HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: robohen@ocf.berkeley.edu (Henry Robertson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: re: racism
Date: 4 Sep 1992 20:48:51 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: sandstorm.berkeley.edu

Race, race, race!  Enter your racial background to apply to this!  Join this
other race club!  You haven't seen fractionalization until you've been
to Berkeley, man.  Take every single permutation of Cantonese, Mandarin,
Taiwanese, and Korean, and multiply it by the cross-grid of Baptist,
born-again, evangelical, Catholic, and Methodist, and wallah!  There
is a club for every single combination.  You think I'm shitting you?
Come by Sather Gate some time, and you'll see bulletin boards for all of them.
It goes to show that most people on this Earth ned to feel secure in
their little niche, whether it's based on race, religion, profession,
or whatever lese.  Racism is only one medium by which people contentify
themselves.  The root problem we are attacking here, is that people need
to be able to accept differences of every sort.

Xref: sparky soc.culture.japan:7412 soc.culture.china:24181 soc.history:7835
From: davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: What do most of Japanese think of Korean (Re: An open letter..)
Date: 24 Aug 92 00:38:46 GMT
Organization: Aegis Society, Kyoto Japan

wohfuchi@splash.Princeton.EDU (Wataru Ohfuchi) writes:

>In article <2459@aegis.or.jp> davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane) writes:

>[stuff deleted]

>>I don't know myself, but a lot of (~30) Japanese nationals have told
>>me that 'baka-chon' meant "so easy that even a stupid Korean could
>>use it." Maybe they were wrong and it doesn't mean that, but they
>>thought it did and gave it as example of how Koreans are made fun of
>>even in advertisements. 

>  My friend (see Wataru Ohfuchi's original posting) thought that way,
>too, but Mr. Tetsuya Nishimura already confirmed in a dictionary that
>it is not the case. I don't feel like using the word again, though.

Yes, I know. But dictionaries don't give *the* meaning of words,
only the way words have been used previously in general
circumstances. The meaning in any particular cicumstance depends on
many factors and IMHO it doesn't matter what dictionary says, or
doesn't say. 

For example, one commonly used expression here (being retranslated
back to English from the loan word in Japanese) is 'naive'. While my
dictionary says it means "1. having or showing natural simplicity of
nature; unsophisticated; ingenous" when I've check out what my
(American, Australian, English, New Zeland) friends think, "She's
not only beautiful but incredibly naive" means, they said it meant
that she's not only beautiful but easily seduced. Is that what
is meant in Japanese usage? (If so, I can understand how kowaii
gaijin must enjoy their life here :-)

Or, how about when you ask some young woman in your class what she
did last weekend and she says, "I had intercourse with my friends".
You say, Oh, how many? And she replies, "Oh many many!" Is she
talking about 1. dealings or communcation between individals,
groups, countries, etc.? Or 2. sexual relations. 

In short, meaning comes from words + other things like voice tone,
gesture, and common usage. Dictionaries are only useful guides, they
don't limit the meaning. 

>  So, anyway which the hell companies were they that making fun of
>Koreans in their advertisements? When? What kind of advertisements?
>Was there any criticism against the companies? Would you kindly report
>on it, Mr. Dave McLane? (I hope you're still on vacation and have
>enough time to do some homework, De-bu. ;-)

Sorry, I don't know. I'll check it out and get back to you later.

Dave

--
Dave McLane 
JUNET: davidg@aegis.or.jp (ONLY within Japan: post otherwise)
Nagaokakyoshi, Kyoto Japan Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087
From: umsalte2@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Daniel Saltel)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: OFFENSIVE MESSAGES
Date: 2 Sep 92 15:34:10 GMT
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada

Somebody has got into my user-id and has sent offensive messages.
I am sorry that this has happened.
This has been very upsetting.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
From: luke@wombat.ee.byu.edu (David Luke)
Subject: Re: for the short term traveller in Japan
Organization: Brigham Young University, Provo UT USA
Date: 31 Aug 92 13:17:26

In article <1992Aug27.010027.24211@westford.ccur.com> hank@westford.ccur.com (Hank Cohen) writes:
>In article <1992Aug26.012941.26715@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> cb522@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Cathy Atwood) writes:
>>
>>Assuming you are in a city--I've found that department stores
>>are a great place to convert (yen) traveller's checks to cash.
>
>Perhaps but you will almost certainly get a better rate at a bank.
>Unlike the US any Japanese bank will do US$ to Yen conversion.  If you
>absolutely have to convert money on the weekend most hotels will also
>do it.

