JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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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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- Full-time English Teacher - Osaka
- Epion English Language Schools, Osaka
- Salary: ¥200,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month Depending on your ability and experience
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- 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
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as_the_crow_flies
Agree with Zenny and Miamum, I'm sceptical, also wonder how Japan has the nerve to say with a straight face, we agree for international standards of law to apply in Japan, but actually we don't want the law to apply to Japanese (i.e. criminal liability of Japanese after committing a crime on foreign soil).
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as_the_crow_flies
Are you now claiming that the entire Tepco personnel on the scene is tempstaff? That would be the most ludicrious speculation I have read here yet, even surpassing the "bury it now" chorus.
WilliB - here are NISA figures:
According to data published by the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Industry (NISA), in 2009, there were 1108 regular employees (seisha’in 正社員) at Fukushima NP1. These were TEPCO employees, but may also include some employees from General Electric or Toshiba, Hitachi and Mitsubishi. But the vast majority of those working at Fukushima 1 were 9195 contract laborers (hiseisha’in 非正社員). These contract employees or temporary workers were provided by subcontracting companies...
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as_the_crow_flies
Good one, Kan. Keep it up! This move will resonate with a lot of people, and has long been called for by people near the plant, as well as experts who know how perilously located it is.
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as_the_crow_flies
I forgot to say, try Googling the article headline or visit the Economist dot com.
Posted in: Al-Qaida vows revenge for bin Laden's death
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as_the_crow_flies
Another interesting take on what all this means, try "Osama bin Laden's death - What the Arab papers say". It has analysis from various countries across the Arab world. Interesting to know what different commentators are saying, in the light of events over the past couple of months.
Posted in: Al-Qaida vows revenge for bin Laden's death
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as_the_crow_flies
For different perspectives across the Arab World, and views in different Muslim communities on how bin-Laden's death is perceived, try al Jazeera. Stock shots of "angry Muslims in London" aren't going to enlighten anyone. Those that would divide the world into two camps, the "for us" and the "against us" kind of simplistic thinking, are the voices that shout the loudest in a lot of the press. If you want access to a range of thought, try reading/watching more widely.
As far as I heard it, there were dozens of nationalities killed on 9/11. Why is this supposedly all about "Americans" and "Muslims", as some posters seem to be trying to suggest? Is "America" a religion or an ideology now?
Posted in: Al-Qaida vows revenge for bin Laden's death
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as_the_crow_flies
I'm overwhelmed by the negative tone of this article - "bracing for an influx of volunteers on four-day tours organized by travel agencies"; "volunteer groups who descend on trouble spots". Makes people sound like a plague. First - these are groups, not individuals pitching up in cars. Second, well duh, like noone foresaw this? If people were getting new logistics networks up and running, crowd sourcing all kind of things within days, is it so hard to anticipate that lots will want to give up their free time in Golden Week, and for some of those people in evacuation shelters who've lost their livelehoods to team up and organise things, based on local needs? That way they get the help they so desparately need with the endless clearing of mud and (smaller) debris, and the people who are doing this, maybe for the first time in their lives, get the acknowledgement and the encouragement to do it some more. That way, maybe new links will be forged, and people will return in other moments to help some more. It seems like classic bureaucratic rigidity and we won't do it because there's no manual. Real sad. And as for the comments of, well, they aren't out spending money like good tourists - leaves me speechless. People are self-financing to go up and help for Gawd's sake. And all the time they're up there, they're consuming. Jeez, gimme a break! Of course there are loads of things they can do. Lonely, stressed older people shut up in shelters without cars can get out and about, get away from the shelters, maybe be taken out for a nice meal or to a sento or onsen, a walk in the hills away from the disaster zone, a shopping trip to Sendai...
This is so depressing. Such a lack of creativity, ability to respond to something new, anticipate and plan. It's the whole nuclear crisis writ large isn't it? And it comes down to people who are NOT the most affect saying "No thanks, he doesn't need sugar in his tea." Perhaps if people in shelters were more involved, they could come up with a more effective response to this.
Posted in: Golden Week volunteers overwhelm some disaster sites
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as_the_crow_flies
Do you think if pulped and mixed with something gooey, say silicone, some of these wastes of space sniping at Kan, could be put to use plugging some of the leaks from the reactors? Just an idle thought...
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as_the_crow_flies
Let them shame themselves! ( the other evacuees who react negatively )
Um, I don't think it works that way. With the herd mentality here, people get bullied out. Disgraceful and sad, specially if you consider evacuees from Fukushima are getting bullied and harassed when they try to go other places and pick up the threads of their lives, because people are afraid of catching radioactivity off them. People who discriminate and harass can make other people's lives impossible, particularly bearing in mind how stressed out everyone in shelters is at the moment. Though I agree with you taj, the usual wierd story with bits missing that doesn't add up.
Posted in: Evacuee twins suffering from Parkinson’s disease spend month in minivan
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as_the_crow_flies
Time to recruit farmers from other countries - Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Peru ... I'm sure there would be lots of takers, despite all the challenges. Also time to increase plot sizes and make it more efficient. Although things may look dire, perhaps this could have a silver lining for Japan, as long as it doesn't try and cling to an unviable past.
Posted in: Tsunami-hit rice farmers face challenges
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as_the_crow_flies
Good point. Tkoind. If your glorious leader and their family are airlifted out at company expense, while the rest of you are left to fend for yourself, what does that really say about most people's value for their company? Yes, it's all in your contract, next time read the small print more carefully. This has really been an educational experience for some of us.
