tiredofsametab

The existing rail network is already pretty jammed on a lot of lines. Cargo does run at night (mostly) on other rail lines, but night is when maintenance is also done (we don’t really have any 24-hour trains here except on special occasions and I think none of those even since corona). The safety record here does come with a cost in that sense; the checks, maintenance, and construction all occur at night with freight running around that.

If they are adding this in the middle of the expressways, the land is already acquired. It probably takes less infrastructure to do this than putting in rails would involved. I also doubt it would be to code for rails since there needs to be room to get passengers off in the case of emergency, etc. Zooming in on 35.698190871019335, 139.75230458261458 in Tokyo does show there isn’t even really any room between lanes, though, and it’s not different up where I live a few hundred KM north so I’m not exactly sure what the play is. All expressways are paid today and the tolls were supposed to go away eventually, but they never will if the construction never ends (and it never ends).

I think it does have some cargo space, but not enough to matter in any significant way. IIRC it’s mostly just mail and parcels, but I might be mis-remembering.

I live on the ENEstern cost of the main island of Japan and the rain this year was crazy due in no small part to typhoons (and their remanents) either heading up the east (pacific) coast or crossing over from the west coast.

From ermikron-perseii 8?

We might really need an age limit if he’s running again 52 years

Mine have all given up. I’ve always entertained the idea of adopting later (I had a vasectomy at 35 with no children prior for a number of reasons), but it’s looking less and less realistic as I creep closer to 50.

You realize that birth control, plan B, and abortions are very much a thing here, right? These “we need them to drink so we can impregnate them” posts always creep me out a bit.

Japan? Liberal Paradise? Since when???

My thoughts exactly. It is left of the US on a few things like social safety net and healthcare, but mostly the same (which, compared to much of the western world is still quite far to the right).

hating of foreigners, especially gaijin

Wat? What do you think that word means?

would be fairly ostracized unless they spoke perfect Japanese.

Source?

There are growing trends in the youth, but their conservative patriarchy is still holding strong for now.

Getting them to vote would help. Obviously anecdotal, but a lot of young adults I knew didn’t vote.

I’m from the US and have been living in Japan almost a decade. I don’t speak perfect Japanese by any stretch, but I can generally handle myself unless we get into certain medical jargon or legalese. I own a house and a small farm. Your premise on being ostracized is false, however; racists gonna racist so policies or people that exclude others aren’t generally going to give a shit if the person speaks flawless Japanese. On the other hand, I think the internet has a kinda warped view of what living here is like and how foreigners are treated. There is racism, particularly in trying to get an apartment. I’ve also been treated like a normal person more than I’ve ever been treated like some outside or zoo exhibition.

We definitely have issues with alcoholism here. I think part of it is that a ton of small businesses (as well as larger ones) are ones that survive on alcohol revenue. I remember when I lived in the US, a lot of bars and breweries would fight legalization claiming it would hurt their business. I think they are stuck in the mindset that no one will leave the house or something, but that’s just speculation on my part.

While Japan’s suicide rate isn’t the lowest, the rate in the US (where you live per your comment response) is HIGHER than here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

I also don’t understand how you get Nazi from Japan. Japan is both left and right of the US on a number of issues (though being left of the US position in some things isn’t a high bar). Do I like the government here? Not particularly (and neither that of the US as both make some pretty bone-headed decisions in my opinion). Is it a Nazi hellscape? Absolutely not.

I’m originally from the US and have been living in Japan for just under a decade. I have universal healthcare (including dentistry and vision), own a home, run a small farm, and have amazing neighbors who largely treat me like anyone else (wherever you are in the world, there’s always that one person). I have good worker’s rights as a full company employee and more legally guaranteed leave than the US (and yes we’re allowed to use it).

The h in after O in names was some choice to try to denote oo or ou in japanese (long vowel for those that don’t know) so at least that kinda makes sense (I’m not sure if any modern transcription system officially uses it).

Katakana is certainly limited, but they can’t just add new sounds to the language and such easily. Older speakers can’t even say ‘v’ as in violin in most cases. Younger generations generally can (but a DVD is still a dee bui Dee or even a day bui day in some speakers).

“I was happy when the governor said ‘oishi’,”

It’s ‘oishii’, CBS. Just because English no longer cares about vowels doesn’t mean Japanese doesn’t. Oishi is proper name (big rock or little rock depending upon the kanji)

Point being is that it is so ingrained into their society

Kinda. Doing that would actually run them into legal problems in recent days due to cracking down on working conditions. If an employee works without clocking in, they could even be found in violation of law (which is how people used to get around that; social pressure would mean clocking in late and clocking out early yet still working). There is still a social pressure issue to fix, but I think the younger generation has had enough of it on this front; wages are stagnant, inflation is rising, the lifetime employment system is eroding, bonuses are low or gone, etc.

A real struggle is couples finding daycare, especially when a lot of them are crammed into the same area chasing jobs. Remote and other things would also do a lot to help this.

That’s (every day of every week) actually illegal in most circumstances with labor law. There’s a bit of nuance and edge cases, but this would be super illegal for the average employee to have to do and the government has been getting more strict about it.

Well, it probably says something that I read about this here rather than getting it from my company, heh. That said, we are fully remote and flex time for at least a lot of the engineering side.

It’s how I read it as well and we do have some cults here so my mind went to a Jonestown type of situation.

I was never into her or her content (IIRC, she wasn’t making anything that caught my attention), so this was more of a general question (hence ‘person or thing’ in my question) rather than specific to her situation.

a sign of fickle Western users like myself before doing

So if someone is into a person or thing at a point, they can never become not interested in that thing? I’m confused by the message here.

Fun fact: corn dogs are called アメリカンドッグ in Japanese, which means “American Dog”.