JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
-
1
Official defends secrecy over worst-case nuclear disaster scenario
-
2
Firms plan to build floating wind farm off Fukushima coast
-
3
Remembering
-
4
Apple dethrones Google as company with most respected image in eyes of consumers
-
5
Why do Japanese change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners?
-
- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
-
- 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
-
- Assistant Language Teacher - TOKYO - late-March start
- Interac, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥230,000 ~ ¥255,000 / Month
0
kirakira25
What on earth????! I am not surprised though - it would be so easy to snatch a child here, the number of times I have seen very young kids running around completely unsupervised.
I wonder how they found him?
Posted in: Man arrested after 2-year-old boy kidnapped from supermarket
0
kirakira25
“We are aware of problem ... but it’s not a priority,” Information Minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said last month."
I wonder how the Information Minister would feel about his priorities if his daughter/wife was in the camp?
Posted in: Women, young girls raped in Haiti's post-quake tent cities
0
kirakira25
right on, tmarie!
I also agree that the grovelling leaves me cold. I am neither physically nor emotionally able to do it. I watched my doctor being talked down to by the hospital head while I was in labour. She was giving him hell because he actually listened to me, empathised and granted one of my requests against her wishes - and yet he was a far better doctor than she could ever be (from my patient perspective). I wanted to tell him to grow a pair and tell her where to go - but he just put his head down and apologised. That aspect of the culture I can`t stand.
I agree with everything oneforall said.
Posted in: Traditional approaches to Japanese language learning are changing
0
kirakira25
The biggest mistake I seem to be making these days is putting my personality into what I say. Japanese think I a) learned Japanese in Kansai b) Am a bit mental or c) am hitting on them!
I try to be funny when I am nervous...always a BIG mistake when I do it in Japanese!
I am in deep doo doo with hubby right now after he busted me helping my daughter with her speech for her kindergarten graduation this Friday. I thought it might be fun to shake things up a bit from the usual doctor/vet/nurse thing, so she learnt to say (perfectly!) 大きくなったら。フ―タスウエートレスになりたい。男性からお金たくさんもらえるだから。Needless to say I am WELL in the dog house now....and she is going to say "nurse"! De-Nied!!
Posted in: Traditional approaches to Japanese language learning are changing
0
kirakira25
No sugar, fat and calories?
Why bother?!
Posted in: Canned coffee with zero sugar, fat, calories
0
kirakira25
Ummm -this is one I missed on the anti-ageing websites.
Posted in: Aki Hoshino in good shape at 33
0
kirakira25
So I
m confused HeyLars - if you dont ride in the women-only car - and get groped - it`s their own fault??!Posted in: Keihin Tohoku Line to get women-only cars as anti-groping measure
0
kirakira25
I am more surprised than anything that the companies themselves are surprised, and that they think they can filter these people out in subsequent interviews. Don`t seem to have the brains running the joint in the first place - maybe they need some of these creative people?
Posted in: Students using stand-ins for online employment exams
0
kirakira25
@space monkey - great list. I would go along with everything on it.
It is NOT that I don
t like the Japanese - not at all! I desperately want to find people to connect with here, but I find it incredibly difficult. For a long time I thought it was just me, and a cultural thing, and that I cant impose my idea of friendship on a completely different culture. But now I find it is not just me, and that Japanese have a hard time opening up to other Japanese too, and finding good friends.I think the definition of "friend" is important too. I have a lot of Japanese acquaintances. People to have coffee and a chat with. My friends know more about my personal life and what is going on with me and few if any of them are Japanese, becaue they don`t seem remotely interested in me, my life, my background or my culture - unless as I said, they need something from me. My best friends here are western, including my absolute best friend, who I would do anything for anytime day or night and I know she would for me. She is my rock. My husband hates her! He knows she knows everything! I call her my "wife" - she came with me to all my ante-natal appointments (unlike my husband) and I introduced her to my doctor as my "wife" - never has a Japanese guys face lit up so fast and so bright!!! HE wanted to be friends with us!!!
Living here long term like we do, usually with no family close by, my best friends and I all agree that your friends become like your family. We are always there for each other, and other Japanese acquaintances who have had experience of our group and met my friends have commented in the past that they are envious of us and our closeness. I think a lot of them WANT that kind of relationship too, but just don`t know how to go about it.
Posted in: Growing number of men have no close friends
0
kirakira25
@Shaolin - no offence taken, and you raise a good point - why did I marry him??!
The fact is, the good stuff outweighs the bad! But no marriage and no person is ever perfect - this is just one aspect of his character that bugs me, that
s all - that he acts so snooty around people he considers "beneath" him. And its a common Japanese trait. I married HIM, not Japan. I have to live with it - doesnt mean I have to like it and I am always telling him to treat them with more respect - todays uni-student waiter is tomorrows brain surgeon, etc etcI
m also with you on the alcohol thing - which is why I didnt comment on that before - I`m from the UK and drunks there make drunks here look like saints!Posted in: Growing number of men have no close friends
0
kirakira25
FRIEDgaijin - I wish I could disagree with you too - but I don`t. Not at all. The best I can say about the whole situation is "This is not my culture. It is not wrong, just different." But then I look at the suicide rate, and how generally unhappy so many (but not all by all means) Japanese seem to be. And I just think - how can this be right?
