Apsara comments


YuriOtani, there is a baby on the package in the picture that goes with the article, and references in the article to Chinese parents wanting the diapers.

tonttu2012, they were arrested for visa violations (i.e., making money out of commerce rather than cooking, which is what their visas restricted them to), not buying diapers. Does anyone actually read articles right through before commenting these days, I wonder?

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Posted in: Abe hosts 'Iftar' dinner for ambassadors from Muslim nations See in context

I have spent a total of several months travelling in various muslim countries, including a lot of the Middle East, and no-one tried to kill me, or even convert me. I don't remember religion ever coming up as a topic of conversation. In fact they were some of the friendliest, most hospitable people I have ever met. I wonder how much time some of the above commenters have spent in muslim countries?

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Posted in: Japan marks 20 years since sarin attack in Matsumoto See in context

Asian2014, the Dalai Lama met Shoko Asahara well before the sarin gas attacks. He meets tens if not hundreds of thousands of people who attend his talks every year, and happened to have his picture taken with Shoko Asahara, who had attended one of his talks. At that time the cult was seen as kooky for sure, but no-one knew what they were planning, and it is unlikely the Dalai Lama even knew who Asahara was among the thousands of people wanting to have their photos taken with him.

The Dalai Lama may be a spiritual leader, but that doesn't make him a mindreader- you didn't think that photo was taken after the gas attacks, did you?

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Posted in: 2 quakes strike off coast near Fukushima See in context

Same people make the same doom laden posts about Fukushima every time there is a tremor- you'd think it would get tiring!

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Posted in: 4 killed in car-truck collision in Saitama See in context

I very much doubt it was the truck driver's fault in any way, especially given the car crossed the centre line. Look at the age of the people- 19 and 20. I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that the driver was going much too fast for the conditions, and that alcohol was possibly involved, as well as one or more of them not wearing seat belts- it's a classic scenario that the police see all the time. My family was affected by a very similar tragic accident- drivers at that age too often think they are infallible and immortal.

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Posted in: M6 quake strikes off Tokyo; 17 injuries reported See in context

Cos, you are entirely missing my point. My mother-in-law is from MIyagi prefecture and has lived through a number of large earthquakes in her 70 years, probably more than you have. All I was saying above is that JMA's internet page can't be the sole source of information after an earthquake as was suggested by someone above because not everyone has an internet connection, that is all!

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She is new to Japan ? Otherwise last month or last January (they publish the booklet yearly), she'd have received the updated information from her City Hall, with explanations about their disaster prep'', telling her to get her medicines and stuff in a bag and obey when given evacuation order to designed area (they usually provide a map). It's the mawarisan, helped with a number of volunteer residents that dispatches the information locally to each house. In addition, most towns now have loudspeakers.

No Cos, you've totally misunderstood. My MIL is Japanese and has lived here all her life, but like many older people, she doesn't have an internet connection, so would be unable to get her earthquake info from JMA, which someone suggested above should be the only source of info about an earthquake the size of the one we had yesterday. I'm not talking about earthquake preparedness at all, I mean info on the location and severity of an earthquake that has already happened.

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This information is available freely from the Japan Meteorological Agency online.

It should be obvious, but not everyone has an internet connection or a smartphone. How are people like my mother-in-law to find out if a substantial quake like that one is a smaller local one or a huge one elsewhere if they don't report on it on TV or in the newspaper?

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Posted in: 6-year-old girl injured after 20-kg tree branch falls on her See in context

There are so many hanging branches where I live, and I've never seen any trimmed. =/

Anywhere in Japan I've lived, the roadside trees usually get trimmed to within an inch of their lives at least once a year- how odd that no trimming ever happens in your area! Must depend on the region.

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Posted in: 79 U.S. sailors sue TEPCO over radiation during Operation Tomodachi See in context

Children are born with birth defects all the time, in areas where there are no issues with radiation. Be interesting to see how they try to prove it was linked to their work after the tsunami.

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Posted in: Small tsunami waves reach Japan after Chile quake See in context

I absolutely agree with slumdog. WilliB, you really think that people in Tohoku could be "de-sensitized" to the risk of a tsunami after what they've experienced? Not gonna happen.

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They just mentioned on the news that the last time there was a big earthquake in Chile in 2010, it caused a 120cm tsunami in the same areas, which went right up estuaries and made a mess of shellfish cultivation in the bays among other things.

I think warnings for a possible 1m tsunami or less are absolutely justified- it's an inexact science and the actual tsunami could easily be a metre higher than that. I personally would rather be warned if I lived near the coast, even if some of the other commenters would rather not know!

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Can we really call a wave of 20cm a tsunami? I've seen regular waves which are larger than that. I can understand that they want to be prepared, but agree with ka_chan, all their coverage and warnings seems a bit silly.

It's different. It's actually very inaccurate to call a tsunami a wave, because it is really a sustained rise in the water level- even a 50cm tsunami can be quite noticeable in low lying areas, which you'll see if you look at footage of the Boxing Day tsunami hitting parts of Thailand- people and buildings were being swept away by a tsunami that was barely waist height, but still did a lot of damage. It wasn't 40cm waves that reached Iwate and other areas this time, it was like a 40cm rise in the tide lasting several minutes. Not a major concern this time I'll give you, but what if it had been 140cm?

