Job Discussion Forums

[turfy]

So, what is "telekura"?

Here in Tokyo, Japanese shops are not as generous as shops in the UK which frequently hold 50 % discount sales. People are still spending a lot here...walking around Shinjuku, Shibuya, I was bargain hunting - but in vain! - Wow, people seem to have loads-a-money to splash.. !

But then there's a really ugly side of Tokyo; soooo many homeless sleeping on cardboard. I don't know if it's off topic but how come the Japanese never give them any cash?

I mean, the homeless here look pretty desperate; they're not hamming it up as a cash spinner, the way a lot of street beggars do in London. (some make several hundred pounds a day from aggressive begging in central London)

Sorry, it's just the other day I saw one Japanese homeless woman in Shinjuku station who was in a really bad way...it was distressing to see. I wanted to help her but I don't speak Japanese. If I give her money she might get angry??? But...everyone walked past, just ignoring her; I couldn't believe it!

[Apsara]

If she was in a very bad way then she is probably mentally quite disturbed and past the stage of being able to use cash in a constructive way. Most of the homeless women I have seen here (very few, I would say the homeless are 99% men) have seemed to have serious mental problems. Giving her cash was unlikely to have been a good idea.

As for why people don't give cash to homeless people-
a) I have never seen a Japanese homeless person panhandling. Many of them are probably too proud to accept money in that way.
b) There are just so many of them. I used to walk a kind of "homeless gauntlet" through one of the underground tunnels in Ikebukuro station one morning a week- there were at least 40 guys lying on cardboard or newspapers all along the tunnel- can anyone be expected to give money to, or help all of them? There are similar areas all over Tokyo- Shinjuku central park, the park next to the train tracks in Shibuya...
c) Some of the homeless are mentally disturbed and it is all too common here lately that crazy people break out knives and start stabbing people in broad daylight in public places. If I see someone acting oddly, I start to move away from them. The spate of stabbings last year, especially the Akihabara rampage, was quite disturbing.

It may seem heartless, but I don't think giving homeless people cash is always the best way to help them. I buy the Big Issue from the same guy every fortnight because the sellers are screened (seems like he's pretty longterm homeless- I've been buying it from him for about 3 years now!) and it is a small way I can contribute. I hate seeing people homeless but what else can I really do?

[JL]

Re: Homeless
Yeah, I've read stats that the homeless problem in Japan is beginning to really become visable. Once in a blue moon, I used to have an experience with a homeless person in Japan. But it does seem that more and more people, nowadays, are crossing paths with them (at least in the big cities). Including the last two posters.

Re: "telekura"
Here's Wikipedia's entry. There's a very good story at the bottom, under "External Links". It's entitled "Enjo Kosai, Anyone." Be sure to check it out. You'll be shocked...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telekura

[Brooks]

I have even seen a couple homeless guys near my school by the train station.
People think my school is in a real upscale neighborhood, but not everybody is doing well.
It used to be that I would see homeless in Sagamihara or in Machida, but I think there are more:

living under bridges in Kawasaki
sleeping in Shinjuku's station
sleeping in tents in parks

[Apsara]

JL, the homeless in Tokyo have been very visible as long as I've been in Japan- I remember when I first came here in 1996 one of the big issues of the year was clearing the "homeless village" out of Shinjuku station's west exit area. There would have been 50- 100 people living there in cardboard and bluesheet huts, and the first few times the police tried to move them all there was almost a riot- hundreds of supporters turned up and the police had to abandon the effort. When I came back to Japan in 1999 they were all gone though. Almost any park in Tokyo, even the small ones, has at least one homeless person somehwhere- they are pretty much everywhere.

[JL]

Apsara,
Yes, I seem to remember some of the "campaigns" launched by Tokyo against the Shinjuku homeless, during the '90's. But some homeless in Shinjuku is not surprising. And a few here and there around other major stations isn't either (I once found myself having to clean up a bum's bowel movements in an arcade outside of Hachioji Station --but that's another story!) It does seem to me, however, that the anecdotes about homeless are on the increase. Turfy's statement, "soooo many homeless sleeping on cardboard", brought it into relief for me, I guess. And again, I've been reading that their numbers are, indeed, increasing. So the rise in anecdotes would also make sense. With the exception of Shinjuku's Chuo Koen, or in and around the station itself, I can't remember being able to generalize that there were soooo many homeless.

