HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ilsa@netcom.com (Ilsa VanHook)
Subject: Re: Days of the Week in Japanese and Korean
Organization: Shonen Knife Fan Club
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 18:41:05 GMT

(Maiko Covington) writes:
>
>	Where did the "nitiyoubi"/"ilyongil" way of saying the days of the
>week originate? 

Good question!  I'd never noticed before, but they're named after the
planets they correspond to in classical western myth & mysticism:

planet    spanish   japanese  english  norse gods
------    -------   --------  -------  ----------
sun       domingo   nichi     sun      
moon      lunes     getsu     mon
mars      martes    ka        tues     tiw
mercury   miercoles sui       wednes   wotan or woden
jupiter   jueves    moku      thurs    thor
venus     viernes   kin       fri      freya or frigga
saturn    sabado    do        satur

Cool.  (Spanish is in there because it's the only Romance language i know at
all.)  When was the western calendar introduced to Japan & Korea?
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
From: miklg@acuson.com (Michael Goldman )
Subject: Re: SEXISM IN JAPANESE WORKPLACE!!!!
Organization: Acuson; Mountain View, California
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 15:12:55 GMT


	There exists a stereotype that Japanese women leave the work
	force after marrying and stay at home all the time forever
	after.  This is false as the data below will show.  Japanese
	women work about as much as their western sisters in other
	industrialized countries.  In the child-rearing years they work
	about as much as West German women, more than Italian women,
	and a little less than US, French, and UK women.  After 55,
	they work more than any women other than Swedish women.


	Labor Force Participation - 1988, UN statistics
	-----------------------------------------------
	
	Country		Age 20-24	Age 25-54	Age 55-64	65+
			M%-F%		M%-F%		M%-F%		M%-F%
	-------		---------	---------	---------	----
	US		85-73		93-73		66-43		16-7
	France----------71-61-----------96-71-----------47-32-----------5-2
	Italy		70-63		91-48		37-10		8-2
       *Japan-----------71-74-----------97-62-----------82-45-----------36-16
	Sweden		84-81		95-91		75-65		14-19
	UK--------------86-70-----------94-70-----------68-37-----------8-3
	West Germany	81-76		94-61		60-25		5-2


	I never cease to be amazed at the ability of people to maintain
	stereotypes despite the evidence of their own eyes.  The
	stereotype that all Japanese work in salaried office positions
	for big cartel cos. is false.  If those who have been to Japan
	will look about them, they will realize that the factories
	don't run by themselves, _someone_ is driving taxis, waiting on
	them in stores and restaurants, driving trucks, fixing autos,
	teaching in schools, etc., etc.  Many jobs are held by
	women who work because their men are NOT engineers and the
	family can't survive without two incomes.

	The total number of those working in science and engineering in
	the US and Japan is about the same at roughly 3% of the total
	workforce.  On the net, computer types are over-represented.

	One way in which Japan does differ from other industrialized
	countries is that women earn 52% of what men do.  Everywhere
	else it varies from 94% (Sweden) to about 74% (US).  (UN stats
	again).

	- Michael Goldman

-- 
"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have
exhausted all other alternatives." - Abba Eban
	Disclaimer:  All views are solely my own & not the views of Acuson.
	<sun!sono!miklg>  or  [miklg@acuson.com]
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
From: underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe)
Subject: Re: Comfort girls?
Keywords: rape of nangking
Organization: Miners for a Heart of Gold
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 92 21:48:52 GMT

In article <1992Dec28.143403.8912@cbnewsh.cb.att.com> bgt@cbnewsh.cb.att.com
(barbara.tongue) writes:
>folks, ...
>i'm interested in knowing all sides of the issues.  any information
>is greatly appreciated.  does japan teach its students about this
>period of time [WWII]?  does china?  what is the "official" story from both
>sides?

The Japanese gov't does not authorize history books to lie about WWII;
instead, certain events in the war are simply not mentioned.  Some
examples off the top of my head are the massacre in Nanjing, the
biological experiments, etc.

