JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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Why do Japanese change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners?
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Confrontation
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3
U.S. Navy investigating how parts fell off aircraft near Atsugi
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4
California court to decide if SeaWorld whales are illegal 'slaves'
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5
Kuroki reported pregnant 2 weeks after denying relationship with Akanishi
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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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chardk1
Patriotism and nationalism are not inherently the same thing, neither are pride and partisanship. To combine these concepts is neither a principled nor intellectually honest view, regarding one's country or anything else. Usually those who do so are making an calculated appeal to what Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature" for some selfish end of their own.
Being proud of America doesn't mean arguing every single thing it ever does is defensible or ripping other countries as "hey, do it better yourself" and shouting "USA USA" at the top of one's lungs to drown out any counterargument. If you love your son, if he commits murder do you have to turn it around and argue the victim deserved to die? That is what some American "patriots" basically view as the only acceptable form of "loyalty." So please, stop with the "Liberals don't love/aren't proud of America nonsense." No party, no creed, no race has a monopoly on patriotism and it is ignorant and poisonous to claim as much. Blind devotion is not the only or best kind, and one should naturally be skeptical of those who brag about possessing loads of it, as if that was something to be proud of in and of itself.
Posted in: Bush urges Americans to be proud of country
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chardk1
Only the US would claim a dozen good authentic ramen shops in a country of 320 million people, concentrated in two areas (SoCal and NYC) is a call for declaring some kind of ramen breakthrough. There are probably as many good Nepalese curry shops in Japan, I don't hear anyone declaring a Nepalese curry moment. And I wish they wouldn't lump in Maruchan with Ippudo, it's really not the same food any more than a hot dog is a steak.
Posted in: U.S. has 'ramen moment' as chefs, foodies embrace Japan's beloved comfort food
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chardk1
Asashoryu makes the news for the wrong reasons a lot, but this is not his fault. As the yokozuna with longest tenure he has to speak up for the wrestlers.
Posted in: Inflation-hit sumo wrestlers demand pay raise
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chardk1
I agree with usaexpat and shmaye. Even if Korean consumers had a legit gripe, this behavior is just irrational. Whenever Koreans have these mass protests about some perceived slight from Japan/US etc., whatever point they are trying to make is overshadowed by the perception that there is no reasoning with Koreans, in which case it is hard to see how it is worth the effort to consider the point. I don't know why that is so difficult to understand. How would the Koreans like it if the US consumers all rioted and demanded no more importation of Korean cars and electronics until the Koreans showed less anti-Americanism? They would have a collective coronary in Seoul, calling Americans every dirty name in the book. But it's the SAME DAMN THING!
Posted in: Hyundai Motor workers strike over U.S. beef imports
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chardk1
Taj, if G actually had any relationship with Pinkberry he would be playing it up the way he plays up his mostly self-described career as an actor and entrepreneur. Japanese LOVE claiming they have overseas success, why would he not comment on Pinkberry if he was somehow connected with it? No way, he clearly had a bowl in LA, immediately went home and called some IP attorneys in Japan and then lifted the idea. If I were Pinkberry I'd figure out some way to sue him anyway, just because it's so obnoxious.
Posted in: Hip new frozen yogurt retailer hopes to be Japan’s next big thing
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chardk1
Does it really matter? First of all to the people who criticize Michelle Obama, all she did was grow up in a working class family, put herself through Princeton and Harvard and head a public interest agency working for disadvantaged Americans for the past 15 years, while raising two daughters. Her silly comment about being not proud of America aside, she has done a lot more for America and proved the genuineness of the American dream than most of her critics, I'll bet you that.
As far as Cindy McCain goes, she is rich and she is white. But blaming her for a lucky draw of birth is totally unfair. She is an adroit businesswoman, has done a remarkable amount of charity work and has frankly had a very trying marriage with McCain and handled it with a lot of dignity and class, even while suffering a stroke.
The fact is that both these women are good, decent Americans in their own way, whom we should be perfectly proud of to line up against the wives of the heads of state of any country. Neither woman - who, contrary to the apparent belief of some, are NOT running for any office - deserves to be demonized to serve some unsavory idea of what party politics is about. Nor, for that matter, do their husbands. It is unfortunate that today's partisan politics means that outstanding Americans like John McCain and Barack Obama must be portrayed by opponents as something akin to comic book villains, and both the right and left devour this tripe.
Posted in: Americans cool to Michelle Obama, don't know Cindy McCain
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chardk1
The Japanese are polite. They are friendly to people they are trying to impress. That is very different from being charitable.
Posted in: What is the best way for Japan and North Korea to resolve the abduction issue?
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chardk1
Increased costs aside, I think there is clearly grounds for demanding a 10% wage increase whether you are a sumo or a schoolteacher if you have had one 3% raise over the past 7 years.
Posted in: Inflation-hit sumo wrestlers demand pay raise
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chardk1
This guy just plain steals the idea of the popular Pinkberry chain in Los Angeles and has the nerve to act like he came up it. Look, you want to copy someone else 100% because Japan has different copyright and trademark protection, fine but don't be this obnoxious about it.
Posted in: Hip new frozen yogurt retailer hopes to be Japan’s next big thing
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chardk1
I like Japan, and I have nothing against Japanese people. But as a purely objective observation, making the first move to be more charitable or upstanding than the other guy is NOT what this society is about. This is a country where children are not taught "do unto others as you would have done to you" or "turn the other cheek," but rather "you gotta take care of your own" and it shows. I'm not Christian, but let's face it, if the Good Samaritan had been Japanese, the poor guy by the roadside would have died of thirst.
Posted in: What is the best way for Japan and North Korea to resolve the abduction issue?
