FireyRei comments

With all due respect to these survivors, I am confused about why in a way A-bomb survivors are treated in a special way. Are people not aware of other cities during WW2 that suffered similar losses from fire bombings? Tokyo lost around 100,000 people, and Dresden lost well over 100,000 or twice that counting undocumented residents. Point being, we don’t hear from these people, these survivors, it’s always A-bomb survivors. Perhaps there should be stories published about Tokyo fire bombing survivors? I just feel other cities should be mentioned, too.

Holy mother of God… Japan acknowledges human rights abuses in their country?! Miracles can happen…

This article and the comments are a perfect example of what is very negative about Japanese society: a survey clearly indicates a large amount of Japanese people are unhappy or uncomfortable with foreigners in their vicinity, it is clear, then people thumbs down those who indicate this empirically driven evidence. Too many times, when I explain to a Japanese person my negative experiences such as harassment from the police or even being physically assaulted, they will deny such things ever happened. It’s this continuous blinkered existence, refusing to accept anything from the mouth of a foreigner unless positive, that I cannot stand life in Japan.

Having been a rare, qualified, ELT in Japan for 18 years, I have met a ‘few’ ‘teachers’ to say the least, both foreign and Japanese. Firstly, I have no surprise to hear such a thing, particularly back in the early 90s the absolute majority of so-called teachers had zero interest in the job: I was frequently alone as a professional. Secondly, I cannot understand why this is national or even local news: it’s an isolated incident of a minor issue and certainly no crime even though unprofessional. Lastly, more importantly, it reminds me of how it’s foreigners who get singled out: we Japanese don’t take kindly to you foreigners labelling us. There are a multitude of Japanese teachers on a daily basis across Japan acting unprofessionally but never make the news. Nothing has changed in that homogeneous society.

My daughter, though being born in Japan with a Japanese mother, lives in Europe now (three of us together). She speaks Japanese, and she loves her identity as both Japanese and English. She is proud to tell classmates of her Japanese identity and I am proud of that, too, having lived in Japan nearly two decades. However, when she becomes an adult, her parents (we) will one day tell her: No, you are not Japanese. No, you cannot return to Japan without a visa. No, Japan sees you as a foreigner.

She will be heartbroken or hate her birth place for that.

When I left Japan after 18 years of witnessing and experiencing first hand xenophobia and at times racism, I knew I would never live there again. What has changed? How many times can you accept being asked when you’re leaving? Disgraceful news.

I’d love to tell my story on national TV in Japan, the nitty gritty, the cons over the pros, but Japanese people in general don’t enjoy the truth about their negative issues, so that’s out the window. I wrote a book instead:) Reviews are interesting, the most common one, ‘Telling people how it really is’, but as I say in my book, we all have our own truths. 18 years from the early 90s through the 2000s, a very different time from what it is now my friends tell me. I do miss my old Gaijin Gamers website friends though;)

I’ve been in on the Hip Hop scene since 1982, an Englishman who first heard Whodini and fell in love, became a breaker, writer, rapper whatever like most people did back then, at least tagging or some boddypopping or whatever. I’m from the real old skool, when Hip Hop was universal, not a ‘black’ thing which many later claimed it to be. The author above forget to mention it was both a Black and Hispanic culture in the beginning, the very first graffiti writer being Hispanic. Hip Hop was about peace and love as well as realities of life like poverty etc. No-one was rejected from being in on the scene. Back in the early 2000s I DJ’d on a radio station in Kobe, playing US, UK, German etc. Hip Hop: it felt good to educate Japanese people on the global sense of the culture, particularly as they as well as Americans thought it an American thing only. We never forget the origin of Hip Hop, true, but like all music it evolves. The group I was in in the 80s and 90s produced 7 records, independently, gained a lot of popularity in Germany back then when they labelled our Hip Hop ‘Britcore’ due to its underground hardcore nature. I made three records in Japan, too, solo, in Osaka with an American producer (クリサウンド) as well as performed on stage with some Japanese rappers. Fun times 20 years ago;) Hip Hop is universal and always will be.

Utterly pathetic story to report. In a plethora of countries worldwide, the police would simply throw it in the bin and tell you to move on. If he was distributing it, sure, that’s a story. This, is a waste of everyone’s time.

Japan is still not the country full of nutcases as some Yrrals would like to describe it.

That comment right there demonstrates a lack of understanding of mental illness, which comes in a wide variety of manifestations from mild to severe. Calling anyone suffering from a mental illness a ‘nutcase’ is both ignorant and disrespectful. To add, Japan has an incredibly high rate of suicide which is strongly linked to depression, a mental illness itself. Further, simply having lived in Japan almost two decades, as well as being around Japanese people three decades, I firmly concur that mental illness in Japan is just as prevalent as most other countries.