On the other hand, the Chinese gov't has gone to great lengths to
verbally crucify the Japanese gov't and Japanese people in Chinese
textbooks of WWII, even to the point of exaggerating facts.  Case in
point:  massacre in Nanjing.  There is considerable dispute as to the
number of people actually killed, but the Chinese insist on 200,000
deaths.  The American tribunal in Japan at the end of the war officially
concluded that only 20,000 were killed.  (I am more inclined to believe
the American side.)

(In fact, if you look up the massacre (in Nanjing) in Encyclopedia
Britannica, you will find that it lists the figure to be 20,000 -
200,000.  In other words, don't believe the Chinese claims.)

Curiously, Chinese textbooks, vindictive as they might be toward the
Japanese, never mention the 75 million (and more) people that the Chinese
have killed in this century.  There is no mention of the Tibetans that
were murdered.[1]  There is no mention of the 20,000 Taiwanese murdered by the
Kuomitang (KMT).  There is no mention ...  Well, you get the picture.

It's curious that although the same number of people were killed 
(in Taiwan) by the Chinese and (in Nanjing) by the Japanese, the Chinese
textbooks are silent are the former and maniacal on the latter.

[1] According to the December 26, 1992 (plus or minus a day) edition of
the San Francisco Chronicle, 10 Tibetans have just been sentenced to
5-to-9 years of prison by a Chinese tribunal.  They have been accused
of crimes against the state.  1 of the prisoners is a commoner who
believed in Buddhism.

The other 9 are Buddhist monks and priests!!
------------------------------------------------------------------+------------
Jinsei no imi wa nan desu ka.                Sister, can you      |   \|  |`
Shitte itara oshiete kuremasen ka.           spare a coin?        |    | -+-
                                                                  |   /| / \
Copyright 1992.  Disclaimer:  1 + 1 = 3                           |
------------------------------------------------------------------+------------
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
From: rhb@world.std.com (Robert H Brueckner)
Subject: Re: Not a Myth at All
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 15:49:39 GMT

[LOTS OF POINTS, GOOD AND BAD, LOTS OF ANGER, FRIENDSHIP,
REASONABLENESS AND UNREASONABLENESS DELETED]

I feel some responsibility in having started this thread going, and I
have to say my intention was not to provoke a race war. When I
mentioned the difficulty of getting Nihonjin to speak with me in
Nihongo, it was not to say they don't have reasons for wanting to do
this, or that they owed me lessons, or whatever. I simply meant that
it is a frustration when trying to learn a language not to be able to
converse in it with natives as I have with my other language, German.
There I was able to progress from textbook-and-tape knowledge to a
relative fluency over a short period of time simply by talking to
people in bars, on street corners, on trains, etc. If I spoke German
to them, they spoke German to me, and if I didn't get what they were
saying right away I wouldn't pester them to repeat things, I would
just try to catch the flow. This is the only way, I think, you can
really become good at a language, because you don't learn to think in
it unless you let it flow like that. You have to move from the
"this-word-means-this, the-next-word-means-that" kind of translation
to an appreciation of the spoken statement in its context, so that you
are learning to *experience* things in another language. I don't know
if that's the best way to put it, but it points to something
fundamental about language-learning I have noted. When I would try to
describe some things about my stay in Germany to other people I
sometimes had trouble discussing the things in English because I
*experienced* them in German, thinking of them and conversing with
German words, syntax, etc. It is this kind of experience that I don't
think you can get in Japan without a proper introduction to people,
and a proper setting (to the Japanese mind). I'm not making a value
judgment based on race. Only expressing a benign (I hope) frustration.

On the other hand, I would like to note that after my post, several
kind Japanese individuals emailed me inviting me to correspond with
them via romaji on the Internet in Japanese. More, I am sorry to say,
than I have had time to keep up with in this busy period before
Christmas. So be careful what you wish for, for you shall have it!

