Japanese government announces stricter requirements for foreigner student visas

New rules aims to close loophole that lets language school students spend as much of the year working full-time as attending class.

Over the last decade, there’s been a surge in the number of Japanese language schools in Japan. According to the Ministry of Justice, the country now has 711 dedicated language schools (as opposed to universities or trade schools that also offer Japanese lessons), which is 1.8 times as many as there were in 2008.

Obviously, all those new schools couldn’t exist without a growing number of students, too. However, the Japanese government is concerned about whether or not what those ostensible students are doing in Japan actually qualifies as studying.

Foreigners in Japan on a student visa are allowed to work up 28 hours a week. That limit is bumped up to eight hours a day during school vacation periods. Meanwhile, to maintain a long-term language student visa, students must meet certain class-time requirements. Under the current law one criteria is the completion of at least 760 units over the course of one year (one unit being defined as 45 minutes of in-class instruction).

However, some schools also offer short-term intensive courses with a an especially high number of class hours each week. By enrolling in these programs, some students are able to meet their yearly 760-unit requirement in as little as six months. With their visa secure, some of them enroll in no other courses for the year and switch over to working eight hours a day until the next year, meaning that they’re essentially spending as much time working in full-time positions as they are studying Japanese, blurring the line as to whether they’re in Japan for education or employment.

But as of October, the Japanese government aims to close that loophole. That’s when a new set of regulations goes into effect, and from then on language school students will be required to be enrolled in classes for at least 35 weeks out of the year.

“We are making these adjustments to return language schools to their original purpose,” a Ministry of Justice spokesperson said, “as a place where students enroll so that they can learn the language.”

The Ministry of Justice isn’t laying all responsibility for the unwanted situation on the students themselves, however. It’s also criticized language schools that promote their intensive programs, either openly or implicitly, as a way to have a full-time job in Japan without a work visa. The ministry is also addressing the possibility that some language schools might be acting primarily as visa providers and failing to provide their students with proper instruction. The new regulations also include stricter rules for school operators, such as requiring the hiring of additional staff is a single person is acting as director of multiple schools.

Source: Yahoo! Japan News/Asahi Shimbun Digital
Top image: Pakutaso



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JoJo’s bizarrely awesome Tokyo anime mural hides characters in its sound effects【Photos】

Anime serious famous for its dramatic sound effects and fashionable heroes makes one out of the other with cool and clever artwork trick.

The unmistakable aesthetic of anime/manga JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is built on two pillars. One is the bombastically beautiful poses of cast of its fashionable fighting supernaturalists, and the other is the inventively dramatic sound effects, like “TAKOSU!” that not only fill the pages of creator Hirohiko Araki’s comic, but even visually appear in its recent anime adaptations.

At first glance, this jumbo-sized piece of promotional JoJo’s art seems to be saluting the series’ sound effect ドドドドド (dododododo), which was devised by Araki to represent the sound of tension in the air.

But relax your eyes and let them focus on the bigger picture, and you’ll see that all those sound effects are taking the place of line art, and each ド is carefully sized and oriented to form the faces of some of JoJo’s most important figures.

The monochrome mural can be found in the Metro Prominade underground section of Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station, the same stretch of hallway which previously hosted an array of every Yu-Gi-Oh! card ever printed and a collage of decades’ worth of distinctive anime eyes.

▼ Eight key characters, hailing from various arcs of the 31-year-old franchise, are hiding in plain sight.

▼ We’re not sure if this shot was taken at an angle for visual flair, or because the photographer happened to be striking a diagonally oriented JoJo’s pose at the time.

While loyal fans will tell you that any time is an appropriate one to stop and appreciate the awesomeness of the Joestar family and their non-normal narrative, the mural is up now to promote an exhibition of Araki’s artwork, dubbed JoJo-Ripples of Adventure, that recently opened at Tokyo’s National Art Center.

▼ Yes, a Japanese government institution realized that it needed to pay proper respect to JoJo’s.

However, while JoJo’s popularity seems to be eternal, there are tighter temporal constraints for the mural. Since it occupies one of the most coveted advertising spaces in all of Japan, odds are it’ll only be up for a few days more. You can still take heart, though, in knowing that the JoJo’s exhibit at the National Art Center runs until October 1.

