JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
-
- 秘書及び業務サポート
- 加治金属工業株式会社, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥4.0M / Year
-
- 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
-
- ALT - Mie Prefecture - Yokkaichi City - June start
- NPO法人グローバル教育推進機構（GLAD), Mie
- Salary: ¥230,000 / Month For a full working month. Some months differ.
0
wipeout
It would take an extremely undiscerning person to be unable to spot real crab against fake crab side-by-side. The taste is different, and the texture of the fake crab should be quite obviously artificial next to the real thing.
One thing I've noticed with beef here is that any of the premium Japanese varieties - you needn't even bother with Kobe, Matsusaka, or Yonezawa - is of very high quality. It would be nice if you could say the same of the Australian beef in Japan as it's far cheaper, but in my experience it ranges from quite good to borderline inedible - real leathery crap. I've had the leather so many times I rarely bother to buy Australian any more unless I'm stewing it or mincing it. But that meltingly soft Japanese beef only works in certain contexts: it's not by definition better, as it's a very specific style. But it can certainly stand against any other beef that people might claim to be the world's finest.
Posted in: Eels slipping away from consumers' budgets
1
wipeout
Best to take people as they come. I've met many many decent Chinese people. Then I read the comments here and it's not exactly a showcase for good breeding and elegant manners, is it?
Posted in: Foreigner-bashing rises amid China's domestic woes
0
wipeout
From the latest information, the three climbers who died were descending on Saturday, not Sunday. A fourth climber died on the Chinese side of the mountain, and eight people in total have died on Everest this year.
Posted in: 73-year-old Japanese woman scales Mount Everest
0
wipeout
It's now being reported from Everest that there were three deaths on Sunday and some people are still missing. This is from the Nepalese side. Watanabe's arrival at the peak seems to have been in very good time (7am). This year, as has happened before on the Nepal side, people were still climbing toward the summit much later in the day than advisable (2.30 pm), and this is known to be dangerous, on top of the calculable (but significant) risks of a normal ascent.
The death rate on Everest has remained quite constant for many years, about one death for every 10 who make it. It was noticeable when the story above was posted that they mentioned Watanabe was descending. Descents are actually responsible for more deaths, so reporting success before the climbers arrive safely back at camp can be premature. As it turned out, a day later than Watanabe's climb, others were fatally caught out in bad weather, and they happened to be descending.
Posted in: 73-year-old Japanese woman scales Mount Everest
0
wipeout
You won't find new prerecorded albums on tape any more, but blank cassettes (invariably Type I) are commonly sold in convenience stores and supermarkets, as are VHS tapes. They're everywhere.
Posted in: Toshiba CD radio cassette recorder
0
wipeout
"Now getting back to the Melon topic, I would guarantee if our $2.75 melon was cut up and placed on a plate with the priceless melon NO ONE could tell the difference."
I think you're confusing the idea that no melon could be worth half a million yen, which most people would agree on, with the idea that all melons taste about the same.
Posted in: Melons fall short at only Y1 million for two
0
wipeout
I already know which salt I use on my food, and which I prefer. But that is beside the point: calling one type of salt "sodium" does not distinguish it from the other.
It is also wrong whichever it is applied to, because salt is sodium chloride. Even allowing for people's natural instinct to dumb down, it isn't helpful in any way to shorten this to sodium, just as it wouldn't be to call hydrogen peroxide just "hydrogen", or copper sulfate, "copper".
Perhaps most importantly (as you're pushing the idea of sodium as a negative), there is not a significant difference in sodium content between table salt and the finest hand-harvested, sun-kissed sea salt. They are both high in sodium, and it is sodium in the diet, most but not all of which comes from our salt consumption, which causes health concerns. Therefore calling table salt "sodium" and sea salt something else as a way to evade that issue is either intellectually dishonest or extremely misinformed.
Posted in: High salt intake linked to higher stroke risk
-1
wipeout
They must be more than that, because if they can protect people from influenza, which they can, and if people can die from influenza, which they can, then the vaccines can prevent people from dying. This is why a lot of healthcare workers are expected (and in many places required) to receive influenza vaccinations: they are in the position to spread the disease to a lot of people who are vulnerable to its effects.
