What's up with Japan?

[IparryU]

Don't be so pessimistic, the "Cool Japan Promotion Council" is considering nominating Okinawa and Kyoto as "Pop Culture Special Districts", complete with anime character mascots

This got me thinking...is "cool" even "cool" anymore.
I can dig "cool" being groovy, but I wonder if Gen Ys think "cool" is "awesome" and use something hipper...A government organization in one of the most bureucratic cuntries on the planet using "cool" to describe one of its paper-pushing departments strikes me as being anything but "cool." But I associate "cool" with people like Steve McQueen and not playing dress-ups while wearing glasses and fucken cat ears while wanking to comic porn with pre-school infants who have 48-inch busts overhanging 4-inch waists.

Japan will never be cool... just weird. so for all the fetish shit out there, like kiddy porn/weird porn/anime porn/cat porn or dressing up when it is not Halloween...

Japan needs to focus more on how to get their people out of the xenophobic mind set... like employing ACTUAL English teachers with the same salary and benefits as Japanese teachers in public schools.

Employ foreigners at busy stations, not some J who sorta kinda speaks a foreign language.

ban child porn and limit manga on how they can recreate child porn

child porn = little girls in bathing suits posing in sexual positions... how are magazines like this still sold??!?!?!?!?!?

be proactive on the Hague Convention and back date cases.

Give women maternity leave

Open more public daycares and allow foreign workers... reading proficiency should not be a major concern for people who feed kids and change diapers...

Open more retirement homes and allow foreign workers... reading proficiency should not be a major concern for people who feed old people and change diapers... medicine should be written in romaji... the Dr.s know what it is in English (surprisingly)...

[yanpa]

I took the liberty of splitting this into a new topic... I have a bit of a related rant I'll post later when I have a chance...

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Japan needs to focus more on how to get their people out of the xenophobic mind set...

WTF do you know, IPU, you're just some gaijin...

[kagemusha]

Japan will never be cool... just weird. so for all the fetish shit out there, like kiddy porn/weird porn/anime porn/cat porn or dressing up when it is not Halloween...

Japan needs to focus more on how to get their people out of the xenophobic mind set... like employing ACTUAL English teachers with the same salary and benefits as Japanese teachers in public schools.

Employ foreigners at busy stations, not some J who sorta kinda speaks a foreign language.

ban child porn and limit manga on how they can recreate child porn

child porn = little girls in bathing suits posing in sexual positions... how are magazines like this still sold??!?!?!?!?!?

be proactive on the Hague Convention and back date cases.

Give women maternity leave

Open more public daycares and allow foreign workers... reading proficiency should not be a major concern for people who feed kids and change diapers...

Open more retirement homes and allow foreign workers... reading proficiency should not be a major concern for people who feed old people and change diapers... medicine should be written in romaji... the Dr.s know what it is in English (surprisingly)...

[Samurai_Jerk]

Japan needs to focus more on how to get their people out of the xenophobic mind set...

WTF do you know, IPU, you're just some gaijin...

Speaking of this, it's getting pretty bad at my office. I guess they're used to me by now so they don't feel the need to censor themselves when I'm around. We deal with a lot of foreigners in our business and the shit they say about them is pretty outrageous sometimes. When it's a local who's done something shady, he or she is a scumbag. When it's a foreigner, gaijin are scumbags. I've always known that's the way things were but it's never been so openly and casually said in front of me. I guess I should take that as a sign of true acceptance.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

I guess I should take that as a sign of true acceptance.

Watch out, mate...Someone will be calling you "sassy" or "uppity" in a minute. Don't you be getting beyond your station, now, y'hear?

[Coligny]

Don't be so pessimistic, the "Cool Japan Promotion Council" is considering nominating Okinawa and Kyoto as "Pop Culture Special Districts", complete with anime character mascots

This got me thinking...is "cool" even "cool" anymore.
I can dig "cool" being groovy, but I wonder if Gen Ys think "cool" is "awesome" and use something hipper...A government organization in one of the most bureucratic cuntries on the planet using "cool" to describe one of its paper-pushing departments strikes me as being anything but "cool." But I associate "cool" with people like Steve McQueen and not playing dress-ups while wearing glasses and fucken cat ears while wanking to comic porn with pre-school infants who have 48-inch busts overhanging 4-inch waists.

Japan will never be cool... just weird. so for all the fetish shit out there, like kiddy porn/weird porn/anime porn/cat porn or dressing up when it is not Halloween...

Japan needs to focus more on how to get their people out of the xenophobic mind set... like employing ACTUAL English teachers with the same salary and benefits as Japanese teachers in public schools.

