{"id":2482,"date":"2008-12-23T03:49:59","date_gmt":"2008-12-23T03:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=2482"},"modified":"2008-12-23T03:50:46","modified_gmt":"2008-12-23T03:50:46","slug":"witlife-12-net-cafe-refugees-and-more-auto-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2008\/12\/23\/witlife-12-net-cafe-refugees-and-more-auto-protests\/","title":{"rendered":"WITLife #12: Net Caf\u00e9 Refugees and More Auto Protests"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>WITLife<\/strong><\/a> is a periodic series written by professional Interpreter\/Translator\/Writer Stacy Smith<\/strong><\/a> (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03).\u00a0 In her recent posts, she\u2019s been watching the news in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations.<\/em><\/p>\n

The phenomenon of “net caf\u00e9 refugees” became a hot topic in Japan last year, when it was estimated by the Health Ministry that 5,400 people with no fixed addresses, mostly those in their 20s, slept at 24-hour Internet cafes for as little as 1,000-2,000 yen per night.\u00a0 These legendary facilities house small cubicles equipped with reclining chairs, computers and TVs, and many caf\u00e9s allow free soft drink refills.\u00a0 Some even have showers.<\/p>\n

In this dismal economy, usage of net caf\u00e9s has been on the increase.\u00a0 A caf\u00e9 profiled in this morning’s news said that it offers a rate of 59,520 yen per month for those staying longer than 30 days, and that out of its 58 rooms, 50 were occupied long-term.<\/p>\n

One such resident who volunteered for an interview said that he had been there for over six months.\u00a0 After losing his real estate job two years ago when his company went bankrupt, he has been struggling to make ends meet as a day laborer.\u00a0 However, being 39 prevents him from competing with those younger, and it is difficult to find work.\u00a0 Around the perimeter of the computer in his cubicle was an empty ramen container and small stuffed toys.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to address this social problem, the Health Ministry announced the “Tokyo Challenge.”\u00a0 With this measure, the government will help provide places for people who have jobs but nowhere to live.\u00a0 It targets those who have spent more than half a year in a net caf\u00e9 and offers them up to a 600,000 yen interest-free loan so they can get on their feet and find an apartment.\u00a0 Additionally, a new employment law regarding issues such as hiring has been proposed in the Diet and will be decided on the day after tomorrow.<\/p>\n

********************<\/p>\n

<\/em>In a recent post, I mentioned worker protests at an Isuzu factory that was shutting down.\u00a0 Now comes news that contract workers at Nissan Diesel carried out demonstrations of a similar spirit.\u00a0 After being fired before their contracts were to end, they decided to fight back.\u00a0 It turns out that even in Japan sometimes it pays to be the nail that sticks out (aka the squeaky wheel)!<\/p>\n

Thanks to their efforts, the protesters received a retraction of their dismissals until the completion of their contracts at the end of January.\u00a0 Also, the company dormitories they were to be kicked out of welcomed them back, if grudgingly.\u00a0 According to one employee on the picket line, “We thought it would be impossible but worth a try, and it turned out even better than we expected.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WITLife is a periodic series written by professional Interpreter\/Translator\/Writer Stacy Smith (Kumamoto-ken, 2000-03).\u00a0 In her recent posts, she\u2019s been watching the news in Japanese and sharing some of the interesting tidbits and trends together with her own observations. The phenomenon of “net caf\u00e9 refugees” became a hot topic in Japan last year, when it was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,30,18,36,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-career","category-japan-trends","category-translatinginterpreting","category-wit-life","category-writers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pkZ7m-E2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2482"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2485,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2482\/revisions\/2485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}