Bilingualism is a Fleeting Thing

After 4 years of studying Japanese at SDSU and 22 years living in the country, I'm as functionally bilingual in the language as I'd ever need to be, able to talk with business partners and review contracts in Japanese, able to get my car repaired and order pizza, etc. Still, the brain only learns what it needs to know, and all I need to do to cut my linguistic competence in half is to walk into a history museum and expose myself to words from even a century ago, since the older words are so unfamiliar to me. (Japanese underwent many changes as it modernized over the past 80 years, including changing its writing direction, as seen in the Sakuma Drops candies with the logo written in the 'old' horizontal direction of right to left.) One good thing about living in Japan is that it will give you a real appreciation for fish, and I've really learned to enjoy everything from saba stewed in miso to broiled sanma with soy sauce and grated daikon radish on top. Of course, I have no idea what these fish are called in English since I've only encountered them in Japan...though the Internet tells me they're Japanese mackerel and Pacific saury.

An example ofarchaic right-to-left yokomoji writing. Flavored with Setsuko's tears.

Funny Place Names in Japanese

It's fun to look up odd place names, like Intercourse, Pennsylvania, Climax, Michigan, Whiskey Dick Mountain in Washington State or the island of Poopoo in Hawaii. Naturally, there's a large body of place names that sound naughty when pronounced in Japanese, too. Places like Nampa, Idaho, which is funny because 軟派 nampa happens to be a common slang term that roughly means "girl hunting," what bored young men in Japanese cities usually do on weekends, asking random girls they encounter to go to karaoke or out for drinks with them. (If girls go hunting for boys it's 逆軟派 gyaku-nampa or "reverse nanpa.") Boyne City, Michigan holds a special place in the hearts of Japanese men, since "Boyne" becomes ボイン boin in Japanese, essentially the "boing" sound of boobs moving. There's a mountain in Malaysia called Mt. Panty (Gunung Panti), one in Indonesia called Mt. Baka (Bukit Baka, baka of course meaning "stupid"), and good old Scheveningen in the Netherlands, which comes out sounding like スケベ人間 sukebe ningen in Japanese, meaning "perverted human being." (I'm sure they could use some of our T-shirts there.) But the grand-daddy of funny-sounding place names is of course Eromanga, a mining town that's the farthest point from the sea in Queensland, Australia, with a name that sounds like ecchi manga comics. I swear I will go here someday and write a J-List post about it.

I want to visit Eromanga, in Australia.

Buying Stuff in San Diego

Mrs. J-List has joined me in San Diego, and I've spent a few days taking her around doing "San Diego-ey" things, like visiting the iconic Hotel del Coronado and exploring restaurants downtown. I've also taken her shopping to buy various things she needs to pick up while in the U.S., like make-up (brands that cost $9 at Target are three times that much in Japan), taco and fajita mix, Zip-Loc bags, and Jell-O brand pudding which are unavailable in Japan. Buying omiyage -- souvenirs -- is a very big deal to the Japanese, and a lot of our time has been spent shopping for gifts for friends, the J-List staff in Japan and/or business acquaintances. Some of the gifts she's picking up are quite interesting, including cinnamon flavored Colgate toothpaste (American toothpaste has more fluoride than in Japan, so it makes a practical gift), Newport cigarettes (they're unavailable inside Japan and thus are a sought-after item by men who smoke) plus those Tide detergent "Pods" which my wife just loves. My son back in Japan made a request too, that she bring back a box of Lucky Charms, which he says "tastes like America."

(Now we're off to Vegas for our vacation, so no update on Friday. See everyone next week!)

I've been shopping for odd American products with my wife.

Moekanji Cards are Now In Stock!

We’re happy to be carrying the “Moekanji” cards, an awesome way to master the first year of kanji by harnessing the power of moe. Best of all, the cards “force” you to memorize vocabulary using hiragana rather than Romanized Japanese (e.g. the English alphabet), which helps your spoken accent a lot. The Moekanji card series is now in stock and ready to ship out to you immediately. Why not order a set now?

The Japanese Love to Line Up To Eat Ramen

Over the years I've learned a few things about the Japanese people. They are hardworking, honest and way more punctual than I could ever hope to be. They also love to line up for things. If a Japanese person is walking down the street and sees people lined up to buy something -- takoyaki or Belgian waffles perhaps -- there's a good chance they'll stop what they were doing and get in line, too. It seems there's something innately fun about standing in line to buy something, and the general rule is that the longer the wait at a restaurant is, the better the food will be -- and if no customers are waiting to eat, it's a sign that the food isn't very good. (Similarly, Japanese will avoid going to a restaurant that only has a few cars in the parking lot, but are happy to stop if the parking lot is full of cars.) I've experienced this phenomenon firsthand when I took my son down to Tokyo for his Lego robot soccer tournament one year, and we walked around the city trying to find something good to eat. We ended up lining up behind two dozen Waseda University students for an hour to eat was the best chashu pork ramen in our lives, perhaps because we had waited for so long to eat it.

In Japan, if you don't have to wait in line for it, it's not delicious.

The Kanji For "Person" Teaches Us How To Be Better People

During the two months I'll be here in the U.S., I've got a long list of things I need to get done, including performing various software installs and upgrades in J-List's San Diego office, finalizing a refinance on my house in San Diego (if you think dealing with banks is difficult, try doing it from the other side of the world), and making sure to stock up on American cold medicines like Nyquil and Alka-Seltzer Plus, as Japanese medicine doesn't work so well on my giant gaijin body. I'll also be picking up some herbal supplements a lady I know from my gym asked me to get. When my wife heard of this, she said, "Why are you helping that lady? You don't even know her." I countered with a Japanese proverb 人の字は１人じゃ立てない hito no ji wa hitori ja tatenai, meaning "the kanji character for 'person' cannot stand up all by itself, it needs the support of another." This saying -- that the kanji for 'person' (人) is drawn with two lines because each side is holding the other up, which represents the way people support each other as we go through our lives -- is one of the more interesting observations I've encountered in Japan.

The character for 'person' cannot stand up by itself.

Learning About Japanese Culture Through Shoes

It's funny, the little bits of Japanese culture you can pick up from random episodes of anime. I've been trying to keep up with the current season (not an easy task as there are many good shows this time around), including Oreimo, aka Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai, aka My Younger Sister Can't Be This Cute, which has really given fans some satisfying episodes this season. In a recent episode, Kyosuke officially starts dating the enigmatic Ruri, more commonly known by her Gothic Lolita persona of Kuroneko ("black cat"). In one scene, Kyosuke is waiting for Ruri in her house when Ruri's two younger sisters get home. They immediately know that something isn't right because they see "a strange pair of shoes" in the genkan, a recessed area by the front door where shoes are always removed in Japanese homes (and some businesses, including J-List). If the story had been part of some other culture, Kyosuke might have hidden from the girls, but thanks to Japan's tradition of removing shoes there was no way for him to escape. Stories involving shoes -- for example, a drama in which a girl stops by her boyfriend's apartment but knows instantly that he's entertaining female company the moment she opens the door because she sees unfamiliar shoes -- are something that could only come from Japan.

Kuroneko is the ideal otaku girlfriend.

Cosplay Products from Japan

The summer anime conventions are almost here, but there's still time to get cool cosplay related products from Japan. Whether you need some awesome Japanese "Absolute Zone" socks, cat ears that are controlled by your brain, anime-style cosplay glasses or really bizarre masks, J-List is loaded with cool products for you to browse. Click now to see the top apparel and cosplay products, as ranked by our customers!