JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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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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- Core Developer - コアディベロッパー
- Midokura Japan K.K. - ミドクラジャパン株式会社, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥4.0M ~ ¥10.0M / Year Negotiable
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the_sicilian
Well, the US has given back the Awase golf course area, and the plan is to build Okinawa's biggest JUSCO (which there is one 4 miles away in one direction and 3 miles in another direction). That is a lovely use for the land (sarcasm intended), and Kitanakagusuku will get the tax money.
However, more low paying service industry jobs that don't support anything. If the Japanese (not Okinawans) were smart, they would invest in the island and put some manufacturing jobs here and have work that can sustain the economy.
And for Oshirosan: So if your stance is no US bases, then what will fill the void once gone? It's not like the 9,000 Okinawans, all construction contracts, the extortion paid in rentals will just magically fall from the sky. You know as well as everyone else that the bases keep money flowing from the J-Government. That will dry up too.
So Okinawa should be pitched as a vacation destination for Japanese, but with exorbitant hotel rates, nothing other than scuba diving and beaches, what is there here to attract people? Hell, even JTB recognizes that the Mihama area is a critical tourist area. Or would you feel better if Okinawa went back to being a place of subsistence farmers? Just a thought that with any action, there will be consequences.
Posted in: Futenma commander defends Marine base
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the_sicilian
Hope he accomplishes something...... But I say try to clean that stuff up.
Posted in: Australian filmmaker to swim from Japan to U.S.
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the_sicilian
Instead of turkey or KFC, we're going to have lasagna....And I do it home made.
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the_sicilian
Well, if you don't mind a $60 plus CHICKEN. here in Okinawa, you can go to Jimmy's and get a real turkey for Y10,000 or more. And it's only about 5 Kg.
Overall though, the Japanese really exploit the full commercialism of Christmas. Even singing all the traditional "christian" songs (without the letter "L" and not ending in a consonant) .
Never been to KFC here because the price is extortion. Went to one in Thailand twice, though.
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the_sicilian
Truth is Japan has always treated Okinawa badly, like 3rd class citizens. Because they do not share the same Korea..err, Yamamoto blood line, they are a lesser people. The Okinawans would love to be left alone, but they have no industry to allow them to survive. If Japan wants the prefecture, and the US gone, they will need to invest in this place.
Posted in: SDP leader wants U.S. base off Okinawa
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the_sicilian
Global warming has been validated as null and void. Humans are not contributing so much to create global change in a short amount of time (the past 200 years). The papers that are the basis for the "global warming" have made up data to support the AL Gore Left leaning folks. Lovely.
Keep talking, though. Evemtually, the world will end when we can't drive a car or flatulate at will.....
Posted in: The challenge in Copenhagen: reshaping the world
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the_sicilian
No, he has the right to a long excruciatingly painful death. Something horrific, so he has a lot of bad thoughts and feelings as his life is taken from him.
And don't anyone come on here and say he doesn't deserve it. He raped a kid, he deserves Bubba in the big house for a long time, then a painfully long death.
Posted in: Jury member loses cool in Miyagi high school girl rape case
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the_sicilian
But Nakaima refused to attend, along with mayors from other cities. I would have expected the true US hater Tomon from Okinawa City to go.
And I agree the J-gov is just trying to establish itself and grandstanding a bit. However, this is the wrong fight for them to pick. Japan needs the US for security, Asia needs the US to keep Japan from becoming a large fighting force (again), and the US enjoys a nice strategic position. The governments worked this out, and that is what should be followed.
Posted in: The Okinawan problem isn't about to disappear in a hurry
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the_sicilian
Ah so Cleo. Sorry for jumping on you. I misunderstood.
Posted in: Can anyone suggest a solution to the U.S. bases issue in Okinawa?
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the_sicilian
Facts are, majority of Okinawans do not want American base in Okinawa period. "Okinawa's future is for us, the Okinawan people has to decide," Ginowan Mayor Yoichi Iha told a supportive protester crowd of 21,000, which spilled out of an open-air theatre by the beach. "We cannot let America decide for us." That view was supported by 70% of Okinawa residents in a poll published this month by the Mainichi newspaper.>
Well, if this is the case, then why didn't the governor and other high ranking officials attend? Oh, the police stated only 6,000 showed up, and the Mainichi is a mainland newspaper.
And America did not decide this for the Okinawan people. This is a US/Japanese agreement. If Okinawa wants country making decisions in its favor, then do not be a part of Japan. The sad part is the Japanese crap on Okinawa, they get the least amount of prefecture money and have the highest unemployment rate. The bases account for a few thousand jobs (I think 6500 directly but I could be wrong) plus all of the contract work. Show me a Japanese company that has come into Okinawa and provided 1000 jobs. There are none.
Posted in: The Okinawan problem isn't about to disappear in a hurry
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the_sicilian
Oshirosan, The problem I have with your statements are that they are very general and sweeping. There are a lot of very good, quality men and women here doing what their country has asked them to do. Please do not lump the "Gate 2 Street" crowd with the good people. They don't deserve it.
