The Japanese Passenger on the Titanic

Among the fun things we're doing here in Las Vegas, we took the kids to see Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition on display at the Luxor, which lets you experience the history of the ship through the objects recovered from the wreck. My kids were in awe at the various items they'd brought up from the bottom of the sea, from plates to ceramic toothpaste containers to perfume that -- incredibly -- still managed to give off fragrance after 90 years at the sea bottom. There's even a giant bulkhead that they managed to bring up in one piece, which was just amazing to see. As you go into the exhibit, they hand you a "boarding pass" containing the name of a random passenger, and at the end you can look at a list to see if you're alive or dead. Mine was unfortunately one of the third-class passengers who didn't survive...

One passenger who was lucky enough to live was interesting to us, since he was the only Japanese on the ship. Masabumi Hosono was an employee of the Japanese Transportation Ministry sent to Russia to study railroads, and after finishing his assignment, he prepared to cross the Atlantic on the Titanic. When the ship had its fateful collision with an iceberg at 11:40 pm on April 14, Mr. Hosono was asleep, and didn't wake until someone knocked on the door of his second-class cabin to tell him to put his life-vest on. He eventually made his way to the lifeboats and, hearing an announcement that there was room in lifeboat no. 10, he jumped in. His life was saved, but he might have wished it hadn't been: he was attacked in the Japanese press for living when so many others had died, and fired from his job at the ministry, and some even called for him to commit suicide to atone for his dishonorable act. If he'd died, the world of music would have been less bright: he was the grandfather of Haruomi Hosono, one of the founding members of the influential band YMO, which helped bring Ryuichi Sakamoto to the world stage. Anyway, the Titanic exhibition was fantastic, and if you're going to be in Vegas any time soon, I highly recommend you go see it.

Do you know the story of the Japanese passenger on the Titanic?

Have a Happy New Year

Well, it's the end of another year. Time to watch the parade of famous singers on this year's Kohaku Uta Gassen (Red and White Year-End Song Festival), and eat soba noodles which supposedly give you long life since the noodles are long. This has been an awesome year for J-List, and we thank everyone for helping make it a successful one. The way to wish someone a Happy New Year while it's still December is yoi o-toshi o (yo-ee oh-toh-shi oh), literally meaning "[please have a] good New Year." After January 1st has arrived, you say akemashite omedetou (ah-kay-ma-shtay oh-meh-deh-toh), literally "congratulations on entering the New Year." So until we meet again, please have an awesome (and safe) New Year's celebration, and yoi o-toshi o!

Arashi is going to be featured in a big way at this year's Kohaku.

Abercrombie & Fitch is the new "Gap" of Japan

We're still having fun here in Vegas, doing tourist-ey things with the kids like exploring interesting casinos and seeing what shows we want to take in. We're also in "power shopping" mode, hitting all the outlet malls and loading up on clothes, shoes and other things to take back home. Being Japanese, my wife is quite good at organizing her shopping, and she's made a point of hitting the after-Christmas sales at Aba-Kuro, also known as Abercrombie & Fitch, the newest in-demand trendy American clothing brand in Japan. While Japanese are paying $100 or more for a single piece of clothing from the just-opened flagship store in Ginza, my wife will smile at the more reasonable prices she paid at the sales here in the States.

Abercrombie & Fitch is the new "Gap" of Japan.

Strange English in Japan

The Japanese are extremely creative when it comes to language, and often invent new English words to describe the things they use every day, a phenomenon known as wasei eigo or "made-in-Japan English." Sometimes these words can be quite confusing if you were to hear them used in casual conversation, like pepa doraiba, or "paper driver," meaning someone who has a drivers' license yet doesn't drive regularly; or risutora, from the word "restructure," which means having one's job eliminated; or rokehan ("location hunting"), to scout for a location for a video shoot; or ekiho, what the girl at Starbucks calls out when I order my coffee "extra hot." After a while you start to get a feel for the cognitive leap that caused the word to be created, like the way the word "skeleton" is used to mean translucent, like the original iMac. The worse thing is when I get used to these strange "English" words and am crazy enough to use them on anyone outside of Japan. If someone wished you a Meri-Kuri, would you understand that they were talking about a Merry Christmas?

Did everyone have a Meri-Kuri (Merry Christmas)?

