JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
-
1
Teacher nabbed for using miror to peek up girl's skirt
-
2
Japan's nuclear safety standards flawed, says commission chief
-
3
To be healthy, live in the big city
-
4
From carnivores to herbivores: how men are defined in Japan
-
5
Why do Japanese change their attitude when they communicate with foreigners?
-
- 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
-
- 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*
-
- Translator
- ZAIHON, Inc. (日本財務翻訳株式会社), Tokyo
- Salary: ¥6.0M / Year Negotiable
-2
sfjp330
Patrick HattmanDec. 21, 2011 - 01:31AM JST. Nolan Ryan did not pitch 200 innings til his age 25 season. Darvish has built up his IP over the years to a point that he should be fine in the majors going every 5 days and making 30-32 starts a year. In fact, I expect Darvish to throw a good number of CGs each year, and not just because he will be pitching for Texas.
Compare to Darvish, what held Nolan Ryan back was his wildness, and used to walk alot of batters in his youth. Same with Sandy Koufax, the greatest lefthand pitcher, like Nolan Ryan never pitched over 200 innings until age 25. I don't expect Darvish to throw good number of CGs. The Rangers will carefully restict his pitch count to 100-110 per game and probably end up going 6-7 innings per game. C.J. Wilson made 34 starts in 2011 and completed ony 3 games. Seasons in MLB is 25 percent longer than Japan Baseball.
Posted in: Texas Rangers win negotiating rights to Yu Darvish
-2
sfjp330
Rangers lost pair of aces in the last two years. Despite a serious effort, the Rangers were unable to re-sign ace pitcher Cliff Lee following the 2010 season. They made it back to the World Series anyway and were within one strike of winning it all before the St. Louis Cardinals rallied to take the trophy. Then the Rangers lost their latest ace, C.J. Wilson, with the AL West rival Los Angeles Angels this month. Nolan Ryan knows pitching and likes Darvish's makeup and Rangers have plenty of money to spend. In late 2010, the Rangers' final offer to Lee was for six-years, $138 million ($23 million a year) with a vesting option for the seventh year. The Phillies got him for five and $120M. The Rangers need Darvish to compete with the Angels. Hopefully, Darvish is not another Barry Zito with toxic long term contract.
Posted in: Texas Rangers win negotiating rights to Yu Darvish
-3
sfjp330
Maybe ANA should have no tolerance policy. Fire these pilots if they are caught.
Posted in: ANA flight delayed after pilot exceeds blood-alcohol limit
-3
sfjp330
This is a frequent problem for the pilots. Pilots are also human beings and they make mistakes. Like all of us, some don't use good judgements. Pilots are constantly on microscope to perform well and are judged like robots. Sure they get paid alot of money, but the high stress level is there and alcohol is needed for some pilots to calm their nerves. Maybe they are flying too many hours without breaks. The airlines should study the stress level and give them proper interval breaks. The airlines only think of profits first and rarely thinks of welfare of their workers.
Posted in: ANA flight delayed after pilot exceeds blood-alcohol limit
0
sfjp330
Once all the mourning for Kim Jong-il is over, the challenge that will come fast for the young sucessor Kim Jong-Un in how he will explain the next big failure to a people desperate to see their lives improve. In a country where propaganda is truth, the regime Kim Jong-un now leads needs either some proof that the country is indeed strong and prosperous, or someone to blame for falling so far short. The worry must be that Kim Jong-un will stick to, or even wander beyond, his father’s script of provoking the country’s enemies to distract NK from the problems at home. It’s easier to fire blame and rockets towards South Korea, Japan and the U.S. than to reform the broken system that his father and grandfather built. And provoking a military crisis might help Kim Jong-un convince his father’s generals, who have known only confrontation since the state’s creation and the Korean War that followed, that he is the right person to lead them.
Posted in: N Korean leader Kim Jong-Il dead at 69
0
sfjp330
If Brewers were looking for comparable hitter, they should've purse Coco Crisp. Aoki has very weak arm and lack range in the outfield. Crisp is twice is better defensively. Crisp also can hit for power in the gaps. Aoki will be another disappointment. Maybe he will hit .230 if he's lucky.
Posted in: Brewers win right to negotiate with Japan's Aoki
3
sfjp330
If you really care, talk to each other, but do remember that Japanese culture is extremely different from western cultures. It takes time and patience to understand the reasons for things. And even after all of the time and patience in the world, you will still be baffled by things that for the Japanese people are perfectly normal. And no, they don't speak much about feeling and other such things, but they do show you affection through small gestures, but things can be so sublte that if you dont know about their way of doing, you wont even notice that they are screaming they care.
