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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neverknow2
That's probably because he was one totally twisted and mangled wreck of a human being. Physically and mentally. When he was alive he was considered somewhat dodgy, and although there's no proof his bed-sharing was other than misguided childishness he'll always be suspect. Now he's dead and harmless, people pity his wasted life more than they could while he was alive, and so they mourn him. Hypocritically, but not meaning any harm.
Posted in: Jackson memorial performers announced as LA braces for send-off
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Of course it's great to have a doggy blood bank for emergencies. But if a dog has to be pinned down then he obviously doesn't want to donate. Why should he? He doesn't understand.
Maybe if he does it once like that and then gets a beautiful bone or something, then maybe next time he'll be less worried, and the third time almost eager? But if treats and rewards don't make him fairly content to be bled then his name should be put on a blacklist to prevent him being tormented repeatedly. (One possible exception to my blacklist rule would be if he was donating blood so that he could have surgery in the near future without the risk of accepting another dog's blood. That would be worth forcing him to donate for.)
Otherwise, doggy donations are really just for the glory of the owner. Perhaps for people who can't {or won't} donate their own human blood. It's a damn sight easier to get some speechless mutt to do the good deed instead.
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She was walking behind her mother? How far behind? Was the mother clear of the crossing and wandering off along the street, or was the girl just a step behind?
As for whether it was a hit and run, that would depend on whether the driver realised he or she had hit someone. Hard to imagine there was nothing to let the driver know, unless he was deaf and the road was outrageously bumpy.
As for the screaming, when I read the article first I assumed she was screaming after being hit, then stopped suddenly. Everyone else seems to take it that she was screaming before being hit. Rereading the article sheds no light on the subject either.
Why so many parents don't even attempt to keep an eye or hand on their kids I'll never know, but it's a tragedy that this poor kid has died, and I hope the mother has nightmares for the rest of her life with the child clutching at her skirt calling "mama, mama, don't leave me ..."
Posted in: 2-year-old girl dies in hit-and-run while crossing street in Yokohama
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I agree with Beaver, unless there's a disaster of some kind affecting humans the animals will get food, but sex? Unless they're part of a breeding programme most species are deliberately kept apart, and even then, as they weren't brought up by their own parents they have no idea how to behave towards their own offspring (cue another Knut).
I've only been to 4 zoos in Japan. Ueno is pretty good, although there'll never be a perfect zoo. Tama is also pretty good, although I can't remember which one of them it is that now has a new elephant enclosure. I know the one with the butterfly house has an Indian elephant that looks bored witless all the time, and while the tiger area is small but pretty reasonable (especially as there's a limit on how many animals will be there) it's still not a patch on the real thing. I went to Zoorasia once, but it was rather badly designed for viewing and I really can't say whether the enclosures were ok or not as I could barely see into them. Nogeyama is the poor cousin, free to enter but few animals. It is horrible to see the big cats in little cages, and the monkeys and all the others, but one thing I'd like to point out about Tokyo zoos is that they move the animals around. If you go to Nogeyama today the tiger/s will be different than the tiger/s that were there a few months ago. Not sure how often they do it, but at least it means not so many of the animals will just stay in a grotty cage until they rot and die. Maybe they do that with other zoos in Japan too, even the one in the article, but elephants are more difficult than the others and normally get left to rot.
Japanese zoos are far from perfect. But do you really think all the zoos in your home country are perfect? And of the bad zoos that closed down rather than revamping, what do you think happened to the animals? Sure some will have gone to other zoos, but not all of them.
One thing I don't understand is the price of entrance, in the UK London zoo adults £16.80 kids £13.30 (that's ¥2675 and ¥2118 at today's exchange rate on yahoo), Ueno zoo adults ¥600, kids free until 12 years when they pay ¥200 until age 15. Perhaps if they increase the fee at Japanese zoos a little they can use the extra cash to pay for some improvements? Of course, I daresay UK zoos get no help from any government body, and here they do. But even so it's a huge difference. And they charge a fortune for snacks and drinks in the UK zoos too I'll bet.
Personally I don't like the fact that zoos exist. I don't believe it's worthwhile keeping an otherwise extinct animal in captivity, they can't bring up their own young, often they're not even capable of mating successfully (or at all) in captivity, plus they're miserable. Why force new generations to suffer? Bring them up by human hand and they think they're related to humans. So why would they want to mate with that furry animal you're introducing them to? But they're interesting and educational for kids (up to a point) so while they do exist I'll occasionally take the little dammits to see the animals.
