degree, you still shouldn't have run the red light. Cops are just waiting for people to make little mistakes like that so that they can go and harass them -- it's bad enough even when you haven't done anything suspicious at all!
Always obey the traffic laws, cross the roads in the bicycle lanes (where available), keep your light on at night, and -- just to be safe -- learn where the police boxes are and go around them rather than directly in front.
Posted in: My first run-in with the police
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ThonTaddeo
If the bases are dismantled in favor of homes for Okinawans, fine. But my fear is that they'll be retained and occupied by the Japanese "Self-Defense" Forces, which would be a truly awful and unfair outcome. Even in 2014, there will be many Okinawans still alive who remember how the Imperial Japanese Army treated them. Unfortunately those venerable elders will be outnumbered by the hired pro-mainland-Japanese rabble from the mainland who always seem to find their way down to Okinawa when issues like these come up.
Posted in: Do you support the planned transfer by 2014 of U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam?
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ThonTaddeo
Government propaganda.
Only if the fall in price were so large as to outweigh the increased utility of having the product now rather than some months or years from now would this be a factor.
Would you put off buying a bicycle for Y10,660 today knowing that you could get it for a flat Y10,000 a year from now? Of course not -- to gain a paltry 6.6%, you'd have to live without the bike for a whole year! Even with electronic goods, whose prices fall at rates unimaginable in other sectors, nobody puts off buying something because it'll be cheaper in a year. They might time their purchase to coincide with a price drop, but even that's limited to the serious cognoscenti.
Inflation has the same effect in reverse; people will spend money unnecessarily before its value is stolen by the hidden tax of inflation. But we don't see the government complaining about that, now do we?
Posted in: Wholesale prices fall 6.6% in June
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ThonTaddeo
Well, this article could certainly be a bit less pro-Han-biased.
"Jierla Yishamuning" is a Mandarin/Pinyin reworking of the man's real name, which is the much more Turkic-sounding Jerla Isamudin.
Call him by his proper name, not a bastardization of it.
Posted in: Chinese armed police watch over a calmer Urumqi
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ThonTaddeo
"Local dialect" gives short shrift to Okinawan, which is a language in its own right, as different from Japanese as English is from Dutch or German.
But this road is indeed a beautiful one. I'd put it right up there with the Philosopher's Walk or Hanami-koji in Kyoto.
Posted in: The king’s road
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ThonTaddeo
If that's the law, then there are many more "secially designated" sidewalks than you might think. Many of the sidewalks I ride on have triangle-shaped "bicycle stop" icons on the ground, implying that cyclists would be on those sidewalks. Here's a sample of these markings:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_AFlLjulBSM8/SJMpOjQYwTI/AAAAAAAAAz4/jb-8n7lYnNk/s400/とまれ.jpg
As long as automobiles are parking their massive bulk on the side of the road, cyclists can't possibly ride there and are forced onto the sidewalks. Make this streetside parking illegal and I'll happily ride on the roads all the time.
Posted in: Tokyo residents pedaling to work in increasing numbers
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ThonTaddeo
Killing a sleeping person is just about the lowest, most disgusting, most cowardly thing a person can do.
I wonder what God Ms. Kazemi believes in. I can't imagine that any deity would offer forgiveness for this.
Posted in: Police: McNair shot dead in sleep by girlfriend
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ThonTaddeo
There are dozens of other Japanese cities that could be used as settings. Why focus only on Tokyo?
Posted in: Filmed on location in Tokyo...not quite
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ThonTaddeo
You should be able to waive your "rights" against the company in these cases if you so choose.
Posted in: Tokyo residents pedaling to work in increasing numbers
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ThonTaddeo
Kyoken, I'd love to see that video. Post it!
Posted in: Tokyo residents pedaling to work in increasing numbers
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ThonTaddeo
I'm very happy to see more people bicycling to work; it's healthy, invigorating, and bicycles emit zero pollution.
One problem for workers who want to try "tsuukingu" (what a terrible word) is that some companies -- mine included, and famously Niall Murtaugh's employer Mitsubishi in "The Blue-Eyed Salaryman" -- forbid their employees from cycling to work. Getting to work any way you like whouls be a basic human right.
Another is that the roads are designed for automobiles, with pedestrians' interests second, and those of cyclists not considered at all. Cycling on the sidewalks brings the risk of hitting an unwary pedestrian, and the roads, the shoulders of which should be ideal for a bicycle, are difficult because of the large numbers of cars parked on the shoulders. You can't keep shifting around those behemoths without having to ride right into the traffic lanes. If streetside parking were limited to one side only, cyclists would be safer on the other side.
There are a few ares with wide sidewalks and one lane devoted to bicycles. One such path is on the Sotobori-dori connecting Bunkyo-ku with Iidabashi. This is something that needs to be expanded.
James Hadfield is humble enough to admit that he sometimes runs red lights, but pedestrians and automobiles are hardly innocent. It's hard to keep the road rage in check when you're confronted by pedestrians who walk slowly in the very middle of the sidewalk, preventing anyone from passing them on either side, or the imbeciles who, walking in a group, turn to see how their companions are reacting rather than use their own initiative to step aside when a bicycle gets close.
And the there are the taxi drivers, who apparently took a different driving test from the rest of us; one in which a red light means not "stop" but rather "you have two more seconds to get through this intersection".
Last but not least: the police. Sorry, officers, but not everyone wh rides a bicycle is a thief worthy of being detained and questions any time he passes a police box. Even the cyclists with foreign faces aren't necessarily criminals!
Posted in: Tokyo residents pedaling to work in increasing numbers
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ThonTaddeo
...and by the National Police Agency.
Posted in: Japanese urged to take pride in their safe society
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ThonTaddeo
"Gaikoku", of course. Did you want some finer distinction?
Posted in: Ride for the ambassador
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ThonTaddeo
What's to be surprised about? She probebly told the kid to express his desire for a bathroom break when they entered Otsu, or passed a certain store, or whatever. Even if the accomplice wasn't following directly behind them, he could have been waiting at the spot where she directed the driver to stop.
Posted in: Man assaulted and robbed by family posing as hitchhikers
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ThonTaddeo
Surely you're being facetious, Timorborder. We all know what goes on in police detention cells, and three meals and a warm bed (really?) don't make it tolerable.
Posted in: Akihabara marks 1st anniversary of deadly stabbing rampage