Little Yellow Jap

Jesus Christ.

"Almost a third of Japanese women in their early 30s are unmarried; probably half of those will always be. Over one-fifth of Taiwanese women in their late 30s are single; most will never marry. In some places, rates of non-marriage are especially striking: in Bangkok, 20% of 40-44-year old women are...

I'm not in finance but in my own area if someone asked me about returning to Japan I'd say they're nuts.

He adds a little twist, but it looks to me like Debito's been reading this forum.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20111004ad.html

Make her come to the states and sing and pay for the devorce here, take it to court and fight for custody of the kids. Not sure if applicable but post-divorce in the US, if she takes those kids to Japan, even when he has sole right in the US, what would happen? Would she be able to abduct them, ign...

Dreamy_Peach wrote:Gaman is like the donkey in George Orwell's 1984

Animal Farm...

"Gaman," "ganbaru," and "shoganai" and their variants need to be banned. Carry around a cattle prod and zap your Japanese friends and family every time you hear those terms uttered, because they're cognitive kill switches. I very much agree with this. In the immediate period after the earthquake al...

Or even talking from people from home does the trick. Talking to a mate (who's in the police force) once a month on skype turns my rose colored specs to blood. ] Yeah, them riots last month reminded me of the constant threat of violence in the UK. Until then, I'd almost forgotten about that aspect ...

What are you basing this statement on? How do you know 10% is not enough? What is he basing his assumption on? I can speak Japanese but sometimes play the straight off the boat gaijin card to see how easy it is to navigate Japan. Based on this, and from showing family around, most people here have ...

10% is not enough; but it also depends on degrees of ability. At one level you need people with basic level of proficiency, such as for taxi drivers (who also need to study street directions), people who stand at the kaisatsu at the station; bank staff; policemen; etc. At the moment hardly any of th...

would be interesting to learn just exactly WHAT his overseas experience actually is.

He was on secondment to the OECD in Paris. Not sure what else.

That's a great gig if you can get it.

Went today to stock up on tea bags as I can't stand the Lipton stuff that passes for tea here. There really is nothing to differentiate it from a conbeni. They don't even sell baked beans anymore; just some tesco branded salmon (!?). Reasons to shop there diminish each time I go. Great shame. Bored ...

The grass isn't goint to last long with all the kids trampling on it year round. The kiddie baseball teams tend to play year round during rain and snow which will kill the grass. I predict a big mud hole within a year due to mismanagement. Artificial turf would be the best for schools but it won't ...

It's interesting to compare and contrast the Japanese and Korean approach to cultural exports. The Koreans have allowed their films and dramas to be subtitled and shown online under license (or not). Both have become quite popular. Same for music. The result is that Korean culture is enjoying somet...

I don't care for a lot of Japanese TV but it's not an entirely fair comparison to look at the highlights of TV overseas and ignore the rest. I posted some comments on FG back in 2005 which I believe are still valid: Interesting posts. However, on any given random night say at 7 or 8pm, it's highly ...

Taro Toporific wrote: was traveling 100 to 120 km per hour (62-75 mph)

I wish that train would go faster.

but get back to me when Japan has made anything like The Sopranos or Breaking Bad.

or the Wire.

or the Simpsons.

or any decent drama, documentary on wildlife, nature, history, economics....

He's the lynchpin for six shows on TV right now

That says a lot about Japanese TV.

Pretty glad that I turned the TV on this morning.

Each and every channel were discussing this crucially important topic at length, with all kinds of illuminating comments and detailed analysis.

A so-called period of atonement for beating a woman was never enough. I'm surprised he managed to get away with that. It didn't reflect well on J-Media / Japan.

Will his departure make J-tv worth watching? It will probably just mean more Sanma.

Shit.

I've never been to the Philippines, but I can imagine what it looks like.

Mulboyne wrote:[YThq]XTT1O2VtrSY[/YThq]

That is an impressively bad video: production, design, conception ... everything. I have seen students design better.

We should get Renho on the case that our taxes have been used to pay for this kind of crap.

In the comment section he says that he lived in Japan, albeit Osaka, for 2.5 years. Even though it seems like some kind of pol sci grad student blog, I don't see too many problems with his basic analysis. Reminds me of the section in Robert Whiting's Tokyo Underworld where a US army officer tried to...

Taro Toporific wrote: However, back-in-the-day, my encounters with Nigerian customers in clubs/bars ALWAYS resulted in conflict even though I'm always a mr-nice-guy.

Yep - same here.

Aside from one tried and trusted bar on the strip, if there's a black dude on the door I won't go in.

I would say that coming to Japan with that level of experience would be straight to English teaching. Assume that Japan's labour market is in general pretty closed to all skill/experience levels outside of that area. Whatever your degree/field, trying to get into a Japanese company, while not imposs...

Thanks for all your comments and suggestions. Just to add a point of clarification: I have money, friends, a hobby and get laid reasonably often enough. Aside from all these points, I'm still bored out of my skull. Thank god I have a lot of work on. I have no idea what I'd do otherwise. Just look at...

Where in the hell is Fukui?

Fuck em - probably a shitty little provincial backwater that no-one has ever heard of, visited or will visit.

Been thinking of heading down to NHK and Fuji's offices myself for some time to protest about the crap that's on TV here. Question is, will less Korean pap result in more Japanese programming? or, will they just import something else from the US? It's beyond imagination, but will they try to come up...

This may have been asked before, and apologies if so. I've lived here in Tokyo for seven years and am really very bored. There just doesn't seem much to do in this city. Parks are rather limited; museums and galleries are not so interesting and tend towards the conservative and well-trodden most of ...