JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- Assistant Language Teacher (ALT) in Kanto region
- RCS (RCSコーポレーション), Kanto
- Salary: ¥180,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month includes performance bonus
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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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ThonTaddeo
Walk through the University of Tokyo's campus one of these days -- the gingkos are jsut as beautiful and the crowds are smaller.
Posted in: Golden ginkgos
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ThonTaddeo
Zurc and NetNinja, I totally agree. It wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to say that the Yomiuri organization has been the biggest thing holding back Japanese baseball from the world stage. I can't wait for this old fossil of a team to sink into a long-lasting slump so that some other teams can shine.
Posted in: Yomiuri Giants file Y100 mil libel suit against former executive
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ThonTaddeo
Hide, we downplay the WBC because competitions that inspire nationalistic, jingoistic behavior and are contested between representatives of nations (not leagues; in the WBC Ichiro plays for Japan, not the US, despite the fact that his team is in Seattle) are not fun to watch.
I have no desire to support certain players because I share a birthplace or passport color with them, nor do I enjoy seeing players who are teammates on their "real" club teams torn apart from each other and made into enemies or rivals because they come from different countries. That's a giant step backwards for the game and for human relations.
I say scrap the nativist WBC and replace it with the Real World Series that genuine fans on both sides of the ocean have been wanting for decades. Let's see the MLB champion face off against the NPB champion -- or, better yet, get the other Asian leagues involved. Yes, that means that Ichiro and Fukudome and Matsui, if one of their teams makes it, will be playing for an "American" team -- that's a good thing; that's where their home is now!
Posted in: Free agent Kawasaki only interested in Mariners
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ThonTaddeo
Godan, I sincerely hope it's the latter, but I think everyone knows that it's probably the former. The central government in Tokyo thinks that all the prefectural and municipal governments down to the chonaikai exist at their sufferance, and I can easily see them dredging up some bogus problems with which to ruin Hashimoto if he tries to get too big for his britches.
Posted in: Central gov't to keep eye on Hashimoto's reforms for Osaka
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ThonTaddeo
How long does Alabama (or other US states) let people drive with international licenses? I was under the impression that it was indefinite, which is why people were so upset when Japan unilaterally decided to restrict international licenses to one year.
(Discrimination against actual international drivers, as I recall, was secondary to the real goal of protecting the NPA-run licensing racket, which costs Japanese learners hundreds of thousands of yen, inspiring many of them to learn to drive while studying abroad and then to come back to Japan and use their foreign licenses.)
My guess is that the cop had never seen an international license or thought that the Honda employee was operating a car unlicensed and was trying to pull some kind of scam. There was a similar one in the US back in the '80s with Japanese people driving and showing their health insurance cards to non-Japanese-reading cops who would fall for the ruse.
Also IIRC, when driving abroad, you have to be carrying your home license along with the international license for it to be valid to drive. If the Honda employee had only his passport and the international license, technically he was in the wrong even if his international license was valid. If that's what caught the cop's attention, that was a pretty good catch for so rare an event. If the man did have his home license along with the valid international one, then the cop was mis-informed about how international licenses work.
And the headline is wrong: this incident has nothing to do with illegal immigration; it's about being licensed to drive.
Posted in: Honda employee cited for breaking Alabama immigration law
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ThonTaddeo
HumanTarget, Facebook and Twitter have the good sense to remember that whatever goofy layout they might use in their logos, when writing in plain text you stick to the rules of plain English, which is capitalization for the initial letters of proper nouns.
It's disheartening to see news media slavishly follow Japanese companies (and individual celebrities, for that matter) who invent their own eccentric capitalization rules and then expect others to follow them even if it detracts from readability. The article should have had "Mixi" all the way through, along with "Gree". I don't know what "DeNA" stands for, but I assume that the "e" is the second letter in the first word, so I suppose that it looks OK.
Come on, JT. Your articles are hard to read when you disregard the rules of the language you're writing in. I enjoy reading about Mixi; I don't want to read about mixi.
Posted in: Twitter, mixi join forces to counter Facebook in Japan
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ThonTaddeo
Perhaps the younger generation is sensible enough to understand that buying a brand-new car every three or four years is a monumental waste of money, natural resources, and labor!
Increasingly, young people are spurning the automobile lifestyle altogether. Now that's being green.
Posted in: Tokyo Motor Show looks to green cars to drive recovery
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ThonTaddeo
Shumatsu, ther may be scope to raise taxes, but your first point is the bigger one: this is generational theft.
Today's elderly were able to build their wealth, buy homes, and raise their children without paying any consumption tax at all. There were able to get ahead and have a solid financial base much sooner than today's younger generation, who is already losing 5% on top of everything they buy.
Now, when there's a shortfall in pension money, they should be cutting benefits to these people, not taking money from working-age people, who are already worse off than their elders were at the same age.
It may not be easy to live on a pension, but today's pensioners had a much better shot at saving enough money to keep the pension as a supplement rather than something they're dependent on. Try saving enough for a comfortable retirement when 5-10% or more is being taken frmo you every time you spend money!
