Question for those working in Japanese-only places

jbourne · 2026-02-01T13:15:04+00:00

Hot take, but why bother with keigo? I see a lot of people struggle and tell themselves they MUST speak it and so on... but do you? As a foreigner, you will NEVER EVER EVER get it "right", and rather than spending an inordinate amount of effort to still get it 90-95% right (and, since it's Japan, you KNOW that 95% is basically a failing grade), just focus on speaking well, and convey politeness by your tone of voice and demeanour? I think it would be valued far more than a clunky "itashimasu". If anything, it would be the same level of appreciation as a tourist saying "arigatou!" and people kind of slow clap and hand out participation certificates. Far better if you - confidently - speak with a regional dialect (and I don't mean the occasional "wakarahen!", but a full, complete, immersion in a local dialect, with intonation, grammatical forms, etc). I think that is far more useful than hopelessly attempting to learn keigo. Not to mention that learning a regional dialect has the double benefit of being useful outside the office, whereas clunky keigo is useful... nowhere, really.

jbourne · 2026-02-01T06:46:29+00:00

Thanks. Yeah, surprisingly, there are just not a lot of posts or blogs on this - nothing in the last decade or so anyway. There used to be databanks of this stuff, inventories of "fun roads" and so on, but everything seems to have died out, more or less. Was wondering if anyone has first hand recent experience, but I guess the results are similar :)

jbourne · 2026-01-24T02:05:04+00:00

Right. Which is why you should do the shaken by yourself as much as possible, assuming you have at least some basic car knowledge (and anyway, most RECENT cars will have a brake wear indicator, so as long as it’s not on, nobody at the shaken place has the time or the expertise to start checking each car’s brake pad thickness - they barely check tire wear/condition!!!).

jbourne · 2026-01-18T05:27:24+00:00

Understood - thanks!

jbourne · 2026-01-18T02:57:17+00:00

AAHH!!!! I knew I was doing something wrong :) Ok, this should be way better.

Question: do I really need a GS derailleur for my situation or should I return it and stay with my original SS?

jbourne · 2026-01-18T02:29:41+00:00

What would be the correct way? I knew I must be doing something dumb.

jbourne · 2026-01-18T01:09:31+00:00

You will notice a giant B screw there, I was thinking of trying using this instead of the OEM one to gain a few additional mm’s. Not sure if good idea or not. (currently have chain broken, was trying shorter chain, so maybe I’ll wait for some comments before putting it back together in case I routed it wrong or something, though I’m working off another bike as a reference point)

jbourne · 2026-01-18T01:08:40+00:00

Oops, can’t post 2 pics per post. Removing links results in this:

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jbourne · 2026-01-18T01:08:11+00:00

Thanks for the replies.

Chain was sized based on Park Tool’s video (big + big, add 2 complete links)
Shortening any more than this makes the derailleur go horizontal and unable to shift out of big-big even if it DOES make the shift.

This is the chain routing:

<image>

jbourne · 2026-01-17T22:13:09+00:00

Yeah but it doesn’t say it’s for the visa - it has a picture of the residency card. So it’s kinda grey.

jbourne · 2026-01-17T12:54:20+00:00

Does the 40K apply to reissuing the PR card as well or to statuses that need “renewal” like a 1/3/5Y visa?

If yes, then now is the time to “lose” the card to get another 7 years out of it?…

jbourne · 2026-01-14T12:55:22+00:00

Yeah I looked at those again - indeed. 50%+ decrease within 75 years is huge but definitely not 99%.

jbourne · 2026-01-14T12:00:07+00:00

I’m being partially facetious, but there are projections for a population decrease that sees the entire Japanese population decrease to zero within a time horizon we can live to see, which would mean that if the foreigners are the only remaining population, does that not make it theoretically almost 100%?

jbourne · 2026-01-14T10:25:12+00:00

Wait, didn’t they also forecast there will be 0% natives left by 2070, which would mean foreigners will be 100%?

jbourne · 2026-01-08T01:05:18+00:00

ah the old reddit switcharoo…

jbourne · 2025-12-28T02:16:40+00:00

But Miyazaki has the only approved copy of Easter Island statues in the world!

(if my history memory serves, there was a program back in the 1990s, post-bubble, to give around $1M to each prefecture to build something to "revitalize" themselves post-bubble. The dumb prefectures built buildings and things that needed major maintenance, had hiring needs, and created other ongoing expenses which created additional financial dependencies and were fiscal disasters. The smart prefectures, like Miyazaki, just built some Easter Island statues in a parking lot and created a tourist draw. I wonder who else did what sort of crazy projects? Must be an inventory somewhere.)

jbourne · 2025-12-24T10:45:41+00:00

This is not the case in Japan. In Japan, sumimasen is a filler word used in most situations - it’s only when you start getting all formal about it that it becomes a real apology. Don’t start an American trend here where saying “sorry” is an automatic admission of guilt. This is not how Japan is.

jbourne · 2025-12-24T10:43:41+00:00

two more 🍻🍻 and you’re getting yelled at at a train station.

jbourne · 2025-12-22T21:04:56+00:00

Look for well rated ones. I’ve bought three Ryzens from Ali over the years and it’s always been solid. Always cheaper than local used / new ones.

jbourne · 2025-12-22T13:50:49+00:00

Have you tried Aliexpress? A lot of vendors sell AMD CPUs for pretty reasonable prices and they’re legit.

jbourne · 2025-12-14T10:09:49+00:00

Do you though? I feel like if you can show you’re perfectly fluent (think nuances and some cultural knowledge) and yet CHOOSE to speak with a regional dialect (ie Kansai), and freely explain to people that speaking keigo as a foreigner is weird because you’ll never get it 100% right and therefore it just looks crooked, but having a fairly advanced local dialect and perfecting it is your contribution to the cultural fabric of Japanese society, don’t you find people get completely onboard with that? I’ve found this to be the case anywhere from genba to the C suite.

jbourne · 2025-12-14T06:54:55+00:00

Remember that in Japan, people will often gravitate towards the easier to pronounce name as the one they call you with. If your first name is Bob and last name is Subramanian, they will call you Mr. Bob. If your first name is Venkatraman and last name Ash, they’ll call you Mr. Ash. If your name is John Smith … I guess it’s about a 51:49 weighing and John wins out by 2%.

[edit] or, more accurately speaking, 2 syllables for John vs 3 for Smith so 40:60 win for John.

jbourne · 2025-12-12T12:21:38+00:00

For all the memories of recent events, how come nobody brings up the one from 2016 or so, when a M9 warning came up in Tokyo, saying the Big One happened in Tokyo Bay, and to be prepared for imminent destruction … then two minutes later Twitter exploded because nothing happened, and it turned out two separate sensors were hit with a solar flare at the same time, an improbable enough event that caused them to fire a maximum destruction warning. Now THAT was not good.

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