First off, what I refer to as pop-Japanology is the phenomenon of people all over the world, including scholars and otherwise reputable journalists to feel comfortable making generalizations about Japan without any fact checking. CNN has featured an article about the Sumo Bullying/Murder case that happened back in June. Arrests were made around February 8th…
woman strangles 13 year old autistic daughter Mother claims she had planned to kill herself afterwards. Does she expect some kind of sympathy or consideration for that announcement? Respect life! Powered by ScribeFire.
I have not been able to find a comment by the mother or father which might give us some perspective on the situation… but 3 months seems a little early to give up on someone. grandma imprisoned for strangling disabled grandson Powered by ScribeFire.
There have already been a lot of stories this year, but I’m just starting on this theme today… I think counting these things will help people realize how big the problem is. For the most part, I’m only counting the articles in English too. If I see a really significant one in Japanese that doesn’t…
17 year old sumo wrestler beaten to death on June 26 by his stablemaster and other senior members of the stable. The murderers were finally arrested on February 8th. The stablemaster admitted that he hit the kid with a beer bottle “to discipline him”. He had also been beaten with a baseball bat and died…
This is not a news story, but I think there may be some people reading the blog who are thinking about studying Japanese. This text book series (especially the one written in Hiragana and Katakana) is one of the best despite the name. I know that “Whatever” For Busy people sounds pretty bad, but actually…
Fukuoka Gynecologist Convicted for Molesting Patients A gynecologist? That’s pretty low. His victims were aged 26 and 16. He was acquitted of a case involving a 17 year old. The article says that he also took photos of their bodies and faces. Who can you trust? Powered by ScribeFire.
As of this writing the tainted gyoza (chinese dumpling) is unsolved. It’s not known whether the chemicals were put into the gyoza in China or Japan. Needless to say that when the story first broke, it was all about China. I blame the reactionary, business-minded media… luckily Japanese and Chinese officials are talking about the…
Obviously McDonald’s decided to appeal the ruling that said a McDonald’s manager doesn’t have enough autonomy over his own hours and the people under him to be exempt from the laws that require overtime payment. I say “obviously” because if they take this ruling, they’ll end up paying tons of yen to over a thousand…
Companies always find creative ways around paying overtime to employees. Apparently America based companies are no different… though to be fair, because of Japanese economic policies it’s hard for foreign companies to enter Japan without some kind of Japanese base. (Hence pepsi is put out by Suntory, Walmart bought into Seiyu…). Anyway, teachers are among…
The story in a nutshell… a drunk driver speeding hit a family’s wagon from behind and pushed the wagon off the road and into Hakata Bay in Fukuoka. The 3 children aged 4, 3, and 1 died from drowning. The mother and father lived. Prosecutors asked for a 25 year sentence, but the court decided…
22 Year-Old Japanese Student Believed World’s Youngest to Clone a Mouse(article in Mainichi Daily News) Hey! I don’t want any more young people cloning any more things! It’s bad enough when they have kids and then bleach their hair! What’s next, the guys going to create a bunch of pocket monsters and we’ll have a…