Nihon Tora comments

I saw them at Fuji Rock shortly before they split. It wasn’t the best gig to be honest.

I remember visiting Melbourne and walking around there all day in the pleasant, warm sunshine. I was then amazed to learn that the temperature had been over 40 degrees that day. A typical summer day in Tokyo maybe around 33 degrees but it’s absolutely horrendous - there’s more to it than just the temperature - humidity, the stillness of the air etc. I’m not sure what it is, but Japan in the summer is just so uncomfortable like almost nowhere else I’ve been.

One of the darkest chapters of Japan's history

True. It wasn’t even an accident, they knew they were poisoning people, continued to do so and did everything they could to disguise the fact. It was mass murder and those responsible should have spent the rest of their lives in prison,

What is it about Japanese culture that makes so many people so gullible as to fall for this nonsense in the first place? I mean, it is just baffling to people from other countries that a whole industry exists here that's based on such an obvious scam that anyone above 10 years old could see through. Is it the education system not teaching people how to think critically? The people frequenting these places are often quite young and attractive themselves - why are they so socially inadequate that they can't find a partner in a normal way without having to resort to these host/hostess clubs?

The Moonies church are now basically banned in Japan, so he achieved what he set out to do and he would not have been able to do that any other way.

Im not saying that justifies murdering someone, rather just pointing out how ridiculous it was that the only way he could get anything done about these scam merchants was to literally murder someone!

Sounds like they need to employ more staff to cope with the additional tourist numbers. People coming to Japan from the States, Australia and especially Europe have just had to sit on a very long flight and then having to stand around waiting for 2 hours, that's a huge annoyance - especially if they have young children in tow. Adapt to the changes and get more staff onto it, if not, people won't bother coming again.

As is usually the case, the Japanese justice system sides with the big guy.

The driver should be punished for stealing the money, and I'm pretty sure that for stealing 1000 yen, it's going to be a small fine. The company is also entitled to take disciplinary action, but taking away his entire 12 million yen pension allowance is completely ridiculous and vastly disproportionate to the crime. It's also a huge stretch to say that a bus driver stealing 1000 yen is going to significantly damage the public's trust in the bus business.

Old people over 65 should have a certification to go tackling mountains. Plus a deposit to cover a helivac.

Is there evidence suggesting that people over 65 require assistance in the mountains significantly more than other groups? In Japan, mountain hiking is sometimes thought of as an older people's activity - whenever you go hiking there are plenty of older people out there, many of them must be over 65. In general, older people have the benefit of lifetime of experience over younger people and tend not to take stupid risks and prepare appropriately for the conditions. In Japan, if you need a helivac, you are probably going to be paying for it anyway whether you paid a deposit or not. Same with off-piste/out of bounds ski/snowboard rescue costs.

Japan has way more traffic lights than are necessary. Many could just be taken out and replaced with a regular junction that the minor road has to give way at. Many more could be replaced by roundabouts or mini-roundabouts - so much safer and allow the traffic to flow more freely in most cases.

The photo is a bit confusing - we have loads of lights like that in Tokyo, but I don't ever recall seeing all direction arrows green but still having the red light on. I often see the red light, plus say, a green left arrow and a green straight arrow, meaning you can go in those directions but not turn right. I don't recall seeing all three direction arrows green and also a red light - in that case it would usually just be a green light. I have seen traffic lights at smaller junctions where there is a green light but it doesn't turn on, the red light just turns from constant red to flashing red, which means you can go apparently.

Not sure who exactly all these 35–50-year-olds are with the disposable cash available to drop 150000 euro on a car - seems to be a pretty niche market.

Anyway, Jaguar already had a distinctive and famous brand, for which there could surely be plenty of demand but the problem in recent years was that they became notorious for unreliability. This complete rebrand and venture into new and unfamiliar territory smacks of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. That advert with no cars was absolutely awful and several years out of date - by the time it came out, people were already getting tired with the corporatist DEI sensibilities that the ad extolled. A bit like the rush to go all electric - most consumers as well as the industry itself are pulling back from that now. Maybe if they wanted to make one car like this, OK, but putting all of the brand's eggs in this one basket seems like a crazy idea to me.

Great idea, it's called transparency.

Its not just this, there’s no transparency to ANYTHING here - job interviews, promotions, contracts - it’s always the same - “we don’t disclose the reasons.” The lack of transparency is seen as normal, or even a positive thing in Japan.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

It's disappointing, but not surprising, to see such a large number of people in favour of this punishment that belongs in the dark ages. Having said that, I think if the government did get rid of the death penalty, within just a few short years, many of those people would have the opposite opinion. A lot of people in Japan base their opinions on the opinions of people above them or on the opinions of the majority.

