JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
-
- 秘書及び業務サポート
- 加治金属工業株式会社, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥4.0M / Year
-
- 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
-
- ALT - Mie Prefecture - Yokkaichi City - June start
- NPO法人グローバル教育推進機構（GLAD), Mie
- Salary: ¥230,000 / Month For a full working month. Some months differ.
0
jonswan
I agree - nice but rather obvious. I gave away my TV a long time ago - the standard and content of J-TV tends to be extremely poor, lowbrow and nonsensical. I couldn't call it entertainment. Time for a shake up of the media perhaps? However, these things come in cycles, so let's hope that kids of the future don't mindlessly follow mindless media bores. Media, government and schools need to promote reading - it's better brain work than TV and magazines. Kawaii and sugoi - yes, I wish they'd find another adjectives. A point: the title 1984 is widely known to have been 1948 twisted around, so in fact it's not true that it is overlooked by most.
Posted in: The Japanese media and its Orwellian nature
0
jonswan
Formula 1 should be banned very soon - a finite resource (oil) going up in smoke as very similar cars drive round and round a track for entertainment, not forgetting all the oil they need to cart their F1 circus from country to country. In 20-30 years time, when oil is truly running out, we will all shake our heads in disbelief at our complete stupidity. Without oil, we will be heading back toward the stone age, for more or less everything we use in our lives needs it.
Posted in: Here's hoping Formula One gets even more boring
0
jonswan
Posted in: What can be done to stem the suicide rate in Japan, which surpasses 30,000 each year?
0
jonswan
The idea that a huge number of people on earth believe in life after death is truly disturbing. It is an utterly fallacious and desperately self-obsessive, self-indulgent childish fantasy. The idea that a god (or gods) created the universe billions of years ago just so that you can drink beer, drive a Prius, mess about on the internet, fall in love, marry, get broken hearted, cheat, lie, spread joy and pain and all the other complicated things that people do is the silliest possible thing you could ever imagine. The central question would be: why? It's not like we are a brilliant race; only a dominant one, and one that finds it desperately hard to appreciate each other, manage our environment and our time. We are a small minded, mostly insular race of limited intelligence. If there was a supreme being, he'd probably have come up with something far better. The God squad also have another problem; they have no evidence. Not a scrap. And if you think being part of a church is the right answer then you need only look to the colossal heap of immorality that is the Catholic church to see that answer leads nowhere. And if you think a loving God presides over us, what about the tsunami that killed 300,000 people a few years back in Indonesia? God is a simplistic answer, but it is the wrong answer. The answer is to appreciate your life, even the bad bits, and spread a little joy, and if you can't do that, try to be good and fill your life with interest. And try to veer away from the 'life is no accident, we're off to heaven' crowd of obsessive fantasists. Life is for living now, so get on with it.
Posted in: Do you believe in life after death?
0
jonswan
Anyone who doesn't support the ban is bordering on the clinically insane; tuna stocks have been totally decimated by 20-30 years of overfishing (80% of which is due to Japan) to the point where a few more years and they'll be totally gone. They need a chance to replenish themselves. This is a test case to gauge human stupidity. Oishi? Yes, but it's more complicated than that. The idiocy defies belief.
Posted in: Do you support a ban on the trade of bluefin tuna?
0
jonswan
Pretty funny story - in a black comedy sort of way. I'm sure there are a certain numbers of men and women in all societies who wouldn't mind if their husband/boy/girlfriend vanished or went up in smoke. It's a sad fact that society and personal circumstances force some people to stay together when they don't want to be. Financial independence (i.e. your own part time job) would in many cases even here in Japan result in the far safer and less demonic choice of divorce compared to staying where you are and feeling imprisoned. Still, bringing up one child, cooking the occasional bento for the absent husband, farming out the kid to the grandparents, spending the day at the gym or with friends - gosh, that sounds like a nightmare life to me....
Posted in: Some wives wish their husbands would hurry up and drop dead.
0
jonswan
It seems unbearably sad that a father can't get access to his daughter due to the legal system here in Japan; whether you think it's racist or not, it certainly seems draconian and outdated, and does not serve the interests of the children. I would hate to think that the woman in question will bring up their child hating the father; it just isn't right and will lead to damaging the child. Therefore, the woman, if she truly cared for her daughter's welfare and mental health, would grow up and give the father decent access. There is a coldness here in Japan which frightens me; it's almost as if the woman (and the courts) do not see the father as a person with feelings and concerns. He has my sympathies.
Article Unavailable
0
jonswan
The old adage that 'people kill not guns' is foolish semantic-quibbling garbage; people with guns kill people a lot - and civilians tend to do it a lot in the USA. When will they ever learn? I already know the answer: never. Why? Because guns are a desperate cockeyed passion, and they can't seem to grow up and grow out of it. Fences round campuses would help, as would security screening - it might create a lot of jobs too.
Posted in: Professor charged in fatal shooting on Alabama campus
0
jonswan
The fact that Japanese historians and professors are still arguing that 'only' up to 200,000 were killed in Nanking whereas the Chinese state it was nearer 300,000 speaks volumes. I mean, the horrendous violence was still there; civilians slaughtered en masse for sport as the Japanese went on a demented rampage. Imagine if the Germans were still arguing over figures of how many the Nazis killed? In fact, some old Nazi sympathisers do still argue over holocaust figures but these people are nutjobs who do not represent what every German school child is taught, openly. Nanking was an utter disgrace to Japan, as was much of what they did in Asia from 1930s-45 and the fact that historians still feel they need to argue over the exact figures makes me seriously uncomfortable. Japan needs to come clean about what it did, teach it openly, make sure it isn't twisted for nationalistic ends, then move on. Growing up hurts, I know, but there is no alternative.