Employ foreigners at busy stations, not some J who sorta kinda speaks a foreign language.

ban child porn and limit manga on how they can recreate child porn

child porn = little girls in bathing suits posing in sexual positions... how are magazines like this still sold??!?!?!?!?!?

be proactive on the Hague Convention and back date cases.

Give women maternity leave

Open more public daycares and allow foreign workers... reading proficiency should not be a major concern for people who feed kids and change diapers...

Open more retirement homes and allow foreign workers... reading proficiency should not be a major concern for people who feed old people and change diapers... medicine should be written in romaji... the Dr.s know what it is in English (surprisingly)...

Never disturb an enemy while he's busy making mistakes...

[IparryU]

Don't be so pessimistic, the "Cool Japan Promotion Council" is considering nominating Okinawa and Kyoto as "Pop Culture Special Districts", complete with anime character mascots

This got me thinking...is "cool" even "cool" anymore.
I can dig "cool" being groovy, but I wonder if Gen Ys think "cool" is "awesome" and use something hipper...A government organization in one of the most bureucratic cuntries on the planet using "cool" to describe one of its paper-pushing departments strikes me as being anything but "cool." But I associate "cool" with people like Steve McQueen and not playing dress-ups while wearing glasses and fucken cat ears while wanking to comic porn with pre-school infants who have 48-inch busts overhanging 4-inch waists.

Japan will never be cool... just weird. so for all the fetish shit out there, like kiddy porn/weird porn/anime porn/cat porn or dressing up when it is not Halloween...

Japan needs to focus more on how to get their people out of the xenophobic mind set... like employing ACTUAL English teachers with the same salary and benefits as Japanese teachers in public schools.

Employ foreigners at busy stations, not some J who sorta kinda speaks a foreign language.

ban child porn and limit manga on how they can recreate child porn

child porn = little girls in bathing suits posing in sexual positions... how are magazines like this still sold??!?!?!?!?!?

be proactive on the Hague Convention and back date cases.

Give women maternity leave

Open more public daycares and allow foreign workers... reading proficiency should not be a major concern for people who feed kids and change diapers...

Open more retirement homes and allow foreign workers... reading proficiency should not be a major concern for people who feed old people and change diapers... medicine should be written in romaji... the Dr.s know what it is in English (surprisingly)...

Never disturb an enemy while he's busy making mistakes...

so just let them fuck themselves dry?

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

so just let them fuck themselves dry?

Nothing would give them greater pleasure....They could show everybody how much they are suffering and then ganbare through the pain.

[Ol Dirty Gaijin]

Speaking of this, it's getting pretty bad at my office. I guess they're used to me by now so they don't feel the need to censor themselves when I'm around. We deal with a lot of foreigners in our business and the shit they say about them is pretty outrageous sometimes. When it's a local who's done something shady, he or she is a scumbag. When it's a foreigner, gaijin are scumbags. I've always known that's the way things were but it's never been so openly and casually said in front of me. I guess I should take that as a sign of true acceptance.

This is on the rise in my office lately also. I haven't heard "chingchong" used ever in my 25 year working life until last week. And that's including a hell of a lot of back of nowhere factories.

[Iraira]

Speaking of this, it's getting pretty bad at my office. I guess they're used to me by now so they don't feel the need to censor themselves when I'm around. We deal with a lot of foreigners in our business and the shit they say about them is pretty outrageous sometimes. When it's a local who's done something shady, he or she is a scumbag. When it's a foreigner, gaijin are scumbags. I've always known that's the way things were but it's never been so openly and casually said in front of me. I guess I should take that as a sign of true acceptance.

Oh shit, I thought this happened only in my office.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Hmmmm .... so maybe it's a trend of open racism. That reminds me. I got a "no gaijin" at a girls bar last Friday for the first time in I don't know how long. The guy blocking my way was actually pretty fucking big too. Even bigger than me. He wouldn't even let me enter the building elevator. He might have been big but I was drunk as a skunk and tossed his ass out of the way like a rag doll. When he composed himself I tossed him again for emphasis. He threatened to call the cops. I told him to go ahead, called him a coward, and told him I'd kill him next time. He didn't do shit. Fucking pussy.

[yanpa]

Here's another way in which Japan is shooting itself in the foot, then reloading and taking aim at the other foot...

There's an open source software project which I've been involved in for a long time, and which is supported by a couple of large Japanese corporations who are doing some interesting things with it. But... for example there's one guy who knows his stuff and is a bit of a legend in those circles. I finally met him a while back, anyway it turns out he's being promoted to management (管理職) and will no longer be able to work on the software. Apparently they pay these guys jack shit, they were complaining about having to live out Chiba way, it sounds like the only way to earn decent money is to remove themselves from the talent pool and up the corporate ladder. Score -1 for gaining a competitive edge in this field, which is becoming a biggie.

