tiredofsametab

iirc, they did use a damaged wheel to try to figure out a situation where a rover was stuck, though I don’t remember any details about it.

Eh… Unless you are actually Japanese, you’re probably going to be hanging out with other ex-pats, or just very lonely.

I disagree here. Learn the language and hang out where Japanese hang out.

Japan is an extremely conservative and insular country. They don’t really mind people visiting for the most part, but they don’t really think highly of people actually immigrating there.

The “they” here is doing a lot of work. Certainly, a number of people are anti-immigration as they see an erosion of their tradition and some, the I suspect it an ever-shrinking minority, Others are mostly fine with immigration if it’s “the right kind/race of immigrants”. I have a loving family here in my in-laws with whom I am often involved (grandpa loves writing letters). As for immigration itself, in the ~10 years I’ve been here, they’ve added new visas with quicker paths to permanent resident status. One can apply for citizenship after 5 years (though it requires renouncing all others which is why I don’t do it – I do wish they’d change that).

There are ethnic Koreans who have lived in communities in Japan for hundreds of years who are still considered outsiders and are treated like second class citizens.

I don’t know exactly what you’re referencing here. There are zainichi Koreans who are in a weird spot. There is more racism to people from the neighboring countries than perhaps others, but that’s also not universal. A lot of Koreans that are here because their homes/families were in the north don’t take Japanese citizenship and, often, don’t really feel Japanese either; they feel their identity is north korean, but don’t move their either for obvious reasons. As such, they don’t take Japanese citizenship and are basically waiting to “go home”. I used to hang out with one and my wife knew a couple and they are in an interesting spot. They often also go schools run by nork-friendly institutions and some (many? all?) do at least visit pyongyang once, but they’re well aware of how much they are taught and shown is carefully curated and not typical. Anyway, the not taking citizenship and not going home does rub some (especially the far right) the wrong way and they’d rather they GTFO. Edit: a lot of the families were brought over, often involuntarily, during Japan’s colonization of Korea and WWII.

Racism is definitely something that I think is shrinking over time, but definitely still too high and a problem to be addressed.

Japan’s economic policy always has been weird, but lately things just keep appearing to get worse with like 30 years worth of shrinkflation happening all at once and wages not raising with inflation at all. The yen has slid against the dollar to pretty terrible rates. While it sucks for me personally wanting to do things like visit family overseas, it also plays a role in imports. Especially post 3-11 when they started turning off nuclear, a lot of fuel for everything, including keeping the lights on, must be imported. The low JPY basically just benefits the export markets.

More progressive, basically. The person who came second for PM wants to continued forced unified surnames (at least when both people getting married are Japanese) and has a bunch of positions on things like LGBTQI that drag progress backward. It also reads like she would revoke broadcasting licenses for news channels whose politics she doesn’t like. We already legally have to pay a yearly fee (kinda like a UK license fee, I think) for owning anything capable of receiving a TV signal. This was initially done (at least in part) to fund NHK (Japan’s BBC or PBS or whatever) outside of the government. They still have self-censored and at times aired wildly bullshit, racist things (particularly around corona). The position is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanae_Takaichi and, if another PM election which is not unlikely soon, I suspect she might win.

I don’t use salt but rather soy sauce and/or fish sauce which is salt + umami. Smoked paprika also adds a nice smokiness if you’re not using any kind of smoked chilis.

Cincy-style chili has cinnamon among other things, so that makes sense. I accidentally grabbed the wrong spice jar and dumped cinnamon directly into my non-Cincy-style chili and it still came out pretty decent.

When I can afford it in the next few years, I plan on doing solar on the house. I drive as infrequently as possible and prefer my motorbike over my car (though my car is also only 660cc engine). I grow some of my own food and plan to steadily increase that as I learn and get better at farming. I try to buy local and regional where possible. I’ve stopped buying beef at home and it is now a special occasion food a handful of times a year.

I’m just one dude and ultimately make little difference, but I do care.