Related: JoJo-Ripples of Adventure website
Source: Otakomu
Featured image: Twitter/@rkk_sakisama



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Fukuoka man survives fall overboard from ferry by swimming to deserted island

A 30-minute boat ride turned into a day-and-a-half struggle for survival.

At eight o’clock in the evening on 27 August, passengers were boarding a ferry that would take them from Fukuoka Prefecture’s Hakata Wharf to Shikanoshima with a stop at Saitozaki along the way. Among the passengers was a 53-year-old businessman, Hisateru Soejima, who was in store for the ride of his life.

The entire trip was to take about 30 minutes, and roughly 20 minutes after the ferry set sail, the businessman went onto the deck in order to take some pictures of the beautiful twilight vista his coastal course provided. The combination of having had a few drinks and focusing too much on his smartphone caused him to accidentally topple overboard.

▼ Route taken by Soejima’s ferry

The combination of panic from the sudden fall, the frigid water, and the darkness would have been extremely disorienting, but Soejima somehow managed to keep his head above water and began to do the only thing he could – swim.

Since there were no witnesses at the time of the fall, it is unclear how far he swam, but he was probably attracted by the bright light beaming from Hashima (literally “End Island”) and headed in that direction. Unfortunately for him, its unmanned lighthouse and hundreds of trees were the only things on that island.

▼ Hashima (not to be confused with the more famous “Battleship Island” of the same name)

When Soejima arrived on the Hashima shore he was too exhausted to even call out for help. With no food or water available, he simply spent the entire next day lying down and recovering what little strength he could. Meanwhile, despite there only having been 28 passengers on board the ferry, no one noticed Soejima was missing and went about their lives as usual.

With no one looking for him, Soejima waited and rested until he could begin searching for help by himself. Luckily, on the morning of the 29th, he saw a recreational fishing boat pass by and waved it down.

The waters around Hashima were too shallow for the boat to come close enough, but one of the fishermen on board swam over to him, bringing a bottle of sports drink which he chugged down in an instant.

The fishing boat sent word to the Coast Guard who arrived shortly after in a vessel small enough to pick up Soejima and bring him back to civilization. A medical check revealed no injures and he was able to return home that same morning.

Despite his disappearance going unnoticed, Soejima experienced an extraordinary stroke of luck similar to that of a 2014 incident when a man swept away by the current survived 20 hours at sea by finding a discarded life preserver floating in the water.

These stories are few and far between though, and anytime someone gets lost at sea their chances of survival drop drastically. So, be sure to take as much caution as possible when traveling by boat or swimming in the ocean. Not wandering around the deck drunk is a great start.

Source: NHK, Sankei News West, Nishi Nippon Shimbun, Hachima Kiko
Top image: Wikipedia/Chihaya Sta
Insert images: Wikipedia/Chihaya Sta (edited by SoraNews24)



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Tokyo property owner has to put up “Pooping prohibited” sign to combat unwanted dookie deposits

Seriously, no shit.

Going by crime standards for large cities in most other countries, the whole of Tokyo is exceedingly safe. However, if you ask native Tokyoites, more than a few will argue that Adachi Ward is kind of a seedy part of town.

Located on the other side of the Arakawa River from the gleaming city center, Adachi has long had a reputation as a place where blue-collar workers and bored youths like to get drunk and or/into mischief. So when Japanese Twitter user @curetencho walked into a Lawson convenience store in Adachi, he noticed a sign above the self-service oden (stewed vegetables and meats) station that he wouldn’t have expected in any other part of Tokyo.

The sign reads “Please do not grab the oden with your bare hands. It is cooked at a high temperature, and you might get burned.” Customers are instead supposed to use the tongs and serving spoons located to the right of the tray, but this is considered common sense. “When you’re in Adachi, even the warning signs at the convenience stores are on a higher level,” mused @curetencho, perhaps remembering an incident from a couple years back where a gross prankster had filmed himself repeatedly stabbing his fingers into a convenience store oden pot.

But what @curetencho wasn’t aware of was that there’s apparently a level of Adachi warning sign beyond even this, as another Twitter user, @Kill_joys, simply responded with this photo.

If you’ve spent much time in a Japanese class, or in Japan, you might recognize the big red kanji characters 禁止, pronouncd kinshi and meaning “prohibited.” But even if you aced all your college kanji tests, you might not be familiar with the compound 脱糞, so let’s take a look at it.