Spirited Away + Earthquakes = Strong Emotions

I wrote a few weeks ago about how I believed I'd "cracked the code" as to why Japanese animation is so compelling to people around the world: it's all about the emotions. From boy-meets-moe love stories to anime series with involved love triangles, and even stories that make you taste the sadness of losing someone you love or jealous rage through the characters on-screen, there's something special about the way anime pushes our emotional buttons. One anime I've enjoyed recently is Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, an extremely realistic series about a young girl and her brother who are caught in a devastating quake in Tokyo. The story is about how Chihiro Mirai grows as she is spirited away to a magical world caught in world of death and destruction, and you really feel the fear and confusion in the characters as you watch them deal with great adversity, like Tokyo Tower falling down around their heads. Other forms of media have their emotional highs and lows, of course, but I think there's something about the way the Japanese combine character, setting, and unique visual elements to really make you feel the story in unique ways.

To me, anime is at its best when it conveys strong emotions.

Japan's "Forget-the-Year" Parties

Hello again from J-List, now in Las Vegas, where we've taken the kids for some post-Christmas relaxation. We hope you had a great Holiday!

2009 is winding down, as everyone looks back to reflect on all this year has held for us. Right now it's the season for bounen-kai or "Forget-the-Year" parties in Japan, and any bar, restaurant or izakaya (a kind of cozy traditional Japanese pub-restaurant) you visit will be crowded with groups of people having these year-end parties. Since it's naturally a big time for Japan's major beer manufacturers, there are plenty of advertisements in trains and around town promoting good times with friends and lots of ice-cold Asahi Super Dry or Kirin Ichiban Shibori to go with it. Not only does Japan have traditional Year-End Parties as an excuse for friends to get together and drink, there are New Year's Party for celebrating the new year that's just begun, held in January. Japan does love to drink socially, and even has a word for the concept: "nomunication," which is the word nomu (to drink) + the English word "communication."

Japan's beer companies are heavily advertising for "Year-End Parties."

New Year's Cards for 100 Million

Can you hear that endless mechanical noise? It's the sound of thousands of inkjet printers in Japan, grinding out nengajo, the traditional New Year's Cards that are so much fun to receive on January 1st. Just as video camera technology around the world is greatly aided by Japan's tradition of school "Sports Day" events, when children run relay races as proud parents capture the action with the latest HD video camera, printing technology owes a great debt to the custom of New Year's Card giving in Japan -- I wouldn't be surprised if the printer driver installed in your computer has built-in support for a paper size called hagaki, which is Japanese for "postcard." Every year hundreds of New Year's Card-related products are offered to consumers, from newfangled inkjet printers to professional printing services offered by Fuji Film, which are being pitched by Maki Horikita this year. 2010 is the Year of the Tiger, so I expect a lot of people will be incorporating tigers into their New Year's Card designs. What will our nengajo be? Find out on January 1st, like every one else.

Maki Horikita is this year's Fujicolor Image Girl, and very kawaii.

The Customer is God

Recently I wrote about how one of the more pleasant aspects of Japan was the high level of service you can generally expect. The Japanese version of "the customer is always right" is okyaku-san wa kamisama, literally "the customer is God," and it's not hard to see this attitude in action. Most of the time you'd expect store employee to try to sell you stuff you don't need, but when I tried to buy some stupid plug-in cards for a camera I was getting, one employee went out of his way to tell me they were a waste of money. Once I dropped the tray that holds water to make ice cubes in my refrigerator, and when I went to order a replacement I expected them to charge me $100 or more, but to my surprise they charged me just $1, despite having me by the proverbial octopus balls. I'm also impressed whenever I get my car serviced at the Mazda dealership, operated by the company directly, as is the norm in Japan. As I pull out, the employee who was helping me walks out into the street to stop traffic for me, literally placing himself at risk of bodily injury to make that final good impression on me. The strategy might be working: I realize we've bought four cars from them over the years.

Getting your car serviced in Japan might make you feel like God.

Christmas in Japan is Less "Real"

Of course one of the most enjoyable things to do this time of year is...Christmas shopping. I'm quite a kurisumasu otaku, or fan of all things Christmas, and I love hitting the malls to shop while getting into the Christmas spirit, perhaps while sipping one of those Egg Nog Lattes from Starbuck's, which they don't sell in Japan. They have shopping malls in Japan, of course, which are all beautifully decorated, but there's something fundamentally less "real" about Christmas there. I hit some of my favorite shopping malls in San Diego today, picking up some items that I think my family will love. As usual when I'm back in the U.S., I'm bowled over not just by the size of the "small" drink served at restaurants (which is quite a bit larger than the Japanese version), but by the incredible variety of choices available to everyone here, even just roaming the strip mall near my house. There's nothing like living in a foreign country to make you appreciate how good things are back home.

Christmas in Japan is beautiful, but somehow feels less "real" than back home.

