Shawn's blog

I stumbled upon an interesting nugget concerning NOVA's recent legal troubles. If you read this article on Nikkei BP Net [in Japanese], as a result of NOVA's loss in the Supreme Court, METI has tightened its interpretation of the Specific Commercial Transaction Law and is now not even allowing a "rational" reason to recalculate service costs when providing a refund.

The Japan Times has an article on Toyota North America President Jim Press who said that technology is key to solving the auto industry's problems.

Two weeks following the death of Lindsay Ann Hawker, the suspect is still on the loose. Reporting by the Japanese media has followed a typical pattern--pretty much all we know is what the police have told the media and what the media has relayed to its readers and viewers.

Asada Mao spoke at The Foreign Correspondents' Club on Friday the 6th. When you get a chance to ask questions of one the world's top figure skaters, you'd think the topic would be figure skating, wouldn't you? The Japanese media, however, was quick to point out the absurdity of some of the questions.

The Asahi Shimbun is reporting that eikaiwa school Lado International has filed for bankruptcy [link is to Japanese article]. The story offers no details, but compare the timing of the story today with the announcement from The General Union a few days ago that it has scored a "historic victory" in its fight with Lado. It can't be a complete coincidence, can it?

Update April 9

As mentioned in the forums, NOVA lost it's appeal in the Supreme Court.

The top court on Tuesday dismissed an appeal by prominent English language school NOVA and ordered the group to return about 300,000 yen in prepaid tuition fees to a student who cancelled a contract.

Here's an interesting look at how we see the news. The English press in Japan reported on a finding in a survey about how young Japanese women have been injuring themselves on purpose. Here's how the Kyodo News reported it:

The Yomiuri had an article on geothermal power titled Given that Japan is completely dependent on foreign oil and that global warming is a serious problem, it's only natural that alternative energies be sought out. But looking at the headline, “Benefits of geothermal power eyed,” you'd wonder what those benefits are. Here they are:

The Japan Times had a couple of articles today on the March in March, a union drive for equal rights in the workplace for foreign workers. It's a must-read since it exposes eikaiwa for what it is: a dead-end McJob. The first article is here.

This sums up the essence of the problems in eikaiwa:

Let's Japan has been pretty dormant for a while with only a handful of articles posted in the past year or two. The forums have been the main source of activity. The reason is simple: I have moved on. I've been out of eikaiwa for 10 years now and I cannot honestly say I know much about the industry any more. I've purged my eikaiwa demons. It's time for someone else to carry the torch.

LJ isn't going away. The site has been given a faceift and I hope to write more about Japan also want to invite other LJ users to blog here as well.