脱 shows up pretty commonly as part of the verb nugu, meaning to remove or take off. 糞, though, is something you’re more likely to hear spoken in anger than written in formal signage, because it’s the kanji for kuso, meaning “excrement” or “shit.”

When written together they’re pronounced dappun, the Japanese word for “defecation.”

▼ Knowing its meaning, the sound of the word seems quite evocative of the act it’s describing, but this actually isn’t a case of Japanese onomatopoeia.

So yes, apparently there were enough cases of public pooping along the strip of ground shown in @Kill_joys’ photo that the property owner felt the need to go out and purchase a professionally made sign to sternly proclaim “Pooping prohibited.”

There’s even a warning at the top of the sign, including an illustration, that the spot is being filmed by a security camera. Whether the intent is to dissuade deuce-droppers through shame or simply clenched muscles from being conscious that someone is looking is unknown, but either way, hopefully the warning is working.

Source: Twitter/@Kill_joys via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert image: SoraNews24



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What do Japanese netizens think about President Trump’s “I remember Pearl Harbor” comment?

Japanese netizen’s responses were fairly mixed, but most were pretty casual about Trump’s allegedly incendiary statement.

According to an article by the U.S. newspaper the Washington Post, at some point during a June meeting with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe where he criticized Japan’s trade policies, U.S. President Donald Trump was allegedly heard to say something in the vein of, “I remember Pearl Harbor,” referring to Japan’s surprise attack on the Hawaiian base during World War II.

The article in the Washington Post implies that the words were unexpected and uncalled for, and that Prime Minister Abe was “left exasperated” after the meeting. Naturally, U.S. media sources and social media networks will blast off with their own conclusions about the statement, but what do Japanese netizens think?

Yahoo! Japan has a real-time, still-ongoing list of Twitter responses to the newsline based on the keyword “真珠湾攻撃”, which is Japanese for “the attack on Pearl Harbor”, and surprisingly, most netizens were quite level-headed about it. Many were quick to point out that there was more to the phrase than the Washington Post and some Japanese newspapers reported.  Yahoo! Japan News reported that Trump said something more like, “I haven’t forgotten Pearl Harbor. Japan fought a lot more in the past. They should be more like America and compete with their neighbors more.”

▼ A joint press conference at the White House with both leaders, around the same time the discussion was being held

Of course, this is an English translation of a Japanese translation of words allegedly spoken by President Trump in English, so it’s very likely that the meaning has been skewed a little bit. Most English news sources aren’t reporting the whole sentence, so it’s difficult to know what President Trump really said, but many Japanese netizens guessed that he was speaking in terms of Japan’s will to fight, that he remembers how tenacious they are (because of Pearl Harbor), and that they should fight like that now for good trade policies.

Since many Japanese news sources were reporting on the full quotation, many netizens were thus quite understanding of the President’s statement, and instead criticized “fake news” and “divisive media”:

“Ohh I see. He wasn’t complaining, he’s actually saying something respectful, like, ‘America hasn’t forgotten that Japan can fight in international trade.'”
“I heard this on the radio and thought, ‘What is he saying out of nowhere?’…but that’s the rest of it? You can’t even say [this reporting] is fake news or fabricating impressions, this is more like propaganda!”
“If he’s only saying it, I don’t mind. All we can do is say back, ‘Yeah, our people remember the mass killings of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs.’ Besides, they still have atomic bombs.”
“He’s just saying, ‘You have to work hard like you did at Pearl Harbor!”
“It looks like this is fake!? It seems like he’s saying, ‘Japan was strong during Pearl Harbor. You should be strong now…'”
“There it is! Cutting down words and crafting impressions. All of you sheep should buckle up and do some studying!”

Others, however, slightly incensed by the comment, were quick to return rebuttals:

“Roosevelt knew beforehand that the Japanese Navy was coming, and there was information that Japanese air carriers were on their way. America’s elite Flying Tigers force were dressed up as Chinese soldiers and were shooting down Japanese planes, so America had already been in the war anyway.”
“You remember the attack of Pearl Harbor? Well, we remember the atomic bombs. Japan has been the victim of America and Korea over and over again.”
“Those who are in the know, know. Japan may have attacked Pearl Harbor, but American Flying Tigers still attacked Japan from China without any declaration of war first.”