Manga, the Whimsical Pictures of Japan

Manga are the famous Japanese comics that have come to define Japan around the world. Literally meaning "whimsical pictures," the word manga was coined in 1811 by Hokusai, the ukiyoe artist who brought us the famous "36 Views of Fuji" paintings you've probably seen. People of all ages read manga comics in Japan, from the very young to full-fledged members of society, and every Sunday dozens of customers come by the rural liquor shop my wife's family runs to get the new issue of Shonen Jump -- even successful businessmen driving BMWs. Manga isn't just a fun thing to read for leisure: in no small way, it forms the basis for Japan's wider popular culture. Obviously many anime series start out as manga, like A Certain Magical Index or Azumanga Daioh, but it's not uncommon for mainstream dramas or feature films to be based on manga stories, as well. Some examples are the currently running Liar Game, a drama about a mysterious game in which players are each given 100 million yen and told to try to steal as much money from each other as they can, and Jin, the tale of a modern doctor who "time-slips" back 150 years into the Edo Period.

Manga is everyehwere in Japan -- here's a cute image from a songbook at my daughter's Christmas pageant.

The Mechanics of Keigo, or Polite Japanese

Every language represents different challenges to learners. If I were to study a Romance language like Spanish, I'd need to cope with the idea of nouns having genders, which might be difficult since they seem arbitrary when coming from English -- can anyone tell me why a pencil is el lapiz (male) while a pen is la pluma (female)? In Japanese, the mechanics of how politeness works is a potential rough spot for foreign students. While you can generally cover any polite situation by using the the formal forms of verbs rather than informal (for example, using the word ikimasu for "to go" instead of the informal iku, which you'd only use around close friends or people who were younger than you), there are times when a person wants to bring his nihongo to the next level. The most common word for "person" in Japanese is hito, but in business settings you often use two different terms, the "exhaulting" word kata when referring to a person in the company you're addressing, and the "humble" word mono (moh-noh) when talking about someone from your own company. If you want to experience a really awkward situation in Japan, get these two words confused, as I've done.

You should say kata when addressing another company, not mono, like I did.

Time For a "Kuri-Pa," or Christmas Party

Christmas is a happy time in Japan, when couples can exchange gifts or maybe plan a special evening together, and children can look forward to a visit from the most famous gaijin of them all, "Santa-san." It's also the season for kuri-pa, or Christmas Parties, and various groups will organize get-togethers complete with funny hats, noise-makers and firecrackers that shoot paper streamers into the air, making them appear closer to December 31st in some ways than Christmas, at least to my eyes. Over the weekend I attended a Christmas Concert at my son's school, and there was a small Christmas party afterwards for the students and parents. They'd prepared a real feast, too, with all manner of Japanese snack foods from Pocky to Kit Kat to these little snowman cookies that looked delicious. Unfortunately there was no teacher present to tell people it was okay to start the festivities, so everyone mulled around pretending they weren't surrounded by tables of delicious snacks, despite being hungry and thirsty after the long musical performance. It was a good example of the Japanese concept of enryo (ehn-ryoh), which means to show restraint or discretion in social situations, and I felt sorry for everyone there as I secretly filled my pockets with munchies.

When Christmas draws near, it's time for a Christmas Party with friends.

Raising Bilingual Kids

The other day I sat my family in front of the TV to watch Up, the fantastic film by Disney/Pixar, which is called "Uncle Carl's Flying House" in Japan. I'd seen the movie in the States during the summer, so I knew they'd love it, and I wasn't disappointed. When world-famous explorer Charles F. Muntz shows up in his cool-looking airship, my wife said, "Oh, I know what that is, it's a blimp." This is a bit of a running joke in my family because "blimp" was the first English word that my son knew but my (Japanese) wife did not. We've always helped our children grow up to be bilingual so they can enjoy the benefits of both Japan and the U.S. freely, but of course there comes a day when your kids surpass your own linguistic ability. That day came when my son was five or so and called out to a blimp that was flying overhead, causing my wife (who had never encountered that word) to get flustered at how he'd managed to learn a word that she didn't know. When my kids were younger, I'd have "kanji battles" with them to see who could write more characters, and they tried very hard to beat the gaijin only to be vanquished. Now that they're older and my constant use of computers and the Internet has eroded my kanji-writing ability (a phenomenon which plagues native Japanese, too), they can both kick my butt quite easily.

We try to help our kids grow up bilingual, as much as we can.