I mean, I understand it - I would also want to kill the person responsible if one of my family members was murdered. But the law of the land needs to rise above it. Life without possibility of parole is enough for the worst offenders - they can never again cause harm to society, there is still the possibility to reverse the decision if new evidence comes to light that the person was not guilty, and perhaps most importantly, we as a society do not have to sink to the depths of some of the worst individuals in that society. We can say, we are better than that and in doing so, set a more positive example. The possibility of the death penalty is not going to deter anyone any more than the possibility of spending the rest of their lives in a miserable Japanese prison, which everyone knows is no holiday camp.

210,000 - just to put than in perspective, in the UK, a country with more than half the population of Japan there are 33000. So, probably a slightly simplistic take, but population wise, double the uk number to get to Japan's population - 66000 traffic lights - there are still more than 3 times the number of traffic lights in Japan than the UK!! I think it's not just a case of lights though, in the UK there are plenty of A-roads and trunk roads where there are not many junctions, so you can travel along those roads quite quickly and freely. In Japan, similar main roads like that have junctions every 100 meters - usually with lights. Look at something like route 17 in Kanto - just an endless series of junctions. It will take two hours to drive 60 km. In Japan, (at least in highly populated areas) you just have roads like that, or the super expensive expressways and nothing in between.

There are way too many traffic lights. Many could be taken out and replaced with a roundabout or just a regular junction without lights. Those saying roundabouts take up too much room - in the UK they have mini-roundabouts that are little more than a circle painted in the middle of the junction - it barely takes any space at all. It was found that in places where they don't have roundabouts, most people were against them, but when they put roundabouts there anyway, a short while later most people thought they were great.

Having said that, on my last visit to the UK, I noticed that a lot of roundabouts have now had traffic lights installed on them - totally defeating the point of having a roundabout in the first place - not sure why they did that because previously, traffic flowed perfectly fine there.

I remember in Thailand there were brothels that catered only for Japanese customers at exclusive prices. Presumably because only Japanese would be naive enough to actually believe that the ladies working there were only willing to offer their services to Japanese men. Absolutely ridiculous, of course - those girls know every trick in the book and a lot more besides. No doubt after completing their shift in the "Japanese only" place they were out freelancing on the street.

To be honest, I can kind of understand, from the Japanese perspective, that they want to draw the line with it where foreigners are concerned. With the struggling economy and very weak yen at the minute, they don't want the place turning into another Thailand/Philippines sex tourism destination. Fair enough.

Yeah, as others said this guy is guilty as sin - just read some of the things he said - total jealous control monster.

Here are couple of quotes from him about Narumi:

"She has to pay a little for what she has done and accept that she cannot continue making these kinds of mistakes with someone who loves her." He added, "Certain conditions are applicable during her stay in France, and others are applicable forever. If she cannot follow these conditions for two weeks, within two weeks, I will enforce these conditions with immediate effect."

I remember Narumi l from Tsukuba - didn't really know her well but I remember her beautiful smiling face. Such a shame she got involved with this scumbag. I really hope he doesn't get out on some technicality. Her poor family having to go through the pain and worry of another trial.

Niseko and to a lesser extent Hakuba are resorts that have managed to position themselves to cater for the foreign market. That means at least a few higher-end western style hotels and also some kind of apres-ski nightlife options - bars and restaurants. The vast majority of Japanese ski resorts have none of that - just a few minshuku and there is absolutely nothing to do once the ski lifts close. Niseko is also famous for the powder snow, although there are plenty of other options in Hokkaido and even northern Japan that are just as good for that. Another thing is that Niseko have a gate system that allows skiers to access off-piste terrain when it's not too dangerous. Most other resorts, anything out of bounds is strictly forbidden. I think another thing for Niseko - it was, I think, partly owned by an Australian airline so they could offer great packages. Personally, I'll leave Niseko and Hakuba for the foreign tourists for the most part. There are plenty of other good places to get some nice powdery turns in Japan without the expense and the crowds!

Pork spare ribs you can get, and not too expensive. Bone-in beef short ribs? Never seen them - but judging by the price of beef here, if you can find them I wouldn't be surprised if it cost a small fortune!

A recipe whose main ingredient is bone-in beef short ribs is about as much use in Japan as a recipe whose main ingredient is hens teeth. Never in my 20 years in Japan have I ever seen bone-in beef short ribs sold anywhere in this country. Not even once. Even if you could get it, 2.7 kgs, plus a bottle of Barolo wine - it would end up costing 20,000 yen to make this one dish!

High quality pharmaceuticals? Funny, Japan continues to use all sorts of drugs that other countries stopped using ages ago because of various, sometimes serious safety concerns. Just take the over-the-counter Ibuprofen drugs you can buy here such as Eve - almost all of them contain an additional ingredient (apronal) that is banned in most other countries- you will face a large fine if you are caught taking that stuff to Australia for example.