Others, appalled at what they thought was an insensitive comment, were critical of President Trump:

“It sounds like he was trying to say, ‘You can fight fiercely like you did at Pearl Harbor, right?’, but in that case wouldn’t America just drop another atomic bomb? Trump definitely looks like he’s Russia’s dog.”
“Trump’s statement this time really makes it clear that he has no self-awareness as a president.”
“Are these really the words of someone who is hoping for peace? Or are they the words of someone who wants to stand at the top of the world?”

Some netizens, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care much about the statements at all, and instead used them to make social commentaries on their own country.

“More importantly, when China or Korea criticizes Japan, the Japanese media goes crazy. It’s mysterious that after America says something like this, the mass media is silent.”
“Mr. Trump, Abe will still be your loyal dog even if you say something like that!”

Without actually being in the room with Prime Minister Abe and President Trump, there’s no way we’ll know for sure what he meant to say. Nevertheless, there have been some widely publicized awkward moments between the two leaders, like when they shook hands for far too long, or when Prime Minister Abe took a tumble into a golf course sandpit and President Trump didn’t seem to notice, so it wouldn’t be surprising if a little tension in the air made them say some awkward things.

Source: Yahoo! Japan News/FNN, Kyodo, Washington Post, Yahoo! Japan
Images: YouTube/ABC News



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Awesome Japanese elementary school teacher rewards kids who use independent learning on his tests

Learned everything covered in class? You get 100 percent. Learned more than what was covered in class? Then you get a bonus.

Every couple of months, a parent in Japan will take to social media to vent about their child’s ridiculously rigid-minded teacher. Some of the most aggravating incidents have included teachers telling students that statements like “the rotation of the earth causes shadows to move” and “12 times 25 equals 300” are unacceptable.

Usually, the source of the warped logic is that the teachers, or perhaps the grading systems they’re being forced to use, insist on students answering questions using only information and techniques that have already been covered in class. But doesn’t doing that discourage independent learning and application of outside concepts?

That seems to be the worry of the teacher of Japanese Twitter user @TBRkaori’s son. So rather than stifling young learner’s curiosity and comprehensive way of thinking, the teacher is actively rewarding it.

▼ Photos of @TBRkaori’s son’s recent test for writing Japanese kanji characters

First, a little background about Japanese language tests. In broad terms, Japanese writing is divided into two sets of characters: kana and kanji. Kana, which represent sounds, are simpler to write, and there’re only around 50 of them. On the other hand, kanji, which represent concepts, are much more complex, and there are over 1,800 of them.

Kids pick up kana pretty quickly, but learning kanji is a much lengthier process. So kanji tests in Japanese schools usually have short sentences or phrases written in kana, some of which are underlined and have to be rewritten by the student in kanji. For example, a kanji test question might have the phrase Nihon ni sundeimasu meaning “I live in Japan,” written all in kana, with Nihon/Japan underlined, because the question wants to see if the student can write Nihon in kanji or not.

As we can see, the students have to rewrite the underlined kana in kanji, but they can leave the other kana as they are. However, those other kana could be rewritten in kanji as well, if the student has been learning on their own beyond the material that’s been covered in class. For example, if you write Nihon ni sundeimasu/I live in Japan using not just the kanji for “Japan,” but for “live” too, it looks like this.

Getting back to @TBRkaori’s son’s class, if you go above and beyond like this, writing just the target kana in kanji, but the other kana too, the teacher gives extra credit! Because of that, it’s possible for hard-working kids to score above 100 percent on their tests. On the exam in the photos tweeted above, for example, her son got 103 percent, and his personal best so far this school year is an impressive 112 percent.

Even more heartening is that the teacher’s enlightened attitude isn’t a result of @TBRkaori’s son attending a high-priced, exclusive private school. @TBRkaori says that her son, who’s currently in the sixth grade, simply goes to the public elementary school nearest their home. And it’s not like she’s pressuring her son to outpace the school’s curriculum either. He just likes reading books, she says, and in the course of doing so he’s learned more than the bare minimum of what school forces him to.

In other words, he’s being rewarded for his curiosity and desire to learn useful things, not punished for it, and we have a hunch that’s setting up a positive pattern that’s going to benefit him for the rest of his life,

Source: Twitter/@TBRkaori via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert images: SoraNews24



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Um Actually Episode 8: Make-Up, Maps, and Mythical Dragons

Xanth Man Starts Brawl in Waffle House.

Um Actually Episode 8: Make-Up, Maps, and Mythical Dragons


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