[elkarlo]

[elkarlo]

As for the homeless. I found that a lot of college kids seem to ignore or distain them. I took a girl to Kobe, and at the station there was a homless guy setting up his bed by the coin locker. I placed some money down so he could "find" it. She laughed at him. It was pretty messed up.

I usually sneak them a few hundred yen. A lot then (spring 2008) seemed to just be down on their luck, plus Hirakata does have it's local crazy bum.

How is it now? With the layoffs, I cna imagine things have gotten a lot worse. I remember the Hiroshima station bum city. A lot lived by the bridge along the river.

[elkarlo]

Oh I have another question. How is this recession affecting the foreign population? A can imagine that a lot are out of work.. What do they do? Do they go back home? Also I wonder if the Nigerians in Roppongi are as plentiful now, or have they been thinned out by this downturn?

[Brooks]

it has been tough for Brazilians.
Lots of them worked in factories in Shizuoka, Aichi, or Gumma.
Foreign workers are the first to be let go.
Many Brazilians have left.

Some people can't go back if they can't afford the plane ticket.
Many foreign university students are having a hard time with the high yen.
Some have had to drop out.

[elkarlo]

[JL]

Well, that's a depressing, if predictable, turn of events which Brooks reports. I had always looked forward to a gradual diminishing of Japan's ultra-inward looking bent, as an aging population forced the country to accept more foreign workers to sustain their economy. But the plunging economy, and a longer term hollowing out of the country's industrial base is making it appear that there aren't enough jobs for the Japanese, let alone any immigrants.
Welp, things change so quickly these days. Maybe in five or ten years, we'll be looking back on these days of dark clouds and realize it was just a passing storm to be waited out.

And there's a silver lining in these dark clouds: on the Japanese news we get by subscription cable, I saw a news segment on how the more agile companies are gearing up to compete for customers by steeply discounting. A supermarket was profiled, and one person interviewed was some mid-level manager in charge of the weekly newspaper inserts. He was asked about how he can offer such deep discounts on items. He answered, "This is tough. But we take it as a challenge. We believe businesses that reorganize their supply routes and distribution networks to bring lower prices to consumers, will be the survivors."
At first glance, this sounds so obvious. And over the last decade and a half, Japanese merchandisers have already made a lot of progress in bringing down prices. But lets face it, there are still too many middle men taking a cut out of too many things, in Japan. I remember being told by a petroleum executive for Shell Oil, just how inefficient the cost structure remained for Japanese oil companies. And the mom-n-pop liquor store interest group has a throttle-hold on any relaxation of bias regulations which keep 7-11's and larger, more efficient retailers from opening a store within certain very large distances of an established store, should the new store want to sell liquor. There's still a lot of these barriers remaining to be torn down, in Japan.
But at this one store covered in the report, 400 yen bentos (which was already a reasonable price), are now being sold for 250 yen. The shoppers at the store were absolutely delighted. And upon a camera closeup on the different bentos offered for that price, the portions looked pretty good, and pretty tasty!

[Brooks]

well JL a main reason I am thinking of leaving is the discrimination.
My next job has a cap at 5 years.
I don't think I will hang around that long.
Foreign workers are just considered disposable.
Xenophobia is widespread. Even Tokyo, the capital, is looking backward.

Japan's population is shrinking and foreign workers are leaving.
I really think Japan is like America 30 years ago. They have to change but don't want to.
Competition from China, Taiwan, and Korea will increase.
The schools have to change but that is where resistant is greatest.
Japan needs people to be creative and independent, but that goes against the culture.
Even Soseki was writing this 100 years ago.

As for bentos, at 7/11 bentos are on sale for 50 yen. That won't last long, though.

[JL]

[elkarlo]

We didn't change during the 70's. Well we did, but in a self desructive way. Borrow against the future.

Well here is what I think will happen. If you want to retire in Japan, you will have to take a small pension and live in the Phillipines or Vietnam. To offset the costs of the national pension. I doubt Japan will bring in immigrants. Some more Koreans and Chinese at the most, and I'm talking doubling the current numbers.