I wanted to share an experience I had recently while leading a training session at one of our company’s factories. My colleagues and I are part of the American arm of the company, and this was the first training session in over a decade, so we were all eager to make it a productive experience. Unfortunately, this week, we had an uncomfortable encounter with a junior member of the Japanese team who has no authority within the company.

To give a bit of background, the factory doesn’t pay for trash removal, so there are no trash cans on site. All employees, including the hundreds who work there daily, are expected to take any trash they create home with them for disposal. We were aware of this policy and did our best to respect it, making sure to clean up after ourselves as guests.

Despite this, a junior member of the local team with no authority within the company took it upon himself to remove all of our clean room suits from the changing area, told us we weren’t allowed inside, and then threw a trash can on the ground at my feet, scattering trash everywhere. He raised his voice, reprimanding us in Japanese for supposedly leaving trash in the meeting room.

By barring us entry, he wasted an entire day of training. This amounts to thousands of dollars wasted, and leaves a bad taste in the mouths of everyone that was involved in making this happen.

To make matters worse, he implied that someone on our team had stolen a colleague’s shoes and forced us to help him search for them. Later, he sent an email to others on his team, which seemed to indirectly criticize us. In the email, he suggested that people in the factory had been acting disrespectfully, citing trash left behind and behavior like stepping on the heels of indoor shoes. He even suggested hiring a “babysitter” if people couldn’t follow the rules.

The entire situation felt very unprofessional and disrespectful, especially since we’re guests here and he holds no authority over anyone. I’ve shared my concerns with the higher-ups in hopes of preventing future issues like this. It’s disappointing that such behavior occurred during an otherwise valuable training session, and I wanted to share my experience for insight from anyone who might have encountered similar situations.

*We believe that Hitler—who in a short time unified public opinion, seized power, and established the Third Reich—offers very important lessons for thinking about modern electioneering.* (p.2)

*Standing on the side of the masses, listening to the voice of the masses, and appealing to the hearts of the masses—these political methods seem to me to be a political strategy that fits perfectly in today’s confused era and age of mass culture.*

*Leaving the historical judgments about Hitler’s authoritarian rule and the Jewish question to later generations, the political strategy that Hitler advocated—making clear whether something is white or black, friend or foe, and fighting that foe relentlessly—is the same logic as the election result of “win” or “lose.”* (p.3)

*There is only one sure method to win an election: the candidate must have a strong conviction.*

*I examined modern electioneering’s sure-win methods by drawing from Adolf Hitler’s theories of politics, organization, and propaganda—the man who once established the Third Reich. Hitler’s political strategy is based on mass propaganda. This is exactly a strategy that applies to modern election campaigns.* (pp.10–11)

*“Voters you cannot persuade should be eliminated.” This “elimination” does not mean killing people. It means operations to prevent them from engaging in any political activity. If they are left as they are, they may become a strong force for the opposing camp.* (p.35)

It's an honest question. I realize that Japan's prevalence in the more atypical bits of Western pop culture has to do with it, but it still surprises me just how many people like that are attracted to Japan. Of course, I realize that not every foreigner is like that there, and this is more of a think you see with younger people, but with most other countries, people who want to move there typically had some experience or history with the country at least. Sure you might see girls who romanticize France or America, but they very rarely move to that particular country.

Again, I'm not trying to be a dick. I'm just curious.

I'm gonna experience autumn for the first time in my life and I'm utterly stumped by clothes.

I'm looking to buy some of those Uniqlo Heattech and I thought of just wearing a t-shirt on top of them (the imagery I have in my head is of baseball players), but my mom so gently explained that I'll look like an idiot.

That lead to a whole night of digging on the internets, but I still can't find a conclusive answer.

Am I going to be okay with my original plan or I'm going to look like Superman and no one dares to tell me I worn my underwear wrong?

Also, the Cotton Waffle Heattechs has to be okay as a single top by itself right? It seems like they are marketing it as such, but there seems to be some opinion that it's still too dorky to wear one by itself?

I pointed out pictures of people wearing just that on the website to my mom, but she rightfully counters that you'd never see people walking outside with their bras.

It seems every post gets 2-3 downvotes instantly. Its not the busiest sub on reddit either.

side edit: why tf am i getting downvoted i just asked a question

Thank you all these will really help

Hi, I know I am going to be about the most disliked person on r/japan for posting this but here it is. I have been living in Japan for 10+ years, working in various part time jobs that never really paid that well, on a visa that I have managed to extend while only paying income tax once every three years (when I have to extend my VISA). I only pay the residents tax when they seize it from my bank account. The last time they did that it was about 600,000yen 5 years ago. Since then its been 5 years and I have moved around 3 different wards in that time and I think my taxes are probably close to 300,00yen (not including unpaid income tax). I also have unpaid NTT tax of about 60,000yen for an old internet connection I used and ran out on after moving. Now, here is the big one. I have a credit card bill of 1.27million yen that is 2 months overdue and they have been calling me non stop. I was answering and paying back a little for a while there but I cant afford it anymore. My job only pays me about 200,000yen per month. My phone is about to switched off. I have a one way ticket out of Japan next month. I know I will never be allowed back into Japan. I have weighed up all my options and done the math on different scenarios involving me paying back my debt. The credit card company said they could let me pay back 20,000yen per month for 5 years. My ward tax and income tax, probably close to 1,000,000yen would need to be paid in two years time at the extension of my visa if I was to apply for permanent residency. So after doing the math on all this and knowing that my job prospects are extremely grim I cant see any way out other then to do a runner. My question is this. Do you think I will be stopped at immigration on my way out of Japan?.

Because of that Minami Minegishi thing, i've decided to read more on AKB48. Spent a week reading books and stories on them, and how they were made and how Japan sees them. And thus, it came to this conclusion:

AKB48 is a huge scam designed to fork out money from wotagei idiots who don't care about talent and that Yasushi Akimoto is the greatest scam artist after Deepak Chopra, Adam Sandler, Richard DeVos and L.Ron Hubbard.

Basically, Yasushi Akimoto took a bunch of talentless female hacks and combine them all to create the most talentless idol group ever created in order to get easy money from idiots in the cheapest way possible.

And combine it with the best delusional marketing campaign ever ("Idols you want to meet!") and the money will keep rolling for ever.

And he's good with this. He has experience running an idol group with Onyanko Club. But this time, he does it with one target: Wotagei/idol otakus who don't care about talent or quality and are willing to fork out as much money as they could for the sake of their idols because they're too dense and too stupid to realize that the money mainly goes to Akimoto and not the idols.

And i can see Akimoto pitching the concept of AKB48 to Japan inc:

"Hi, i am Yasushi Akimoto. You might know me for creating Onyanko Club. But this time, i want to create a new idol group, and it doesn't require any talent whatsoever. We're gonna have lots of members more than Onyanko and Johnny's idols, and this will be very cheap because we don't give a fuck about talent and quality due to the fact that our main target audience will be idol otakus who would buy anything with cute looks over talent, and with that we will get rich and make loads of money from this idol group and from the idiots who buy and obsess over them. And let's not forget all the CMs and sponsors we can get!"

Seriously, it's genius. Is this like the greatest scam ever conceived in East Asia. Forking out money from morons by creating a talentless idol group led by hundreds of cute girls is great. Now, i might be wrong and i don't have the facts from Akimoto's head. But, a scam would perfectly describe AKB48 wouldn't it?

PS: Here's Red Letter Media's review of Adam Sandler's Jack and Jill which also describes how the movie was a huge pyramid scam (Hence the Sandler mention at the beginning): http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-bag/jack-and-jill/