RB

-- 
|"The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who  |
| have loved it." -- George Santayana  // Opinions expressed here, when |
| clear and persuasive, are my own. --Rob Brueckner (rhb@world.std.com) |

Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan,soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.african.american,sci.electronics,misc.consumers,misc.education,misc.entrepreneurs
From: underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe)
Subject: Re: DOES AMERICA SAY YES TO JAPAN? - Off track!!
Organization: Miners for a Heart of Gold
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 01:43:37 GMT

In article <1992Dec19.000030.9064@informix.com> proberts@informix.com
(Paul Roberts) writes:
>In article <1992Dec17.151058.20274@oakhill.sps.mot.com>
>rvkl60@aus18a25.sps.mot.com (Tom Mathes) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec17.085537.11269@leland.Stanford.EDU>
>underdog@leland.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe) writes:
>>>President Clinton should send a formal request to Japan, demanding that
>>>formal and/or informal barriers to trade be removed.  No more $24,000
>>>Pontiac Grand Ams in Japan.  If they don't comply within 30 days, there
>>>will be
>>>an across-the-board 10% additional tariff that will slapped on all Japanese
>>>imports for _each_ month that there is no compliance.
>>Nicely put Mr. Joe.  
>I can see that there is lots of enthusiasm for America getting what it 
>wnats in the world by sheer bullying, but doesn't it occur to you that
>this tactic works well only against weak countries?

Bullying suggests the use of military force to achieve greedy objectives.
Most nations, including Japan and the USA, believe in national sovereignty.
The USA is not obligated to open its markets up to Japan, and Japan is
not obligated to open its markets to the USA.

If Japan expects to continute to sell its products, unhindered, in the
USA, then we expect reciprocal treatment of our products in Japan
(and Europe as well).  Unfortunately, Japan is not currently doing so.

They have a right to restrict our products.  We also have a right to restrict
their products.  (I don't know how to state this any simpler.)

>What do you do when Japan responds to your 10%, 10%, 10% tariffs by
>failing to show up to one month's T-bill auction, and the US immediately
>goes bankrupt?

This question suggests that the US is currently in Japan's stranglehold.
"If we do this, then they do this.  No matter how you cut it, we lose.
So, we'd better not do a thing."

This implies that we are already _permanently_ up the creek, and there's
nothing that we can do about it.  Wrong!

Anyhow, it would be great if Japan does not show up for the T-bill
auction.  Let's suppose that this happens.  What does this me?
It means that the U.S. gov't must balance it's budget for the first time
in 20+ years.

Sounds good to me.

------------------------------------------------------------------+------------
Jinsei no imi wa nan desu ka.                Sister, can you      |   \|  |`
Shitte itara oshiete kuremasen ka.           spare a coin?        |    | -+-
                                                                  |   /| / \
Copyright 1992, 1993    Disclaimer:  1 + 1 = 3                    |
------------------------------------------------------------------+------------
From: masuda@fcs280b.ncifcrf.gov (Michiaki Masuda)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: SEXISM IN JAPANESE WORKPLACE!!!!
Date: 22 Dec 92 23:43:28 GMT
Organization: Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center

In article <1992Dec21.190036.1892@news.cs.brandeis.edu> st911293@pip.cc.brandeis.edu writes:
>In article <BzKy05.3Lz@jrd.dec.com>, doi@jrd.dec.com (Hitoshi Doi) writes:
>>In article <BzJ4Av.353@CAM.ORG>, cheung@CAM.ORG (Shirley Cheung) writes:
.....
>># I wonder how
>># long will the Japanse society take to match the same level of equality as
>># in North America.

>>Who says equality is good?

> I wonder if you would
>put such a rhetorical question if there were more Japanese
>women on the net. Maybe you feel safe to do so because there
>*are* so few with access to the privileges you have.

  Hey, hey. Give him a break. Even though he occasionally posts some
anti-Giants message because there don't seem to be many Giants fans
here B-), I don't believe that his questions in his previous posting were 
based on an assumption that there are only few female netters. I understood
that his questions were just meant to be a catalyst to extract opinions
from more netters including Japanese female netters who do not usually
participate in the discussion.

