tiredofsametab

Your statements do not support your initial arguments.

You’ve conveniently just ignored everything I responded to about grandparents and women being forced out of their careers as a rule.

Further, you state It's a culture of hating kids. and that is just not true.

You are seeing some shitty people and extrapolating that out to “this society hates kids” which is 100% not the case. That is what I take issue with.

I could go on at length about things Japan could do better for families and, in my decade here, there has been great improvement. There is still room to go. That does not mean that Japanese people hate children and do not want them. It does not mean that this is a Japan-only problem yet your argument is that Japan hates kids.

As a long term resident, perhaps the problem isn’t that there isn’t these problems. It’s that you don’t see it.

So you want to tourist-splain to me as someone who lives here and has for a decade? I have family, friends, and coworkers with young kids. I do hear their complaints. I do see their struggles. Again, what you are describing, that Japan has some systemic and cultural child-hating complex, is not at all supported by your argument. It is also laughable to me that you would think you have a better handle on Japan as a whole as a tourist who goes to a few cities. You want to know what you’re also not seeing? You’re not seeing the programs in place. You’re not seeing the variety of things that have been and are being done. You’re literally just making stuff up and saying that all of Japan (the grandparents, for example) is some way.

Everything in your “fun fact” is not fact. I actually said “what the fuck” when I read it. I’ve been in Japan for a decade, both Tokyo and rural.

Where also are these magical stroller-only elevators? Certain people are supposed to have priority (and, yes, some assholes ignore this which is not a problem unique to Japan), and there are also people who don 'look disabled" but need help (I can be one of them sometimes as my left leg and ankle are as much metal as anything else, though you wouldn’t know by looking at me).

Japan has problems and had places.to.improve but your post is just wild wild to me as a long-term resident.

I wouldn’t, personally. Just read around on basic etiquette, don’t litter, etc. If you’re planning on going to Kyoto, it’s been a zoo for years now and the people there always hate it (but also some ridiculous part of their economy is tourism as they found out during corona when the money dried up). Oh, and a lot of smaller places are still cash only so carry cash.

I always encourage people to consider places other than just Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, especially these days where technology helps any language barrier.

In exit polls from the last election foreigner problems (which lumps tourists in with residents) was still only like 3rd. And for the foreigner issues, overtourism and people buying property and pricing out locals are big issues (and sometimes running (often illegal) guesthouses).

The US largely voted for what is happening and would vote for more of it harder and worse. A new admin does not change what a large chunk of the population feels. There are systemic issues that would take generations to solve, if it is even solvable in any peaceful way.

They may want to keep that infrastructure for quick post-war activation and use for their own purposes. That should be cheaper and faster than having to rebuild a whole thing.

escape goat

Just in case you didn’t know, it’s ‘scapegoat’; the goat isn’t, at least voluntarily, escaping anything.

At around 20:45 JST last night, they finally removed all of the evacuation orders where we are (and I think in the rest of the main islands, at least). Definitely this morning, we’re all down to anything from an advisory to nothing at all (per the JMA website). Trains are still not running up here in parts of Tohoku, though. Some people voluntarily remain in evac areas this morning in my prefecture. A lot of people in the on the border of Iwate and Miyagi prefectures got wiped out in the 2011 tsunami, so I imagine there is an amount of fear/PTSD there.

So far, there were a couple of minor injuries in people over the course of evacuation (probably due to panic and running or something). 4 whales were beached in Chiba prefecture which is maybe related to the quake and/or tsunami. I haven’t heard of any real domestic damage or injury this morning, but we might hear about some boats being damaged.

We still have only seen 1.3m (70cm where I live) thankfully. Looks like Hawaii got 1.7m in one area. Thanks to all for the kind words and I hope everyone outside of Japan is also safe and this is the worst we see from this event.

So far, it seems 1.3m is the max we’ve seen here in Japan. Most of my area is under evacuation order still and trains are all canceled.

