JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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Official defends secrecy over worst-case nuclear disaster scenario
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Firms plan to build floating wind farm off Fukushima coast
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Remembering
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Apple dethrones Google as company with most respected image in eyes of consumers
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Why do Japanese change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners?
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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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- 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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hokkaidoguy
Until this summer, I never understood why people thought the chinese tourists were so rude.
Then I came out of a roadside cafe on the highway near Hakodate and found a Chinese tourist sitting on my Ducati, wearing my helmet, and posing for pictures - while an entire busload of them stood by and watched.
Now, I get it.
Posted in: In your experience, which country's tourists are the least well-behaved whenever you have seen them out and about?
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hokkaidoguy
Find another market.
Posted in: Shippers say China slows handling of Japan goods
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hokkaidoguy
If you do business with China, it's time to start making contingency plans for when your government offends them somehow. Best bet is to move operations elsewhere.
Posted in: Shippers say China slows handling of Japan goods
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hokkaidoguy
Which is fine, until you have to start making sense of a schematic that has been rendered into greyscale by amazon. That's where the iPad beats the kindle. Perhaps in a few years, colour e-ink will be possible, but until then the iPad is the only game in town for an e-reader, as far as my needs go.
Posted in: How the iPad won over an unbeliever
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hokkaidoguy
hmmm. Earlier reports were saying that the 5th man was a Chinese national acting as their guide.
Posted in: China holding 4 Japanese for illegally filming military targets
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hokkaidoguy
What do I want to bet?
Considering it isn't even noon yet and I've fielded three emails from business contacts in Canada and the US looking for information on the situation, not a whole lot.
Posted in: China holding 4 Japanese for illegally filming military targets
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hokkaidoguy
Over the last couple of days, there have been stories that shipments to Japanese companies have been "delayed", and now the arrest of Japanese nationals on espionage charges.
Time to start rethinking China as a manufacturing source. If this is how they react when a fisherman is arrested, how will they react if it is something important?
Posted in: China holding 4 Japanese for illegally filming military targets
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hokkaidoguy
I don't know where you come from, but it's more than likely that your home country denies tourist visas for DUI convictions, among other things. If you have a DUI, visa waiver programs do not apply to you.
Posted in: Paris Hilton leaves for U.S. after being denied entry into Japan
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hokkaidoguy
Most countries in the world, like it or not, have a law on the books prohibiting people who have been convicted of crimes - no matter how petty - from entering.
Likewise, most countries in the world have a procedure for clearing one's name - which allows people who have been convicted of a crime in the past to prove they do not represent a danger to the country they are entering.
You don't have to like it, but you should accept that this is not a case of Japan taking a hard line on recreational drug use, but rather a case of Japan doing what every other country in the world routinely does on an everyday basis.
Posted in: Paris Hilton leaves for U.S. after being denied entry into Japan
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hokkaidoguy
Unless you count bycatches, in which case the number of marine mammals caught is in the hundreds of thousands per year, worldwide - and most of it goes unreported.
Posted in: Threats keep dolphin protest out of Taiji
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hokkaidoguy
the urban-rural divide must be wider than I thought - the only time I can`t buy whale at my local is when they are sold out, and the majority of the people I know look forward to the chance to partake.
One thing I have noticed, though - some people have told me they don`t like it, only to change their story when they know I am not likely to start lecturing them on why whales are better than people.
Posted in: Dolphin-hunting town begins annual pursuit
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hokkaidoguy
If you want to pay through the nose for substandard products, sure.
Posted in: Where, oh where has my little car gone?
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hokkaidoguy
Really? I can have an engine out of a car in an hour. With friends, I have done engine/transmission swaps in an afternoon, including beer breaks. With the right tools and a haynes manual, I am confident that I could strip any car down to the frame in an 8 hour day.
Cars are designed to be put together easily, which means they are designed to come apart easily. A crew of four people could easily have a box of parts - disassembled properly - on the road inside of a day. Two days if paint is involved.
There isn't a lot of time or money to be invested in an operation like this - which is why you find things like this worldwide.
Posted in: Where, oh where has my little car gone?
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hokkaidoguy
You want an apology again? It`s only been two weeks since the last one.
Posted in: S Koreans rally on Japanese colonial anniversary
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hokkaidoguy
Dear Mister Trenton Truitt:
When you get called out by your manager, it is not a good idea to publish your angry reaction in a major paper, using your real name. Nor is it a good idea to sign away your right to reproduction of the article, so that it gets picked up by other news sites and blogs.
Managers, even old, set in their ways longtime expat managers, do read Metropolis from time to time - especially if one of the staff they dispatch to teach Business English is a contributor. Look forward to your contract being dropped.
Oh, and incidentally: you can now also look forward to being treated like nuclear waste by future employment prospects.
See, when someone does a google search on your name: "Trenton Truitt" all of your future employers until the end of time will be able to see this article, and what an utter joy you must be to work with.
Interestingly, thanks to the comments section here, a search for "Trenton Truitt" and "drivel" (or dribble) brings you here. Likewise teacher, business english, customer, and a whole list of things that future employers might search for.
Posted in: If a longtime expat starts offering you advice, walk the other way
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hokkaidoguy
Why do so many posters feel the need to customize their restaurant order?
Working in kitchens back in the old country, this kind of thing always really irritated the staff - especially the chefs, who spend years training and perfecting their dishes, only to have some clod demand that two or three of the main ingredients be left out. It defeats the purpose of a menu - the general consensus is that those people should just stay home and cook for themselves. Of course, the wait staff are playing for tips - so the orders are never refused.
Here in Japan, the public seems to get it. A menu is a list of carefully thought out and prepared dishes that are available for you to choose from. If there is something you don't like, you are free to order something else. Or use the door.
Posted in: What are some differences you have observed between waiters and waitresses in restaurants and cafes in Japan and other countries and also the way in which customers treat them?
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hokkaidoguy
Why bother trying to find out about the laws, if you are just going to ignore them if they aren't to your liking?
Posted in: Confused by Japan’s cycling laws? You aren’t the only one
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hokkaidoguy
No such thing as a "Japanese Imperial Flag". Thats the JMSDF flag.
Posted in: Anti-Cove
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hokkaidoguy
Cleo:
The proposal includes (included?) mandating data sampling and reporting for ship strikes, by catches and sightings by all member nations - which would offset the scientific research loss. Shame that this wont go forward, as that would have been very beneficial - it would have yielded a more limited amount of information, but over a much wider area.
Posted in: Proposal to resume commercial whaling hits snag at IWC meeting
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hokkaidoguy
Ah, the Israeli school of negotiation tactics.
Posted in: Proposal to resume commercial whaling hits snag at IWC meeting