FYI, here are the conversion rates for August 24:

Banks in Tokyo:

                  Y->$            $->Y
	TC:	126.25		124.25
        Cash:	128.25		122.25

Banks @ Narita:

	TC:	126.25		123.95
	Cash:	128.25		122.25

Window @ LAX:

	Cash:	136.74		117.03

The moral of the story is: TC give you about Y2/$ better rates -- for every
dollar you change, you get two extra yen (or, the other way, every dollar
costs you Y2 less).  Banks in Tokyo are slightly better than those at Narita
for cash $ -> Y.  And avoid the exchanges at LAX!  It costs you 5-10 yen/
dollar, which is 4% to 8% you're losing.

Incidentally, changing yen to dollars cash is somewhat iffy -- I tried three
banks, none of which actually had any cash dollars on hand.  (Sumitomo,
Mitsubishi, and Fuji).  Sanwa did have cash available, and actually Mitsubishi
did too, but only in $500 packs.

If you're bring a large sum of money, you might consider a wire transfer.
Of course, this requires accounts at banks in both countries.  Transfers
Japan -> US run about Y4500, which is around $36.  TC cost around 1% to buy,
so for amounts larger than $3600, a transfer is cheaper.  And saves having to
sign dozens of TC twice each.

-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  David Luke                      "There's nothing worse than a brilliant     |
|  luke@wombat.ee.byu.edu           image of a fuzzy concept."                 |
|                                                               -- Ansel Adams |
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
From: u2105545@aix00.csd.unsw.OZ.AU (Shigetoh Kumagai)
Subject: Re: What did Akihito do during the war
Summary: akihito's age
Organization: University of New South Wales
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 12:43:45 GMT

In article <5149@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP>, hnkst2+@pitt.edu (Hanhwe N Kim) writes:
> Just a quick question:
> I heard that Akihito is around 70, which makes him in his
> early 20's by the 1940's. What did he do during the war and
> afterwards?
> -Han Kim

He was born in 1933, so at 1940 he was 16 or 17.

--
Shigetoh SARIRI Kumagai($@$/$^$,$$(J $@$7$2$H$r(J)   shk@newt.phys.unsw.edu.au
					   u2105545@cumulus.csd.unsw.oz.au
							(@@)         
A member of OzNeXT; A member of UNSWARS;		  >
From: djohnson@cs.ucsd.edu (Darin Johnson)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: Tofu Sushi ?
Date: 1 Sep 92 01:06:14 GMT
Organization: =CSE Dept., U.C. San Diego

>"How would you know you don't like it if you never ... blah blah."

Well, how would you know you didn't like fried grubs if you never try
them?  It's not a matter of *trying* something, it's a matter of
getting up enough courage to try without being so tense as to not even
taste it...  Raw hamburger was ok with me - but then, it was a much
cheaper experiment too...  Besides, sushi is too upscale/yuppie for
me.

-- 
Darin Johnson
djohnson@ucsd.edu
  - Luxury!  In MY day, we had to make do with 5 bytes of swap...
From: harkcom@spinach.pa.yokogawa.co.jp (Alton Harkcom)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: registering marriages
Date: 1 Sep 92 23:32:40 GMT
Organization: Yokogawa Electric Corporation, Tokyo, Japan
In-reply-to: corbet@sargon.psu.edu's message of 28 Aug 92 23:37:50 GMT

The following answers come from a book on international marriages.

In article <BtpwB2.Izt@cs.psu.edu> corbet@sargon.psu.edu (Robin Corbet) writes:

 =}I recently got married to a Japanese citizen (I'm British). We think
 =}that we may have to register our marriage at the Japanese consulate in
 =}New York.