I'm sure if they kept the guys on the software project who like it and are good at it, and paid them enough to raise a family rather than see coding as something the junior staff do until they get "proper jobs", they could kick serious ass, heck if they put their minds to it they could probably dominate the project and snatch market share from the commercial vendors (non of whom are Japanese) like candy from a baby. But TIJ...

[Samurai_Jerk]

Here's another way in which Japan is shooting itself in the foot, then reloading and taking aim at the other foot...

There's an open source software project which I've been involved in for a long time, and which is supported by a couple of large Japanese corporations who are doing some interesting things with it. But... for example there's one guy who knows his stuff and is a bit of a legend in those circles. I finally met him a while back, anyway it turns out he's being promoted to management (管理職) and will no longer be able to work on the software. Apparently they pay these guys jack shit, they were complaining about having to live out Chiba way, it sounds like the only way to earn decent money is to remove themselves from the talent pool and up the corporate ladder. Score -1 for gaining a competitive edge in this field, which is becoming a biggie.

I'm sure if they kept the guys on the software project who like it and are good at it, and paid them enough to raise a family rather than see coding as something the junior staff do until they get "proper jobs", they could kick serious ass, heck if they put their minds to it they could probably dominate the project and snatch market share from the commercial vendors (non of whom are Japanese) like candy from a baby. But TIJ...

Don't you know that coding is a young man's game in Japan? If you're over 35 and still a programmer, you're a loser or work in gaishikei. God forbid you ever get laid off from that gaishikei though.

[Coligny]

Here's another way in which Japan is shooting itself in the foot, then reloading and taking aim at the other foot...

There's an open source software project which I've been involved in for a long time, and which is supported by a couple of large Japanese corporations who are doing some interesting things with it. But... for example there's one guy who knows his stuff and is a bit of a legend in those circles. I finally met him a while back, anyway it turns out he's being promoted to management (管理職) and will no longer be able to work on the software. Apparently they pay these guys jack shit, they were complaining about having to live out Chiba way, it sounds like the only way to earn decent money is to remove themselves from the talent pool and up the corporate ladder. Score -1 for gaining a competitive edge in this field, which is becoming a biggie.

I'm sure if they kept the guys on the software project who like it and are good at it, and paid them enough to raise a family rather than see coding as something the junior staff do until they get "proper jobs", they could kick serious ass, heck if they put their minds to it they could probably dominate the project and snatch market share from the commercial vendors (non of whom are Japanese) like candy from a baby. But TIJ...

Maybe on the backend. But they understand jackshit on human interface. Not just the cute button eyecandy, but the whole 'human have to be able to use the product' thing. Ergonomy take the backseat, useless function 'designed by commitee' cramming put the turbo. Concept like 'as little as possible as much as necessary' or cleaning a design until there is nothing useless left to remove are impossible to conceptualize for the local minds...

[yanpa]

Again, I betcha if there was a culture which rewarded people for having ideas and sticking at them until they win or crash'n'burn, Japan would have a fighting chance. But nope, the best we can hope for is anime mascot characters.

Srsly, I've been hanging around the fringes of the Tokyo IT scene for 5 years now, and there's a recurring theme among the non-Galapagos organisations I've encountered: developers, developers, developers (as long as they're not actual Galapagos-ized citizens of this lightly-irradiated archipelego).

[Yokohammer]

Open racism in Japan? Noooo! Tell me it ain't true!

Serious for a moment ...

Being on the receiving end is definitely no fun (been there enough times, thank you), but is racism in Japan worse than anywhere else? I have to question that. Racism in Australia is ugly, as it is in the United States, England, Europe ... everywhere. On the surface the big difference is that racism is "illegal" in other countries, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, or even that it isn't practiced. Institutionalized racism in Japan is a problem, to be sure, but does anti-racism legislation in other countries prevent it from happening? Answer: nope.

I'm not saying that because it happens in other countries it's OK that it happens in Japan, but I am saying that it needs to be considered in perspective.

Being in the majority is easy. Being a minority is not. And that goes for a whole spectrum of situations other than race as well. As foreigners in Japan we are a minority. Personally I fucking HATE being discriminated against (it happens), but if I respond by hating the haters the situation just gets worse, and I drive myself crazy.

Back when I was a member of the salaryman circuit I got the "you're different, but gaijin in general are ..." bullshit more times than I can count. I don't imagine it's any different now. The only way to be treated as an equal is to treat others as equals, and to treat individual cases as individual cases. I can understand venting here on FG or wherever is appropriate, but if you allow that sort of attitude to creep into your day-to-day relations people will see it and respond in kind, and you'll find yourself in an escalating spiral of mutual hate and distrust.

