- Friday the 12th of December -

(12pm) 

Let's discuss this!

  - Friday the 12th of December -

(8pm) 

 The new Japanese government under Sanae Takaichi have been making a lot of noise recently about the "foreigner problem". One thing that they and the media have seemed to focus on is the application and renewal prices for visas. When foreign people move to Japan they have to pay the Japanese government to do. This can vary depending on the type of visa, but generally the price is about 4000-6000 yen. Some Japanese lawmakers have argued that this is way too cheap relative to other countries, where visa applications can cost hundreds of dollars/pounds/euros. And whilst this is true, they seem to forget/ignore the fact that those other countries also have way higher salaries than Japan. So when it was reported that visa costs could rise as much as 10 times (to around 40,000 yen), some foreign residents were, understandably quite angry. That is a significant jump in cost, without any rise in salary. For permanent resident applications, which currently cost 10,000 yen in a one off payment, there were some reports saying it could go up as high as 300,000 yen! Again, without any salary rise. This is effectively an entire month's salary for a single person. For a family, it is possibly completely unaffordable! 

Do you think these price rises are a good idea? Are they reasonable, or too much or little? And what problem are these increases actually solving? What do you think they knock on effect of these changes might be? Will it improve the Japanese economy? Will it reduce the number of foreign residents working and living in Japan? And will that be good or bad for Japan?

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- Sunday the 14th of December -

(11am)

- Is Christmas a Christian holiday? -

There is a famous phrase in America, "Keep Christ in Christmas"; this is in response to people abbreviating Christmas as X-Mas, as if they are X-ing (crossing) out Jesus. However, the origin of this abbreviation is not actually a Latin alphabet X, but rather a Greek alphabet chi "χ", because chi is the first letter of the Greek word for Christ.

This naturally brings up the question on what other Christmas traditions are misunderstood, and to what extent are they connected to Christianity. For example, is there a relationship between Christmas trees and Christianity? How about Santa? Or snowmen? Etc. Are modern-day Christmas traditions so divorced from Christianity that we should stop considering it a Christian holiday?

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Let's discuss this!