Anyway, given Japan's history, what do we think is better, under preparation or over preparation? Can you imagine what the fallout would be like if they underestimated an approaching tsunami and people hadn't evacuated?

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So the book-ripper's actions actually have had the opposite effect of what he/she intended- there will be more copies of Anne Frank books than ever in Tokyo libraries now, and for a while more people will be reading them. Hope that annoys whoever it was!

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Posted in: Japanese girl mauled by dogs in NZ was bitten 100 times See in context



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Posted in: 24-year-old man arrested over knife attacks in Kashiwa See in context

According to this evening's news the guy had considered hijacking a plane and flying it into the Sky Tree to 'shake up society a bit". While he might have committed the crimes for money, I hardly think you can blame the economy when a nutjob like this does something crazy- he would probably have been unemployable regardless of the state of the economy.

Very sad that an innocent passerby lost his life in such a horrible way because of this idiot.

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He definitely didn't do it just for the money- this was a rampage, because the guy is obviously totally out of touch with reality (not genuinely insane, just a whackjob) and he just felt like doing it. The TV news reported that he laughed while stabbing the guy he killed, and he basically wandered around the street attacking people randomly. Apparently he described himself as a "celebrity NEET" online, and gave his interests as "cars, bikes and weapons". Someone who spent way too much time on the Internet and created an alternate form of reality for himself. Pretty scary to think there are people like this out there, just waiting for something to push them over the edge into this kind of behaviour.

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Posted in: 21 dead in Japan from virus spread by mites See in context

Sure it's mites? Some of the symptoms sounds bit like like exposure to radiation as well.

Except that the outbreak that killed the 21 people happened in Kansai, so that wouldn't make any sense at all?

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Posted in: Man arrested for stomping on children’s feet See in context

BTW, the kidnapper of one of the girls who went missing was working at an IT company too, again in his late 30s. Do you see a pattern here? What's going on?

I see that...there is a very large number of IT companies in Japan, therefore a lot of Japanese work in IT. I don't see that working in IT has any relationship to criminality.

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A four year old boy gets stomped, where were his parents?

Quite possibly standing right next to him? It only takes half a second to stamp on someone's foot.

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Posted in: Snowstorm leaves 19 dead; 6,900 trapped in small communities See in context

unbelievable that these people do not have SNOW PLOWS to lush away this crap!!

Why would an area that rarely gets more than about 5cm of snow at any one time have a huge number of snow plows on standby?

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Posted in: Hanyu stars as Plushenko bows out See in context

was there a pairs event? would have n idea by watching jmedia

There's a Japanese pair in the event and I have seen them a number of times already in the TV coverage. Is it possible you've just been watching at the wrong time?

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Posted in: 91-year-old woman, 62-year-old son freeze to death See in context

FightingViking, I have to say I don't understand the point of your posts at all- the people involved weren't "Fukushima victims", so how is this incident in any way relevant to the earthquake? Not all the homes in Fukushima were damaged by the earthquake in any case, I have several friends in Koriyama whose houses were undamaged.

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But this is Fukushima ! With all the modern housing having been built for the victims, how could this have possibly happened ? There must be some mistake... ?

Where does it say they were living in housing provided by the government for evacuees? The vast majority of people in that quite large prefecture still live in their own homes.

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Posted in: Number of flu patients increasing rapidly See in context

One reason people go to the doctor when they suspect they have the flu is to be prescribed antivirals like Tamiflu and Relenza- never heard of them?

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Posted in: Driver arrested after colliding into 10 cars while under influence of herb See in context

Might I humbly suggest that perhaps the problem was more related to a cloud of white smoke obscuring the driver's vision than any negative effects of the herbs?

Nope. The TV footage shows the guy, who was stopped at first, smashing his car between two other cars to get past them into an intersection, then careening across it. Not the behaviour of someone with all their wits about them- it looks absolutely insane.

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Posted in: Woman charged with strangling her 8-year-old daughter See in context

Great post, Ambrosia.

Wake up call, it isn't a right.

Of course it's a right. Are you saying women don't have rights where their fertility is concerned? Sounds familiar...

and change the norm of starting to try when you are 40.

40 is nowhere near the norm. The average age for a first baby in Japan is 30.

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Posted in: 90-year-old man dies after snow falls off roof onto him See in context

Yes, it does, Elbuda- one of the hazards of living in an area that gets heavy snowfalls- what is your point? I'm sure Japan isn't the only snowy country on earth where this happens?

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One of the main ways norovirus is transmitted is when the virus is aerosolised by the toilet flushing after someone with noro has used it- you can wash your hands all you like, and you won't avoid catching it that way.

As for the people who blame the nursing staff for the elderly people being in a bad way- they were in a HOSPITAL, therefore they were most likely not in the best of health to begin with. My otherwise healthy grandmother caught it when it went through our family one Christmas (yes, we were very diligent about handwashing, but we got it anyway!) and it was just about the end of her even though she wasn't in a hospital.

Hand sanitiser and other alcohol-based disinfectants don't kill noro by the way, you need to hit it with bleach to actually kill it.

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