Can confirm, it beats the fuck out of Tokyo 99% of the time. Edit: no dog yet, though, as we want to do some rather long traveling before we get a pet. We do have neighborhood cats and one will come chill near us (though not let us touch him).

If I had it to do over again (born/raised in the US, living in Japan), I might pick Norway or Finland over Japan, but overall I’m fairly happy where I am.

Of course honey is sugar. My point was that, regardless of the arrangement of molecules, I basically never use any sweetener

I types out and deleted twice multi-paragraphee answers. I don’t think a tldr is better. For reference, I’m barely gen-x and voted.for harris. my immediate family, whom I will reference, are boomers from the late 40s to 1960. I don’t know that they all voted for trump, but at least two said they planned to (I have step-parents as well, so it’s not just a pair above me).

Although there are groups and people they hate, particularly in the context of evangelical christianty in the case of at least two, that was not the motivating factor. The motivating factor to all of them (at least so far as I can interpret it) was a combination of fear and loss of power and purpose when I try to boil it down.

Some of my direct family live in a place that got famous for its.immigramt population this cycle. When I visited I summer of 2023, their complaints were about systems not being able to keep up and unlicensed and uninsured drivers in those groups. Even one of my super evangelical baptist family members didn’t comment on the different variety of Christianity. Had many not been Christians, that might be different

Ok, this is several paragraphs again already. What I think, reading this rambly mess, is it is less hatred at a group (though that does exist), it is fear-based but also based on placed whose systems can’t keep up with the issues they face.

Though, having grown up not far from said place, there are hateful and racist people so that factor’s weight is also non-zero. Even then, I think the erosion of the middle class and their loss of status was the cause rather than direct hatred.

I guess, at my 4th or 5th attempt at this post, my point is that those folks mostly did not directly or intentionally vote because of hatred, but more out of fear and loss.

But don’t worry; well make you buy those legacy games in the shop again because fuck you pay me for the 4th time for a game from the 80s/90s. ~ abe Nintendo, probably

I used chantix back in the day, but it also required me basically not leaving the house for a month to really get there. When and where I quit for the first time (I would later start dating a smoker and relapse, then quit again), smoking was still allowed indoors and I had a huge association with drinking and smoking. Same for certain other places and situations. I basically had to do everything I could to avoid those. It got easier with time.

I’ve mostly heard ‘yanks’ in English. I don’t know if Japanese slang specifically has a word for USian foreigners as most situations don’t really care about which country and, if more specificity than ‘foreigner’ is required, it’s usually going to be some adjective/descriptor (loud, rude, skin_color_here, etc. in the case of people being those things).

I think he just walks rather than being shipped.

Unfortunately for my sanity over here in UTC+9, I can’t just sleep through the whole thing. I’m hopeful that work will be busy enough tomorrow that I won’t have time to think about it. What I also know is that it’s most likely going to get drawn out longer, so I won’t likely be specifically watching anywhere, but just picking up occasional US news somewhat accidentally along the way (either here or via fark). I voted as soon as I could print my overseas ballot and get it in the mail so I’ve done all I can do.

I disagree, but I’m allergic to grass. However, if you like it, there should be no reason to pretend you don’t.

Add me to the team that at least almost never adds sugar to any pasta sauce. In very rare occasions, I might add a tiny bit of honey, but I can’t remember the last time I did that.

I didn’t have a car for a few years and the one I had was 2003 (with a slight stint from a similarly-aged car during a couple-month time I had to drive). I now have a car again and I HATE that my heat/air and such are all flat against the panel (not a touch screen, though). I literally can’t adjust anything without looking in my current car. Thankfully, I avoid driving it whenever possible.

I live on the ENEstern cost of the main island of Japan and the rain this year was crazy due in no small part to typhoons (and their remanents) either heading up the east (pacific) coast or crossing over from the west coast.

I’ve always liked the name Ruben for some reason and only ever known one that I can recall (whose brother was called Robin).

I also am partial to Ezekiel and they can have Zeke as a nickname which I think sounds pretty rad.