Japan apologises

[Shane]

The Japanese PM has apologised once again for Japan's behaviour:

Click here



Some Japanese have been having little protests of there own though:

Click here

[Raoul Duke]

Good on 'em...I hope the apology helps.

For one thing, during a sales visit today I have learned that I may need to hire a Chinese teacher to teach Chinese to a group of Japanese technical workers.

Should be a peck of fun.

[Nate M]

Nope, it seems as though it didn't help.

beta.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050422/ap_on_re_as/apology_politics_3

[woza17]

You bloody beauty. Know I know how to get the students to stop watching cheesy Richard Gere movies.
Is this a real pic or one that was put together by the Japanese?

[Raoul Duke]

It's a real picture.

Gere was in Japan for the opening there of his film Shall We Dance?, which is based on a Japanese film of the same name. (Incidentally, the Japanese original is quite a nice little film!)

While there, Gere was invited to visit Koizumi. Koizumi is reportedly often compared to Gere in appearance...note the twin Jiffy-Pop hairstyles. When they met, Koizumi turned to Gere and said, "Shall we dance?" to which Gere replied, "OK, but only if I lead."

You never know when that odd picture you stick away may come in useful.

[Lager]

This is hard to believe but it's in the Guardian UK so I;ll trust it.

China just seems to be catching up to the "japan is Satan" way od thinking. A clown told me tyhat tap water was OK to drink. It's Gods water. All things bad come from Japan or sometimes China. Here in the place that can't be named it's all lovely.

Like (sorry to bring up basesball again) but they stole it from Japan (who stole it from America.)

Will they admit this?

HaHa! GOD invented baseball. And rice.

[Newbs]

Okay, thanks Raoul for mentioning Richard Gere, I really didn't recognise him in the photo.

The heat seems to have gone out of the street marches but today I walked into a 5 star hotel, for reasons that I will divulge later, to see a sign, in English and Chinese, advising of the possibility of street demonstrations today (April 23rd).

I just wonder if they covered all bases by only having the sign in English and Chinese. Bulgarian, Swahili, Navojo should have been included for mine.

[Newbs]

Forgot. The reason I was in the 5 star hotel is because no one, absolutely no one, in Hangzhou, can get their mind around the notion of buying a return rail ticket. A friend has a travel agent friend, so I suggested that maybe the travel agent could do this for me. "Oh no, he can't do that." I don't know what the heck the travel agent does all day if he doesn't sell tickets. So I was in the hotel seeing if they could oblige. I go back tomorrow for an answer. To date I've neglected to mention that I'm not actually a guest of their hotel.

Back to the thread, sort of. I don't agree with Koizumi on lots of things, such as the visit to the war dead shrine, but as world leaders go he is a breath of fresh air at times. Dancing with Richard Gere, singing with Tom Cruise, something that I can't see plastic man, John Howard ever doing, although I'm sure Gere and Cruise are grateful for that.

[Raoul Duke]

Actually, thank Woza. She mentioned him first.

If the hotel doesn't come through, go to one of the big offices of a state service- China International Travel Service (CITS), China Youth TS (CYTS), or just plain CTS, probably in that order. The office I talked to here that can do it is CYTS. I promise you that Hangzhou- one of the biggest tourist draws in China- has all three of these.

[woza17]

I thought that you couldn't buy return train tickets. I know you cna buy return plane tickets cause I bought one