I feel a Titanic moment coming on.
Posted in: Managing companies through a crisis
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as_the_crow_flies
Gaijintraveller: you know what? I did knock on my neighbours door. An old lady. I went to see if she was okay and needed any help with anything. From the half of her eye I could see through the wafer slit of the door she opened, she told me she was okay, thank you very much. I could see the door wavering. She was itching to shut it back again in my face. She probably has rice up to the ceiling, but I don't see her passing any of it on.
Posted in: Quake devastates companies' supply routes
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as_the_crow_flies
I read this thinking I was going to read about fuel not reaching disaster-stricken areas, babies in refuges only getting a quarter of their ration, people on two cups of water a day. Instead I find car manufacturers are in trouble. Well that's important in the longer term, but right now, the supply route problem means people are going to die. How about getting your priorities right, JT, and addressing the most important issues for now? There's a desparate shortage of information and communication for people in the affected areas, if you go into the supermarket there's no milk, no rice, no water, no batteries, no bread, garages are closed. We need to know what's happening and how to deal with those problems, NOW!
Posted in: Quake devastates companies' supply routes
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as_the_crow_flies
Lots of good insights above, also my take on the envy factor from all those who didn't get into that all-important top university, is that there's a knee-jerk loathing of rule-breaking. Doesn't matter that every day, millions of people break rules which actually make a lot of sense (road safety rules come to mind), but if someone seems to be cocking a snook at the system by subverting the rules, then everyone starts screaming blue bloody murder. It's probably their way of expressing the rage and frustration that comes with feeling yourself hemmed in by meaningless and ridiculous rules. Someone who seems in some way free of that, brings collective rage down upon themselves. Just like Horiemon, as others have said.
Posted in: Why do you think such a big deal has been made by media and police about a student's online cheating during university entrance exams?
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as_the_crow_flies
。。。 or ｎot.
Posted in: Japan falls for novel on management guru Drucker
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as_the_crow_flies
FentonFalsitt - you missed a bit!
Posted in: Arsonist arrested for burning bikes at Osaka apartment
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as_the_crow_flies
Just watched one of those 'great ads from around the world' programmes on TV last night. It was unsurprising to note, as one of the local talento watching did, that Japan barely got a look in. What was noticeable was that the rest of the world seemed to feature ads that told a clever or funny story, while Japan is ... um ... in another cultural dimension. I.e., will not expect its ads to be appreciated much to the outside world except maybe for their weirdness factor. No surprise there.
What I like about all this though, is the fact that it's so much easier for me to tune out advertising here. One of the great things about it is, half the time, I have no idea what product or service it's trying to advertise, and if I do, it's so like all the other ads for the same product or service that it's wonderfully forgettable. Most ads are only irritating while they're actually one, but basically they're so crap they score zero retention, I think, at least on this gaijin. They basically serve to remind me that 99% of the things they are advertising are not even blips on my screen.
It's great! Very reassuring! Maybe I really have got odd wiring...
The other thing that strikes me, is that they suck up so much creative talent which is consumed on something so basically pointless. I mean, rather than lovemarking this desolate concrete wasteland, maybe some of them might instead have been out there creating things that would make the place look nicer - you know, murals, sculptures, beautiful buildings ... no, well, anyway, just a pipedream.
Posted in: Filling the world with Lovemarks
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as_the_crow_flies
Whoever wrote this, what's so surreal to you about residents of a place taking part in a religious festival? And, gasp, a Muslim woman with a VEIL? Um, yes, that is a common practice among Muslim women. The unstated arrogance behind this article, that somehow it's incongruous for Muslims to be in a "Christian" holy site, with their noisome customs, like the call of the muezzin to prayer breaking in on the "Christian" atmosphere, is repellant. Perhaps the writer should do a little bit of research.
For example, Jewish women, which Jesus' mother was, would have followed local custom in clothing. Here's an excerpt from a site on clothing customs of the time.
Maybe the writer would find this 'surreal' too ...
My guess is that for the vast majority of residents of this area, the annual appearance of pilgrims and other tourists to the area is a normal happening, just as celebration of Jewish and Muslim holy days goes on around the year.
Posted in: Bethlehem sees record pilgrim crowd for Christmas
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as_the_crow_flies
There should also be nightly mansions pitched at the homeless. You know, something like 1500 yen a night for a capsule hotel and a shower kind of set up, with roomy lockers at about 200 yen a night for your stuff. These should be enough to give as an address.
Whoops, I mean 'nightly mansions', just like the 'monthly mansions'. And the locker should be on site, for 24 hour hire, so you vacate the room, but have somewhere to leave your stuff.
Posted in: Homeless getting younger and younger
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as_the_crow_flies
Construction day labor kept him going for a while, but lately even that seems beyond reach. “The main reason,” he says, “is that I’ve got no fixed address, no guarantor.
This idea of a job guarantor is just completely beyond me. What does the guarantor guarantee? That the person will turn up for work? That they'll work hard? That they won't leave their job? (surely they have the legal right to do that, seeing as feudal times have theoretically finished?) That they'll collect their pay? That they won't ask for a pay rise? The mind boggles.
The government needs to urgently change the law and make requiring job guarantors illegal. There should also be nightly mansions pitched at the homeless. You know, something like 1500 yen a night for a capsule hotel and a shower kind of set up, with roomy lockers at about 200 yen a night for your stuff. These should be enough to give as an address.
Posted in: Homeless getting younger and younger