Raj Feridun wrote:

> On Sat, 22 Nov 2003 21:50:29 +0900, Eric Takabayashi
> <etakajp@yahoo.co.jp> wrote:
>
> >So what do you think marrying a Japanese means, and why do you link it to
> >feelings toward Japan or living in it?
>
> I don't link it. I just wondered how people who people could marry
> someone who they don't consider human.

And who would that be?

Back to the topic at hand, Japanese, perhaps you in your ten years have noticed the
status of women here, particularly married women and mothers. I don't know how the
situation of women is in your rural part of Japan, but when I lived in a small town
on a small island, I felt like I was in a 50s TV sitcom.

Why don't you ask Japanese husbands your question, particularly the older ones?

> >> Then again, I'm just guessing here but I'd say you probably
> >> don't know all the 127,435,000 Japanese you so eagerly label as a
> >> single unkind entity either.
> >
> >I don't need to meet them, to see what they obviously and factually don't do. It
> >was you pointing out that homeless shelters and soup kitchens do not exist here
> >like back home. My home community does not have any homeless shelter, it is
> >true. But the local food bank helps a full sixth of the entire population to
> >help those in need. That's money and food straight from people's pockets, by
> >choice, not by law from taxes. Can you say such of Japan and its homeless or
> >poor?
>
> No, I can't. I wouldn't be so foolish as to defend the Japanese
> government or their attitudes towards the homeless which I believe you
> when you say they stink. That I can handle. Saying 100% of Japanese
> citizens are unwilling to help either I disagree with.

Now when did I say this? Also please note even 100% of people being "willing to
help" does not necessarily equal a single person ACTUALLY helping. Yeah, I know a
few Japanese among the many others who denigrate poor and homeless who are "willing
to help". They just don't. The best I have is a few hundred yen. No food or clothes
for the poor from any Japanese but my wife. And I have asked people. Nicely.

I can say such of Fukuyama, because honestly, it is and was me handing people
downtown items such as candles, socks, toothbrushes, shampoo, shavers, and
underwear, because they may have had none at the time before me. I also see people
wearing my clothes.

> >Why don't you speak to some of your kind and generous Japanese friends to see
> >what they think and do about homeless or the poor, or meet and listen to some
> >homeless yourself?
>
> I guess it's not as much of a problem down here as it is in the big
> cities.

What does having few homeless or none where you are, if that is in fact true, have
to do with what Japanese you know think or do about the problem of the poor or
homeless in Japan?

> Either that or they're hiding them well or maybe they're in
> shelters. Or maybe the people ARE helping each other. I'll tell you
> what I WILL check out the local situation

Be sure to ask people you know about what they actually think or do about the
homeless with their own time, clothes, food and money, not what is done with tax
dollars.

> and I will get an answer to your question too. Maybe it will be a learning
> experience for both of us.

Why would it be a learning experience for me? What does what might be going on in
rural Shikoku, which I have never denied, have to do with the problem as it exists
for tens of thousands of others in other parts of Japan, particularly big cities,
where the vast majority of people DO treat homeless as part of the landscape or a
nuisance?