   According to Japanese law, marriages in the US must be register with
a Japanese consul within 90 days of the marriage.

 =}My wife and I are wondering what is implied by this and what would
 =}happen if we didn't register our marriage!

   There doesn't seem to be any penalty for not registering.  My guess would
be that you couldn't register with a consul after that so you would have to
come to Japan to get it registered.  This might cause visa hassles when you
try to do so.

 =} For example, I believe that
 =}couples in Japan are not allowed to have different last names. My wife
 =}is thinking about keeping her last name, so if we have to register under
 =}one name this may cause problems.

   Under Japanese law, the Japanese national must start a new family
register under their Japanese name.  However, the Japanese national can
change their name within 6 months.  It doesn't say whether that is six
months from the marriage or six months from the registration though.
So by default, you would have seperate names when registering.

 =}However, if we do register, would this
 =}make it easier for me to visit (even work in) Japan for long periods of
 =}time?

   For long term visits (and working) a spouse visa makes life a whole
lot easier.  To get this visa one must register their marriage.  And
apparently every time one registers for a spouse visa the length of the
visa is extended.  So having a history of spouse visas could save the
yearly immigration hassle.  The book does not say whether these extensions
apply if there are long absences from Japan though...

   For short term visits a spouse visa might be more of a hassle than a
tourist visa.  It may be possible to get a tourist visa even though you
are a spouse though.  The only way to find out is to contact the consul
near you as it seems to vary greatly between consuls...

 =}We'd appreciate hearing from any other mixed-nationality couples
 =}who have gone through the registration process.

   If there is enough interest, I can post the titles of some books
on international marriage with respect to Japan.  All of the books are
in Japanese...  Please email requests for the titles to me and if there
are enough requests I'll post the titles.  If not, I'll just email them.
From: davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: History of Japan's Military Excursions in China
Date: 28 Aug 92 15:00:06 GMT
Organization: Aegis Society, Kyoto Japan

TOGE@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Nobukazu Toge) writes:

>I may be mistaken, but my understanding of what Dave McLane said is
>that there *were* Japanese (many? I don't know) who *said* *back* *then*
>that Japan was invited by some Chinese to "advance" (it's the word by
>those Japanese, not mine) into the continent.

Sorry, but no. I am saying that there are Japanese *now*, today,
that say that no apology is necessary to the current Chinese
government because it was they (as rebels) who invited JIA into
China to help defeat the nationalists.

Whether the people I am referring to are representative of a larger
group, I hesitate to say: on one hand it could be only them that
believe this; on the other hand there could be many who feel
likewise but who won't say so in public. I have no idea either way.

>If you try to find materials that would substantiate that -MANY- Chinese
>wanted Japanese to come, I would imagine that will be very, very hard.

[* details omitted *]

Evidence is not necessary for belief and I think that what we are
seeing here is a well developed belief->opinion system and not a
well thought-out evidence->opinion system. 

Perhaps others have had more luck that I have in getting past this
(wouldn't take much, I've had no luck at all :-) The two main
strategies are: "You don't understand Japan/Japanese/whatever" and
[silence]. One might be tempted to continue in the face of the
first, but in my experience it means the same as the other. 

So I gave up on trying to discuss things as in presenting evidence
so perhaps a new opinion could be formed (by both myself and the
people I talk with). Instead, I just accept what is said as an
incontrovertible belief. 

Saves wear and tear on both the brain and emotions. 

Dave

--
Dave McLane 
JUNET: davidg@aegis.or.jp (ONLY within Japan: post otherwise)
Nagaokakyoshi, Kyoto Japan Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087
From: yoichi@milton.u.washington.edu (Yoichi Ii)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: International Travel (Was: Phobia)
Date: 30 Aug 92 00:56:41 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Aug30.005641.29168
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle

In article <2523@aegis.or.jp> davidg@aegis.or.jp (Dave McLane) writes:
>I've heard another explanation for this as well: if you plan your
>own trip and something goes wrong, you have only yourself to blame.
>But if you let somebody else do it, then you can complain about
>them!

