An interview with Jon Heese, a naturalized Canadian-Japanese and elected Tsukuba City Councillor of twelve years. A Caucasian Visible Minority of Japan, Heese has long been advocating that other Non-Japanese Residents naturalize and run for office.
Traditionally, shunto was only for full-time regular workers, but this year unions are coming together to expand this custom to include workers on non-standard, irregular, casual, and contingent contracts.
Ivan Parker Hall, author of landmark book Cartels of the Mind: Japan’s Intellectual Closed Shop, died in Berlin on February 1, 2023, at age 90.
Pushing Japan to remilitarize was never, and still is not, a good idea. This is not just because an arms race in Asia is the last thing the region needs. But also because Japan, consistently unable to face up to its own history, is simply not the country to represent the world’s liberal democracies in Asia, especially as a military power.
On October 19, 2020, the Osaka District Court ruled against a cabaret owner suing a bar hostess for ¥2 million (US$15,200) for dating a coworker. The plaintiff had made male and female employees sign a contract prohibiting any romance between employees, stipulating that they pay that amount if they failed to observe the ban.
A long-term Non-Japanese resident friend, married with a Japanese husband and adult kids, recently told me about a new development in their relationship: Christmas was no longer to be celebrated in their household.
The Tokyo Labor Relations Commission provided us a bright day in labor history with the first ever ruling extending union rights to those engaged in work via an online platform.
It’s difficult for me to root for Japan teams in general. It’s not an issue of nationality. It’s a matter of how Japan as a society approaches international sports; we take all the fun out of it.
Japanese employers have often used “taps on the shoulder” to induce unwanted employees to resign, but the courts have made clear that workers have no need to agree to give up their jobs.
This month Japan finally lifted its Covid restrictions and reopened its borders to tourists. Well, whoop-de-doo.