Just a thought.

End of seriousness for this morning.

[IparryU]

Hmmmm .... so maybe it's a trend of open racism. That reminds me. I got a "no gaijin" at a girls bar last Friday for the first time in I don't know how long. The guy blocking my way was actually pretty fucking big too. Even bigger than me. He wouldn't even let me enter the building elevator. He might have been big but I was drunk as a skunk and tossed his ass out of the way like a rag doll. When he composed himself I tossed him again for emphasis. He threatened to call the cops. I told him to go ahead, called him a coward, and told him I'd kill him next time. He didn't do shit. Fucking pussy.

I have to find this gym you are at and roll with you... get back in shape, get jacked, and get piss drunk like you and throw people around.

then, i can finally be cool...

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Open racism in Japan? Noooo! Tell me it ain't true!

Serious for a moment ...

Being on the receiving end is definitely no fun (been there enough times, thank you), but is racism in Japan worse than anywhere else? I have to question that. Racism in Australia is ugly, as it is in the United States, England, Europe ... everywhere. On the surface the big difference is that racism is "illegal" in other countries, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist, or even that it isn't practiced. Institutionalized racism in Japan is a problem, to be sure, but does anti-racism legislation in other countries prevent it from happening? Answer: nope.

I'm not saying that because it happens in other countries it's OK that it happens in Japan, but I am saying that it needs to be considered in perspective.

Being in the majority is easy. Being a minority is not. And that goes for a whole spectrum of situations other than race as well. As foreigners in Japan we are a minority. Personally I fucking HATE being discriminated against (it happens), but if I respond by hating the haters the situation just gets worse, and I drive myself crazy.

Back when I was a member of the salaryman circuit I got the "you're different, but gaijin in general are ..." bullshit more times than I can count. I don't imagine it's any different now. The only way to be treated as an equal is to treat others as equals, and to treat individual cases as individual cases. I can understand venting here on FG or wherever is appropriate, but if you allow that sort of attitude to creep into your day-to-day relations people will see it and respond in kind, and you'll find yourself in an escalating spiral of mutual hate and distrust.

Just a thought.

End of seriousness for this morning.

Great post!

I hope I can remember this post next time I start feeling enraged by these racist bastards...oops, too late. But, great post!

[Sa_Race]

At least they give white guys a taste of what brownish people endure in the civilized world. ^^

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

At least they give white guys a taste of what brownish people endure in the civilized world. ^^

So, let me get this straight...you're saying it's OK to racially discriminate against whites in Japan because coloreds are discriminated against in the civilized (?) world?

Let me guess...you're aMerkin, right?

[wagyl]

SDH of the misattributed nationalities, M Sa_Race is more French than M Bertrand.

[Sa_Race]

Ahahah. The Duponds are way too sarcastic for the Smiths.

But nope. As a french white guy of foreign ancestry who spent seven years in a fukkin private boarding school, I can tell I won't wish anyone to be on teh receiving end -or even the listener- of what I heard.

[Coligny]

At least they give white guys a taste of what brownish people endure in the civilized world. ^^

So, let me get this straight...you're saying it's OK to racially discriminate against whites in Japan because coloreds are discriminated against in the civilized (?) world?

Let me guess...you're aMerkin, right?

I think that's the whole "walking in sumeone else shoes", or "1 real trip is worth 100 travel books"...

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Wow! I'm bloody good with those guesses, huh?

Still, Merkin, Gall...pretty much the same thing, just different degrees of firepower.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Still, Merkin, Gall...pretty much the same thing

You just crossed the fucking line. I might have to beat you ass next time I saw you if you God hadn't already punished you enough already by making you both plastic Paddy and Australian.

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Still, Merkin, Gall...pretty much the same thing

You just crossed the fucking line. I might have to beat you ass next time I saw you if you God hadn't already punished you enough already by making you both plastic Paddy and Australian.

Thank God I'm an atheist....

[yanpa]

I might have to beat you ass

It's still a mystery to me why Merkins have such an obsession with causing pain to other people's donkeys.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Still, Merkin, Gall...pretty much the same thing

You just crossed the fucking line. I might have to beat you ass next time I saw you if you God hadn't already punished you enough already by making you both plastic Paddy and Australian.

Thank God I'm an atheist....

I thought you were a filthy papist.

[IparryU]

Still, Merkin, Gall...pretty much the same thing

You just crossed the fucking line. I might have to beat you ass next time I saw you if you God hadn't already punished you enough already by making you both plastic Paddy and Australian.

ohhh dem is some fighting words!