I am not saying that things are rosy elsewhere, like home in the UK for example - far from it! But I am living here, for good it would seem (or until I divorce DH anyway!!!) and so I am primarily concerned with Japan`s social and mental health, not anywhere else.
I get the feeling from many Japanese I know - especially the older ones - that they feel "cheated" in some way. I think they know life is easier outside Japan, in terms of more holidays, relaxed working hours, more life-balance. I think they were sold on the "work hard and ye shall reap thy reward" concept...and it hasn`t happened. The younger ones seem to have watched this and just given up before they even start.
There seems to be a lot of jealousy here, a lot of mistrust of other people, and a total inability to step outside the box.
Obviously I am generalising here - but I think all these things combined makes it hard to get close to people. My Japanese family in particular prefer to sweep problems under the carpet - nothing to see here. They won`t confide in or ask for help from anyone. But ultimately it has to come out, and it does in other ways. It bothers me to see it starting to affect my kids.
Japanese people don`t seem to be able to trust each other because by trusting someone you let down your guard and let them see the "real" you. I have watched my husband over the years faking his butt off! He never shows real emotions to anyone except me. On the other hand just by looking at my face you know exactly what kind of day I am having! No wonder I freak everyone out!
Posted in: Growing number of men have no close friends
0
kirakira25
Busted!
Posted in: Calif sushi chef charged with serving illegal whale
0
kirakira25
caffeinebuzz - I noticed a lot of my J friends were incredibly keen to meet my western friends too, but sometimes were not so keen to introduce me to their J friends - including my own husband in the beginning!
I was told I was too "wild" to be introduced to J friends - that gave me a good laugh! Other reasons were that I wouldn
t understand the conversation, would make some people nervous, it would upset their wives/girlfriends (what? So being foreign Im automatically a hooker??!) etc etcAs for meeting my friends - the women seemed to want to get to know us genuinely but then found it too hard, the guys wanted to pick up western chicks but then found us terrifying! And the ones who just wanted to sleep with me were just never interested in my friends at all - always a giveaway, that one!
Posted in: Growing number of men have no close friends
0
kirakira25
What dolphingirl said. Seems to me her "lack of" success in love is pretty evident.
Posted in: Comedian Masako Ohara goes nude for book on love
0
kirakira25
@spacemonkey - I wish I could disagree with you, but your description of the essential Japanese character is quite possibly the most insightful I have ever read!
I get particularly annoyed when they try to use the looong, drawn out, uncomfortable (for me) silences to get me to do something I don`t want to do.
I hate the way my husband acts superior to those he considers "beneath" him - like waiters for eg.
When we were watching the terrible earthquake in Haiti - no joke - I said to my MIL "Oh my God, look!" and she said "I KNOW!!! I had no idea they had Suzuki jeeps in Haiti!!!" Hows THAT for lack of empathy???!!!
This is my experience over and over again in my 8 years here. They love to tell me what I am doing wrong here...but could never raise 3 kids themselves in a foreign country.
Everything you list is exactly why close bonds cannot be forged.
Posted in: Growing number of men have no close friends
0
kirakira25
@dolphingirl - sorry I forgot to mention - yeah, gay guys just don
t seem to want to hang out with me - Im just not cool enough!!!Posted in: Growing number of men have no close friends
0
kirakira25
@dolphingirl
Yeah, you know what, he can go screw himself after all the female "friends" he has had over the years!
But seriously - I find it very hard to form close bonds with Japanese even though I would like to, male or female, for mosr of the reasons people have listed already, particularky the nature of take-take. It
s unbelievable the "friends" I dont hear from for months or years...until they want something from me.Just recently, I thought I was getting a good friendship going with a lovely, intelligent, professional, older, very westernised Japanese guy. We shared a lot of the same interests, had coffee and I loved talking with him.....but - whadd
ya know! And this revelation came just 6 weeks after having my 3rd baby!!! Didnt know whether to be shocked and appalled, or think to myself "Way to go, KK!!!"Posted in: Growing number of men have no close friends
0
kirakira25
@tkoind2:
PM me! My best friend and I were having exactly this conversation in reverse today! Why can
t guys be friends with us without eventually trying to hit on us???! I am gagging for male friends - WLTM some!!! I really miss my guy-friends from home, but most J guys arent interested in being friends with married women...are interested in #%$"#ing us though, or so it would seem....!Posted in: Growing number of men have no close friends
0
kirakira25
I don`t mean to sound ignorant - but is there a reason why they are all clones of each other? Are they not allowed to show any individuality for these commemorative photos?
I don
t mean to be rude - Im just curious. My daughter had two class photos this year, one from primary school in the UK and one from kindergarten here and the differences could not have been more stark, in terms of the British kids dressing and looking individual, and the Japanese kids wearing identical clothes, and even with their hands in the same pose.Can someone explain why this is?
Article Unavailable
0
kirakira25
Marcus Yeung - smoothie king, hit business concept importer, and something of a hottie as well by the looks of it!!!
Posted in: So you think you have a great business idea?