I looked up an antibiotic that had been prescribed for one of my kids for a cold - turns out that too is only used in Japan, the reason being that it has a worse safety profile than most other commonly available antibiotics that do the same thing.

Based on my own personal experience as well as conversations with others about recruitment at various places, a lot of places in Japan are becoming more averse to hiring foreigners, not less.

It's not necessarily paternity leave that is needed, but just more flexibility in working times, such as being able to get away from the office earlier so that the father can help with meals, bathing kids and getting them to bed etc. Also, the flexibility to be able to leave the office at short notice because, for example, the daycare or kindergarten just called to tell you that your kid has a fever and needs to be picked up ASAP, or because your kid has picked up one of about a dozen different bugs that pretty much all kids get in their early years that mean they can't go to the daycare/kindergarten for a day or three.

Is this really such a major problem? I mean, what's the worst thing that's going to happen? You might bump into someone and have to say you are sorry? It's similar to how they go on about smoking while walking - I remember when people used to smoke in packed out bars and on the dancefloor in clubs and even in those situations it was hardly a major issue.

3000 yen seems a lot for a wine that only takes 6 weeks to make from the press. There is a reason why winemakers go through the expensive processes of longer maceration, fermentation and then aging in various types of oak barrels etc. - they do it because it makes a better wine that they should then be able to sell for more money. For 3000 yen you can buy a wine that has taken a lot more time and expense to produce. Usually, things that cost more to produce cost more to buy, but not always. People spend a lot more money on a t-shirt because it say Balenciaga on the front, yet it cost the same to produce as any other t-shirt. I guess the BN thing works a similar way. I think the stuff tastes very similar to a lot of Japanese wines costing 1000-1500 yen a bottle.

I think Costco have some of the best deals on wine - a couple of years back they had a Rioja Gran Reserva for just over 2000 yen - it was a fantastic wine for the money. That was replaced with a Ribera del Duero - the 2016 vintage was also fantastic - not quite as good as the Rioja. Unfortunately you can only get the 2015 vintage now and it isn't a patch on the 2016. Their Gigondas is good and they have quite a big selection of Californian wines, but most of the ones I tried seem to be just fruit bombs, similar to many Australian wines, if you like that kind of thing.

My French friend told me that Beaujolais Nouveau day was just an excuse for students in France to get drunk on cheap wine! I’m sure the taste appeals to some - it tends to be light and very sweet - similar to a few Japanese wines I’ve tried. I prefer something dryer and more robust that has seen some oak. For the price you can pick up a good Rioja Reserva that for me personally would be much, much better.

Missing the point.

With all due respect to anyone who does an honest day’s work, we are taking about losing out on possible high-flyers in STEM who are quite rare.

An environment which doesn’t encourage these possible high-high flyers is a very stupid one.

Maybe it wouldn’t be a perfect balance but other countries do better than Japan on this score.

Must do better. Benefits the country.

Have you tried applying for an academic position in a STEM subject in this country? Every position advertised gets 100 applicants or more

The vast majority of people with STEM degrees (or other degrees for that matter) do not work in academia.....

Beat me to it.

OK, so you want to talk about high-flyers in STEM, outside of academia - creative types forming the next big STEM start-ups and so on, the Zuckerbergs and the Musks. Well, there isn't much of that in Japan, unfortunately - there is no Silicon Valley here. But I don't think that is an issue of a lack of women in STEM - the culture in Japan is risk-averse - there are not many who want to become entrepreneurs and build the next big thing from scratch. The brightest here either go into top academic positions or go to work for the biggest tech companies like Sony and so on. By all means, encourage more women into STEM, but it isn't going to fix this particular problem.

So in other words you are defending a decision that was clearly wrong

Not defending it - explaining what the motivation behind it was. I don't think it was the right decision. I think that it would have been better for them to try to make their workplace more accommodating to people who want to raise families. But as I mentioned - that would probably be hard to do, changing the entire work culture at the place and then there is still no guarantee that it would work given the ingrained attitudes in Japanese society.

The vast majority of people with STEM degrees (or other degrees for that matter) do not work in academia.....

True, but the brightest ones often do. Very few graduates from private universities go on to become academics, but from the top public universities (higher level), quite a lot of them do. Also, please let me know where all these vacant STEM positions are outside of academia so I can apply for one - most of them take in students immediately after graduation and if you miss that it is pretty much game over.

Again, this misses the point.

Having your best and brightest in STEM benefits the country.

Gender studies, literature, economics and all that are all well and good but an environment which puts your best brains off from entering the sciences and engineering is not a good environment.

Other countries do better.

Do better.

Have you tried applying for an academic position in a STEM subject in this country? Every position advertised gets 100 applicants or more - most of them very, very strong applicants too. There are plenty of fantastic brains in science and engineering, but the fact is there are not enough jobs! Many just end up teaching or pursuing different career pathways in the end.