Hanaguma

1 hour ago, Neeranam said:

You sound like the mad Netanyahu - expecting/wanting Muslim countries to take all the Gazans. 

Your spiritual home was created last century and if they had accepted what they were given, there could have been peace, but no, continually stealing and culminating in Genocide. It would be so convenient for you if the Gazans were sent elsewhere. 

 

Since they are by and large a group of misogynistic homophobes, their fate doesn't really concern me that much. I am surprised that it concerns so many people, like you for example. Why are you willing to support people who thing being gay is a death penalty offence, where only 4% of the populace accepts homosexuality? Abortion is illegal, until recently rapists could escape punishment by marrying their victims.  The current conflict aside, people with views like these deserve nothing but contempt and scorn. 

18 minutes ago, stoner said:

 

back here now. what a different place even my hometown is. 

 

100k a year and you can probably afford an apartment in toronto. a house ? pfffft maybe in newfoundland. although the east part is being gobbled up now too. 

My sister just bought a place about 70 minutes outside of Toronto (Caledonia Ontario).  700 grand for half of a duplex. Or, you can rent a similar place on the street for $3,300 a month. Want a detached property in the same neighbourhood? 900k, on a frontage of 33ft, property depth 92 feet.  

And 6,000 a year in property tax.

58 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

Yes, they are stupid, and insane. 

You are totally irrational now. How can you have a peaceful neighbour is you keep stealing their land? 

I can only assume you have some interests in Israeli that you are hiding.

 

Since 1967, each Israeli government has invested significant resources in establishing and expanding the settlements in the Occupied Territories, both in terms of the area of land they occupy and in terms of population. As a result of this policy, approximately 380,000 Israeli citizens now live on the settlements on the West Bank, including those established in East Jerusalem (this report does not relate to the settlements in the Gaza Strip).

https://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/200205_land_grab

...which begs the question, why didn't Egypt (who controlled Gaza) or Jordan (who controlled the West Bank) bother to create any form of Palestinian state in the years between 1948 and 1967? Seems like it wasn't a priority for them, or for the Palestinians. 

There are 22 Arab countries in the world, and 56 Muslim countries. They could easily step up to the plate and help their Palestinian brothers find shelter and peace. But they don't. They want to put the responsibility on one country (population 9 million) and not on the Arabs (population 450 million) to find the answer and make concessions. 

8 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Likely they have seen the disaster visited upon countries that allow unfettered illegal and legal immigration of alien people, and want nothing to do with it.

As Japan is in the forefront of innovation, I'm sure they will invent androids in the not so distant future that will mean immigrants are not needed. In the meantime they may resort to "guest workers" like Saudi does, which means they stay as long as they have a job, then depart. I have no idea why western countries don't adopt such a policy, as letting immigrants become permanent after 5 years or so is IMO barking, and then allowing them to bring over their parents to be supported by the state is just madness.

This is happening now. There are a lot of specialized programs for targeted industries for trainees and temporary workers to come. I think now there are close to half a million Vietnamese here, more than that of Chinese, etc.  I think the difference is that Japan wants immigrants who will contribute to the country, not that requre contributions FROM it. 

4 minutes ago, Nick Carter icp said:

 

   They could encourage the local population to reproduce and have children , rather than importing people .

  Make their own people

It is being tried, believe me.  A big part of the problem is people leaving the countryside to live in urban areas that are already quite crowded.  Some towns in rural areas area actually giving away housing for young families as an incentive to move there. 

1 hour ago, Irish star said:

Well he is exactly Right 

Ya think?

I think Japan looks at places like the US and sees all the joys that immigration has brought- the crime, the drugs, the dissent, the enormous cost of caring for them, etc. and finds a better solution, that fits THEIR needs. 

People in Japan will put up with a bit of an economic hit if it means their kids can still play in the parks, the streets are clean, people can walk the streets at night, and so on.

1 hour ago, cdemundo said:

"it makes his opinions on politics about as valuable as a bucket of pee. "

 

And your opinions on politics, how shall those be valued?

 

Considering I am better educated, probably more.  Perhaps a bucket and a half.

1 hour ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Well there’s  the character assassination already.

 

Nah, he assassinated himself without much help. Like I said, back in the day he was an honest broker, trying to right some wrongs and help his kids get accepted as fully Japanese. Fair enough and good for him.  But along the way he lost the plot completely and became a crusader, hunting every nook and cranny for some perceived slight and blowing it out of proportion, He lost most of his supporters, lost his family, lost his job, and is now ironically on a work visa in the country of his birth. 