So far, the only waves that have hit have maxed at half a meter, but they’re still warning us that more and bigger may come. I live about 3km off the eastern coast of northern Japan and we’re just barely outside of evacuation area in my part of the village.

Exactly. This is why the non-standard parties did so well, racist and otherwise.

We’ll have to see what happens with the upper house and then the next elections. The LDP have failed to many, especially younger, voters. They see overtourism, falling wages, etc. the young groups get a lot of info from SNS, a lot of it less than the full truth. A lot of disinfo on what we get/do as foreigners in Japan (I’m a permanent resident here for a decade).

Thankfully, not all went far right. Some went for the dpftp which is another non-traditional party. The cdp is the main opposition, though they didn’t do spectacularly either.

I guess the question is if this is a blip or the new normal and how much impact they will have in the new government. If Japan doesn’t do something about misinfo and disinfo, I think things will get very bad.

Edit: some more I forgot. There’s a big issue with (often unlicensed and illegal) short-term rentals. There have been news stories lately about people, often rich Chinese, buying buildings and jacking up rent to drive people out to turn the whole thing into rentals for Air BnB and the like. This is not super common but it is illegal (can’t just unilaterally raise rent like that and also there are licenses required to run the rentals). When Japanese are crunched financially, stuff like this hurts a lot. One thing sanseito mentioned was foreign property ownership which, for reasons like that and rich foreigners in general coming over, buying property, and causing prices to rise, resonated.

To clarify rumors about foreigners, it’s that they’re not paying pension and insurance, using more welfare, etc. Historically, this was an issue with some not paying pension and insurance (both legally required) but most still did pay. However, it should also be noted that some Japanese don’t pay and the welfare and similar usage isn’t super different and not high. Status of Residence renewal procedures even added more stringent checks on this and recently, even PR holders can be kicked out if they willingly stop paying anything after the process of obtaining it.

I wonder what the Japanese source is. I thought we recycled PET and burnt all the rest for power here. I guess not.

No more tax exemption. Even better, ban them.

The Japan-related subs where people share visa, legal, medical, financial and other resources are super important to those of us living here and, despite many times asking, will not move over. Moving over without the people holding that knowledge is pointless. So, as much as I dislike it, I still have to use a very limited section of reddit for things like that (being a new small business owner in Japan be hard).

People mostly, from what I understand, hire those companies to avoid harassment and trying to be bullied into continuing to work for shitty companies.

It’s hard to get fired as a permanent employee, but not impossible. That said, the idea of “lifetime” employment is definitely not what it used to be.

This is for full-time “permanent” employees known as 正社員 (seishain). There are cases where a long-term contract worker gains those same protections (I think after 5 years, but I’m not too up on that).

Various other types of employment have their own restrictions and freedoms to varying degrees on both sides, but I’m not super knowledgeable there.

I live in the rural Tohoku inaka and personally mostly get genmai from Costco (which I prefer over white rice). Online stores (Rakuten, Kakuyasu, amazon, etc.) have it. For in-person, it’s what I’ve seen people talking about and seen mentioned on the news.

It’s protectionism and, yes, that’s part of what I meant by “shitty planning” above. There is American, Thai, Indian, and Korean rice here now. Calrose is a popular one. Same is true for butter and similar things here.

Edit: I accidentally a word.

Not listed in the article but, starting around corona, price increases started happening all over the place. Russia’s attack on Ukraine also caused price increases here for a number of reasons. Rice is now around double what it was a year ago (https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/3949/ – some general price increase, also shortages due to weather and shitty planning). The news keeps talking about price increases every month. Wages? Hardly budging. People are getting a lower quality of life for the same amount of work so of course the desire to put up with bullshit is dropping.

Now, if people would vote for anyone else, we might see something happen. Voter turnout is terrible in Japan. As a non-citizen, I can’t vote so nothing I can do there. (Technically, there are some local elections that non-citizens can vote in (I think all requiring permanent residency permits) but nothing at an upper level).