JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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To be healthy, live in the big city
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Why do Japanese change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners?
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From carnivores to herbivores: how men are defined in Japan
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Japan's nuclear safety standards flawed, says commission chief
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Teacher nabbed for using miror to peek up girl's skirt
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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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cleo
What I meant was that it isn't important if 'these people' are 'allowed to get away with it' if that's what's in the best interests of the child; conversely, the little girl's happiness should not be sacrificed simply in order to see to it that they don't 'get away with it'. 'Not allowing them to get away with it' should not be a factor in any decision made.
I don't see how having the little girl unable to see either of her parents is in her best interests. How does the girl benefit by her mother being locked up for n number of years? Not at all, as far as I can see. From the father's letter it would appear that the mother is unstable. Can't see how being locked up would help that, either, especially if US prisons are the hell-holes some posters would have us believe.
Posted in: American father wins custody of daughter taken to Japan
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cleo
Leaving aside the question of whether a 'massive number' has been done on the child, it would seem natural for her to want to stay in the place she considers home. She probably has very little clear memory of her life in the US. If she is moved back to America I hope all those involved handle the case with sensitivity and understanding, and that she is given all the help she needs to adjust. I don't think it's a question of allowing people to 'get away with it'.
Posted in: American father wins custody of daughter taken to Japan
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cleo
Because that's where she says she wants to be? (To be more correct, it's where her grandparents and her father say she wants to be.)
lol
The article says the mother brought the girl to Japan in 2008, so that's 4 years, pushing 5.
No, I'm not. I'm saying that it's time people stopped playing tug-o-war, seriously considered what's best for the little girl and took her feelings into account.
YES!
No, I'm not. I'm siding with the little girl.
Reading that sends a chill down my spine. She's not a possession.
The father has set up a website, it's very touching. http://www.karina-garcia.com/ She's a very pretty little girl, with a lovely smile.
Posted in: American father wins custody of daughter taken to Japan
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cleo
No, I'm saying that this is not a clear-cut, black-and-white case, at least on the information we are given or can glean from elsewhere. It's likely the child did suffer 'anguish' when she was uprooted from her home in America and taken to Japan. But she's now lived in Japan for 4 of her 9 years and apparently says she doesn't want to go back to America. It could very well be that the father is a wonderful father and has had a very bad deal so far, but unless the mother is actually abusive (the Osaka court ruling does raise questions, but if there was abuse I'm sure it would be mentioned somewhere...) or there are other problems not mentioned in this article, I would imagine the best interests of the child at the moment would be served by leaving her where she is and getting the father generous visitation rights.
What the parents want really doesn't concern me.
If she stays in Japan, why would the girl need 'professional support'?
Posted in: American father wins custody of daughter taken to Japan
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cleo
tmarie, I was talking specifically about fathers in Japan. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
Who says she 'dumped' the kids with her parents, or that she can't afford to look after the child? She left the child with people who love her, while she needed to be out of the country for (what she presumably imagined would be) a short time. I can't imagine why she would want to renew her American green card, but I see no suggestion anywhere that she can't/couldn't afford to keep the child. I can see why she wouldn't want to take the child with her to Hawaii. If the girl goes to her father, he's Nicaraguan, I imagine his family are in Nicaragua so while he's working the child will be 'dumped' with paid child-minders. I don't see how that's a plus for the child.
gyouza, I think your supposition borders on the insulting. Fact is, many more foreign women marry Japanese men in 'real' marriages than vice versa, regardless of what you 'feel'. Looking around me just at the people I know personally - all people in 'real' marriages - I can think of only a handful of J-wife/foreign husband couples. The vast majority are J-husband/foreign wife. This whole idea that Japanese girls all want a foreign husband is nothing more than Charisma Man-style wishful thinking.
Posted in: American father wins custody of daughter taken to Japan
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cleo
What's all this talk of a Japanese green card? I've had PR for a quarter of a century or so, no hassle, never seen anything resembling a card that is green in colour.....
Posted in: American father wins custody of daughter taken to Japan
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cleo
That /r/ shouldn't be in there....Does it work now?
http://www.wisn.com/news/29836839/detail.html
Posted in: American father wins custody of daughter taken to Japan
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cleo
According the the grandparents, she doesn't. The father is apparently going to get her psychiatrists and cook her Japanese food.
Posted in: American father wins custody of daughter taken to Japan
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cleo
Sorry, it seems JT garbles the kanji. I wonder if it will work if I type it in instead of copy-pasting - http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/国際結婚
Posted in: American father wins custody of daughter taken to Japan
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cleo
Sorry smitty, it was mentioned in the wisn article I gave a link to higher up the thread, not the JT article - A Milwaukee judge has ruled Monday that Garcia's Japanese ex-wife will remain jailed in Wisconsin until their daughter is returned to him from Japan
Posted in: American father wins custody of daughter taken to Japan
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cleo
The statistics show that the numbers are similar every year, and more mixed marriages are J-man/non-J woman than J-woman/non-J-man by a factor of roughly 3 or 4. But it seems that some people are just convinced otherwise and can't be bothered to check for themselves. http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%9B%BD%E9%9A%9B%E7%B5%90%E5%A9%9A
I have had it pointed out to me in the past that the reason fathers in Japan are much less likely to be given custody is the view that, with long working hours and compulsory overtime, men simply do not have the time to look after kids. Things may be changing as more women go out to work, but old attitudes still prevail.