Posted in: One zoo to avoid
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They'll be lucky. He surely owed so much money his estate will never cover it. The mother of the older 2 kids had better prepare to be sued for maintenance payments if she's not interested in caring for them.
His creditors should never have made him all those allowances over all those years. He was on the verge of bankruptcy for ages. If they'd repossessed Neverland or whatever he called it years ago maybe he'd have been better able to bounce back (being younger, fitter, not yet having kids when he was first in debt, and his face not yet being so mangled.) Maybe he'd have been able to sort out his life to the point that his kids (if he'd had them) wouldn't potentially have to shoulder the problems caused by his debt.
Maybe. But letting him get away with owing them millions just because theoretically he was rich was unbelievably stupid, and I hope his creditors go bust because of it. It would surely serve them right for being so stupid in the first place.
Posted in: Parents file papers to administer Jackson estate
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Brunobear,
lol, I can well imagine Muslim men doing the "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" thing! Instead of sitting around in the village all day playing cards, they'll sit around in the village all day playing cards and guzzling wine! Since when have French men (or any others) been famous for treating women as equals and not ever being lazy beggars? lol!
Posted in: Sarkozy says burqas are 'not welcome' in France
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Cleo's got it pretty much right, although Oneforall certainly has a point. Wasn't there a kid in Korea who filmed his teacher beating his classmates? Illegally I might add, (the teacher beating the kids, not the boy videoing it.) Without the evidence the teacher would still be doing it.
I can envisage a child recording voice and/or video of a teacher suggesting something inappropriate. It's a great way to find out if your parents think you should do the new, exclusive, after school club.
Personally I think they shouldn't be allowed to use phones in school. But if there's some sort of block and a nutter gets in the classroom and holds them hostage, how will they raise the alarm?
Definitely it's a difficult call to make, but if only us humans had a bit of self control there'd be no need to ban anything.
Posted in: What is your stance on moves by some schools to bar children from bringing cell phones to school?
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Really? I'd heard that the US has some nuclear warheads or something here, just in case.
But perhaps my information was defective.
Posted in: Japan now occupies the nuke-free high ground and would risk losing its innocence if it went nuclear.
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Banned religious attire hum? Supposing a woman wants to wear one as a statement of her personality or as some sort of political protest? Muslims will be banned from wearing burqas in public, but non-muslims will be free to wear them whenever they want! (Just like with the current French ban on overtly religious clothing and accessories in schools. e.g. A sikh can't wear a turban or a beard, but anyone else can.)
I think of Sarky as a complete hypocrite. He claims burqas are a sign of the “debasement” of women, but he thinks it's fine to have whores, porn, and stripshows debasing women left right and centre. (I also don't like the way his first 'job' on becoming president was to get a new wife. He had items of world importance on his agenda and all he could think of was his underpants. Shame on him.)
He could at least be consistent, if he wants to ban burqas in public he should ban all religious garb in public, not just by those practicing the religion but by everyone. No more nuns in habits, no more stag-nighters in habits either lol.
Posted in: Sarkozy says burqas are 'not welcome' in France
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Higher than it was before, but I still don't think they'll manage it.
Voter apathy here is even worse than in the UK.
Besides, both sides are alleged to have links to the yakuza - note I say alleged. How to choose between a rock and a hard place?
Posted in: What do you think are the chances of the opposition parties unseating the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito party in elections later this year?
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Oletstalk, what do you mean? Why did a million allow themselves to be killed by 8 thousand? If so, you should remember 2 things.
they weren't all killed at the same time. It went on for several years.
The eight thousand had all the weapons (and most of the food.)
Posted in: Pointing the finger at a generation of postwar Germans
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What's this?
How can this be? I constantly see comments from people on the internet who insist quite vehemently that German people are totally contrite for German war crimes, and Japanese people are either ignorant of Japanese war crimes or else proud of them.
Somewhere there's a glaring inconsistency. And I don't think it's with this article. BTW, never heard of the film or book, and won't bother with the film but might just read the book one day. Sounds interesting to say the least.