>In any case, I find it personally hard to believe that Japanese
>women as a category would be so different from women in general

   I also find it personally hard to believe that Japanese men as a
category would be so different from men in general.

>>Who says Japanese women want to be equal..

   Good point. It seems to me that there are quite a few Japanese women
who are more interested in becoming a housewife than persuing a professional
career. However, in some case, the "equality" movement is pushed further
to a level that it claims that a professional career is more respectable
than and superior to a life as a housewife.

--Michiaki
From: jcliu@four-lab4.Berkeley.EDU (James C. Liu)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: brainwashed
Date: 28 Dec 1992 20:32:47 GMT
Organization: UC Berkeley Dept. of Nuclear Engineering
NNTP-Posting-Host: four-lab4.berkeley.edu

In article <1hnhtkINNbqt@shelley.u.washington.edu> yoichi@carson.u.
washington.edu (Yoichi Ii) writes:

  >Whats-her-face on the Fuji network news certainly does not take 
  >any back seat to her male co-anchor.  In fact, she tend to have
  >more commanding prescence.  Also she's no less than a Berkeley 
  >grad extraordinaire, Liu-san :-)  She looked great reporting from 
  >the field during the Persian Gulf situation.
  >
  >Unfortunately, she hasn't done the "American thang", yet.  I believe
  >she's still single.

I almost forgot completely about her...:-) whats-her-face...But I have
my new Moritaka Chisato Poster Calendar.  Chisa-chan no hoo ga kirei da
to omou.  

Jaa, James
=======================================================================
James C. Liu |    KARAOKE Addict!     Karaoke: You're the STAR!!!!    |
             |    Wanna go? Need someone who sings worse than you do? |
             |    Know about a cool karaoke bar? send e-mail          |
=======================================================================
From: wkg0258@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (KUSUMOTO Wakako)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Re: Japanese student seeks school apology for harrassment
Date: 22 Dec 1992 04:20:41 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

dali@stein.u.washington.edu (David A. Lee) writes:

>Sarcasm intended, I am tired of the attitudes Japanese have about
>the outside world.  It's worse than the segregation between
>blacks and whites that existed in the United States through the
>1950s.

> [the article from the newsgroup, clari.news.children deleted.]


Why don't you take a look at the _Japan's 'International Youth': The
Emergence of a New Class of Schoolchildren_ by Roger Goodman (New York:
Clarendon Press/Oxford, 1990).  It will give you different views on the
subject.  It is a study of kikokushijo (Japanese returnee schoolchildren),
which challenges the prevailing view (due mainly to the media's hype) that
they are victims of discrimination in their own country.  

It won't be your loss to be a little more careful and considerate when you
discuss one society and people.  Also, it may not be too bad an idea to
avoid agitating yourself by chanting words in your mind, such as:

>"Uh oh, he's been TAINTED by the evil BARBARIANS!!!"
>"Maybe we'd better SHOOT HIM to take him OUT OF HIS MISERY"
>"If he is not JUST LIKE US he must be MISERABLE, right?"

---

>Can we accept these kind of attitudes?  I sure can't:

>The student said classmates made such remarks as, ``His mother is
>American, so he may have AIDS.'

>Sick.

I hope you feel better.


W. Kusumoto

Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
From: hank@westford.ccur.com (Hank Cohen)
Subject: Re: Graft/Miyazawa
Organization: Concurrent Nippon Corp.  Tokyo , Japan
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 08:07:28 GMT

The original of this article dissappeared between the time I first
read it and the time that I was able to reply so I can't include the
most outrageous falsehoods.

In article <1992Dec18.095901.1959@lclark.edu> David Degraw,
degraw@sun.lclark.edu writes:
>	"Are Japanese politicians inherently corrupt?"
>	"Is there such a thing as an incorruptible Japanese politician?"
>	"Why does Japanese politics corrupt politicians?"
>	"Does Japanese lobbying corrupt American politicians?"
>	"Do the Japanese think Americans are easily corruptible?"