I read (sorry, no link) that the median age-point for wealth -- that is, the age where exactly 50% of Japan's wealth is held by people who are younger, and 50% by those older -- is a ridiculous 71 years. I don't begrudge the pre-WWII generation their money -- they suffered in the '30s and '40s like no one born after the war ever has -- but now we're seeing baby boomers, who unlike their children have lived a life of steadily-increasing affluence since birth, retiring and demanding blood from a stone.
If there isn't enough to maintain current beenfit levels, then the beneficiaries should make do with less. There's no excuse for making an already-rich class even richer off the backs of workers who have no chance of ever seeing that luxury in their own old age.
Posted in: Ozawa criticizes Noda for consumption tax hike plan
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ThonTaddeo
Perhaps this is a bit of subterfuge by the pro-tax-hike politicians -- everyone knows how unpopulat Ozawa is, so if he takes the anti-tax position, the Ozawa critics including the knee-jerk haters will look more favorably on an increased tax, which is what seemingly all the politicians really want. Fast forward a few years, and the tax is implemented, it's permanent, and the government has plenty of money to play with and a nice solid elderly/retired base of votes. Those younger working people who have to pay out all this money? Who cares -- there aren't enough of them to influence anything!
Posted in: Ozawa criticizes Noda for consumption tax hike plan
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ThonTaddeo
Isn't Egawa supposed to be a pretty good guy who speaks his mind and isn't a Giants stooge?
I wouldn't mind seeing him be given a chance.
Posted in: Yomiuri Giants fire general manager Kiyotake over feud with owner
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ThonTaddeo
I agree that smokers shouldn't be lighting up in any enclosed space where there are non-smokers around. Japanese companies deserve some kudos for this -- just 10-15 years ago, office workers routinely chain-smoked at their desks! I remember my first few years at work, around the turn of the millennium, and every day was torture as everyone in my "island" of connected desks smoked and there were ashtrays balances on the partitions.
Then the innovation of a single, separate smoking room came about, and today there are only a few places in my building where smokers can indulge -- and they're far from where anyone is required to sit all day long.
(Incidentally, the smoking room quickly developed walls that were so hideously yellow-brown that it would sicken you just to look at them. A photo of that room on the day we moved out would make a great anti-smoking advertisement.)
Speaking of smokers and cars, the next problem is to get these exhaust-emitting automobiles replaced by electric vehicles. Walking or biking in close proximity to cars might even be worse for your lungs than being around a smoker. You get disgusting black soot everywhere -- and the drivers don't have to breathe it in at all! Automakers, at least have the decency to put the exhaust pipe on the inner side of the road and not on the outside where innocent people are walking. Cars are the "smokers" of the roads and I can't wait until those exhaust pipes are finally gone.
Posted in: Doctors urge UK government to ban smoking in cars
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ThonTaddeo
I agree with Willi and the othe rposters urging people to calm donw about these two. If he were really some kind of pervert, he wouldn't have stuck with her into her 20s; he'd be chasing some other underage girl. But he obviously isn't -- they love each other as much as they always have. I say good for them, and I hope they have many more years of happiness together.
Posted in: Joji Takahashi, Mika Mifune chosen as 'Partners of the Year'
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ThonTaddeo
@Sasoriza - Couldn't your mother tell that you had made one mistake that affected every answer, and thus that the paper shouldn't erally have been covered in red?
I hope for your sake that she actually looked over your homework rather than blindly handing out a beating based on how much red ink was on it.
And I'm happy to see that you got through those times and now (presumably) are a well-adjusted adult.
Posted in: Boy struck by train dies in apparent suicide
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ThonTaddeo
They didn't give the figures for people in their 30s, but maybe I can start by saying that I'm over 30, and my TV viewing time is zero. And I know many other such people. The era of the television being turned on first thing in the morning and kept on, blaring away, until the last person goes to sleep is coming to a much-welcomed end.
I think if you were born after maybe 1970-1975 or so, you grew up playing video games like Nintendo and don't have the patience (or inertia) to sit in front of a screen without interacting with it in any way. Who wants to sit still and listen to mindless geinoujin prattle on about food or whatever? Sports? I wouldn't mind seeing a series of baseball highlights that isn't 90% devoted to the Yomiuri Giants, with a scant few seconds of footage for the Pacific League teams. Or even watch a drama whose ending is carefully elongated out so that there can be a few commercial breaks keeping you in suspense? If I'm going to sit in front of a screen, I'm turning on the Playstation 3 and immersing myself in a game of some kind. And even that I can do at my own pace, on my own schedule.
There's some good television out there but the vast majority of it -- whether in Japan or elsewhere -- is just too dull. As Nessie has alluded to, hopefully the influx of new media such as the internt will get TV stations to up their game. I wouldn't count on it, though.
Posted in: Japanese viewers tuning out, turning off their TVs
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ThonTaddeo
This is a great article. I've been to these islands many times too and always find them relaxing. On Taketomi island everyone lives in the center, with huge fields and undeveloped land all around (with a semi-secret ebi-raising plant hidden away to the south; what's the story with that place?), so just about everything is within walking distance of everything else. The western side, near the Kondoi Beach described in the article, has a long pier that you can sit on and watch the sun sink into the ocean.
