My first encounter with the use of 'We Chinese'.
I wonder who is more 'we', the Japanese or the Chinese?

Last Wednesday we called Sharp to come and look at our leaking air conditioner. We previously had an independent service shop come and look at it but they basically did nothing and charged us 6000yen.

A Sharp service guy came by the next day, told us what was likely wrong, what parts were needed, and gave us an estimate of ~35,000yen. Obviously there isn't much choice but to fix it so we asked the guy to go ahead and get the parts and come back as soon as possible to get it going again.

The guy came by the house yesterday (Saturday) to explain very apologetically that due to the earthquake they don't have the necessary parts available and the backlog is ~3 months. Since they are unable to fix it for us they have offered to swap the air conditioner for a brand new model of the same power and to just charge us the price we would have paid to repair the old one.　I don't know what model we will get yet but this size of air conditioner generally retails online for 140,000 to 150,000yen.

The air conditioner is about 5.5 years old and out of warranty. Sharp really had no obligation to do this, and they offered to do it without us complaining or making any sort of fuss. It's been a great customer service experience and definitely makes me want to buy more Sharp products.

I guess it's not quite over yet, they will likely be swapping the aircon sometime next week. I'll update when it's done but it certainly looks good so far.

Miyazaki’s Ponyo has been banned from Japanese TV broadcasts!

Newspaper: NTV Not Airing Ponyo Due to Quake
animemaka.com -- The Friday edition of the Tokyo Sports newspaper is reporting that the broadcast network NTV will not air Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli’s Ponyo film indefinitely. The newspaper cites the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake (Higashi Nihon Daishinsai) disaster of March 11 -- specifically the imagery of “black tsunami.” However, the newspaper also indicates that Miyazaki’s widening anti-nuclear power activities as a possible factor why the ban has continued…

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the rest-of-the-story & video...

This "Japanese" dude kicked a gaijin dude's face after he said "日本人じゃないのわかるよ(I know you are not Japanese)".
This words touched his heartstrings.
Why?

A Japanese tourist was stabbed early Friday morning during a robbery attempt in Palolo.
It happened just before 12:30 a.m. on Palolo Avenue.

Police say the 23-year-old tourist went for a drive with friends but got lost.

They stopped to regroup.

That’s when police say the suspect approached the tourist, pulled out a knife and demanded money from him.

When the tourist said no, police say the suspect stabbed him in the right shoulder.

The victim and a witness drove to a gas station for help.

The victim was taken to the hospital in good condition.

A visitor industry group says the islands are still safe.

“This is just one incident, and it's really an unfortunate incident. However, Hawaii for the most part is a really safe destination. As you know, we have literally thousands of visitors here every year,” said Jessica Lani Rich from the Visitor Aloha Society.

The suspect has not been caught.

http://www.khon2.com/news/local/stor....cspx?rss=1803

Two English teachers have made it into the Mainichi (Japanese) for their plan to paddle across Lake Biwa on a boat made from PET bottles. A big hand, for ダスティ・ウィットマン (Dusty Wittman?) from America and and ロキシー・ボロツカ (Roxy Borocca?) from Britain. They are doing it to raise money for victims of the disaster.

One wonders if this is not a suicide as she was alone.

Source

The boys over at Japan Trends have an article on some faddish cooling ideas to beat the heat.

The government has provided financial assistance of around 125,000 yen to overseas students affected by the earthquake and tsunami as part of the overall compensation package. However, one Taiwanese undergraduate student at Sakushin Gakuin University complained on Facebook that she was alone at her institution in not receiving the payment. The university is alleged to have said "Taiwan is not a country" although a spokesman later denied this, saying the explanation was that Taiwan has not has no diplomatic relations with Japan. Apparently, this status means she is not entitled to the government money. The Taiwanese press is outraged their students should be treated this way when Taiwan has provided a good deal of assistance and support for Japan. As it turns out, a private group should have stepped in to provided a payment especially for Taiwanese students, a smaller 48,000 yen, but it is unclear whether the girl on Facebook received this money. The arrangement mirrors the one where the Foreign Ministry took out ads in overseas newspapers to thank countries for their help while it was left to a private organization to do so in Taiwan. Asked why this sum is only around a third of the official payment, the group cited budget constraints.

Source (Japanese)

Second-hand giant Book Off has announced same store sales in June fell 6.9% compared with a year earlier. A bit less than May's 7.1% fall but that's now the 9th consecutive month of declines. Book sales are holding steady but CDs, DVDs and video games appear to be dropping like a stone. The rise of second hand shops like Book Off may have helped mask the switch away from physical media seen elsewhere in the world, by providing a means for Japanese consumers to buy it at discounts, but trends at Book Off seem to indicate that lower prices are no longer sufficient to keep sales afloat.