SDCA comments

Hope he was wearing something warm throughout this. There is talks about snow and I hope they are able to figure out a swift rescue before then.

Isn't this a risk for any industry? Are we supposed to feel sympathy for this specific industry? Maybe stop buying a new Mercedes every shaken year and invest towards new equipment. This business is highly competitive in urban areas, with new dentists popping up on every corner with shiny new equipment and young staff. The only way to remain competitive is to utilize the advantage of already having a client base in that area. Either up your game by offering incentives to help retain your clients, or lose them. Having new equipment isn't the only incentive you can offer, you can compete by offering better service, having better skills (routine cleaning doesn't require new equipment and is a matter of skill), offering free services like coaching, little things like giving clients a tooth brush, offering an area where kids can wait, changing wall paper, etc. You can also lease equipment instead of purchasing, so if there is a particular machine you feel needs upgrading every so often, maybe lease it instead?

I personally go to an old clinic that has a good track record and highly skilled staff. Yes there is a new clinic nearby with a shiny interior and new equipment, but the reviews don't entice me enough to want to use that clinic. If there are clinics closing down, maybe they just weren't that good or were mismanaged?

This whole situation is a mess. Story just doesn't add up. Hope "all" of those who are involved are punished.

Looks like a cool album cover

The local fields where I live are full of unharvested cabbages because the heads are too small.

Wish I could live where you live. I would gladly pay for those cabbages that are B grade.

In Japan, the heat has also made lettuce, green onion and "daikon" radish more expensive at the checkout

Also for those suggesting to eat lettuce instead, this is from the article. I can attest from my own experience that yes, lettuce is expensive so I have to find alternatives. It's not that I can't afford the higher costs all around, it's more or less if I don't skimp on things to meet a certain budget, I won't have much left over to allocate towards other aspects of life.

Used to be able to buy a whole cabbage for about 88-128 yen where I live in 2023. I don't quite remember when prices rose, but I checked yesterday and it's roughly 333 yen now after prices have stabled. Still, don't see many people buying them as often as before. This used to be a staple food for families looking to get some filling vegetables on a budget. The alternative now is hakusai which thankfully isn't crazy expensive. Didn't know hakusai was edible without cooking until I recently tried it and it's surprisingly good.

Super glad saunas are becoming popular in Japan. Such a nice gift from Finland.

Just ask if you are tsukiatteru or not and go based off that. It's funny how a Japanese man feels about being called "boyfriend" or "kareshi" and perceives that as childish, but is completely fine with calling their wives "mamma".

When they say they raise wages, how exactly does it work though? Do all the employees get an announcement that they will receive an incontrovertible raise or do they just give new hires and new grads the increase and claim they've accomplished wage increases? From what I'm hearing how much new grads are making these days, I feel like a lot of us other employees are being undervalued. Guess staying at one company for life is no longer beneficial in Japan. Just wish the job hunting process wasn't an absolute nightmare, otherwise I'd change jobs more frequently for a better wage.

toraToday  08:01 am JST

I think I prefer the good old days of the yen at around 1:1 with the dollar, no inflation and low prices. Everything was affordable here in Japan for the past 30 years and lives were "good" enough.

The world changed after the re-opening up following Covid.

Could not agree more. Life was more simple, stable, predictable, and less stressful.

As someone who grew up with bunnies, this makes my blood boil too Aly.

Does that include "snorting"? When people - always Japanese men - constantly suck in vast rivers of phlem from their nose and seemingly deep into their throats while emitting a loud disgusting sound. They've never heard of tissue paper, decongestants or anti-histimines?

A lot of those people can't help it because of hay fever, but I agree it is disturbing to listen to while on a quite train. Sounds like a pig snorting aggressively.

The inconsiderate coughing is definitely the top of the list for me, but if I had to add something that isn't something that happens often but is quite annoying when it happens, it would have to be people (mainly obasans) who steal the seat that you were standing in front of as you were letting the person getting up pass through you. They know damn well what they're doing.

Diesel better not stay high for too long or we'll have problems. The logistics business will have to pass down the extra costs.

How was Ichiro not unanimous?

Japan's export-reliant economy.

Export-reliant where? I couldn't care less if Toyota is selling better in other countries if it means we have to pay a higher price for energy and other goods/ services.

raise its price forecasts on growing prospects that broadening wage gains will keep Japan on track

Better hope so.

Clothes in general. Don't need to throw out perfectly useable clothes to go buy new ones every year.

Well deserved. Have great memories of the 2009 WBC and Ichiro's clutch hit in the 10th against S. Korea. Still wish we can see him play today.

50% of current jobs being rendered obsolete within the next two decades or sooner.

A lot of jobs are already rendered obsolete, especially the silver jobs and, ahem, city ward office jobs. The reason why they exist is to lower unemployment and allow for pensioners/ house parents/ etc to earn a supplementary income.

This is encouraging. When I have my child, I would love for the opportunity to send them to a university abroad. Little things like this help, and hopefully this extends past Tokyo.

Not defending the guy at all, shame on him as a civil servant with a questionable job. But people are allowed to have an accumulated total of 1 hour per day on smoke breaks, but people aren't allowed to have an exercise break? Should we start considering those "ditching" work to go smoke?

For example, hitting an attacker with a metal bat might seem like self-defense if the attacker approached you with a knife. However, the validity of your actions would depend on factors such as the size of the knife, the proximity of the attacker, and why you chose to use a bat.

