Japan's relationship to China and "Kampo" medicine, skills a foreigner in Japan needs, and all about tipping

Roughly speaking, Japan's historical relationship to China is similar to that of the West and ancient Rome and Greece: the Middle Kingdom has always served as a model for culture, literature and science, and to this day the average Japanese person has quite a lot of respect for China, short-term squabbles notwithstanding. When I got back from the U.S., my wife announced that she had bought some diet pills for me to take which were specially designed to burn the "internal" fat in my body, or something like that. I was skeptical, since she locks onto some new "magic bullet" for weight loss every few months, but she assured me that this time it was different, because the pills weren't medicine at all, but Kampo (漢方). A word that literally means "Chinese way," Kampo is the traditional herbal medicine of China, and it occupies an almost mythical place in the minds of the Japanese. Many products, from energy drinks to "male enhancers" to Yomeshu (a kind of medicinal form of sake loaded with Chinese herbs) advertise themselves as making use of the magical power of Kampo medicine to bring health to you. My Japanese wife, who is apt to say things like "Don't make fun of China, a country with 4000 years of history!" is definitely in the target market for many of these products. (Accupuncture is also part of the overall idea of healing the "Chinese way".)

There are many skills a foreigner needs if he wants to live in Japan. You need to learn the basics of the language, of course, including asking directions, since you will be lost more often than not your first year here. In accordance with the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951, gaijin in Japan are required to learn phrases like biiru o kudasai (beer, please) and hen na gaijin desu (I'm a strange foreigner). Another important skill is learning to speak in secret code so that others can't understand what you're saying. For a foreigner working as, say, an English teacher, this can usually be achieved by using extra-difficult English. If you wanted to make a comment on how cute a certain girl is but keep her from understanding, you might say "I am amorously affected by the member of the fairer gender standing off my starboard bow." The trouble is, you never know for sure how good their English might be. Once in a KFC, I made a comment to a friend about how the word "Colonel" -- kaanaru as the Japanese say it -- sounded like a slightly "ecchi" word (carnal), and I was surprised when the Japanese girl working the cash register said "Yes, I've often thought that" in perfect English (she'd grown up in Los Angeles). For all those times when you want to speak secretly in Japan, I recommend the old standby of 8-year-olds, Pig Latin, which will scramble any sentence to incomprehensibility in short order. I recently taught Pig Latin to my son, and he's embraced it as the coolest thing in the world, teaching the code to all his friends at school.

Japan is unique among industrialized nations in that the concept of tipping never caught on, and is in fact about as alien to people here as taking your shoes off before entering your house would be in the States. You can expect service with a smile wherever you eat (as a wise gaijin once observed, "in Japan, you know no one is horking in your food"), and if were to leave a tip on the table you can be pretty sure the staff would run after you to return the money to you. While it's certainly nice to not have to tip when eating out, there are times and I receive exceptionally good service and want to show my appreciation, but the lack of a custom of tipping makes this impossible -- it would actually be quite rude to even try in most cases. Near our house there's a miniature F-1 race track that has a nice Italian restaurant overlooking it -- apparently the owner loved F-1 so much that he built his own track just for fun, or maybe as a tax write-off. The restaurant has live jazz music several nights per month, and we take our kids to enjoy the performances. We love the music, but there isn't so much as a tip jar on the piano for us to show our thanks to the musicians who make our dinner so special.

J-List makes dozens of great anime, manga, fashion, toy, Japanese study and other magazines available to our customers who aren't lucky enough to live in Japan through our "reserve subscription" system. Basically, we'll send the newest issue of every magazine you want as it comes in, charging you for that issue only. There's nothing to pay in advance and you can cancel or change magazines at any time, so it's really a great way to sample all the great periodicals Japan has to offer. One item we recommend to all anime fans is Megami Magazine, a great mag that focuses on the beautiful characters found in anime and games. Each issue is bristling with posters and other cool free stuff, to the point where we think the editors must be trying to bankrupt their own company. We recommend it highly.

J-List has thousands of unique products from Japan, including products many people have never even seen. Often the Blogosphere will pick up on one thing or another and turn it into a surprise hit. One week it's the "Oppai Ball" and then it's "Ai in a Cup." Recently there was a storm of posting and cross-posting about our wacky Poop Hat, a soft, plush hat that looks like, well, poop. We've restocked the sold-out Poop Hat for you today!

The day before the Sex in Video Games conference I had some free time to bounce around San Francisco, which is always a treat.

I actually messed up. I was told that a store I needed to go was just up the road, so I walked, and walked, and walked. After a while I got stubborn and kept walking until I'd gone all the way to Fisherman's Wharf.

For lunch, I was weak and went for In n' Out, which is pathetic, I know, since there were about 10,000 better places to eat all around me. It was the "something that's really good that you can't get in Japan" factor.

I mean, they have hamburgers in Japan, but nothing that's really memorable. If you've never eaten at an In n' Out, it's really special -- their hamburgers are made with meat only, no worm filler. Their fries aren't coated with sugar to make them "golden brown" like at McD. Back in the "old days" (pre-1993 or so) they only had In n' Out (which is a family owned chain by the way) in the Los Angeles area, and we'd actually drive 2 hours from San Diego to Mission Viejo to get the stuff. Really, if you live in a state, or a country, where they don't have In n' Out, you need to try it once, at least. I recommend a Double Double with onions, that will set you up nicely.

And oh, Root Beer! Another thing you can't find in Japan for money or love, because it tastes like Salonpas to the Japanese (which it does).

I headed over to Pier 39, a fun play to wander around. Although it's, ahem, a little over-commercialized, it's still fun. There's a stupid little bar in my city called Pier 39, and every time I pass it I laugh out loud. There's also a bar called NASA. Bwa ha ha.