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chardk1
For crying out loud, this is a regime that let 500,000 of its OWN women and children starve rather than admit its incompetence at taking care the country and the Japanese are trying to figure out how to pressure them to deal with 25 Japanese people it kidnapped three decades ago? As long as we're going to be stubbornly unrealistic, will the Japanese invent a time machine, not bomb Pearl Harbor and keep the US out of WWII?
The Japanese need to let this go, they can't bribe or coerce NK into acting decent or it would have happened when its own people were dying. Sometimes people do bad crap to you and there is no acknowledgment and no closure. Go ask the Education Director and Mayor of Shimonoseki, they seem to know how to deal with it when its the Japanese giving someone else the business.
Posted in: What is the best way for Japan and North Korea to resolve the abduction issue?
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chardk1
Unless people are saying Japanese are just stupid, which I assume they are not, it seems that they only explanations are things like poor teaching, low motivation, and lack of a truly immersive environment. When not the primary language used, these factors will make it almost impossible to learn a language to any useful level even if you spend years trying.
A good analogy for this is the case of ethnic Koreans who attend the special Korean schools here in Japan. I have met a lot of them, and even though they attended Korean school from K-12, and those schools taught and tested exclusively in Korean, 10 years later the ones not inherently interested in Korean culture and language struggle to have a half-decent conversation in Korean. They tend to read and write a lot better than their speaking skills would indicate, which is something else Japanese students of English often have in common. Nevertheless not speaking well embarrasses them, so it makes them even more reluctant to use it, which makes them seem less proficient than they are in a casual setting. There's a vast reservoir of knowledge in their heads but they never really learned to turn that into expression with any degree of confidence. In my experience many educated Japanese are much the same way -- they know a lot, they just don't really know what to do with it spontaneously.
Posted in: Why don't Japanese speak English better than they do?
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chardk1
And in related news, Yumiko Shaku received an award for most beautiful E-line! That should drum up more business!
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chardk1
I sympathize with the families, but it is pretty obvious they expect the world to stop turning until they get justice, and that's just not realistic. So the US turned its back on them? Over 500 Koreans were abducted by the NK's, the Japanese government and people have always dismissed that as "not their issue." Which is fair BUT if Japanese can't be expected to give a rat's heinie about 500 Koreans, why do they blame the US for doing the same over 20 Japanese? A little consistency is all I ask for.
Posted in: Japan hopes U.S. won't take N Korea off terror list unless abduction issue resolved
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chardk1
She had some serious work on her nose and chin done a couple of years ago -- she claimed it was required because of a traffic accident or something and that it wasn't cosmetic. Which is fine, but to award her a beauty award? Shouldn't it go to her PS?
Posted in: Yumiko Shaku given 'E-Line' award for most beautiful profile
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chardk1
Well, I guess 5 or 10% is a part, so he has a case if he is saying Democrats are "partially" to blame. You know, there was a Republican majority the first SIX years he was in office and he didn't even try to do anything then, and there is a little matter of a war in Iraq he started that has driven the futures market crazy (and uses not a small amount of fuel considering one fighter sortie uses as much gas as a small town uses in a year), the players driving the futures market crazy are his close personal friends in the oil industry (ExxonMobil made more money than any company in the history of man last year, that's a fact), he consistently denied there were any fuel shortages -- as recently as Jan of this year he rejected predictions that gas would go over $3 a gallon -- and now it's the Democrats' fault because they won't approve a plan that everyone agrees will have no effect for 10 years and little effect after that except to pad profits for oil companies. Keep in mind, for the first 7 years of his presidency he denied gas prices would continue to rise and that people like Al Gore were just paranoid, now it's other people's fault for procrastinating. What a joke. I don't care if you are Red or Blue, Christian or Atheist, but at least take responsibility for the actions you take. The principled Republicans out there who believe they are right on the policy but that it does America no service to declare half the population traitors and criminals are the biggest victims of Bush's poisoning of his party politics.
Posted in: Bush says Democrats keep blocking his energy plans
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chardk1
I hope we Democrats can do better than say "hey, at worst Barack is no more distasteful than Bush or McCain" which seems to be what the previous poster is saying. Two wrongs don't make a right. I hope Obama is the man of intelligence of integrity that he appears to be, not "no worse than Bush." We have been killing the Republicans for years, I thought rightly so. I would hate for it to be that we were just waiting our turn to be venal and self-serving. I know that's idealistic, but Barack says he's a man of ideals and I hope he will fight hard to preserve them.
Posted in: Obama says he won't take public campaign funds
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chardk1
I'm just saying, when Hillary tried to renege on not seating the Michigan and Florida delegates the Obama camp KILLED her for being an opportunist and going back on her word, and rightly so. But how is this that different? It's very disappointing is all I can say. Attacking the opponent isn't all there is to politics, living up to being the candidate you say you are is important too.
Posted in: Obama says he won't take public campaign funds
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chardk1
I hate to say this so soon, but I hope Democrats won't regret not nominating Hillary. At least you and she both knew what she was all about, necessary minimum veneer of sincerity aside. I'd rather take an honest cynic than a fake idealist any day of the week. I'm absolutely NOT saying Obama is a fake idealist, but his recent moves (this announcement, hiring and firing Jim Johnson, etc) worryingly smack of the SOP Washington politicians that he says he is not.
Posted in: Obama says he won't take public campaign funds
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chardk1
According to the Toyota and Honda websites the base models of the Sienta and Freed are only about 10,000 yen apart in price, so I'm not really sure where you got the above information.
Honda is marketing the Freed as more competition for the Isis and Lafesta than against the Sienta or Cube3. The Freed is slightly bigger than the Sienta and claims to offer a practical third row.
Posted in: Orders for Honda's Freed top 10,000 in 2 weeks