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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gaijintraveller
"China has bulldozed its way through every fiscal, environmental and political obstacle in its path."
So they are no doubt following the example of the U.S., whose military budget dwarfs any other countries comprising over 40% of the world's military expenditure.
Posted in: China has some major issues coming
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gaijintraveller
TheRat, this is world trade. The Japanese car, motorbike and consumer electronic industries destroyed their counterparts in the West. It is not fair to expect industries vulnerable to imports to be protected in a country that screams unfair when other countries try to protect their vulnerable industries. Apart from that, the farming industry is literally dying out in Japan. Farmers are getting older and older, yet young people do not want to take over their work. Young people want to work in offices and not on farms.
JeffLee, I remember those times. I remember one day reading about the danger of imported Thai rice and on the same page reading about the high incidence of a certain cancer in Niigata farmers, and we all know what they are famous for growing.
Posted in: Japan’s current trade fiasco
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gaijintraveller
That sounds like a deal, but can we buy it here in Japan? From where I live it is cheaper than a return ticket to Tokyo and I don't live far from Tokyo.
Posted in: Rail Europe adds Japan Rail Pass to portfolio
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gaijintraveller
"A second woman accused Assange of having sex with her without a condom while he was a guest at her Stockholm home and she was asleep."
She must have been dreaming.
Posted in: WikiLeaks founder denied bail; jailed on Swedish sex crime charge
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gaijintraveller
Has anyone been to Vietnam? Everyone uses paperless filters there. They use the French cafe filtre system. I don't know how old that is, but they must have been commonplace when France was a colonial power in Asia a long time ago.
I also used to have an excellent Toshiba machine. You put whole beans in a the grinder on the machine and ground the beans. I then boiled water and dripped it through the grinder. The bottom of the grinder was a fine mesh. It was a great design. I gave it away to a friend who used to drink and offer me instant coffee when I got an espresso machine.
Posted in: Coffee maker doesn't need paper filter
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gaijintraveller
Does it have English menus? If not, why promote this in English. "Warning, don't buy this in Japan unless you are Japanese" should be added.
Some people will say that that is no problem because they can read Japanese and the rest of us should, too. To them I say that by removing foreign language menus Panasonic is saying that does not want foreigners living in Japan to buy their cameras.
Having spoken to their service department about this problem I will not now buy any Panasonic product because their customer service has no desire to serve customers and that is what they tell customers.
There are other micro 4/3 camera manufacturers. I suspect some of them provide better service.
Posted in: Lumix SLR digital camera
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gaijintraveller
What is really surprising is that this kind of thing does not happen more often. Travelling on JR can be so stressful with the constant barrage of noise, most of which serves no purpose other than to annoy commuters. Most Japanese seem to have become completely inured to this and accept it as a normal part of life.
The true cause of the admonishers anger was probably constant announcements and the irritating music played for far too long at each stop of his maybe hour-long journey.
It is also possible that the passengers on the train were feeling uncomfortably cold as JR still uses coolers before sunrise and after sunset on some trains on the Sobu line.
The blame for this lies with JR. I can sympathise with the passengers.
I use earplugs whenever I travel on JR. However, the noise is still irritatingly loud even with earplugs.
Posted in: 70,000 commuters delayed by quarrel over cell phone on train in Chiba
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gaijintraveller
Punctuality and cleanliness are good points. However, some trains companies, especially JR, seem to try to make travel in ordinary trains an unpleasant experience by continually bombarding you with noise. I believe JR is currently holding a competition between stations to see which one can play the most irritating sound to warn you the doors are going to close. When you are waiting for a train, maybe for 20 or 30 minutes in the countryside, it is impossible to find an even reasonably quiet place at many stations.
What is the point of a suburban train network? It should be to get people to work quicker. However, this is not what has happened. It has had such an effect on land prices that people have been priced out of city centres and forced people to live up to 100km from their place of work.
I have to wear earplugs whenever I travel on JR.
Posted in: How do Japan's subway and rail systems compare with other countries?
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gaijintraveller
The problem is too many rules and not enough consideration and plain common sense. People speaking on phones on buses and trains are no problem when compared with the endless annoying announcements telling us not to use them.
Posted in: Woman arrested for using spray on bus passengers in Chiba
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gaijintraveller
Elbudamexicano says. "Just look up Jimi Hendrix, etc..all of these guys died from over doses of hard drugs." Many die form overdoses of alohol, too. What did Keith Moon of the Who and John Bonham die overdose on? Alcohol.
Posted in: Alcohol more lethal than heroin, cocaine: study
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gaijintraveller
This was published in The Lancet. The Lancet is a British Medical Publication and is read mainly by members of the medical profession. It is one of the most respected medical publications in the world.
It does not publish BS as many suggest. It has the highest editorial standards and only publishes serious, well researched material, which, I have no doubt, this study is.
The conclusions of the study may not be popular with some, but they are certainly not frivolous.
The previous British government did not like Professor Nutt's conclusions when he headed a study on drugs for them. As a result, they fired him from the committee he was heading. This seems to be a trend. It seems that every committee appointed by a government since the 1960's has come to the conclusion that alcohol is more dangerous than some illegal drugs.
