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A sexy submarine posted:The clerk at the convenience store gave me a fork with my cup ramen. How loving racist is this country? Haha wow. Its like "baby's first experience at being a minority" for white people, and even the slightest comment suggesting that they aren't 100% assimilated is an insult! Whenever a Japanese person says something like "isn't Japanese difficult?" I assume it to mean they actually think their language is difficult because the number of Kanji they have had to memorize is insane. Not that they think "oh this pathetic foreigner can never possibly understand our superior language." Granted, Debito does post about a lot of instances of actual racism such as signs on shops straight-up saying "NO RUSSIANS", but this is really, really stretching it.
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Jul 19, 2012 09:12
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Everything is really, really expensive in Japan, but unlike what was said about Korea, Japanese products tend to be at least decent or better quality I've noticed. A lot of stuff has "Made in China" on it, but nevertheless is still marked up astronomically so its much cheaper to just import many things from the source. I kind of wonder what the hell the government was thinking on the consumption tax rate doubling though. Was that really the only "reform" they could shoehorn in without resistance from their corporate overlords or something?
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Sep 24, 2012 05:18
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Teddles posted:Any word on when they're going to stop covering the countryside in concrete? That might save a few bucks. What is this all about?
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Dec 17, 2012 00:57
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Cliff Racer posted:Make-work projects for the construction industry and the people who work in it. Since people in rural areas vote LDP the party is in favor of continuing those projects even though they do nothing for the environment, easing transportation woes, etc. Do they really "do nothing" though? I mean what are we talking about here, pouring concrete directly into the ocean? One could say that at least say that giving people a job, even if that job's utility is only marginal, is better than letting them rot in destitution. A prospect which is more than likely considering Japan is just as attached to capitalism as many of the other large economies are.
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Dec 17, 2012 01:38
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quote:Okay, here's the deal on the Naoto Kan thing. This page gives pretty good information about what happened: So to be sure.. a candidate can get voted out for being overwhelmingly unpopular and the party can just be like: "Haha nope! Proportional representation seats, he gets to stay in power regardless!" If so, no wonder voter apathy here is so high. Imagine if that happened in the US, and someone like "legitimate rape" Akin got voted out, and then the GOP just puts him right back in and no one could do anything about it.
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Dec 17, 2012 02:18
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ErIog posted:So, do politicians just not give a poo poo at all about the Japanese supreme court? Is it really that powerless to stop unconstitutionally-elected politicians? Supposedly they are going to start working out a system that is actually constitutional, but really when the people voted for and will probably continue voting for the 50 year nearly unbroken status-quo why would they have any reason to change? This is assuming that the Japanese supreme court is anything like the US SC, in that they only have power if politicians actually agree to put force behind their rulings. In the US I would not be surprised at all if the SC came out with a similar ruling and congress told them to gently caress off, or just dragged their heels for as long as possible until it got to the point where they were somehow forced into doing something.
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Dec 17, 2012 08:10
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Reverend Cheddar posted:That's yet another thing that will cause dumbfounded stares, telling people your parents are divorced but had joint custody. I don't think i understand this funny. So if the kids were to stay at their father's house, how would their grandmother just kidnap them? Since the mother has full custody couldn't she just get the authorities involved to get them back if it came down to that? Does the father and grandmother live overseas or something?
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Feb 26, 2013 10:11
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Of course only now do I realize that I typed "funny" instead of "fully". As in "I don't understand this fully." Oh those child abductions, ha ha! Yeah that is really depressing. I had no idea that even hiring a babysitter was looked down upon, either. I always hear about how mothers in Japan do ALL the chores in the house, even those of her children, but hasn't Japan arrived at the point where both parents of a household are required to work to support the family, too? I know there are tons of after school activities like clubs and cram school, but those don't last forever and lots of companies expect you to work (unpaid) overtime way past a reasonable hour. Does everyone just leave their kids at home unattended and hope no one finds out about it? Mercury_Storm fucked around with this message at 18:00 on Feb 26, 2013 |
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Feb 26, 2013 17:47
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So why is putting kids in daycare not frowned upon, but hiring a baby-sitter is? Is this a regional thing? Also I know a lot of Japanese kids who don't go to cram school every day and some who go directly home after school without going to club activities, but this is also somewhat in the countryside so maybe some people don't care about it as much? I've noticed that Tokyo residents tend to be a bit more uptight about certain issues than residents of "the countryside" (everywhere else).