Posted in: Pointing the finger at a generation of postwar Germans
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Funny, I was reading a similar story about British Airways earlier. But with them staff can choose between unpaid leave and unpaid work. They're also going to make more redundancies, and probably that'll be JAL's next move too.
Posted in: Businesses are still restricting travel and demand is slumping. JAL has no choice but to offer unpaid leave.
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How awful, poor babe and poor parents.
This seems to happen an awful lot in the UK for some reason, often a child will sneak out while the door's open and by the time someone realises they're not where they should be it's too late.
Cars are always going to be dangerous, especially to children. And children are always good at suddenly darting off into dangerous places.
As for whether 1 year olds are able to hang out on driveways, probably yes. But not normally when someone's driving the car in or out. Driveways are normally considered part of the garden/yard and thus part of the play area when a car isn't being moved. Not surprising children don't understand the danger. They play on the drive, around the car if it's there, and they ride happily in the car. Therefore the car is a friend and how can it be dangerous?
Poor baby.
Posted in: 1-year-old girl killed after father backs car over her
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Some are good, others less so. I can't judge proportions as I only know about what I see. All of the people whose kids play with mine take good care of their kids, I don't let my younger kids play with the sort of child who is left in a group of kids while their mums yak together or text, smoke over a nursing mum, turn their backs while their kids walk off with other kid's belongings or push or kick other kids, play badminton and leave one of the mums to watch all the kids while she's cuddling her mobile phone, or generally huddle in an all important discussion while their 18 month old is climbing the ladder of the slide unattended. I see those people in one of the local play parks. They do it every day.
But on Sunday I saw 2 outrageous examples of how not to supervise kids. First a 20 something man was encouraging about 6 kids to vandalise some play equipment. They were all having great fun. Apparently 2 or 3 of the brats were his, and the mothers of the others were yakking on a bench facing away from the abuse. They actually thanked the man for helping their kids have such a good time afterwards. Just as well it was wanton vandalism and not drugs.
The second example was just afterwards, I saw a man riding his bike with his son in the child seat behind him. The man was behaving strangely though, he was holding the handle on the right, but his left hand was holding his son's left leg. The reason became apparent when I saw the straps that were supposed to be holding the child in the seat - they were just hanging loosely over the back of the child seat. He hadn't even bothered securing his son, and of course the boy wasn't wearing a helmet.
Those two examples are unusual though, off and on I've lived here for 4 or 5 years altogether so far and the only other thing I've seen that matched was some woman who'd put a bicycle seat on the pillion of her moped. I'd like to believe that it was a special one for mopeds, but I don't actually believe such a thing exists.
The trouble is that we only really notice extreme examples, so I'll never forget my outrage at those criminally neglectful cases, but I'll never remember all the decent parenting I see each day.
Posted in: What's your impression of parental supervision of children in Japan?
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Elderly photographers get together in a park in Kitakogane in Tokyo?
Wow, amazing. What are they actually doing? Waiting for Christmas? With those long faces maybe they're waiting for the sun to shine........
Posted in: Photo ops
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I hate those things, lots of boys round here have suddenly become ultra keen on them. Very dangerous in my opinion, but I don't know enough about them to know if they're capable of doing more than blind someone - sometimes with air weapons in the UK you hear reports of animals or people being killed in a 'freak' accident by being shot in one of the few parts of the body vulnerable to such low-force missiles. I used to know a man who'd lost an eye to one of those airguns too. But what about these BB guns? Are they as bad? I saw some git teaching his 5 or 6 year old to use them at the weekend! Isn't there any age limit here?
Posted in: Packing heat
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How was the ballot taken this time then? You say "previous elections — time-consuming paper ballots" which makes me assume this ballot doesn't involve paper, but if it was a computerised vote and the instant results are normal why are you complaining?
Anyway, the US has no right to criticise. It's none of their business, and they've had seriously contested elections themselves in the not so distant past.
Posted in: Tehran calm after vote fraud claims trigger clashes
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I've only ever used Virgin and British Airways. Both airlines have great attendants and they have always been extremely helpful. Never had a bad flight attendant, so that's all I can say really.
Posted in: In your experience, which airline has the best flight attendants and which one has the worst?
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Although, I think a slowly disintegrating plane must be a worse way to die than a quickly exploding plane. Terrible to think of. Poor people.
Posted in: Sub helps in hunt for Air France black boxes; 2 terror suspects reported on flight