tiredofsametab

No more tax exemption. Even better, ban them.

all kinds of businesses sell on eBay. I would assume that those companies are no different, just marking it up to cover eBay’s cut, most likely.

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).

This is also going away (and it’s less staring out the window and more pretending to be busy), but it’s not going to happen overnight, particularly where the micro-managing dinosaurs are still in control. I’ve worked at two (fairly westernized) Japanese companies and have not seen this personally, but know many who have.

First-past-the-post and not wanting to see the conservatives win makes it seem not super strange to me (though I live overseas so my understanding may be incomplete).

A carefully planned and executed action could be good (I don’t know France well enough to comment for sure there) but doing it right would likely take years.

What’s happening in the US is tragic and haphazard (and likely illegal, but fat lot of good that designation does these days).

Do we have reactors that would work properly (or, my bigger worry, whose safety systems will work properly) in such a low-grav environment? I assume they don’t mean the type that use heat from decay like old probes

Pity American firms in China

No, I don’t think I will; buy that ticket, take that ride.

There have been several popes in my lifetime and the only one I really remember going was jp2, and that wasn’t even a huge story in the scheme of things.

One can apply for PR via spousal route after 3 years of marriage at least one year of that being in Japan. She might be on a work status and not spouse/dependent of japanese national, for whatever reason.

On a work status, shed need to notify immigration withing 14 days of losing her job, but there are ways to get time for job hunting. (14 days from death of spouse on spouse visa, for that matter)

I have spouse status, but my PR application is in (spousal route, though I was almost at 10 years working in Japan to go that route anyway).

In my specific case, my status isn’t tied to a job. In the average foreign worker’s case, there’s generally an allowed job-hunting period if employment ends on a work SoR. If unable to find a job then, yes, you would have to leave after your status expires.

They were sitting at the end of the seats at a station and supposedly they were expected to get up and move to another seat whenever someone else wanted to sit?

10 years in Japan now and I have zero clue what this might be referring to. Unless they were marked as priority seats, anyone can sit there. They might have been loud or disturbing without realizing it or something?

Nobody would be speaking on public transport and it would be deemed impolite.

It’s not impolite to talk, it’s impolite to be loud. It’s fantastic, IMO, especially on the early, packed trains going into work in Tokyo and the like; the extra stress of noise is not needed and, many days, it served as a naptime.

Their streets in Japan are clean while there barely are any public garbage bins available.

This very much depends upon the area. They’re also clean because people are cleaning up the shit in front of their houses basically every morning. I used to live between some bars and a hotel and those streets were not clean.

This was presumably just some government-job-specific pension. Japanese law requires paying into a pension scheme so it is doubtful that this is all he had. We also have iDECO and NISA which are like IRA/401k systems.

My two cents with a decade in Japan under my belt:

• work-life balance needs to be fixed (there are recent laws helping this, but not enough enforcement)
• sexism in work (salary gap and gap in leadership is one of the highest in the world)
• do more based on merit than seniority in a number of areas
• more jobs and good universities need to be moved outside of the big city centers; daycare availability is a HUGE problem for people I know with kids or looking to have them (whereas in the countryside where I live, they have free daycare slots available but far fewer jobs and opportunities). This would involve some investment in infra to make things happen as well
• better investment in education and some revamping of the education system; kids are almost never held back here and once they get into uni it’s often seen as a free ride to graduation at many schools; this is not the best system for producing the best innovators and Japan needs innovation
• better progress toward digitization; we’re woefully behind the times even as many are dragged, kicking and screaming, into more things being online. I still have to send faxes and postal mail to accomplish many things relating to government and taxes. This has a number of costs such as taking time off work to accomplish things in person. Banks are also only open 9-3 M-F with some occasionally having weekend hours. Same with all but an area’s “main” post office and other things that just eat into that work-life balance problem by requiring use of time off.
• better education in and participation in government and civics; very few people vote in Japan and I’d like to see that change as I think more engagement would help the people better determine what is best for their future.

Edit to add that the above excludes anything related to immigration as I don’t really know the right answer/balance there; the above are things that could help immediately without as much handwaving about “destroying our cultural values!” that some complain about by suggesting such daring things as married Japanese couples having separate surnames (illegal in Japan; if both are Japanese, they must unify to one name).

Edit 2: just saw this elsewhere talking about some changes coming: https://leglobal.law/countries/japan/looking-ahead-2025-japan/

One also can’t even get a working visa to work some place like a cleaner or convenience store; those people are all on: student with parttime job permit; spouse/family/dependent; PR; and working holiday visas.