Wednesday February 15, 2012

timtak's past comments

  • 2

    timtak

    I don't think that Hoshino has done anything with an adult rating. I think that her ability to impersonate a girl, or perhaps a character out of a manga, is very talented.

    Posted in: Aki Hoshino, jockey boyfriend announce wedding

  • 1

    timtak

    "She noted how their entire identity was dependent upon that of the success of their husband, and argued that in order to find fulfillment, women too needed to find meaningful work just as men do in order to find fulfillment in their lives."

    Mad Men is different from Japanese SAHM's because they rarely care a hoot about the success of their husband, so long as he brings home the cash. Western women are taught to think that success in the world of work is important, individuality is important, achieving somethign unique, and ideally fame is important, so Western SAHMs have to get their success kicks vicariously. Japanese mothers, on the other hand, are taught and believe that to be a mother is cool and fulfilling, at the very least more so than being a company employee, so their husbands success is irrelevant so long as financially, it makes their mothering possible.

    Posted in: 'Mad Men' 2011: Japan’s gender equality debate

  • 2

    timtak

    The position of ones hand matters a lot. You have to have your hand at the same height as your heart or at least at the same height (compared to your heart) as other measurements. Some of these wrist gizmos are able to work out where your wrist is and complain if it is not at heart level.

    Posted in: Blood pressure monitor

  • 0

    timtak

    I use words like "kamitteru" a lot. For instance, "amitteru" for "it is raining" (ame ga futteiru) because it seems to me that having a subject or object is inappropriate in a lot of circumstances. Am I a gal?

    Posted in: Japanese gal language: What is 'Agepoyo?'

  • 2

    timtak

    Noda starts all (two) of his blog posts with "Hello to all the Japanese people." in spite of Eric (Godan) Skier's spot-on comment.

    It is like he wants to emphasise "I am not addressing myself to non-Japanese people." Perhaps that is what he wants to say? Like "Let us take pride in our convictions and stop kowtowing to foreign opinion, and what is more tell non Japanese that we no longer care what they think." Even if intentional it seems a bad idea.

    Posted in: Noda's blog now available in English

  • 4

    timtak

    There are also those that claim that the vast majority of the women were not forced. What is the evidence that they were forced? There is some individual testimony. The fact that the Japanese put adverts in Korean newspapers advertising for "Comfort Women Wanted" (you can see the newspaper cuttings on the wikipedia page) rather than placing adverts for "Prostitutes Wanted", is seen as being proof that the Korean women were duped - thus forced - in to sexual slavery. I have no doubt that some of the 200,000 women did think that they were to be verbally comforting troops, or holding their hands, and that others were physically forced into sexual slavery. But this article by the AFP seems to be taking the point of view that all the women, including those that responded to the adverts for "comfort women", during war time, did not realise that the adverts were for prostitutes, and that seems extreme and not a point of view that I would present as historical fact.

    Having said that, that any women were forced into sexual slavery, or that anyone was forced into slavery, is tragic and deserves to be remembered.

    Posted in: S Korea calls for talks on sex slave issue

  • 3

    timtak

    And I thought it J-pop was successful all over East Asia, and it was K-pop that had replicated J-pop's success. What is the relative size of the J-pop/K-pop markets? AKB48 and other young girl bands may be unpopular in the US/UK but what about Asian countries?

    Posted in: Can J-Pop replicate success of K-Pop?

  • 0

    timtak

    The national athletics tournament will start soon in Yamaguchi, filling the town with more than 10,0000 sportspersons and their families/friends.

    Posted in: West Japan tourism in roaring good health

  • 2

    timtak

    I think that there is an invasion of the logos. Japanese politicians used to be lyrical, wishy-washy, and judged upon their actions rather than their turns of phrase. Reaching concensus and making utilitarian decisions was what a politician was about. But more and more words and becoming important, their precise, literal, pan-contextual, context-free, meaning has become the focus of public and media attention. Either they do need to go to school to learn to be Western style speech makers (windbags?) or they need to learn to ignore the criticism and do their jobs.

    Posted in: Noda apologizes after minister quits over 'town of death' remark

  • 1

    timtak

    I agree with SushiSake3 but recently the death of successive cabinets has been due to such comments which are claimed to be inappropriate by the opposition.

    Is making non-offensive or indeed motivating speeches an ability needed in a politician? Are these comments really "gaffs"? What makes them gaffs? Who decides?

    A lot of the time it seems to me that there is a clash between lyrical speech and literal speech with those claiming that there has been a gaff usually taking the comment literally. Have Japanese politicians always been required to speak as if all their words will be taken literally?

    Another issue is the whole versus part. As a whole Hachiro's speech was fine (it is on youtube with the obvious translation shi no machi) but those that claim it represents a gaff, take only the one phrase. Have Japanese politicians always been required to speak in such a way that all their words be inoffensive even when taken out of context?

    Posted in: Noda apologizes after minister quits over 'town of death' remark

  • 0

    timtak

    As marcelito it is business as usual. The business is about paying too much attention to ministerial comments, and particularly figures of speech, thaking them out of context,making them more literal than they were meant to be, and claiming that they have offended people. People are free to feel offended by what they like. This minister meant no offence. Ministers speak, and either they are going to be very dry or sooner or later they are going to use an expression which someone can take offence at. Where does this new game come from? Were Japanese leaders allways being replaced and rejected for the figures of speech that they used?

    I saw the clip where he said the area was a "town of death" and saw no problem with it. He clearly meant to express the lack of human activity in the area and how sad he was about it. Then someone from the opposition takes the expression out of context as if it is some sort of curse, and the expression becomes offensive. It was the opposition that made it offensive not the original speaker.

    But anyway, is this game of comment snippets a traditional Japanese thing, or is it some new problem?