Posted in: Japan, China still at odds over 'Rape of Nanking'
0
jonswan
It's not unique to Japan but the idea of sticking your head in the sand and simply denying a problem exists happens here a lot. In Japan though, it's the shame thing, but look where it's got them? That parts of the Japanese media are calling it an anti-Japanese invention are equally delusional. I had thought about a Toyota on returning to Britain next year, but this issue has made that possibility now less than zero. When some of your customers are crashing and dying due your faulty products just about the most heinous, deceitful and disgraceful thing you could possibly do is pretend that no problem exists. The least the whole board of directors at Toyota could do is resign en masse. This is going to take a bit more than a few bows and mumbles of regret.
Posted in: Toyota is in the soup and doesn't seem to know it
0
jonswan
Lost has had its ups and downs; some shows were awful and went in silly directions, and I could really do without most of the faith and destiny nonsense, but overall it has been an amazing show and I don't mind saying I am very much looking forward to the last season. It's a fantasy basically, and if you don't like suspending belief then the show's not for you.
Posted in: Fans search Waikiki Beach for answers to 'Lost'
0
jonswan
bicultural; no, it's not my hobby to watch others watching porn. Think of it like a car crash - you don't want to look but your eyes are drawn to it. Anything happens in your peripheral vision you are drawn to it, if your human or animal. I also used the phrase 'used to' meaning past habit. Thankfully I no longer have to use those places. And good luck to you regarding your Japanese wife. As I mentioned a few times in my comments, they were taken from my own experience.
Posted in: Sexless in Japan
0
jonswan
What a disturbing poll - kind of cements what I already thought or put together from experience from being here for 6 years; I am quite tall so when I used to use internet cafes I could easily see into the cubicles as I walked past - all of them were guys watching internet porn. I never noticed anyone (but me) doing anything else... From Japanese girls I've known, mostly I've been struck by their extremely high level of superficiality (hobbies such as shopping and driving) and a major lack of character. They openly want a rich guy so they can stop work and take it easy. It's almost like living on the set of the Stepford Wives. Completely different, in my experience, tend to be those girls who have lived abroad; they have lived outside the narrow confines of Japanese society, have lightened up and are consequently interesting AND interested in foreigners. So, if I was on the lookout for a Japanese wife, I would go for those returnees and avoid like the plague those who have not spent much time abroad. A question: do Japanese kids get sex education? Why do 77% of 20s/30s lack confidence in sex? Of course major factors impede sex, such as time/energy/opportunities/money/society but 77% is madly high. I gotta get out of here.
Posted in: Sexless in Japan
0
jonswan
The married people I know in Japan all have one kid and all struggle financially, despite the mother working part time. It's a heavily taxed country but where the hell it all goes is a mystery to me - the US/UK etc. spend 5-8% on their military spending but not Japan. Considering the vast workforce I can only suppose that some goes on paying off the national debt, some goes on corrupt practices, some on concreting over the country and so on. Wherever it goes, it doesn't seem to be a perfect system. On the upside, Japan is way overpopulated (the world already has 2 billion too many people in) so perhaps the Japanese are forward thinking enough to shrink down 10 million or so and make this tiny set of islands more pleasant to live in - imagine Tokyo with 1 million less people - what a pleasant thought that is... it's just that the short term problems will be how to pay for a top heavy system with too many old people and not enough workers. Immigration I'm afraid, but I won't be here long enough to see the Japanese writhing at the thought of that...
Posted in: Where are all the babies?
0
jonswan
The people who disrupted those flights are total morons and they should be suitably punished and fined. This is not about terrorism, merely boorish behaviour by self important cretins and drunks. Is this anything to do with flight crews? In these cases, no.
Posted in: Unruly passengers cause 2 flights to change course in U.S.
0
jonswan
There really ought to be ways to commit suicide which don't affect others - and that includes jumping off buildings as periodically someone below gets squashed and killed too. But suicide, apart from in extreme situations, is the height of dumbness; you've got the rest of eternity to be dead so what's the rush?
Posted in: Man attempts suicide on Ginza subway line
0
jonswan
I think for certain types of crime, a very public and very humiliating punishment would be fitting; this is one of those crimes. However, clearly the man is sick in the head and needs to be removed from society and treated. I wish Japan had some kind of system for treating mental illness; there seems to be a lot of this weird stuff about.
Article Unavailable
0
jonswan
I've nearly been murdered twice in Japan by vermin shooting through red lights. I hope this worm gets a major prison sentence.
Article Unavailable
0
jonswan
The man should clearly be imprisoned for 15+ years for this, and the woman should be sterilised and have the child taken away from her - permanently. I can't believe I have to share the same planet with these people.
Article Unavailable
0
jonswan
the_harper, tkoind2 and peachy871, thank you for pointing out that real climate change can be seen openly, so this 'climategate' issue is going to fizz out like it should because nothing works as well as real facts staring you in the face. Essentially the climate is changing and as the IPCC stated, the likelihood of us being the cause is greater than 90%. Whether we are the cause (and I for one believe we are) or not, there are huge issues to be dealt with and major changes needed in the way we interact with the planet in terms of food, water and energy. The climate change deniers are a weird bunch - wilfully ignorant and desperately lunging at any scrap of information which may allow them to carry on polluting the way they always have. Sorry, but if you think you can get food from six continents, drive a V8, fly where you like, recycle the occasional bottle and think that's OK then you're dead wrong. It might be good to remember that the world's resources are finite. And I wouldn't call it a religion either; religion concerns supernatural fantasies - that doesn't sound like ordinary people who happen to care a little about pollution and their changing environment, does it?
Posted in: Climategate: The fix is in