'Rent-a-person who does nothing' in Tokyo receives endless requests, gratitude • Hacker News Board

Re: 'Rent-a-person who does nothing' in Tokyo receives endless requests, gratitude

#241

Post by Tade0 » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 12:56 PM UTC

asutekku wrote: post #181

Tade0 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me Japan is more like asian Switzerland. The tidyness, amazingly punctual trains, mountains and general conservatism make both those countries stand out.

Man, you have not been major city areas if you think japan is tidy. Sure, compared to the US it maybe is, but a lot of european countries are better. But travel a bit further from the city centres in japan and you’ll start seeing all those illegal trash sites at quiet mountain roads and yards full of old trash.

Well, I must have fallen prey to the narrative yet again.

That being said I can see an illegal trash site from my window, so I guess my reference point may be pretty far away from both the Swiss and Japanese standard.

Re: 'Rent-a-person who does nothing' in Tokyo receives endless requests, gratitude

#242

Post by Blikkentrekker » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 4:28 PM UTC

pezezin wrote: post #218

exclusiv wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Separately, I've heard personal reports and seen a documentary about young Japanese men in general. It was said that their mothers do everything for them and for a much longer time than other countries. Is this true?

Disclaimer: I have been living in Japan for two years, but I'm nowhere an expert in their culture. Some of my female coworkers have confirmed this to be true. They say younger guys have problems finding a girlfriend, because they expect her to take care of him the same way his mother did, and younger Japanese women don't want to put up with that kind of attitude anymore. Regarding social development, my feeling is th…

> Regarding social development, my feeling is that Japan is one or two generations behind Western countries.

There are a great many “western” countries where this is even worse than Japan including the one so often named the primordial “western” country.

I have no idea idea why so often when Japanese culture specifically is discussed the idea is sooner or later proffered that there is some homogeneous “western” culture with common elements that supposedly exists. It certainly doesn't seem to rise when, say, Russian, or Indian culture is discussed.

Re: 'Rent-a-person who does nothing' in Tokyo receives endless requests, gratitude

#243

Post by michaelpb » Fri, Jan 15, 2021, 10:21 PM UTC

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #186

michaelpb wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. Cafes that cater to lonely straight men or misogynistic businessmen exist worldwide. Just one example: All the different "café con piernas" cafes in Chile, which are very similar to Japanese maid cafes.

How is that similar to maid cafés, let alone cafés where the waiters act as if they be one's doting sibling? You seem to have reduced my rather wild and spectacular examples to something so mundane as: “ Cafes that cater to lonely straight men or misogynistic businessmen exist ”, especially when most of my examples have nothing to do with “straight men” or “misogynistic businessmen”.

I don't know if there exists a cafe with a "sibling theme", but café con piernas is pretty similar in the other respects. There are a variety of different establishments where clientele are served coffee and pastries by women in revealing outfits, ranging from traditional outfits in short-skirts, to much more revealing costumes (often with partial nudity). All I was saying is that businesses that follow the model of "cafe, but also sex work" are world-wide, not just Japan and the US.

Re: 'Rent-a-person who does nothing' in Tokyo receives endless requests, gratitude

#244

Post by anotherman554 » Thu, Jan 21, 2021, 4:13 PM UTC

hctaw wrote: post #56

anotherman554 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I saw a lecture on psychology 101-- I think it was the free online one from Stanford-- where the professor said the main benefit of talk therapy is just having someone who cares about your problems for 45 minutes. So he what he is doing is therapy.

In my experience this can be an extremely harmful approach to talk therapy (and talking about therapy). The main benefit is having someone trained to listen for specific symptoms based on what you talk about and to develop treatment strategies based on what you discuss and symptoms you experience. I wouldn't reduce it to "having someone who cares about your problems for 45 minutes." It's more like "talking about your…

You are basically summarizing the idea of cognitive behavioral therapy, but I don't believe it's been established it works better than ordinary talk therapy.

The cognitive behavioral therapist has to assume the human mind works a certain way, suffering is caused by "irrational" thoughts, and therapist is somehow more "rational" than their clients, so can help their clients be more "rational" like the therapist. These are some big assumptions.