Japan News Today

Found an interesting article about Broome a city on the Western Australian coast informing the Japanese city of Taiji they will cut off their sister city ties if Taiji doesn’t stop their yearly covert slaughter of thousands upon thousands of dolphins.

There is a new documentary about this topic called The Cove that is getting great reviews.

This link leads to a great first hand account about the topic.

What are the details about this issue?

Every year thousands and thousands of dolphins are slaughtered in a gruesome and gory orgy of blood and dolphin screams. See this link for some graphic video footage about the topic.

See flipper as he is sentenced to death in a pool of his own blood.

So what happens to all these executed dolphins? They’re served up as lunch for school children.

Why is this bad? Dolphin meat is loaded with Mercury!

Not all the dolphins are sentenced to becoming lunch. Some of the lucky ones are sent ones are sent off to aquariums and Sea World like theme parks in Japan and Asia.

They roughly make a cool $100,000 to $150,000 for each one apparently.

Look how happy he looks. Not only is he in prison he gets to be forced to perform every day!

So what’s the bottom line? Thousands of dolphins are massacred every year to provide Mercury tainted meat to the Japanese public and the rest are shipped off to aquariums for a healthy profit.

I think the animal rights activists have a case with this one.

I also love how the how these fishermen cover up and try to do their dirty work as covertly as possible. Cover ups seem to be a common thing for the Japanese

Technorati Tags: The Cove

They website Let’s Japan has an interesting posting where they talk about a prospective job seeker who had emailed them. In their response they make  a lot of good points

They’re conclusions are, “There appears to be an endless supply of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed university graduates desperate to work in Japan.” This is unfortunate.

They summarize what it takes to be an Eikaiwa instructor really well stating, “I’m glad to hear that you can smile and that you look good in a suit because these are two crucial qualities that make an eikaiwa instructor. It’s also good you appear to be motivated because that’s perfect for teaching seven classes in a row in a highly competitive environment where you need to sell, sell, sell!”

They lay down the bottom line with regards to where the industry is heading stating, “Not only has the teaching English market been contracting for the past two years, it’s flooded with teachers fighting for low-paying jobs. May I ask why do you want to teach in Japan? You need to seriously think about that question. Eikaiwa is drudgery.”

Odaiba is an amusement part type place next to Tokyo that you can get to via monorail.

Found a great first hand experience of someone who worked for Interac. Seems for this person they deliberately claimed the person only worked for 29 hours in order to get out of enrolling them in Social Insurance which includes Japanese health insurance and the pension system.

The forum poster  stated,  “i worked with interac for a year. I wasnt so impressed with them

If you read an interac contract they only employ you for 29 hours… so they get out of having to pay insurance for you.
They claimed that only the teaching hours I was scheduled to work at school I had to stay at the school and non teaching hours were my own free time.. however I was never alowed to leave the schools … therefore not my own free time.
Whenever I rang up they never knew who I was, and they could never answer my questions straight away..
They did pay a little more than the other ALT companies … but a 250k wage these days is shit all.
They did pay 80% of my wage in August(the summer holiday) instead of 50% and 0% like other companies

However overall I wasnt very impressed with them …. but what can you say about ALT companies these days . . .”

Not being enrolled in social insurance will become a bigger issue for foreigners in Japan on April 2010 because Japanese law will require you to be enrolled in order to qualify for your visa. Found a great Japan times article that discusses this issue in depth. It’s a must read if you’re thinking of coming to Japan.

There’s a new documentary called The Cove that exposes Japan’s yearly dolphin slaughter.The film makers were forced to use hidden mikes, hidden cameras just to get the video they needed

This Youtube video from a year ago shows graphic video of dolphins being corralled  into a narrow Cove and being chopped up in a sea red with blood. It is gory, it is brutal and clubbing baby seals does not even compare.

Some interesting observations…

1) Sometimes the Dolphin meat is passed off as whale meat and that it is often loaded with Mercury.
2) Some of these captured dolphins are sold off as performers for $100,00 to $150,000

What will you stay with you is how the dolphins are hacked up in a orgy of blood and guts. I also love how the Japanese fishermen try to do this as covertly as possible and then get red faced and angry when its exposed.

What you only realize after living for an extended amount of time in Japan is a lot of what they do and how they behave is smiles and sunshine on the surface but who knows what their doing when your back is turned. It’s a very two faced culture.

Found a story about people who became unemployed during the recent recession struggling because their unemployment benefits are about to end. The part of the story that caught my eye was an individual who was kicked out of company housing when his employment ended. The story stated, “Another man in his 40s, also from Kanagawa Prefecture, who lost his temporary job at the end of last year and was expelled from a company dormitory, now lives in a prefectural housing complex.”

In Japan it’s not uncommon for companies to provide housing for their workers. I think if you can afford it company housing should be avoided. You read a lot of stories about English teachers who are forced out company housing very soon after their employment ends. I think its better to have one less hassle if you’ve just become unemployed. Go with a Gaijin apartment service like Sakura House if you have to as most have no need for a guarantor, key money and the deposit is usually small.

Found a quality summary of the Japanese news story talking about ALT Dispatch firm business practices on the Letsjapan.org site. Has a link to a Japan Probe version of the video that has English subtitles. It’s a must watch if you’re thinking of becoming an ALT