timtak's past comments

  • 0

    timtak

    Sanryou & San-X

    Posted in: Companies Japanese people are most proud of

  • -2

    timtak

    I have heard the same sentiment expressed by Japanese people I know.

    I think that poverty, or economics are the major determinant of engagement in prostitution, but there are also cultural factors. Some cultures view selling ones sex as worse than others.

    Posted in: Restoration Party member ousted over Korean prostitution remarks

  • -8

    timtak

    Person A: Sometimes rape is necessary.

    Hashimoto NEVER said rape is necessary. He believes that the comfort women system was a commercial system designed in part to prevent rape.

    Posted in: Defiant Hashimoto says U.S. troops abused women during occupation

  • -5

    timtak

    Isn't Hashimoto great? He has got all this conversation started up, even brought some American skeletons out of the closet and in all this some people may even have read some history, instead of believing that Japanese soldiers rounded up 200,000 women in trucks.

    Thank you kyou1

    “It is a historical fact that the comfort station system was used during the Korean War and the Vietnam War,” he tweeted. He gave no details of this claim and did not say which side’s soldiers used the brothels.

    Is "claim" an appropriate word? Adverts for "comfort women" (慰安婦), almost identical to those used by the Japanese government during WWII, were on the front pages of Korean newspapers in the 1960's. See this one for "UN 慰安婦"

    http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/tonchamon/imgs/0/0/00840c95.jpg

    Posted in: Defiant Hashimoto says U.S. troops abused women during occupation

  • -6

    timtak

    I don't think he is at all embarrassing. Hashimoto seemed to speak with candor, and kindness. It is a shame that he appears to be back tracking.

    There are however lots of things he can apologize for 1) There are many documented instances of rape and coercion such as that of the Dutch women in Indonesia. 2) The comfort woman system appears to have been imho a system designed to be indentured labor (receiving an upfront payment for a promise to work). Indentured labor is considered to be slavery today. Once one signs up, one is bound to work for a certain period, which can be extended. Sadly indentured labor without recourse to filing for bankruptcy is common, especially in the sex industry today (so it is a good thing to apologize for, with a view to improving the future). 3) There were instances where those other than the employee signed on behalf of the worker possibly deceiving that worker as to the content of the work. This is resulted in straight out sex-slavery. 4) Even worse, as the Japanese government noted and warned against at the time, there were instances where the recruiters were straight out deceptive. Once again this was sex slavery pure and horrible. 5) With the worsening war situation for Japan, resulted in death, and at best delayed return for vast numbers of comfort women. 6) Prostitution (in the form of money for coitus) is something that the Japanese Government now considers to be sufficiently heinous on many levels as to be illegal and uncountenanceable within its borders.

    And lots more tragedy.

    But I fear that unless he asserts that the Japanese army rounded up 200,000 women at gunpoint put them in trucks and raped them and then apologizes for this, many spectators are not going to be satisfied with his apology.

    Posted in: Hashimoto says he lacked sensitivity to U.S. perception of prostitution

  • -3

    timtak

    no woman should be forced! That is exactly what Hashimoto said. He believes the comfort women, and Japanese sex entertainment may reduce rape. Whether he is right wrong about this is unclear, but he is firmly and unequivocally against rape.

    He is also clear in saying that the "comfort woman" system (which was tragically abused, involved indentured labor, and coital prostitution, and a great deal of suffering) is unacceptable now.

    I am in agreement with Hashimoto. Everyone hates rape. I think think that rape is far worse than the sex entertainment industry. I would hate it if my daughter wanted to work in the sex entertainment industry and I would try very hard to persuade her against it. But if anyone attempted to rape my daughter, my reaction would be different.

    Posted in: Okinawan women demand apology from Hashimoto

  • 0

    timtak

    I am not quite sure what mr. Tobimatsu is trying to say but, it seems to me that men are often, or perhaps generally, viewed as a tool to provide for families. Is this bad?

    ie., servicing Japanese men sexually, but illegally, is okay. Hashimoto made it clear he was not condoning any illegal prostitution, only those activities (see Okinawamike's post, there are a lot of them) that are legal.

    Posted in: Okinawan women demand apology from Hashimoto

  • -3

    timtak

    @tmarie

    Timtak, perhaps you should go and read yesterday's article

    I did read yesterday's article, Hashimoto's statements in Japanese, and commented upon the article.

    Great. Do you think that extends to all 20,000 women who were comfort women? One refusal is one refusal too many.

    Hashimoto admits that there were incidents of rape as tragic exceptions to the comfort woman system. I agree, one refusal is one too many, in any sphere of work.

    Many assume it to have been a system where "women were taken out of their houses at gun point and forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers," i.e. mass rape, when Hashimoto believes it was a commercial system designed to prevent rape. Who is nearer the truth? I could argue both ways, but it would not involve guns, duping, or soldiers, but up front payments and debt, such as are taken by prostitutes -- or are they sex slaves -- perhaps in greater numbers from the Philippines and Korea going to work overseas today.