Glad Kobe was good to you, by the way. It's a great town still. And back then, not hard to find companionship...

3 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

 

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793653970/Embedded-Racism-Japan’s-Visible-Minorities-and-Racial-Discrimination-Second-Edition

And a bit about the author:

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debito_Arudou

I've met our Debito. He is American by birth, David Aldwinckle by name.  Doesn't live in Japan anymore, he left about 7 years ago as I recall. Was cheating on his wife, got divorced, then moved to the US again with his cheat partner. His daughters don't speak to him anymore.

I met him a few times at teaching conferences. He is a self entitled d!ckwad. He had a point back when he first started writing about his experiences, but went off the rails rapidly. Somewhat of a pariah in the greater 'gaijin' community here. 

7 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

While I don’t assign much weight to ‘anecdotes’ for the reasons I have frequently explained, I will describe a sequence of events from my own experience that is bang on topic. 
 

In the spring of 1997 I received my first posting to Japan I arrived in the middle of May to live and work in Kobe.

As I’m sure you are aware it was an opportunity not to be missed.
 

I was treated very well in the work place, and assigned a delightful young lady PA, who told me her job was to help me style in. That was a good start.

 

Then it got weird.

 

On day 2 she came see me with a rather concerned look on her face. I was to be taken to see the company’s lawyer. 
 

After checking my passport and asking some questions about were I was staying he said we must go to the police station.

I assumed it to be work permit/foreign resident registration issue.

 

No, it was serious. It was a murder inquiry.

 

At police station my documents were examined, I was asked the same questions about were I was staying and if I had any additional evidence of not being in Japan on May 16th. I had arrived late on the 17th.

 

Also at the police station were half a dozen other foreigners, all looking just as concerned as I obviously looked.

 

The cause of this was a schoolboy had been murdered at a nearby school and his severed head left outside the school gate.

 

My alibi was solid do back to work I went.

 

Just over a week later I was again taken back to the police station with lawyer by my side. 
 

Again question, again my same solid alibi and again other foreigners queuing for the same treatment.

 

In known to me at the time, letters written in Japanese weee arriving at newspaper publishers claiming responsibility. 
 

But the police were looking for a foreigner as the culprit. Parents with children were acting with clear fear around me and my foreign colleagues when out and about in town and I was on more than one occasion refused entry to shopping centers.

 

A month or so later the police caught the culprit, a Japanese school boy.

 

To me an experience which perfectly encapsulates the xenophobic attitudes in Japanese society - heinous crime, it must have been a foreigner.

 

The denial of xenophobia in Japanese society is very clearly nonsense.

There are xenophobes everywhere, Japan has more than its fair share.

 

Yeah, I remember that incident. It was all over the media here for ages.  Sorry you got caught up in it.  But it WAS nearly 30 years ago.  I hope the rest of your time in Kobe was better. It's a great place to live!  

9 hours ago, JonnyF said:

 

As usual he is talking absolute nonsense. 

 

Homogenous societies like Japan see far fewer issues from the "cultural enrichers" that Liberals in the west love to celebrate while quoffing champagne at their Islington dinner parties. Immigrants provide cheap labour for large multinationals at the expense of the local communities. It's clear to see which side Biden is supporting and it is not the "common man". 

 

Japan must be laughing at this silly old fool, and rightly so. 

 

We can add this ridiculous criticism of Japan to a long list of ridiculous comments made by Biden, alongside the likes of "poor kids are just as smart as white kids" and "if you vote Trump, you ain't black".

It's quite sad really. The PM of Japan only a couple of weeks ago was visiting Washington, and delivered an eloquent address to Congress, in English, lauding the US and Japan's relationship. A praiseworthy speech, especially when delivered in English, not Kishida's native language obviously. Poor Joe could never hope to do the same.

29 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Maybe this is more to your liking:

 

https://cers.leeds.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/97/2016/04/The-myth-of-“Nihonjinron”-homogeneity-of-Japan-and-its-influence-on-the-society-Kana-Yamamoto.pdf

 

 

Again, a student's work. Six pages. No footnotes. Not published anywhere except in-house at Leeds.  

Sigh.

Why are you so desperate to prove this?  Criticisms of Biden are so hurtful?

1 hour ago, Chomper Higgot said:

The fact you wish to frame the issue in terms of your own personal views on immigration is not addressing xenophobia in Japan.

