Hergé's depiction of the Chinese was still quite stereotypical, although more benign than his previous treatment of non-Europeans. His depiction of the Japanese wasn't so nuanced (although fairly typical for the times).
He may have started to broaden his understanding of "foreigners", but it still took a while.
TBH, it's not really just a problem with Hergé. European comics throughout the century are full of stereotypes, typically used for comedic effect, which can look bad from a modern perspective. Asterix, by Goscinny and Uderzo, is entirely built on stereotypes. So is Alan Ford, by Secchi and Raviola.
In reality, most authors were not particularly racist; they just leveraged stereotypes to get cheap laughs, which was socially accepted back then.
Back in the day any European would laugh on itself as a tradition. Spaniards did the same with the Bruguera School (Mortadelo y Filemón, Zipi y Zape...) making fun on both the state/power/society and the outdated traditional family values. The Zapatilla brothers (Zipi and Zape) were subversive long ago before Bart Simpson and made a good laugh on the 60's Spain. MyF were basically "Get Smart" and the Superagent 86 10 years ago in the 70's, showing up a backwards Spain compared to France and Germany and making fun on the shitty infra we had on everything while we tried to fight crime. Luckly, times changed a lot in late 70's/80's.
The system could never be protected well enough. It is flawed by design, and now (or however long it has been) those flaws have been exploited by others.
This is nice. I use https://mynoise.net, which does kind of the same thing, but has dozens (hundreds?) of recorded sound clips and about a trillion settings to tweak!
When I was living in Japan in the '90s, the FM-Towns was very heavily promoted. I considered buying one, but by the time I was ready to upgrade, there were better alternatives.
I likened it (and my later work a the token gaijin in a large company), as being a pet, or a zoo animal. Treated well, but never integrated. I was told that I could never be a manager in my company, because it would make Japanese people anxious to have a foreign boss.
But that was used as a non-tariff barrier to prevent the import of foreign goods. If I remember correctly, certain groups also tried to stop the import of foreign beef, because "Japanese intestines were longer [shorter?] and couldn't absorb the nutrition well".
I was a teacher at an English Conversation School, more than 30 years ago, and I think that there is more to them -- or at least there was.
Where I lived, this was one of the few places to interact with a foreigner and practice English (often before going on an overseas holiday or work contract). Even better, it was a safe and controlled environment.
One of the crucial hurdles for Japanese people learning English has always been a lack of confidence and fear of looking foolish in public.
It didn't do much for English ability, because how could it when the class is only one hour a week?
Many of the schools were get-rich-quick schemes, as you say, but that doesn't mean they didn't provide a valuable function, even if they didn't contribute directly to English ability.
I have two nieces who are Canadian but have completed medical school in Australia. They are currently in the equivalent of internship, heading for residency.
They work 40-hour weeks (compared to 60-90 in Canada), and are paid overtime when they go over. Their salaries are $100,000/year+ (equivalent to USD $66,000) which seems to be fine for them and more than they would receive in Canada.
The post-medical-school phase seems to go on longer (minimum 5 years) than in Canada, which may account for some of the difference.
Not accurate, at all, on several levels. In Australia you'll be making a six digit income as a doctor (and medicine is a five year undergrad degree), you won't have six digit student loans, and the AMA's lobbying makes it quite difficult to transition your medical degree to the US, even from another "so-called first world country".
As I mentioned, this is more than they would receive in Canada (and, because they are paid for overtime, weekends, etc., their actual salary would be significantly higher).
Their father is a GP and worked in the U.S. for about a decade. He was happy to return to Canada and not have to deal with HMOs and all the other crap. His clinic here has a single office worker handling billing for 5 or 6 doctors; in Indiana, they had at least one per doctor.
He actually said that his salary in Canada ended up being higher because of the lower administration costs, lower malpractice insurance, insurance companies refusing to pay the full invoices, etc.
As a doctor in Australia you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. This is a first year salary. The equivalent in the US is around 45-55,000 USD annually FOR THE ENTIRE RESIDENCY, no overtime pay.
He may have started to broaden his understanding of "foreigners", but it still took a while.