I don't know about this one. I've never taken a organized tour but
the way I understand it, the main reasons for its popularity are:
 1. Cheap.  Since hotel rooms and airplane seats are booked in 
    large blocks, the total cost of travel is much less than if 
    you travelled on your own.
 2. Easy. Don't have to arrange for transportation, lodging, etc.
 3. Safe. If something should happen, a good tour organizer has
    some type of contingency plan.
There are tons and tons of magazines describing which tour is good/bad/
cheap etc. If you happened to pick a bad tour, it's your fault. I don't 
think anyone takes a gamble with an unkown just so he can enjoy 
complaining :-)

I would also add that some people have two different modes of travel.
First is the organized tour metioned above. You look around and note
which site was interesting/good/beautiful etc. That is, you can use
this mode to do "shitami" (take an initial look-around). In the second 
mode you go to the locations chosen in the first mode. This time you go
alone and try to enjoy the local environment w/o disturbance from 
back home (like seeing bunch of other Japanese).  Many Japanese are
so well travelled now that many prefer not seeing other Japanese.

>One might be tempted to think that this is why Japan's goverment
>tends to respond to "foreign pressure" rather than have any definite
>plan of it's own. Only an idea :-)

I have problem with the travel portion of your article, but I agree
about foreign pressure working (but for a different reason). As one of 
the Japanese poster mentioned, many in the Japanese govn't are probably 
smart enough to recognize impending (or current) problems but don't want 
to be the first to point it out. Foreign pressure conveniently solves 
this problem, as one doing the pointing is the foreign govn't. Maybe
I'm giving them too much credit :-), but when you look at the track
record of MITI, etc, I think the talent is there, courage to speak up
may not be.
From: rbyrnes@alsvid.une.edu.au (Rod Byrnes)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Television survey
Date: 28 Aug 92 11:21:36 GMT
Organization: University of New England - Northern Rivers (Lismore)

Hi. If anyone out there would like to do something wonderfully helpful, 
then I'd appreciate your assistance with a research assignment I have to
do. I have drafted five fairly simple questions about Japanese TV and 
film watching habits, and how they differ from those of westerners. If you
have any knowledge of these things (especially if you are Japanese or live
in Japan, but everything gratefully accepted) please jot down your thoughts
beside the questions and email it back to me. Feel free to adapt these 
questions if you feel you can give a more meaningful or personal answer. 
(i.e. for Q1, hou much TV do YOU watch each day!). Just let me know how 
you've interpreted them. This survey is entirely confidential. No names or 
email addresses will be revealed.

Thank you! Here are the questions...

Q1. What is the average amount of TV a japanese child watches per day? A
    Japanese adult?

Q2. Are American movies popular in Japan? Are they dubbed? If so what are
    the most popular American movies of recent times?

Q3. What are the most popular Japanese movies of recent times?

Q4. In what ways do Japanese films differ from American films?

Q5. What are the most common network programs?



-- 
Rod Byrnes  Internet:  rbyrnes@alsvid.une.edu.au   Phone:  +61 66 891067
    University of New England, Northern Rivers (Lismore) NSW Australia
From: blamb@rodan.hri.com (Bill Lambert)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Security (was: Addresses in the from line
Date: 3 Sep 92 15:12:41 GMT
Reply-To: blamb@rodan.hri.com (Bill Lambert)
Organization: Horizon Research

In article <SMITTIE.92Sep2191003@beach.csulb.edu>, smittie@beach.csulb.edu
(Smittie) writes:
> We recently had a similar incident here at CSULB. A friend of mine noticed a
> post to I believe this newsgroup which had his address on the "Sender:" line.
> The person who wrote the post had signed it and so a message was sent to his 
> sysadmin but nothing more has been said. The person who actually
posted the msg
> is not even in the same state and therefore could not possibly have used a
> machine that my friend was signed on to. 

Some organizations that are sensitive about security and unauthorized
computer usage have made some efforts to inform their users how easy
it is to crack passwords. One such study found that around 60% of user
id's and passwords can be found using very simple techniques such as
matching dictionary entries that include common names.

