Japan's free spirits

[Captain Japan]

Japan's free spirits
BBC NEWS

Hidden in central Tokyo is an area known as Golden Gai - a strip of anonymous tiny counter-bars which attract those in search of a counter culture.

Bartender Shinichi Yoshimoto used to do a 16-hour day at a loan-sharking company. "I took the first train to the company and I took the final train home," he said.

Anyone ever met Shinichi?

This story is pretty good. But for me to take any of them seriously I'd have to know who is still leaching of his/her parents...

Then you have idiots like this...

Hideaki Omura, a lawmaker with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said 4 million furita out of a working population of 65 million was "very serious".

"We should enforce a policy to make young people get a proper job," he said.

[GomiGirl]

Haven't met him but there are over 300 bars in that district... I tend to go to the same 10 or 11 where I am known and I have a bottle behind the bar. I was there again on Wednesday night.

(But surprisingly didn't run into our own Mulboyne as usual.. have you stopped stalking me now that you are taking all of my mad british friends to punk metal bars?)

[Mulboyne]

The guy's bar is in 1-ban gai but I've never gone in. His flyer says a foreigner also owns the bar.

Haven't met him but there are over 300 bars in that district... I tend to go to the same 10 or 11 where I am known and I have a bottle behind the bar. I was there again on Wednesday night.
(But surprisingly didn't run into our own Mulboyne as usual.. have you stopped stalking me now?)

I decided to go to those 10/11 bars when you aren't there and use your bottle.

[Skankster]

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Then you have idiots like this...

Hideaki Omura, a lawmaker with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, said 4 million furita out of a working population of 65 million was "very serious".

"We should enforce a policy to make young people get a proper job," he said.

I think those comments are inline.
maybe the translation is more incorrect than the comment!>!>!>!?!?!

But this is in truth one of the largest factors affecting Japan Inc. in 2-3 years - a crash in spending due to the gradual decrease in surplus income.

[Taro Toporific]

Rise in unemployed young people to pull down Japan's growth rate
TOKYO Oct. 22 Kyodo [[full text]]
- An increase in the number of young people who do not attend schools, get jobs or receive job training is likely to pull down Japan's potential growth rate by an annual average of 0.25 percentage point during the 2000-2005 period, a think tank report said Thursday.
Dai-ichi Life Research Institute said in the report that the increase in the number of such young people, dubbed NEETs, will lead to a decrease in the working population and undermine production activities. NEET is the acronym for ''not in education, employment or training.''

Photo caption: "Loose & Tight Coupling" pictures/Neet.JPEG

[Taro Toporific]

[Greji]

The guy's bar is in 1-ban gai but I've never gone in. His flyer says a foreigner also owns the bar.

I decided to go to those 10/11 bars when you aren't there and use your bottle.

Don't bother. It's empty *burp*.

[Taro Toporific]

Revenge of the retiring Baby Boomers!
Parasite kids left to life of slavery
MSN-Mainichi, Waiwai, 2006nov15, by FG supreme, Marvin Feltcher
Japan's Baby Boomers will start retiring en masse next year, running the risk of driving loads of young Japanese and foreigners in Japan into a new form of slavery, according to Weekly Playboy (11/27).
Japan is estimated to be home to as many as 640,000 young people judged to be either NEETs -- those Not in Education, Employment or Training -- or freeters, who are basically part-time workers and the mass retirements are likely to offer them little respite.
....freeters can basically get by provided they still live with their parents," Masahiro Yamada, a professor at Tokyo Gakugei University, tells Weekly Playboy. "But, if parents are only living on old-age pensions, their kids can't ask them to support them anymore. 'Parasite freeters' scrounging off their parents may soon slip below the poverty line very quickly." [url=ainichi-msn.co.jp/waiwai/news/20061115]....more....[/url]
Photo caption: "Loose & Tight Coupling" pictures/Neet.JPEG