"Cannabis is less dangerous than the opiates, amphetamines and barbiturates, and also less dangerous than alcohol." That quote comes from the Wootton Report of 1968 which investigated the effects of cannabis for the British government. The then government rejected the conclusion. Forty years on the same results produce the same rejection.
Posted in: Alcohol more lethal than heroin, cocaine: study
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gaijintraveller
Many Japanese actually like hot food once they are introduced to it. Unfortunately, often the owners of ethnic restaurants are Japanese and believe the fallacy that Japanese are unable to eat hot food. The foreign chefs are then told to make the food mild.
Actally, I have given up asking Indian restaurants in Japan to make a curry hot. If you do, they will just add chilli to their mild curry with the result that balance of spices is destroyed and all you will taste is the chilli.
Thai food can be made hotter by the addition of prik (chilli) nam pla, or, at least, the chilli from the prik nam pla. You may have to order this as the prik nam pla on the table probably has virtually no chilli in it. Quite good Thai food can be found in Thailand in certain places such as Shin Okubo, Kinshicho and other areas where Thais hang out and do their shopping.
I suggest that the best test of an ethnic restaurant before you eat in it is to ask whether they serve Japanese or imported rice. If they serve Japanese rice, everything else will be aimed at Japanese customers. Japanese rice is good for sushi as it sticks together in lumps, but it really does not go well with Thai or Indian food.
Middle Eastern food also seems to suffer from Japanese prejudices. "Japanese don't like the smell of lamb, so we do only chicken or beef doner kebabs." This seems to be the motto of almost every kebab stall in Japan. If a Middle Eastern restaurant does not serve lamb, it will be Japanised food.
Even good Chinese food is hard to find in Japan. Most of it is Japanese food with a bit of oil added. If there is no duck on the menu, the restaurant is guaranteed to be no good.
Posted in: One man’s culinary paradise is another’s cultural wasteland
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gaijintraveller
During the bubble many developers bypassed the law and used the yakuza to move people out. This was common enough for the word jiage to come into common usage to describe such people. Was it somewhere in the Roppongi are that one such person "accidentally" reversed a truck into an old persons house? Admittedly, that was a rare cases, but threatening visits to old people by burly people wearing sunglasses were not so uncommon.
Regarding Narita Airport, I think there still is one farm inside the airport, which can be seen when some flights taxi to the runway.
Posted in: Eminent Domain laws in Japan notoriously weak
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gaijintraveller
It may use a lot of cream, but not dairy cream as that is too fatty. It probably uses some other artificial cream.
Yoghourt is not supposed to taste like milk. It is supposed to taste like yoghourt.
I suppose the rum is to make it taste less like milk.
Believe th PR if you want. Megmilk is the new name for Snow Brand, so you know you can trust what they say.
Buy a yoghourt maker then you can easily make your own yoghourt from milk of your choice. You just need to buy one pack of yoghourt to start the thing off, but make sure you buy one with the bacteria in it so that it will regenerate naturally.
Posted in: Mashiro yogurt
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gaijintraveller
Whereas anyone who invested through a large, respectable company with impressive offices in a costly location is not an idiot? Think about Lehmans. It is hard to know who is offering good advice and who isn't. Those who are supposed to know most, especially when it comes to derivatives, often do worst.
Since the big bang, many market traders have received huge bonuses which encourage huge risks and excessive leverage.
I was once told by a friend who had worked for a short time as a cold call salesman, actually as a door-to-door salesman, not a telephone salesman, that you should be rude to such people. Their trianing assumes most people are not rude, so unless you are, you cannot end the conversation.
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gaijintraveller
Lumix gives you all these wonderful features and PR, but will not let us have English menus.
If you ask for English menus, they tell you can't have them if you buy the camera in Japan. Lumix sells crippled cameras in Japan.
Posted in: New Lumix boasts world’s fastest auto focus
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gaijintraveller
SKB41, most Muslims do not kill people. It is just as hypocritical for Christians to kill people. Christians must get their priorities right, too. Think about what Christians have done recently in Northern Ireland, Croatia and Serbia, and do not forget the revenge of a born-again Christian after 9-11. How many Muslims have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq by a country with a Christian Commander-in-Chief that trusts in God? Every religion has its hypocrites.
Whiteyrocks, I agree throwing acid and stoning is backward and uncivilised. I would like to ask you if dropping bombs, sorry, that should be delivering ordinance, and killing innocent people, apologies, causing collateral damage, is the action of a civilised and developed country.
I am not a Muslim myself. I just do not approve of Christians hypocrites who criticise other religions when they are no better themselves.
Posted in: Seattle cartoonist goes into hiding on FBI advice
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gaijintraveller
The lens is capable of taking shots at 14.2 megapixels. What is the camera capable of? Does the lens have to be connected to a different camera to take 14.2 megapixels photos?
Posted in: Nikon D3100
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gaijintraveller
Most of the Brazilians in Shizuoka are of Japanese descent. How about this one? Was he of Japanese ethnicity?
Posted in: Man's throat slashed at front door in possible case of mistaken identity
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gaijintraveller
When was a Toyota Land Cruiser a little car?
Posted in: Where, oh where has my little car gone?