 

I could do a you say I say counter argument offering up my own anecdotal accounts from having lived  and  worked in Japan, I choose rather to go to the research:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368363544_Racism_in_Japan_Critical_Analysis_on_Japan's_Xenophobia_and_Racial_Discrimination

 

Hi Chomper; 

Thank you for taking the time to "go to the research".  I just finished reading the article. Have you? It was quite illuminating. The authour is a Bangladeshi undergraduate student. I doubt he has been to Japan.  He has managed to upload 11 publications within one year. This tells me he is not exactly thorough and is trying just to pad his CV. Few actually contain footnotes or other citations. Some are less than 5 pages. None that I can see are peer reviewed, or even actually published anywhere- just uploaded directly to that website.

But if you wish to believe him, feel free. Or please tell me YOUR experience of living here. I'd actually be very interested in hearing it. 

36 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

I'm in agreement with you on that I would love to see a similar amount of anger directed toward Iran and even Russia. But the reality is that these universities do not have fortunes from their endowments invested in Iranian companies, many of them are invested in Israel and that's the argument that a lot of these students have. In addition we're not sending massive amounts of weapons to Iran that they are then turning around and using on women and children. 

 

Though I agree with your the sensibility of your argument, it is the difference between kumquats and watermelons that we're talking about. 

That's a fair point.

As for the whole 'divestment' argument, I have never been able to find out exactly what it entails.  Is it direct investment in Israel based businesses? American companies that simply do business in Israel? Because if it is the latter, I would love to see the protestors put their money where their collective mouths are.  No McDonalds for starters- , no Crocs, no Coca Cola, no Google...Mama Google alone has 2000 employees in Israel. So they had better "divest" themselves first before asking anyone else to.

2 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

Come on man! You can't be serious. 

I referred to  Gaza as a "prison" due to the restrictions on movement, goods, and services imposed by Israel and Egypt, which effectively isolate the territory from the outside world.

The blockade on Gaza, which has been tightened over the years, severely limits the flow of essential goods, including food, medicine, and construction materials, into the territory. This blockade has resulted in a dire humanitarian crisis, with widespread poverty, unemployment, and inadequate access to healthcare and education.

Gaza's population of around two million people is confined to a small area, making it one of the most densely populated territories in the world. The restrictions on movement also prevent Gazans from traveling for work, education, medical treatment, or to visit family members!

The lack of access to basic necessities and opportunities for a better life, combined with the constant threat of conflict and violence, means Gaza is an open-air prison, where residents are trapped in a cycle of despair with limited hope for a better future.

 

 

The lack you speak of is directly the fault of Hamas. Not of Israel or Egypt. 

4 minutes ago, Neeranam said:

Gaza is a prison, you know that.  I was not talking about Gaza anyway. You are good at avoiding questions. 

Since 1967 Israel has stolen a LOT OF land, don't deny it.   

 

 

From 1 week before Oct 7 -  

ongoing expansion of Israeli settlements, demolition of Palestinian structures, daily violence and continued inflammatory rhetoric by their Government representatives

 

https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15424.doc.htm

A prison? Please.

A prison with 3 star hotels, cafes, beaches, luxury homes ( but only for Hamas leaders), TripAdvisor recommended sites, AirBnB listings....

42 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

This is just another example of how angry people are towards Israel. And they anger is all around the world. By their extreme and totally disproportionate response to the Hamas attacks they have isolated themselves like never before. They are playing a very dangerous game, and Netanyahu very well may be a psychopath. 

But so many of the protesters and their ilk claim they are not anti semitic but anti zionist. If that is the case, why do they harass and assault Jewish students, most of whom are American? 

I would love to see a similar level of anger directed at Iran, which is by any measure a far worse player on the world stage, a country where human rights are routinely ignored and where minorities are murdered. 

16 minutes ago, placeholder said:

So, he's only responsible for setting back women's rights in states that have imposed severe restrictions on abortions.

Yes, exactly. And expanding their rights in states that don't want any restriction on abortion. Welcome to federalism?

Although I AM curious about what "severe restrictions" are and how many states have imposed them.  I guess you are talking about a Florida style ban after 6 weeks? 

17 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

Japan is struggling with a collapsing population unable to care for the millions of old.

 

It’s not the idyl you imagine.

 

How you got from Biden, through Japan to Islington is a mystery. 

The answer to a demographic problem is not to import millions of people from the third world.  

Care to share your thoughts and experience on how Japan is not "the idyl you imagine"?