Posted in: Canada researchers find clues to a universal flu vaccine
1
wipeout
Quite a lot when it comes to what they call real ale in Britain, hence all the fuss about whether it "travels" well, how it's stored, how it's pumped, etc.
http://www.camra.org.uk/beerinthepub
Posted in: Japanese beer heads cause Westerners to froth at the mouth
7
wipeout
It's almost too obvious to point this out, but both beer and Westerners are produced in a variety of different styles.
For example, pictures of the Munich beer festival show beers served with large heads. Traditionally, three of the best countries for beer are Germany, Belgium, and Britain, and each is different from the other when it comes to how beer is brewed and drunk. There's also huge variation within each of those markets.
It really is pointless trying to say how "Westerners" prefer their beer.
Beer in Japan (if it's from the big four) is neither very good nor very bad, it's about the same level as any pisswater lager to be found in just about any country in the world, including some notable beer-loving countries like Australia, NZ and Canada. Quibbling about the size of the head is an exercise in futility, and if the local custom is to serve it a certain way, go with it.
Posted in: Japanese beer heads cause Westerners to froth at the mouth
1
wipeout
That's a weird (and confusing) definition of sodium, regardless of anyone's belief in the benefits of sea salt over refined salt.
All salt is sodium chloride, and by definition, it all has a high sodium content (about 40 percent).
Posted in: High salt intake linked to higher stroke risk
3
wipeout
Do you know the direction and speed of each aircraft? Or what each was doing at the time (climbing, descending, turning).
The point of calling an incident a near miss even when they are separated by what look like large distances is that three kilometers between aircraft can be closed in a few seconds. If aircraft are issued incorrect instructions by ATC, it is dangerous. ATC is there to keep them completely separated, not send them on course for each other.
The term near miss as it applies to aviation is nothing to do with what your or my idea of two aircraft almost hitting each other should look like.
This is how the aviation authority describes it in the UK:
On the off chance that anyone does want to know what happened, there's a more detailed story here:
http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/17945497/close-call-cover-up-faa-not-notified-jets-outside-honolulu-were-on-collision-course
Posted in: FAA probes near collision between JAL, UPS planes over Hawaii
1
wipeout
It can certainly compete with the ones I've been to: Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, Kaohsiung, Manila, Singapore, Bangkok, Seoul, or Pusan. They're all about as ugly as each other, and most are as crippled with problems as Tokyo, though not necessarily the same problems.
And on visual appeal alone, none of these places can compare with a halfway attractive European capital - but nor would the larger cities of North America.
Posted in: Japan 'no longer a rich country' by 2050: think tank
0
wipeout
But surely they know what they're talking about. Why would someone just blurt out rubbish about something they have no knowledge of?
Posted in: Another foreign CEO leaves Japan over 'fundamental disagreements'
0
wipeout
I wouldn't have thought so. It's all been explained by previous commenters on this thread. Some of them clearly already know what happened, and why it happened.
Posted in: Another foreign CEO leaves Japan over 'fundamental disagreements'
5
wipeout
I think it's quite easy to understand. The last reactor is scheduled to shut down in May, leaving no reactors generating power. The government wants to avoid that at all costs, and if they can get a couple of reactors up and running before then, they will. If that means cutting corners, so be it.
If Japan has 0 reactors online, it could bring the nuclear program down for good. That's their nightmare, though not necessarily yours or mine.
Posted in: Criticism mounts over plan to restart nuclear reactors
-1
wipeout
If that is in fact the case, they did it with a $4 million-a-year foreigner at the helm. He'd been there for the last 6 years.
I'm a bit literal about these things, but if a man calls himself CEO, and takes the pay that goes with it (very generous in Stringer's case, compared to other companies in Japan), then he's ultimately responsible for the direction that company takes. Otherwise what's he drawing $4 million for?
Posted in: Sony to cut 10,000 jobs amid restructuring
0
wipeout
Not sure what your question is, UncleBudah. Or what your comments are attempting to say.
Posted in: Autism cases rising in U.S.
-1
wipeout
orange: "Thirmesol/mercury should not be used as a preservative in vaccines, especially those intended for very small infants. They also force far too many vaccines on a child at one time.