    You asserted that the name "comfort women," demonstrated that these women were not prostitutes. In respect of this I asked whether you thought that those front page adverts in Korean newspapers for "comfort women", with pay given (in the Japanese case, at several times that of a nurse) duped Korean women into thinking that they would be providing psychological comforting services? And if so, were women similarly duped by the Korean government when in 1961 it put out adverts for "comfort women" to provide sex to US soldiers? You did not respond. You did say however,

    Sorry but if you think any woman signs up to be used by 40 guys a days, be beaten, be given STDs... I think you and I live on very different planets.

    I think we live on the same planet. But I think that the world that we live in now, and that in Japan during the war, are very different planets.

    I wish we heard more about the Korean miners.

    Posted in: Gov't - but not Ishihara - backs away from Hashimoto's comfort women comments

  • 0

    timtak

    I think that they Sony should devolve Sony Life too. The Japanese are good with things that they can imagine, and financials can't be imagined, and Movies TV can't be imagined as much as one might think since so much if the business is concept, script and distribution system. "Music" can be imagined if "idols."

    Posted in: U.S. hedge fund boss lobbies for breakup of Sony

  • -3

    timtak

    Hashimoto did not condone rape. Quite the reverse. He believes that prostitutes, not sex slaves, were and should be provided to reduce incidents of rape perpetrated by soldiers.

    Little ridicules the use of prostitutes and points out that Marines are forbidden from using them.

    After the marines raped an Okinawan girl in 1995, US admiral Macke, also wished that the men had availed themselves of a prostitute, and was so reviled for this suggestion that he was forced into retirement and demoted.

    tmarie wrote

    Confort women does not equal prostitutes. If it did, another word for this type of service would not be needed.

    Hashimoto believes that, with tragic exceptions, the majority of comfort women were prostitutes.

    The term "comfort women" or "ianfu" (慰安婦 I am not sure how they are pronounced in Korean) was used to recruit women as prostitutes for US military personnel during the Korean war. How does the use of this word "comfort women" prove anything?

    Do you believe that the women were duped into thinking that they would be providing non sexual services, and thus enslaved, by the Japanese and Korean governments, through the use of this term?

    Posted in: Gov't - but not Ishihara - backs away from Hashimoto's comfort women comments

  • 5

    timtak

    So, by changing the name, will the number of crimes be lesser?

    Yes.

    Most people know this as "ore ore sagi" and they want to change it why?

    Because the people making the phone calls are probably not using the "ore ore" ("its me, its me...") line as much as the "Mum, you have got to help me..." line so since the perps do not use the former, the mother do not make the connection with the crime. By changing the name to the most common line used in the fraud they hope to reduce the number of crimes.

    Posted in: 'Mother, help me' fraud: NPA, public select new name for bank transfer scam

  • 0

    timtak

    These cards sound great for the user. Where does one get them from Scrote?

    Posted in: Prepaid debit cards: a weak link in bank security

  • -2

    timtak

    Please see this New YorK Times article on ianfu for US troops in Korea for more details http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/world/asia/08korea.html?pagewanted=2&_r=4&sq=comfort%20%20women&st=cse&scp=1

    Posted in: Hashimoto says comfort women system necessary for wartime troops

  • -2

    timtak

    Most of this hinges on the cultural attitudes to sex, which is associated with original sin in the West, and with festivities in Japan.

    Nigelboy wrote (thanks)

    The system was also instituted by the Korean government for U,N. Forces during the Korean war for their were ads and the news of recruitment on the Korean newspaper at that time. The Korean government used the same word - 慰安婦 comfort women - as the Japanese used in their adverts in 1961. Here is the cover of a Korean newspaper with an advert for "UN comfort women". http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/tonchamon/imgs/0/0/00840c95.jpg That the Japanese used that word it is considered proof that the women were duped (into thinking they would only be providing psychological or spiritual comfort) and thus enslaved, in Asia where people prefer circumlocution at the best of times. Was it ever, is it ever likely that a government, Japanese or Korean, would be specific about the terms and conditions of employment? Would those employed wanted the adverts to be specific? Should governments not advertise for such employees at all? This is probably the important point.

    Consider the next facts.

    Upgrayedd wrote several excellent comments including

    Kind of interesting that rapes committed by American soldiers went up 8x after the RAA was disbanded. Very interesting, and very harsh for those raped.

    But then Upgrayedd also wrote (I was shocked to find it was same commenter)

    He topped it all off by telling the Marines down in Okinawa that they should use local Japanese comfort women and this would reduce US military personnel crime levels...(no joke, he said that)

    Would you think what he said a joke if your daughter had been raped by a marine?