Getting Used to Japan

Life in Japan is quite different from back home in the States, and there were many things I needed to get used to when I came here in 1991. Constantly standing out as "the gaijin" was one, and getting used to children looking at me as if I were wearing a clown suit or something. Becoming comfortable being in smaller spaces. Learning not to flinch at paying $2 for a newspaper or a video game in a game center or around $5 for the equivalent of a gallon of gas. But there were good things, too, such as learning to take really good service in restaurants or shops for granted, since being treated well is the norm here in Japan. Forgetting the smell of gasoline on my hands thanks to most service stations being full service, like something from Back to the Future, isn't bad either.

Gas stations in Japan are usually full service, and always awesome.

The Japanese "Variety" Show

The cornerstone of the Japanese television world is the "variety show," and although the Western stereotype of these programs isn't entirely accurate -- they rarely throw contestants who answer questions incorrectly into pirania-filled water -- they can be interesting to watch. The "king" of variety shows in Japan is Waratte Iitomo ("It's Okay to Laugh"), which has run six days a week since it began back in 1982, earning host Tamori a place in the Guinness Book. The show is made up of segments that are goofy yet oddly entertaining, like "Rare Beast Hunter Imoto," an ugly female comedian with thick eyebrows drawn on her face who travels the world looking for rare animals to compete against, like the time she challenged a cheetah to a 100-meter dash. On one program I caught recently, several famous "talents" were given sheets of paper and asked to design men's underwear, and it was interesting to see what ideas they came up with. Super cute Becky (no, not that one) came up with underwear that said "I love..." with a space where the man's girlfriend would write her own name, to make sure that he couldn't cheat on her with another girl. Scary, but creative, too.

Popular "talents" like comedy duo London Boots and Becky make us laugh.

Gift Suggestions & Happy News

J-List is loaded with products to make your Christmas more fun this year. We've got amazing snacks from Japan like the newest flavors of Pocky and Japan Kit Kat, which can incidentally be purchased by the sealed box for an automatic discount, if you want to sock some away in your desk at work. We never tire of finding delightful Sanrio products from Japan, like our 3D Cookie Cutter, which make a cool three-dimensional Hello Kitty cookie for you (also works with toast). And don't get us started on how awesome our Hello Kitty massagers, we mean shoulder massagers, are -- these ironic and fun items have been a top-seller this season. If you're rushed for a gift idea, you can check our San Diego based items, including the popular Grab Bags of fun random items, or of course consider a J-List Gift Certificate or iTunes Japan card, which can be sent through email (no waiting). Finally, you should browse our awesome 2010 calendars, since we have more than 100 in stock for you to check out.

In other news, J-List has a Holiday gift for you: we're announcing the end of the V-Mate authorization system for our download H-game products. Previously, customers who purchased Internet Download Editions of our G-Collections games needed to install Virtual Mate activation software and have a live Internet connection when they wanted to play. With the release of the patches we're posting today, Virtual Mate is no longer required (although it is still supported normally). Among other things, this means that anyone running 64-bit versions of Windows Vista or 7 may now purchase and play our games! Now you can run our amazing PC dating-sims on practically any version of Windows without hassle, including the convenient and discreet download versions.

Japanese 'Dajare' Jokes

All things considered, it's nice to be able to speak Japanese. You can talk to people in Japan who you wouldn't otherwise be able to communicate with, like the old man who used to cut my hair while telling me local stories from World War II. I've discovered another use for being bilingual: it allows you to make twice as many bad jokes as you otherwise would. For whatever reason, I've become adept at making a kind of Japanese pun known as dajare (dah-jah-rey), although in my family we call them dadajare since I'm "Dada" (which is itself a bad pun). The word for "to enter a bath" is nyuyoku, which sounds close enough to New York that I might make a joke about it...or coin a new word, nyu-yokka (New Yorker) meaning a person who loves taking long baths. Nestle makes a chocolate drink called Milo which is pronounced "mi-ro" in Japanese, which happens to be the informal command form of the verb for "to look." Hence, whenever I see Milo being sold in a store, I'm compelled to point and say, miro! (look at that!). One way to say "I don't have it" or "there aren't any" in Japanese is nashi, which also happens to be what those delicious Japanese pears are called, so naturally I might reply "Japanese pear" if my wife asks me if I have her car keys. I've encountered quite a few other gaijin in Japan on my Twitter feed who tell me that they, too, have become adept at making these bad jokes. Perhaps there's some brain-level connection between bilingualism and seeing humorous (?) connections between words.

Perhaps the most basic dajare joke is, arumikan ni aru mikan, or a mikan orange on an aluminum can.

Amuro in a Gundam Music Video?