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Feb 27, 2013 09:30
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Just like in the west though, girls in Japan are raised with lower expectations than boys are, and are given less leeway on whatever is considered "acceptable" behavior. They are taught, or come to realize at some point in their early years about the existence of the very low glass ceiling, and throughout their public schooling years respond to questions about what they want to be with "flight attendant" (by far the most common), or "nurse" at best. Though surprisingly, I've never heard of girls saying they "just want to be a housewife" here. It's like they're taught to be ambitious, but are subtly told one way or another to not be too ambitious.
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Feb 27, 2013 18:17
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Sheep posted:The dorm situation seems to be the norm. Opposite sexes don't mix in JHS or SHS, or even really at work unless necessary most of the time. I'm sure you had the occasion of being seen simply walking with someone of the opposite sex and having every Japanese person be like "oh my god is that your girlfriend?!" Relations between the sexes here are like permanently stuck in middle school. And FWIW Hiroshima's dorms were exactly the same - we couldn't even have people of the opposite sex inside the building according to the rules. What? Classes are integrated in both junior and senior high school. The gender separated and especially nationally separated dorms seem really weird, but this isn't Saudi Arabia or anything. When I did white-collar work here at a company it was the same thing, no one acted surprised when they worked directly next to someone who was not the same gender.
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Mar 11, 2013 04:28
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I've found that kind of stuff to be pretty pervasive too, though from what I've seen at a lower level. A lot of people have been (somehow) seriously surprised to learn that other countries have four distinct seasons, and assume that common things in Japan (like persimmons!) just do not exist elsewhere. I do wonder specific effects this kind of attitude has on the politics here, or how many of the corpses in the diet fully believe in unique Japanese brainwaves, though. Does the whole "wow you're a foreigner, you must fly back to America every day!" from children have anything to do with this too? Or is that another separate dumb issue? Mercury_Storm fucked around with this message at 05:32 on Mar 12, 2013 |
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Mar 12, 2013 05:24
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Ah, that I grew up in white conservative suburbia with nary a hint of foreign culture may have something to do with why I never heard that kind of stuff as a kid. It's just a bit jarring hearing that come out of at least one kid in basically every 1st - 3rd grade class in every elementary school I've taught at, though.
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Mar 12, 2013 06:22
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CronoGamer posted:No doubt in my mind that they could, but calling it gender equality just amused me is all. Well it's kind of their job. If your job was at risk because some xenophobic shithead was looking to "redefine" your rights I'm sure you'd be pretty worried too.
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May 2, 2013 09:10
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What are they going to do? Vote for something other than the LDP again? They already tried that a couple years ago and things weren't fixed right loving immediately so it was back to a one-party state again.
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Feb 7, 2014 08:30
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So is 2chan like the Freep of Japan or something?
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Mar 9, 2014 00:03
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pentyne posted:I think its been mentioned in this thread before, but most regular Japanese don't really use home PC's at the same level as people in the US and Western Europe. Online ordering is only a thing for embarrassed otakus buying shady goods, things like Hulu and Netflix basically don't exist and digital marketplaces like Steam and Amazon's ebooks are ignored in favor of still buying physical goods. Online shopping exists and is quite prevalent actually, as are painkillers which you can easily get over the counter from chain drugstores. Doctors will prescribe the poo poo out of anything so I have no idea where that last part came from either.
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May 11, 2014 08:41
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mystes posted:Amid discussion of taxing Pachinko, the National Police Agency is shocked, shocked to discover that people are exchanging Pachinko "prizes" for cash: What??? How could this happenn??!
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Aug 26, 2014 00:46
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quote:「パチンコで換金が行われているなど、まったく存じあげないことでございまして」と警察庁の担当官。「建前論はやめましょう」。 Wait, am I reading this right and the National Police Agency is saying "Oh this just doesn't happen, let's just drop the theory."?
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Aug 26, 2014 04:26
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So would people freak out if there was an effort to ~~~Legalize It~~~? Gambling, that is. A bunch of my coworkers and friend's coworkers got really uneasy when we mentioned that some states in the US were legalizing weed, but I don't know if people actually care about gambling.
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Aug 26, 2014 04:55
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I think we can all agree that all of Japan's economic woes would be solved if they just legalized gambling and weed at the exact same time. Can you imagine how pachinko parlors would be in the aftermath of that? Not only would you go deaf and blind from walking into one, but you'd also get a contact high.