    To be precise about what Hashimoto said, during a visit to the the Futenma military base he asked a commanding officer that they make more use of the sexual entertainment (fuuzoku) industry and when asked the reason he said "Because there are places were one can relieve sexual energy legally in Japan."

    To Westerners the male sex drive is something that can be sublimated, transcended, banished to be replaced only by consensual 'love'. In Japan it is more like other drives, or forces of nature, so without a legal, consensual outlet, likely to find release in more tragic, violent ways. Which view is more realistic?

    Posted in: Hashimoto says comfort women system necessary for wartime troops

  • 8

    timtak

    Japanese is a lot easier, more systematic, and suited to being an international language than English. The Kanji especially make Japanese easy non-European language to learn due to the systematic formation of the vocabulary from 1000 to 2000 building blocks, via agglutination. Learn 2000 English words and you may be able to converse at kindergarten. You'll need a thousand more to join primary school (at the above the level of Japanese learners) and you'll probably keep learning about one thousand words a year till your 40's if you are an educated native English speaker. Learn 2000 Kanji and blam, you can read a Japanese broadsheet newspaper. There are no tones, consonant clusters (try getting a Japanese person to say "clothes"), very few irregular verbs, no verb conjunctions, and completely transparent spelling (unlike ghoti/fish English). The difference between "wa" and "ga" is a bitch but not as arbitrary at the use of "the" (The Times, Newsweek, The Kings Head, Macdonalds). IME/ATOK make kanji input easy and Rikai.com and Firefox "Furigana injector" make reading them, with auto-placed "rubi" readings simple too. There are no relative pronouns, so making the most of a limited learner vocabulary is relatively easy - just put the adjectival clause in front of the noun. Google "Japanese as an international language" for more, and keep learning Japanese because, unlike most Japanese learners of English, you will get there.

    Posted in: Why you shouldn’t learn Japanese

  • -4

    timtak

    I think that the mainstream Japanese view may be, as long as the lady is pure (in this video her purity is emphasised by the use of "Ave Maria") and merely eating mountain potato, then no harm was done. Any perceived sexual connotation is only on in the mind of some, predominantly male, viewers. And males on the other hand, are as far as I am aware, thought to be of a certain mindset by virtue of their nature, so they are not being corrupted. Being natural, that mindset is not thought to be "dirty." Had the female, any Japanese female, expressed any sexual desire then that would have been thought very"dirty". Those that are criticising this video suspect that Yuki Kashiwagi may have been complicit, but there is little evidence of that accusation. Mountain potato Tororo, okura and natto all with similar consistency, are Japanese delicacies.

    Posted in: AKB48′s Yuki Kashiwagi sparks debate over 'vulgar' video

  • -3

    timtak

    I have been bullied in the showers at school. I can't remember whether I cried or reported it but I know it did not make international news headlines.

    Posted in: Yamanashi high school soccer club members assault younger students in shower

  • 0

    timtak

    Well I was completely wrong then. I thought that all those executives taking bonus cuts meant that the Sony results would be very red.

    Getting rid of chemicals sounds like a good idea, as would be dumping the insurance arm. The Japanese excel at anything visualisable. Financials are invisible, formal systems. Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals are too small to see.

    Posted in: Sony books first annual net profit in five years

  • 1

    timtak

    There are jury systems in many parts of the world where it is common-place to have members of the public presented with evidence and make a decision. It is the point of the jury to see here all the evidence and make a decision.

    The questions for me are 1) Are jury systems suited to Japan? 2) If they are not suited, is this because the Japanese are sufficiently grown up (on a personal level) or advanced (on a societal level)? 3) Or could it be that the Japanese have another way AND that this way has its benefits.

    There are clearly benefits to the Western system. That everyone in society is capable of being a "lay judge" i.e. a juror, means that decision making can be shared and hence be more democratic, and that all members of society are made fully aware of the decisions that are being made in their name.

    What could be the advantage of having another definition of "grown up" and that could also be advantageous. But what evidence is there that having people as sensitive as the plaintiff is advantageous. I think that we have it here. The plaintiff would be sensitive enough towards the view point of Probie and others as to NOT to call him a child, or behind the curve, or whatever, for insisting that their own outlook is the only "grown up" one.

    Posted in: Lay judge sues gov't over mental trauma due to murder case

  • 1

    timtak

    @Probie

    People in this country are so used to not having to deal with things, it's amazing. A few people get freaked out, and they think about getting rid of the system? Grow up!

    If one normally does not come across bloodshed and murder, why should one learn to be able to deal with it? Why is it "grown up" to be desensitized? Maybe people like this plaintiff are more sensitive and generally more sensitive to the feelings of others. Wouldn't you like to live in a society like that as opposed to one full of 'grown ups.' Yuck.

    Say "grow up" again and savor the taste.

    Posted in: Lay judge sues gov't over mental trauma due to murder case

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