    Posted in: Noda apologizes after minister quits over 'town of death' remark

  • 1

    timtak

    "he was having an affair with a television presenter" Is this now known for sure? He denied it at the time, and I think that Yunomoto's book makes no mention of an affair either.

    Posted in: Complaint filed against Kan over receiving 'suspicious' donations in 2007

  • -1

    timtak

    I am a Shinsuke fan. I hope he takes up politics. He could do better than Higashikokubaru.

    Posted in: Shimada's retirement much ado about nothing

  • -1

    timtak

    I was reading the above in a Chinese newspaper, in English, on the way from Shanghai to Japan on a Chinese Eastern Airlines flight. It did not sound incoherent or poorly expressed. It seems to me that the Senkaku's are open to dispute. The newspaper had a piece by a Chinese professor explaining why he thought that islands were Chinese. He argued...

    1) Legal is what is legal at the time, i.e. we judge whether an action is legal or not against the view of law at the time of the act, not retroactively using our view of law now.

    2) These days ownership of islands is determined by 2.1) Discovery 2.2) Inhabitation/control - some form of ongoing contact with that which one has discovered. He argued that the Japanese claim to the islands is based upon retroactively applying the above view of ownership to the situation pertaining in the 19th century. I.e. that in the 19th century, China did not have much contact control or habitation of the islands, and Japan felt thus able to claim to have discovered them, as a terra nullis, and Japan has maintained control ever since.

    The Chinese professor counter claims that at the time (2) was not seen by the Chinese at least, as a requirement for ownership. The Chinese new about the islands. They did not control them. And they did not think it was required that they should inhabit or control them in order to maintain ownership. I.e. their view of ownership did not require 2.2 at the time. They had no idea that, nor did they then think it fair that, somone would come and plant a flag on islands near to their country, islands which they knew of, and which which there are thousands of others, and then claim those islands for themselves. Claiming of unoccupied terra nullis was not a legal concept that the Chinese accepted at the time (I am not sure if they accept it now or not, but it does not matter if one accepts 1 above).

    (The article did not mention the subsequent cessation of claim upon the islands by the Chinese, since it may not have included the Senkaku's and the Chinese feel it was made under duress anyway).

    The issue of the Senkaku's seems very un clear cut. I hope that the Japanese do a lot of talking and compromising with the Chinese.

    Posted in: Chinese news agency urges Noda not to make relations worse

  • 3

    timtak

    The comments are good, so at least the editorial descision to let someone talk about dating was good.

    Assuming that this article is not just about Mike, and there is some tendency for Japanese to like movie dates more than those from Mike's culture, then....what support is there for this assertion?

    I recommend Osamu Kitayama's "Looking Together" ' (2005, "Kyoushiron, Boshizou no Shinrigaku") theory which, from an analysis of Ukiyoe, modern cinema, and even Japanese dating practices (more likely to prefer to sit side by side rather than facing each other) suggests that Japanese have a tendency to enjoy looking at things together.

    Professor Osamu encourages his postgraduate trainee psychotherapists to look at things with their patients rather than just geting the patient to talk.

    How do people get to know each other? Is it through linguistic discussion or through shared experiences and seeing how others react?

    Posted in: A movie date? No thank you

  • -2

    timtak

    "with below ground thermal storage" If there is storage then you can turn them off or on, even at night. But if there is no storage then you can't tern on a solar plant when there is no sunlight. Simply not true. Storage and Solar planels go together, solar power and electric (battery) vehicles go together. You are otherwise right. Peter Dyloco is all wrong.

    Posted in: Nuclear power and electric cars

  • -2

    timtak

    Dark Tourism is big business. In a lecture on Dark Tourism I pulled my punches and only mentioned the museums to the Kanto and Koube earthquakes, but this will be going in next year. Thanks Japan Today.

    Posted in: Tsunami wreckage becomes tourist draw

  • 0

    timtak

    I also read, however, that the problem with solar power and other renewables, is that you can not turn them on and off. This is a big problem. When the sun shines there is suddenty too much electricity, not enough when cloudy, and of course none at all at night. Hence there needs to be some way of storing that electricity so that it is available when people want it. Every solar power station,therefore, requires a temporary storage device: batteries. Since most of the "solar power sations" that Kan is planner are domestic homes, how are home owners going be supplied with batteries to even out the uneven supply that solar power provides.

    The answer, the Japanese weekly news magazine article suggested, is that solar power and electric cars make a good partnership since a lot of cars are simply parked and could be storing electicity generated by the owners solar panels, for use not only by the car, but also to be sold back to the grid.

    Has Mr. Dyloco read up on electrial power strategy?

    Posted in: Nuclear power and electric cars

  • 0

    timtak

    The placebo's will either be really cheap chocolate with no cocoa solids, or something Japanese filled with bean paste.

    Posted in: Chocolate wards off hunger, and maybe sunburn too

  • 2

    timtak

    Thanks gaijininfo

    The Tokyo Dome is 112,456 meters squared, so 7 domes, would be about 800,000 m2 or 80 hectares for one of these solar power stations.

    Following gaijininfo's calculation, to provide the energy supplied by nuclear would require 51 times that = 4000 hectares, or 40 square kilometers, or an area or land 6 and 1/3 km square in each prefecture.

    Japanese prefectures range in size from 1900 Km2 (Kagawa and Osaka) to 15,000 km2 (Iwate) and 83,000 Hokkaidou, averaging 8000 Km2. So the powerstations would need to occupy an area of 2% to .05%, on average 0.5% of land space in each prefecture, or about 1.5% of land mass if all energy were supplied by solar power. I.e. A land area about the size of Osaka could supply the energy supplied by nuclear power or the size of Ehime to supply all of Japan's power.

    Posted in: Japan's largest solar power facility commences operations

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