It is easy enough to refuse to vaccinate in Japan, but try it in some other countries where you are virtually accused of abuse if you refuse."
There's something in that. If someone's child dies of an easily preventable disease (or is permanently disabled) because the parent's "principles" are based on the hysteria of the anti-vaccine movement, it could justifiably be called abuse.
There's no virtue in "going natural" and having your kid contract tetanus, for example, because getting the disease itself does not confer immunity. People who prefer their children not to get tetanus should have them vaccinated.
For other diseases, your children will benefit, whatever your vaccine views, from herd immunity. Because of vaccination, most kids are protected from the disease, they don't pass it round, and so they don't pass it your kids. I am glad of that, because I don't think children should pay the price of their parents' foolishness, especially the very high price of disease, epidemic, and death.
As more people swing round to your way of thinking, of course, herd immunity is gradually compromised and diseases that were once beaten make a resurgence. Anti-vaccine zealots will not accept their responsibility for this, they'll just find other things to blame (the easiest, killing two birds with one stone: the vaccine is causing the disease).
About thirmesol (you haven't troubled to learn the name correctly). The story above discusses autism in young children as follows:
"The disorder was previously believed to be more common in boys than girls by a factor of four to one.
The data comes from surveys completed in 2008 at 14 U.S. sites, showing that 11.3 per 1,000 eight-year-old children have been identified as having an ASD.
That marks a 23% rise over the last data from two years earlier, and a 78% rise over the total number of cases presumed in 2002 when the accepted estimate was that one in 150 children had some form of autism."
Leaving aside that it is not considered harmful in vaccines, since 2001 thimerosal hasn't been used in the vaccines that children are routinely receiving in the US. It cannot be contributing to any rise in autism among children born in the US since 2001.
Posted in: Autism cases rising in U.S.
3
wipeout
You have to carefully cherry-pick the electronic products (and firms) to conclude that Korea is going to surpass Japan. The only example given for this field was a television, where indeed the Koreans do well and produce fine products.
But the writer seems to mix up two ideas that are not actually interchangeable: "electronics corporations", and "electronics", by which he seems to specifically mean consumer electronics.
If you want to reduce the equation to Sony vs. Samsung, most people's favourite faceoff, you can score a few points for Samsung and that's great. But that's not the field. If I try to list all the Japanese electronics firms I can think of, I know for sure I'll miss out some important ones - companies that make very, very good products. Even allowing for the fact that some are now defunct (yes, I know which ones), or have been folded into other companies, it's a damned long list (the order is entirely random):
Sanyo, Kyocera, Sharp, NEC, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Aiwa, Akai, Onkyo, Casio, Sega, Toshiba, Victor, Denon, Marantz, Technics, Yamaha, Epson, Pioneer, Buffalo, Pentax, Nikon, Olympus, Canon...
Most of these are giants, but there are others that occupied smaller niches in the electronics world, and still made highly regarded products - Audio Technica, Nakamichi, who made some of the best regarded cassetted decks, Micro Seiki (turntables), Vestax (turntables/DJ gear).
Now if you consider the Korean competitors to all these companies, it's easy to name the companies cited by the author, but can you name any others? At all? In terms of world recognition, for most of us it's still just LG and Samsung for consumer electronics, Daewoo (now gone), and Hyundai for cars. If the question you have to ask when you get your next Korean electronic device is "Should I get the LG, or the Samsung?", then you're not being given the kind of choice you have with Japanese electronics.
I'm going to make the following guess about all of you, living in or out of Japan (and some of it may be wrong for some of you, but I know it will be broadly true):
Your computer printer isn't Korean. Your game console isn't Korean. Your calculator isn't Korean. Your headphones aren't Korean. Your turntable isn't Korean. Your camera isn't Korean. Your video camera isn't Korean. Your watch isn't Korean. If you have audio separates, your amplifier isn't Korean. If you play a digital keyboard or synthesizer, it isn't Korean. Your loudspeakers aren't Korean. Your rice cooker isn't Korean. Your breadmaker isn't Korean. etc.
Now run down the list again and tick off the ones you own that are Japanese.
Was there a difference?
Posted in: Japan Inc's electronics arm could learn from German auto industry