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Aug 28, 2014 10:40
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Kind of related, but I'd like to know if the popular belief that as a Japanese woman, unless you're married by age ___ you're "totally hosed" and are going to be single shrew who hates life forever. I've heard that age vary a lot from anyone who I discussed this with there, and am wondering if it's actually true, or was true at some point but has passed down the generations as a myth, etc.
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Sep 2, 2014 02:27
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Japan in general doesn't give a gently caress about laws when it's not convenient. See: The ongoing situation of the Japanese Supreme Court declaring elections unconstitutional multiple times in a row with nothing done about it, workplace regulations violated constantly with violators receiving at best a sternly worded letter asking them politely to change their ways while the whistleblower is blacklisted forever, etc.
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Jul 21, 2015 03:49
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I'd say it goes further than just the government. Corporations or even small companies likewise don't care about laws except with they benefit. Of course this is the same as any other country, but it goes a lot further in Japan. Contracts are essentially worthless to the person signing them except as a way to be fired when the company sees fit. Long term contracts can and will be shredded for any reason at all long before their completion date, with zero recourse for the person being fired (and then they get blacklisted forever anyways for trying). And then there's the whole issue with the Yakuza just being allowed to exist and do their thing because it'd be really inconvenient for the police to do anything substantive about them. Better just leave it to private citizens to ban anyone with tattoos. 
Mercury_Storm fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Jul 21, 2015 |
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Jul 21, 2015 04:00
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Yeah maybe they'll vote for the DPJ again without even blaming the first unprecedented natural/nuclear disaster that happens on said party that hadn't seen power for decades! *cue laugh track*
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Sep 17, 2015 18:12
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Since the Japanese legal system relies almost entirely on coerced confessions (99% prosecution success rate  ), it would seem like a lawyer's position there is more of a formality, or to keep up appearances.
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May 30, 2016 15:38
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Old rural people still have (illegally) disproportionate voting power though after the Japanese Supreme Court decisions that have been ignored for years now. So it's not really a surprise that no one gives a gently caress because it's all rigged with no intention to fix it.
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Jul 11, 2016 00:04
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quote:http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/02/17/national/osaka-preschool-scrutinized-passing-slurs-koreans-chinese/ lol what? Look out kids the culture police are on to you!
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May 24, 2017 02:48
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From what I've heard and seen, women are expected to serve guests before a man in the workplace just as a matter of course.
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Nov 11, 2017 07:07
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LimburgLimbo posted:)Also culturally it's very hard for professors to outright fail students even if they're really bad. This also tends to destroy the education culture of many unis because the students know the professors have very little leverage over them. This is the case for primary schools as well as it is basically unheard of to be held back a grade. You're probably not going to get into a good high school or university that way, but failing otherwise is impossible and you'll always get put in the "appropriate" class for your age.
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Mar 7, 2019 06:24
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Uhh I think you'll find that the state of emergency in Tokyo ended, to the relief of everyone, just before the Olympics started. Nothing to see here of course!
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Jul 28, 2021 23:25
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How is the BACK TO THE OFFICE culture in Japan now? Is remote work a thing at all, or was it ever a thing since the start of the pandemic?
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Dec 8, 2021 18:30
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AlternateNu posted:I thought they were meant to mock Happy Science. They were supposed to be Klan members in the Japanese version: https://earthbound.fandom.com/wiki/Happy_Happyism But it's possible that the US game's cult is still based on Happy Science as according to Wikipedia there was even a Happy Science branch in the US in 1994, the cult was formed in 1986, and the US game came out in 1995. Mercury_Storm fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Aug 25, 2022 |
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Aug 25, 2022 21:42
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Clarste posted:Your link just says that the localizer thought they looked too much like the Klan and made changes. It says nothing about what they were "supposed" to be. Ah I had though they had white outfits in the original version too for some reason, nevermind Mercury_Storm fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Aug 26, 2022 |
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Aug 26, 2022 03:02
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Yep, and since the staff has the same lunch as the kids they end up drinking it too.. or not so they end up with a fridge full of expired milk.
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Jan 9, 2023 14:47
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They made a new Mecha Shinzo Abe out of the old Abe's bones, but they had DNA memory in them so Mecha Abe still wanted to rewrite the constitution.
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Feb 23, 2023 11:24
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