This was the conclusion of a message in which Mr. Degraw claims that
the Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa was involved in the
current Sagawa kyubin Scandal.  I have been folowing the news
regarding the Sagawa scandal since before it really broke out into the
open.  The Economist was reporting that the scandal of the century was
about to break long before any other source and they have continued to
provide the most comprehensive and insightful coverage.  I have also
been reading the Japanese English language press on this subject and
NOWHERE was it ever reported that Prime Minister Miyazawa was involved
at all.  Mr. Degraw was engageing in a bit of uninformed malicious
slander and should post a retraction admiting his ignorance of the
facts.
	Having said that I must say that I'm not defending Japanese
politicians as a class and not even Mr. Miyazawa individually.  For
all I know Mr. Miyazawa is as corrupt as any of them but that has not
been reported from any knowledgeable source.  If we are to keep this
discussion of Japanese Culture from degenerating into slander then we
must be on guard against misinformation.  The outrageous blather that
has been spouted mr the poster claiming to be R.Asano has obscured the
fact that there is a lot of other misinformation floating through this
group in less offensive guise.

-- 
Hank Cohen
Concurrent Nippon Corp.  	Shuwa yanagibashi Bldg. 5F
Yanagibashi 2-19-6 Taito-ku 	Tokyo 111, Japan
Denwa: 03-3864-5714 	Fax: 03-3864-0898
Xref: sparky soc.culture.japan:12697 alt.sex:40077 soc.culture.usa:9318 soc.culture.african.american:13168 sci.electronics:21302 misc.consumers:21037 misc.education:5477 misc.entrepreneurs:3698
From: thomasd@tps.COM (Thomas W. Day)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan,soc.culture.asian.america,alt.sex,soc.culture.usa,soc.culture.african.american,sci.electronics,misc.consumers,misc.education,misc.entrepreneurs
Subject: Re: DOES AMERICA SAY YES TO JAPAN? - Off track!!
Date: 21 Dec 92 17:15:36 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Telectronics Pacing Systems

In article <BzHA5o.7Cv@news.cso.uiuc.edu> irvine@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu (Brent Irvine) writes:
>>You're probably aware (since you know so much) that some Japanese companies
>>have 200 and 400 year business plans.  Not 5 year plans, not 20 year plans
>>so if your graph doesn't extend out that far you had better rethink it.

>Thats kinda cool.  A 200 year plan!  I wonder how often it changes [probably
>monthly].  

Nope.  The long term plans are very general.  They probably don't get 
reviewed more often than once a year and revised more often than once every 
5 years.  The point is that their companies plan to exist 200 years from 
now.  Most American companies don't even care about existing 10 years from 
now.  From top down, American companies are packs of competitive individuals 
who are only interested in their own gain; especially at the top.  
Organization: Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 20:23:17 -0500 
From: Rikiya Asano <ra01+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Ritz Company Bulletin board!
	<9212222852@ritz.mordor.com>

Mr. CMauritz Writes:

. 

>Shit, he's back....just like jock itch...just when we thought we
>were cured, we wake up with our bells on fire again...what a shame...
>for us...
            
Sorry that I can't say that I feel for you!

>And so modest too.  What a loser.  I can't wait until the postmaster at
>CMU gets a good look at the rascist and profane material you post.  I've
>been archiving it all just for that purpose.

I think that the PM here has had enough. 

>What a weenie!  You think that an engineering degree makes you a man?
>Well, I hope it gives you some comfort when you look down to look at your
>"son" and instead find a daughter.  I have an engineering background and
>most of a business degree.  Does that make me cool again?  Get a life.

Again, you miss the point!

>Hehe, I can't wait to put this latest ditty on the company bulletin
>board.  Keep it up, you might be able to make the David Letterman
>show.  Oh wait, they all ready had a buffalo chip thrower on there once...
>well, I guess you can add a new twist by tossing them from your teeth.

Ah! Here we are! My first instinct was to put down Ritz International on
your account. But, this wouldn't be "the Second Great Resurrection now
would it"? So,
my "new" devine instinct give me the urge to have some of a "Higher"
sensation! So, good luck and Happy a Merry, merry X--mas!