Yes, because in a situation between life or death, we all get to hit start, go to the menu screen, look at our inventory, choose a bat to use against the attacker, hit start to resume, notice the attacker is using a smaller knife, hit start again, choose a sasumata because this best suits this scenario and you have it in your inventory, hit resume. Now use that pole to not harm the aggressor, but to keep them from getting closer. Continue to do this until you have reached a Koban to which you may now report this incident without any legal repercussions on your end. After the Koban has dealt with this aggressor and some time has passed, the aggressor is now free to go since the person has inflicted no harm and thus doesn't receive a long prison sentence. The aggressor now wants revenge and is coming back to finish what he had started. Repeat the same process even if the aggressor now has a much more lethal weapon.

I'd like to get the input of virusrex on this one, as he (sorry, presumptuous to assume gender) seems to be on the ball with medical related stuff. Is there any connection between catching influenza and heating the inside of buildings (shops, homes etc.) to psychotic levels? Something I've long noticed living here - they sure like to pump up the heating to almost painful levels. Sometimes I visit a particular camera store in Tokyo, and come the winter I can usually make it about 5 minutes before I have to leave, as the heating is turned up to infinity plus one.

I stopped wearing my coat because I’m only outside for a short time going to and from work. I don’t like having to take it on and off in trains and buildings, constantly lugging it around. Too hot in buildings/ etc.

As for influenza, it's likely easily transmittable during this season because people spend more time indoors and in closer proximity. Had it last year and don't want it again so I'm taking extra precautions this year. It seems some people want to come to work despite looking very sick and coughing all over the place without consideration on trains and workplaces. It sucks that this is unavoidable, but will have to stay cautious. Stay safe everyone and happy holidays!

Glad the man is okay, damn it must have been too cold for the poor bear!!?

that bear was just enjoying the kotatsu, as do I. Merry Christmas everyone!

You could always refinance with a fixed rate mortgage and say goodbye to the interest rate risk. Who knows how high the floating rates might go if the BOJ is forced to defend the value of the yen through rate hikes.

might be something to consider. I was thinking we're all safe from exceeding the fixed rate since the majority (about 70-80% I can't remember) of personal loans are floating. A substantial rate hike could be detrimental in this sector and we may see a lot of people default in the future.

"We anticipate two more rate hikes in 2025."

Please stop. This is hurting my floating interest rate mortgage and likely millions of others as well who didn't receive a salary increase. Now I have to pay more for my house even though the value didn't go up. Lucky for me I didn't go and get anything fancy but I can't imagine those who chose to buy for over 45 million yen. Your new rate hike likely has you paying extra that exceeded the value of a new car.

Sadly people work during Christmas and this holiday aligns with bonenkai season. Instead of having a family dinner on Christmas eve and celebrating to kids opening presents the next morning, everyone comes home late on eve because they need to meet deadlines before shougatsu yasumi. They also need to get up early in the morning to go to work the following day to answer phone calls and e-mails that come pouring in because clients and other businesses think that they will be able to reach you early in morning just a few days before shougatsu yasumi so they can have something done for them that just can't wait until next year for some reason.

I don't understand why Nissan would rather drag Honda down along with them instead of moving in a new direction by letting Foxconn take on the challenge of propping them back up. We had Volvo, better known for their safety and luxurious comfortable ride taken over by a Chinese company and look at them now, still making great vehicles but now with EV and cool tech. The good news is Foxconn is a Taiwan company and not Chinese, not only that, they have better resources that can help improve the tech in these vehicles. I don't see what the problem is except the pride of Japan losing it's company to foreign shareholders.

Foxconn will make EVs whether they acquire Nissan or not just like Xiaomi is doing right now, so why not have them do it using a Japanese brand name? Perhaps the worker's work-life-balance might even improve from this takeover just like how UD trucks did when Volvo was with them. I guess this is what Japanese companies are most afraid of...

WoodyLee, I saw that Mazda EZ-6. A magnificent looking car I wouldn't mind driving. The thing with manufacturing cars in China is you get a copy of a lot of cool features and designs that other manufacturers came up with and have them all in one car. Sure it's stealing, but that's the price you pay for manufacturing cars in China anyways.

Hyundai would've never been this successful and have cool cars had an employee from Toyota not changed jobs. Competition is great and should be welcomed! If American cars wanted to sell better, maybe they should hire more from their competition to see if they can make better cars that people want to buy outside their market instead of appealing to only pick up truck consumers.

Kind of exaggerated but still a funny skit I found a while back that is somewhat relatable on this topic:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/alV64f4HKYA

Despite non-drinkers being in the 30% minority, 53% of all survey respondents nonetheless agreed that ****nominication -- a bilingual portmanteau combining nomi (to drink) and communication -- was an essential element of Japanese society. 

Tis a shame it has to be that way. If only you could get along and communicate with co-workers during working hours and people were more open to communicating without the need for being intoxicated. I agree that communication is necessary amongst employees, but these nomikai meetings are nothing but unpaid zangyou (more or less out of your pockets now because companies and bosses don't pay for them anymore). They also don't talk about anything important for the most part, it's mostly gossiping and goma suri.

I do understand though that without alcohol, a lot of people are very dull and boring (or maybe just not as loud). If you go out for a lunch get together, it's just a bunch of awkward conversations and it really makes you regret taking the one break you have throughout the day to essentially still be in work mode while eating.