Posted in: American father wins custody of daughter taken to Japan
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cleo
Wrong. Number of J-man, non-J woman marriages in 2010 - 22,843. Number of J-woman, non-J-man marriages in 2010 - 7,364.
URL for the J-grandparents' claim that the girl does not want to go to America - http://www.wisn.com/r/29836839/detail.htm
Posted in: American father wins custody of daughter taken to Japan
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cleo
I agree with bookbag that more details are needed.
But just taking what we have - no one seems to be putting the little girl first. She's being pulled between the parents like a possession.
Inoue would seem to have done wrong in taking the girl back to Japan as soon as her husband filed for divorce, but we don't know the details. Was she unhappy in the US? (Seems unlikely, if she wanted to renew her PR...) Was she afraid that the courts would make the same kind of mistakes that were made in the Savoie case, with the mother being forced to live on the sidelines of her husband's new life?
Garcia meanwhile claims his in-laws have 'brainwashed' the little girl and 'alienated her affections for him' - this seems to be the other side of the coin to the Japanese grandparents' claim that the girl, who has apparently seen her father for 2 hours in the past 4 years and has lived nearly half her life - most of the life she has any clear memory of - in Japan, does not want to go to the US. If I had a child who needed psychologists before she would be happy in my company and living with me, I would think very hard indeed about pushing my 'rights' as a parent.
The courts too, by holding the mother in jail to force the child's return to the US, are depriving the girl of her mother. Another black mark.
It's pretty obvious we do not have all the facts of this case. As in most cases of this kind, neither parent seems squeaky-clean. I just hope the final outcome is in the best interests of the child.
Posted in: American father wins custody of daughter taken to Japan
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cleo
Wor Christmas tree in wor huse. It won't go up till December, though. Gotta draw the line somewhere.
Posted in: What are some of your favorite Christmas illumination spots in Japan?
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cleo
The little girl has a fractured skull and a broken leg, the mother has a fractured pelvis.
NetNinja, your love of anything non-Japanese is well noted. You might want to consider that the kind of person who is in the market for a kei car is not likely to consider an imported heavyweight vehicle as an alternative. Your point is taken, but you're punching the air. You may as well try to sell a tank to someone looking for a bicycle.
Posted in: 2-month-old baby boy dies after car crash in Tochigi
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cleo
To be fair to the man, imagine he was sitting in his living room with his infant son on his knee, eating his lunch and suddenly a wild boar comes wandering in....I can quite understand his mind going into a blind panic. Maybe backing off and taking his son into another room would have been the sensible thing to do, but we all do stupid things when we panic.
Posted in: Wild boar enters home in Motegi; injures resident
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cleo
Sorry, forgot - URL for the Yomiuri version of what happened -
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/national/news/20111120-OYT1T00537.htm
The local Shimotsuke Shimbun says that the man 'banged/bruised his legs' when trying to get the boar out (両足を打撲した), which again points to the injury being more self-inflicted than anything else. http://www.shimotsuke.co.jp/news/tochigi/local/accident/news/20111120/663309
Posted in: Wild boar enters home in Motegi; injures resident
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cleo
kurumazaka -
If I kick a wall and stub my toe in the process, that doesn't translate as 'the wall attacked me'.
If you google this incident, you'll see that JT appears to be the only report in English, and the only report to mention the boar 'charging'. The vernacular reports all state that the man hurt his foot slightly when he kicked the boar, not when the boar attacked him - it didn't attack him at all. In fact there is no mention at all of the boar doing anything but rummaging around the living room for a bit before going out the way it came in. To quote the Yomiuri, 暴れることなく玄関から出て行った - the boar went out of the front door quietly/without any violent behaviour. The man was not gored by any tusks. There was no reason at all for the intrepid local hunting club to get their guns out.
If I walked into my living room to find a bear on the sofa, believe me, my first reaction would not be to kick it.
if the family had had their front door shut in the first place, there would have been no incident.
Posted in: Wild boar enters home in Motegi; injures resident
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cleo
I can find no mention in the vernacular press of the animal 'attacking' anyone. It came in through a wide-open door, the man of the house kicked it (and hurt his own foot a bit in the process) and it went out again.
Smart enough not to come back for another kicking?
Posted in: Wild boar enters home in Motegi; injures resident
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cleo
If they want to be 'artists', then fine, let them paint stuff on their own walls or canvases. Painting on other folks' or public property is vandalism, no matter how technically sophisticated it might be.
Posted in: Vandals target metro subway lines nationwide