If you love Yaeyaman ambience but need modern amenities like supermarkets and Western food, go to Ishigaki. If you want the real experience, head for the smaller islands like Taketomi, Hatoma, Kuro, and Hateruma. And listen to their languages if you get the chance! The older people still speak them.
Whichever island you go to, you'll like it. I go back almost every year and look forward to the shock of that clean air on the first day!
Posted in: Deep south: Living the slow life in Okinawa
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ThonTaddeo
Lots of good posts here; I strongly agree with the idea that food and other essentials should not be taxed.
Another important point (which I've tried to make in previous discussions) is that having the same high consumption tax nationwide is going to ruin the smaller local economies who are less able to absorb a further 5% of all their spending being sucked down the government sinkhole. Here's an idea: let each prefecture decide on an appropriate tax level!
Tokyoites could probably endure paying the government an extra 10% on everything they buy, but out in the countryside where jobs are scarce and government budgets are smaller?
Posted in: Japan to double consumption tax to 10%, G20 action plan says
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ThonTaddeo
If nothing else, the "English-ization" of Rakuten is keeping their name in the news and in people's minds. Whether or not you agree with it, you know the old saying: there's no such thing as bad publicity!
Posted in: Adopting English as workplace language in Japan has its downside
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ThonTaddeo
The idea that bicycles are the same as motor vehicles is ridiculous. Cyclists are basically wheeled pedestrians -- they move using their own power (like pedestrians), they accelerate slowly, they take up very little space, they'er exposed to the weather, they weigh very little (probably less than pedestrians in total given how thin cyclists often are) and don't cause much damage when they hit things, and -- most importantly of all -- they have no protection against being hit by one-ton metal tanks that dominate the street, operated by careless automobile drivers.
Let's do two thought experiments and consider which one would result in fewer fatalities.
Imagine that automobiles are banned from the streets: pedestrian paths get widened and the middle of the road is a giant cycling lane. Fatal accidents would drop to zero -- the worst that would happen is that a speeding bicycle would hit a frail pedestrian, which is bad, but very, very few people would die.
Now imagine that bicycles are banned. Without bicycles on the roads, car drivers will probably go a little bit faster and be a little less observant, which makes things even worse for pedestrians!
Automobiles are the ones that have to have the most responsibility, because they're the only ones that can kill others due to their negligence. Not only that, but while the people they hit will suffer serious injury, thanks to all that metal armor, they won't endure a scratch! In addition, driving an automobile is a privilege, which some pedestrians/cyclists will never get to enjoy. The underprivileged should not be the ones bearing the most responsibility -- a driver can always sell his car and become a pedestrian or cyclist, whereas the latter can't always become drivers.
Let me close with one important point: I see way too many people -- pedestrians, cyclists, moped riders, and car drivers alike -- looking at their phones while moving! This is inexcusable. Everyone has the duty to look where they're going, to the best of their ability. A pedestrian can hardly complain when he walks right into someone (another person, bicycle; doesn't matter) because he had his head buried in an e-mail message on his phone that he was tryign to type while walking! Try that on a bicycle and the cops will be all over you. Police, how about advising pedestrians on how to occupy space in public? Yes, I know, people should have mastered that during childhood, but better late than never!
Posted in: Cyclists feel under siege with new rules
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ThonTaddeo
Do normal people really wake up feeling refreshed, on a regular basis?
I only start feeling refreshed several hours after waking up, and usually not until the midday meal is over. And this is true whether I've slept for more than eight hours or less.
Posted in: Insomnia linked to higher heart attack risk
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ThonTaddeo
Ivan and Patrick, it sure is great to have some allies in the battle against the tyranny of the samugari!
My office is also hellishly hot all year round -- yesterday it was 29 degrees indoors! The building was built in the early 2000s, just before the coming of Cool Biz oppression (i. e., it was presupposed that air conditioning would always be available), but late enough that the windows cannot open (supposedly they began to fear suicides and accidents a decade or so ago).
You can easily imagine what that means for indoor temperatures. And then they top it off by not allowing any refrigerators in the building, to conserve electricity!
Though my building is at the extreme, the Cool/Warm Biz movement in general is ridiculously biased in favor of excessive heat, sweat, and high temperatures. 29-30 in the summer, but in the winter they only go down to 20!
I've taken to wearing short sleeve shirts all year long. I like wearing jackets and ties and looking professional, but I basically can't -- because sweat dripping off your body doesn't look professional no matter what clothes you have on. Last week, back in the US, I spotted a sale on such shirts at a high-quality men's store ($8 apiece) and bought a bunch. "Gonna stock up for next summer?" asked the clerk. "No, this is year-round. I work in Tokyo where we keep things at 85 in the summer."
"Oh, yeah, you lost your power plant! How about in the winter? Is it going to be like below freezing in there with no heat?"
"No, that will never happen. It'll be eighty in there all winter long."
"Ohhhhh my goooooodd...." (runs off to tell other staff)
^_^;
Posted in: Japanese urged to wrap up as Warm Biz gets under way