A few simple recommendations.... passwords should be at least 8 or more
characters in length, and not contain sequences of letters that are
common words or names, either forward or backwards. In no case should
the user id and password be the same, and a password should have no
relationship to the name of the user id.

But.... sometimes I wish I could blame someone else for something I
wrote :-)

- Bill Lambert
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan,soc.culture.china,soc.culture.hongkong,soc.culture.taiwan
From: fester@island.COM (Mike Fester)
Subject: Re: A ? about textbooks -- was (Re: An open letter to the Emperor Akihito of Japa)
Keywords: textbook, truth, source?
Organization: /usr/local/rn/organization
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 15:19:10 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.224719.18778@physics.ucla.edu> aoki@physics.ucla.edu (ken aoki) writes:
>>Japanese politicians are too ashamed to admit the war crimes by their predecessors. They
>>only rewrote their history textbook that Japan "entered and exited" China. A few years
>>later they will probably say "China started the war then Japan fought back by entering
>>and exiting China".

>The only non-incident I can remember is around 12 years or so ago
>where there was a big news that got into the major Japaneese papers
>that out of the 7 textbooks or so they had inspected
>one of them had changed 'invasion (shin-ryaku) into China' 
>to 'intrusion (shin-nyu)' under govt pressure. 
>(Other books, if my memory is OK, used 'invasion')
>A little while later, the newspaper I saw stated that 
>the particular textbook had always used 'intrusion' so there
>was no change. The story was that the press club had alotted
>various textbooks to various reporters and one of them had goofed.

>Is this the story people are referring to or something else?
>Or am I taking the word 'rewrote' too literally?
>Don't get me wrong; the Japanese textbooks sure do have problems
>and government censoring is a biiiiiig problem (at least in history
>texts).  However, I am curious and more importantly,
>I would like the discussions, arguments and flames to be based on truths.

>Also Mr. Chang, for instance, seems to suggest that it is an ongoing
>thing. I have never heard about things like that since then. 
>It would have gotten major press, I think.
>Has anything happened recently?

I believe ther eis ongoing pressure and fighting about the textbooks, but that's
all I've really heard.

>So many things have been said about Japanese textbooks
>that I find hard to believe. I wish I had a textbook with me
>but I don't.

>Since there are so many people who say this, there are probably
>some people who have a concrete source. 

There was also a case (or perhaps a different aspect of the SAME case) that
the author of one of the books sued the government because they changed the 
book he wrote without his permission. This case stemmed from around the same
time you refer to above, so it may infact have been the same case. The court
ruled (LAST year!) that since the statute of limitations had run out, the
author was entitled to no compensation. This is, as I understand it, a fairly
common type of ruling for Japanese courts; delay the final judgement for
15 - 20 years then cite the SOL. 

Anyway, I heard the final ruling on NHK about 4 months ago.

Mike
-- 
Disclaimer - I'm only doing what the little voices tell me to do. 
Xref: sparky soc.culture.japan:7499 soc.culture.china:24372 soc.culture.hongkong:10298 soc.culture.taiwan:12646
From: shin@krusty.ee.udel.edu (Jeong-Gyun Shin)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan,soc.culture.china,soc.culture.hongkong,soc.culture.taiwan
Subject: Re: An open letter to the Emperor Akihito of Japa
Date: 31 Aug 92 16:36:24 GMT
Organization: University of Delaware

In article <1992Aug25.230222.3257@ducvax.auburn.edu> kim@magneto.physics.auburn.edu (Han-jung Kim) writes:
> Someday after The old generation of Japan dies, I see that new and 
>desirable Japan will give its fresh appearance, because I belive new 
>generation has the healthy and kind and open mind as well as
>korean has.

I have neither time nor patience to read all of all articles, but stick to
facts and only facts, and everything else is speculation full of if and then.
What Korea or China or any other country may come to do in future is another
thread.  When Japan's old generation dies, then Korea and China, among others,
will be left with incorrect historical statements by Japan (last one was that
Japan could not determine how comfort girls were taken to their fate).
Time for renewal of good friendship, open mindness etc deserves whole new 
thread, but when it comes to accounting what has to be accounted, then do it 
right, and don't confuse issues.