Posted in: Husbands who take active role in family life have more loving wives: study
0
sfjp330
U.S. goverment spends millions and millions of taxpayers money and took almost a decade to convict Bonds and send him to 30 days of house detention in his 6 bedroom 10 bathroom mansion in Beverly Hills? Bonds is having a nice glass of wine and enjoying home vacaction. Does this make any sense on how goverment spends your tax dollar?
Posted in: Barry Bonds sentenced to house arrest, probation
-1
sfjp330
DotobockDec. 16, 2011 - 11:42PM JST. Wada's fast ball is somewhere around 135. It's not fast. Not sure what this is in miles. Maybe 80, 85? The thing though, Irabu used to throw 155 which is somewhere around 95?
Wada throws consistant 85-87 in fastball. People sometimes put too much emphasis on the velocity of the fastball. Greg Maddux threw around 87-89 range. It's more about keeping the hitters off balanced. Maddux was good as anybody and threw 5-6mph slower than the power pitchers.
Posted in: Orioles sign Wada to $8.15 million, 2-year contract
-2
sfjp330
ctyluDec. 16, 2011 - 08:30AM JST. the difference being that no one expects wada to be a superstar nor is he being paid like one.
Why not? What is the difference between the hype that Darvish gets compared to accomplishment of Wada? He won 33 games in the last two years. Last year Wada was the MVP, the Most Valuable Player, of the Japanese baseball league in 2010, which is an extraordinary accomplishment. When he started his career, he was the Rookie of the Year and he was also a four-time All-Star. If Japan baseball is rated "AAAA" by most of you, then, this is more of a lateral transition, Wada should perform like he did in Japan.
Posted in: Orioles sign Wada to $8.15 million, 2-year contract
-2
sfjp330
ctyluDec. 16, 2011 - 06:59AM JST. why would they give up top prospects from their already poor farm system to get gonzalez,
If Orioles want to win, you give up a little to get a quality young proven starter like Gonzalez, who only made $420K in 2011. He will earn about the same amount or less than Wada in the arbritration. Wada is not worth $4million a year. I guess you rather lose with Wada.
Posted in: Orioles sign Wada to $8.15 million, 2-year contract
-4
sfjp330
ctyluDec. 16, 2011 - 06:59AM JST. how is it a big mistake. its 2yrs 8mil. if he struggles as a starter, he'll be the long relief guy or the loogy in the pen. he looks like another hisanori takahashi. the orioles are a last place team and looks like will stay that way for a while.
Put it this way: Although in hindsight this now seems incredible, in 2004 the New York Mets thought so much of shortstop Kazuo Matsui that they actually made room for him by bumping Jose Reyes to second base. Another All-Star shortstop in Japan, Nakajima, drew a modest high-bid of $2 million from a team, the Yankees, that evidently projects him to be a reserve. Nakajima had about the same stats in Japan as Kazuo Matsui. Clear evidence that the love affair with Japan is over. Position players in the footsteps of Ichiro Suzuki and Hideki Matsui? Very little encouragement: None have hit higher than .268 (infielder Tadahito Iguchi and catcher Kenji Johjima). Very little power: Kosuke Fukudome hit 101 home runs in his last four seasons in Japan before getting a four-year, $48 million deal with the Cubs, and has totaled 42 homers in four Major League seasons.
There used to be a feeling that if a guy was a superstar in Japan, he'll be a superstar here. I don't think you can say that anymore. It's become more a case of 'buyer beware.' We've seen the track record, and it hasn't been great. The depth of the talent on big-league teams is the biggest hurdle; it is a game without letup. You try to evaluate talent in Japan, but they don't face the same caliber of pitching night in and night out. Japanese baseball is not a very aggressive game. You seldom see brushback pitches, or pitchers retaliating for hit batsmen, or basepath collisions. Japanese infielders seem intimidated by the tougher American game. [Kaz] Matsui seemed afraid of the inside fastball and the spikes-high slides of baserunners trying to break up the double play. Nishioka didn't know how to handle the double play. Darvish extremely talented, but in terms of how it transitions and everything else like that, it's hard to say. I wouldn't even want to speculate.