For my wife to return to Japan to see her family, we need to take out a bank loan for the flight costs it’s so expensive now to fly there.

A prank... Highly ignorant people.

No. No. No. No. Absolutely NO.

Desperate for attention, sad really. How many Japanese men in particular that have dedicated their lives to their job, neglecting family life and personal well-being, retire, then... Nothing. Premature death, going crazy like this guy: a serious problem for too many Japanese people who spent too long devoted to something then losing it all in a day.

Strange... EV battery materials are not only awful for the environment to mine, often in terrible conditions by underage child labour, but are also in incredibly low supply. To top off the impossible task of supply, what happens to used EV batteries? More environmental waste. You simply need to research more deeply how EV batteries are simply not the way forward. How do you think they are charged? That's right, fossil-fuelled plants to produce the energy. Short term EVs seem so appealing to a person who hasn't researched much about them, but long term we are looking at a new environmental disaster with the batteries.

26 days? My mate was kept in a cell 49 days, the maximum, for defending himself against a Japanese guy punching him first. That guy suffered a bruised rib, while this naval guy killed two people. Strange.

People voted Yes hoping it will happen.

Oops?

Aside from the cleanup, that was a great way to close the case, time saving. Minus one madman.

Japan and human rights violations = commonplace. I’ve always felt Japan and China have so much in common with regard to treatment of suspects, or convicts. Amnesty International are often in contact with the Japanese government. Foreigners suspected of a crime: 45 days in a cell denied visitation except your consulate official...

Racist comments... Either I can't read or the definition of the word has changed. Saying people look the same is at best ignorant. Racist would be to elevate yourself above another race treating them as lower beings. So again, what racist comments? Using that word carelessly now puts you into the virtue signalling category.

When I was living in Osaka, I used to go to a music rehearsal studio in Kyobashi. In the same building on a different floor there was a service, Densha de go go go (named after the train simulator) in which men paid to grope women on a fake train. As long as services like this exist, games, comics, and movies like this exist, the behaviour is justified. ‘Chikan ha akan’ does not prevent the behaviour, it’s a slogan that mocks it. Chikan exist because their behaviour is acceptable/excusable.

Abject racism: this is, as usual in these cases, immoral.

Sony has high standards? Their smart phones were a flop…

2022 sales are currently up compared to 2021.

Xperia phones, if you have never used them yourself, have excellent build quality: three of mine have lasted years, still taking great quality photos.

The Xperia Pro-1 is in the top 5 best phones in the world now: it’s camera system is almost unbeatable.

They aren’t as popular for one main reason: they are over priced in a market flooded by Chinese cheaper brands, and consumers slaves to Apple regardless of what they put out. You can’t fight against that cultural icon.

Xperia isn’t a flop, it’s a niche product.

As long as one country has nukes, others will have them too. Asking to remove them all is like asking Putin to beg for forgiveness = never going to happen. If we can’t ban guns or even cigarettes that kill WAY more people than idle nukes….. These mayors are living in a fantasy world.

Yep, city tax and pension: you cannot forget those. Particularly the pension that many companies do not want to pay leaving you to pay it yourself, which is far more expensive. I needed the General Union to force my company to pay it.

You couldn't have written this in a more racist way if you tried. What exactly makes this particularily traumatic for Black women and why would it be less so for Asian or European ones?

Notice the sentence you quoted has two commas separating particularly for Black women: that's a non-defining relative clause. Re-read the sentence without that non-definition for a better understanding.

Dictionary 'racist': "...prejudiced against or antagonistic towards a person or people..."

How is highlighting statistics racist if it's based on empirical information?

Almost no-one then: approximately 0.000018% of the population.

Interesting. I have yet to hear of anyone getting an adverse reaction from any of the C-19 vaccines in my world: epicentre of the pandemic in Italy. Adverse reactions have been incredibly minimal.

Well done Japan Today for posting this. For too long Asian people in Japan, non-Japanese, in particular have suffered badly in a variety of ways that the typical Japan loving foreigners outside Japan are oblivious to. It’s been merely 20 years (about) that the city/town halls made the ‘Black’ lists illegal - lists of families of a certain non-Japanese descent available for Japanese companies or others to view to see if a person is not pure Japanese, something highly racist. Japan is moving up the equality chain, albeit slowly for a democratic society, nevertheless up. Still, the government are not doing enough at all openly to openly criticise racism.

... only the bad guys have guns.

Guns are made and designed only to do bad things: maim or kill. You have a gun, you are able to maim or kill. How can you be a 'good guy'?