I absolutely feel bad for the Okinawan people. They have gotten the bad end of foreign influence since 1869, when Japan formally annexed the islands. But please do not think that all of the bases being gone is the solution to the problems in Okinawa. Wasn't it the Japanese who were telling the locals that it was better to die by your own hands than to be captured by the Americans? My father-in-law lived through this, and as an Okinawan, he would beg to differ with you that things would be better without the US here.
Are Americans perfect? No. But the Japanese are no better. And they have done worse to the Ryukyu people. They treat Okinawans like a bunch of dumb farmers, and this makes me quite mad. The people here are very open and nice. Not true in mainland.
The very thing you detest about how Americans think (all of us want your women, our towns in the US are full of crime and rapists, etc...) is what you are doing by making these comments. Generalizations backed up by little to no facts is what you accuse people here, but in the next breath you do the same. You do not speak for all Okinawan people. Most young people do not learn correct history because the Japanese government, which you prefer to the US, censors its text books so Okinawans can't learn the real history of Japan.
Please do some more research before you come on here and just label anything US as bad. It does not make you look good, and you lose creditability.
Posted in: The Okinawan problem isn't about to disappear in a hurry
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the_sicilian
And you live here Cleo, so you understand the problem?
Helly: You are partially correct. There is a pretty good business to be had for construction (all military construction are done with Japanese or Okinawan companies), and the service industry (hotels, restaurants, shopping, etc...). There isn't, however, any industry or manufacturing base of any kind.
Local products include glass, pineapple, some textiles, but no real heavy items (cars, TV's, appliances). Those are jobs that sustain and endure. The big companies in mainland do not invest here, so of course the people here look to the bases for jobs. That is the ultimate one (over 1000 applicants for every job), where the benefits are good, and they do not just "make tea" for the Oyaji boss. I digress.
The bases have both a geo-political benefit AND monetary one. If Okinawa wants to grow, they should remove the North Korean owned pachinko parlors and give larger companies a tax incentive to come down here. If Japan gives up on their security alliance, then the bases should leave. Then the locals will have all the time in the world to figure out what flavor of cement will pave over the grass.
Posted in: Can anyone suggest a solution to the U.S. bases issue in Okinawa?
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the_sicilian
I think she looks excellent. Not drop dead beauty, but very cute. IWHI.
Posted in: Swimsuit campaign girl
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the_sicilian
The only car aptly named is the Daihatsu Move...
Because when you are in traffic, all you yell is MOVE..!
Posted in: What do you think of the names that Japanese automakers give to their cars?
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the_sicilian
ptolemy: I agree with all of your points. My three kids travel very well, have flown around the world a few times, all at different ages, and are the best behaved. Bad kids are the parents fault for not being a parent.
seesaw: No. I have 3, and they have all traveled well because I taught them respect for others and things that are not theirs. See the above.
And anyone who has a carry on that is larger than a small computer case or backpack is wrong. I wish the airlines would enforce their own rules.
Posted in: What behavior or habits by passengers on planes bother you the most?
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the_sicilian
Well, some of the "made up words" they use are common names in the US:
Camry Corolla Civic
But I think the only criteria that Japanese use is this: If they can take a bunch of roman letters, and make it sound like something they can pronounce, then it becomes a car name. Then add to it the jumble of stuff they add to the back trunk lid to distinguish it. Here's an example:
Toyota Vista D4 Ardeo. I understand if you're trying to use the engine displace,emt, but this: Toyota Progres, ai250?
Nuts I say.
Posted in: What do you think of the names that Japanese automakers give to their cars?
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the_sicilian
For Bam boo: I understand, and I also live here. The people of Okinawa never have a voice with Tokyo, and the Japanese continue to treat the people here as they did prior to the war: as a bunch of farmers that depend on Tokyo for their money.
Once the war was over, the US brought democracy to Japan (For the non Okinawans out there: please don't say Japan was a democracy. It was imperialist, and wanted to take over Asia, so don't throw out there how democratic and peace loving Japan was), and the US administratively controlled the Ryukyus through 1972.
The US has a strategic interest in keeping certain forces in the region. the fact that the rest of Japan has said over and over again no to any bases anywhere but Okinawa means the poor people here have to suffer. Until Japan pays for its own military (it won't) this won't change. However, there are some good with the bad. And only the bad is played up in the press.
Posted in: Should the Japanese government stick to the 2006 agreement over the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan, which the previous government and the U.S. agreed upon?
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the_sicilian
Martyman: Anyone who goes on here and talks about the "Okinawan people" and crime does not live here. The only exceptions are Alphawolf and The Marion. Everyone else is an outsider, kind of like the protesters that show up at the bases here to say "Yankee go home". All from mainland, and brought in to show some numbers.
The agreement was started back in 1995, and took 11 years before the governments could agree (I believe this was rooted in the SACO report from 2006)
Here's the Japanese link to it (in English for convenience:
http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/n-america/us/security/96saco1.html
Posted in: Okada says there will be no base deal during Obama's visit
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the_sicilian
ESPN? Um, is this considered a sport, like poker?
Ciao
Posted in: Chestnut beats Kobayashi to win July Fourth hot dog eating contest
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the_sicilian
This is normal in Italy, where every third guido speaks some Japanese, and will do anything for their money. Seen it in Firenze, Venezia, and Milano.
Ciao
Posted in: Rome restaurant shut down after charging Japanese tourists 695 euros