Posted in: Orioles sign Wada to $8.15 million, 2-year contract
0
sfjp330
In Japanese politics, they've discovered that reinvigorating Japanese nationalism at China's expense is an effective way of containing the growing popularity of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan and a lot easier than tackling economic reform. China-bashing is simply a winning formula in Japanese domestic politics. That's part of why Japan has now expressed a clear interest in Taiwan's security, pushed the envelope on territorial disputes with China, and aligned its position on North Korea's nuclear program more closely with U.S. A China-Japan conflict could disrupt the balance of alliances in Northeast Asia. Korea and Taiwan, might side with China in a conflict, while Japan would look to the U.S. The U.S. might be called on to defend not only its staunch ally but also the interests of Western oil companies. Thus far the relative calm of the Senkaku dispute, in contrast to the Spratlys may be attributed in part to the presence of U.S. forces nearby.
Posted in: China sends patrol ship to disputed waters
-4
sfjp330
Wada is another Kawakami that pitched for Atlanta. Orioles are making a big mistake. If Orioles is serious about getting quality pitcher, they should've gone after Gio Gonzalez of the A's, Edward Jackson or Jake Westbrook of the Cardinals.
Posted in: Orioles sign Wada to $8.15 million, 2-year contract
-1
sfjp330
OssanAmericaDec. 15, 2011 - 09:59AM JST. You are confusing the issue of the Senkaku Islands with the entire East China Sea.
Really? The Senkaku Island is important for strategic and political reasons, as claims of ownership are used to bolster claims to the wider surrounding sea areas and its resources.
Posted in: China sends patrol ship to disputed waters
2
sfjp330
Japan should've done more to help these women. Most comfort women were Korean. Most were left with nothing; literally nothing. Beyond being impoverished, many were unable to bear children after their enslavement due to the amount of unprotected and aggressive sex they were forced to endure. Between venereal disease, interrupted pregnancies without proper medical supervision and rape, they were unable to bear children, and therefore many were never able to integrate into post war society. The average comfort women wound up on welfare, leading a life of poverty and alienation. Of course, not all of the women ended up in such an extreme and saddening plight. Some were married, and were able to find financial security. Most, though, were left behind in the lower classes, especially as they aged. If Korean goverment is so concerned with the issue of comfort women, they need to disclose what happened to the $500 million that Japan gave in 1965.
Posted in: Former sex slaves hold 1,000th protest outside Japan's embassy in Seoul
9
sfjp330
In 1965, Japan paid $500 million. There is one more thing people misunderstood. They always compare Japan with Germany and insist "Germany compensated individuals". However Korean regimes including Rhee Syng-man and Park Chung-hee also, refused Japan's pensions for conscripted soldiers who had had tough lives in Japan army and injured conscripted workers. Korea said "Don't do it." and "Korean government will get all of them". Korean government will get the compensations for all claims including those for Korean civilians' assets." Even if these comfort women were included in the compensation, the Korean goverment would've kept all the money and they would still be protesting.
Posted in: Former sex slaves hold 1,000th protest outside Japan's embassy in Seoul
-2
sfjp330
Pay phones are thing of the past. Most people have cell phones, and even with the blackout, you can charge your phones with your car or neighbors car.
Posted in: Pay phones can be used during blackouts because they use power supplied by phone lines. In addition, it is easier to make calls from pay phones than from other phones when network traffic is heavy just after a disaster.
8
sfjp330
In 1965, Japan asked Korea to show the concrete number of conscripted workers and soldiers, dead and injured and how much unpaid wages were. They asked to "show the evidences and they would pay". Korea agreed and investigated them. What I want to clarify here is that KOREA DIDN'T CLAIM the compensation for the war time prostitutes. Why didn't they? It's because there was no abducted prostitute. Nobody said at the time in Korea, those prostitutes were abducted. Everyone knew there were many women who were so poor that they sold themselves to live and the Japan army didn't have to abduct Chosun women. There were many Chosun volunteers for Japan army at the time. Therefore Koreans didn't claim it at that time.
Posted in: Former sex slaves hold 1,000th protest outside Japan's embassy in Seoul
0
sfjp330
OssanAmericaDec. 15, 2011 - 07:17AM JST. The Senkakus never became Japanese territory by any agreement between Japan and China.
If Japan has definite ownership without doubt, why did Japan offer to explore resources jointly with China? Sounds like a big concession by Japan if you ask me. If Japan owns it, they didn't need to ask China. It shows Japan has a weak claim and they know it.
Posted in: China sends patrol ship to disputed waters