There are two people named Amuro in Japanese popular culture. One of them is Amuro Ray, the young boy who climbed into the cockpit of an experimental RX-78 Gundam prototype and, using his intuitive Newtype abilities and a serendipitously placed instruction manual, was able successfully pilot it and destroy two Zaku who were attacking him. In the process, he inspired a generation of boys to dream of piloting their own giant robots, and his famous lines like "You hit me again! Even my father never hit me!" and "Amuro...ikimasu!" (Amuro, launching now!) are known by everyone here. The other Amuro is Amuro Namie (iTunes Japan link), or Namie Amuro in English name order. She's the legendary singer from Okinawa whose popularity created a social fashion phenomenon as young "Amullers" imitated her style, a trend that eventually morphed into the current Shibuya/Harajuku fashion culture you can see on J-List. Now the two Amuros have come together in a new music video in which the singer appears floating in space with the hero of the One Year War, the first time a flesh-and-blood person has been inserted into the Gundam universe. What do you think?

Singer Amuro Namie makes a journey to Gundam-land, complete with normal suit and Lalah-style forehead jewel.

Awesome stuff: Domo-kun Hoodies, Grab Bags and iTunes Cards

J-List is a wonderful window to Japan on the web. Some awesome items you might consider this gift-giving season include our warm Domo-kun and other hoodies, conveniently stocked in San Diego and very soft to touch. We love to find rare and fun traditional items from Japan, like our popular Lucky Cat Tea Cups, which are great for displaying or drinking tea out of. Our fukubukuro grab bags are a huge hit this year, and we have items both in stock in San Diego and Japan, including a new "cosplay" lucky bag. Finally our iTunes Japan prepaid cards, which are fully compatible with the iPod/iPhone sitting under your tree this year, and you can even buy 3000 yen iTunes card credit in a spiffy J-List gift certificate that can be emailed or printed by you. Having an iTunes Japan account has many benefits, including access to the "free single of the week" plus this Christmas album, free to anyone with an iTunes Japan account.

Common Sense and the Japanese

Part of Peter's Unified Theory of Japan is that the Japanese are (usually) guided by a mysterious "universal common sense" that they can all tap into somehow. Called joshiki (JOH-shki), translatable as "common knowledge so basic no one ever need think about it," this is the reason that Japanese generally seem to be on the same wavelength about things, and why we gaijin appear strange and unpredictable to them. When it rains, virtually every Japanese person will reach for an umbrella so they can keep as dry as possible, but I'm likely to just go out into the rain if it's only sprinkling a little -- it's not like a little water is going to kill me. Similarly, the Japanese seem to believe that warm clothes must be worn exactly from October 1 to May 31st, and whenever I wear a T-shirt in November because it's still plenty warm out I feel like I'm breaking some unwritten rule. Getting medicine from the doctor used to be another example of the "common sense gap" between Japan and foreigners. A decade ago, the nurse would dispense various pills or powders to me in little envelopes, but whenever I'd ask what each type of medicine actually was for, she'd look troubled, like no one had ever asked her that before. Nowadays, medical staff are good about clearly explaining the purpose of each type of medicine, which I believe came about in part due to Japan being sensitive to feedback from the foreign community here.

Do you do anything hijoshiki-teki, that is, un-commonsensical?

When it rains, Japanese reach for an umbrella, as seen in this illustration.

On Language and Minotaurs

The other day I was watching a BBC documentary on ancient history, because BBC documentaries are awesome -- I hope our readers in the UK know how much we appreciate them. I took note of the way the word "minotaur" was pronounced in the show: MINE-ah-tour, which differed from my California dialect of American English in which the word is pronounced MIN-ah-taur. The question of how to inflect/pronounce words like this wouldn't be an issue in Japanese, thanks to the katakana writing system, which provides an absolute (if imperfect) way to pronounce anything. Japanese who go to America sometimes encounter a native English speaker who can't pronounce names like Chopin or Hermes or Evangelion "correctly" (this word of course being subjective), and are amazed by this. On the other hand, Japanese can have an incredible amount of difficulty reading their own language, especially kanji for names, which can have many possible readings. As I was writing the description for an issue of Dengeki Hime, I encountered a name that used difficult kanji. Not only could I not read the name, but none of the Japanese staff at J-List could read it either, and it took several minutes of Googling for us to find the official pronunciation (it was Manaka Komaki from the game ToHeart).

Minotaur in Japanese is minotaurus, from the Latin. Shirow draws rather nicely, don't you think?

Japan and Train Otakus

Japan has a lot of trains, which is a good thing because they also have a lot of densha otaku, rail fans who love everything about trains, whether it's riding on the sleekest Shinkansen or exploring old abandoned train lines. During my career as an ESL teacher I encountered more than a few students whose main release from the stress of studying was visiting obscure corners of Japan to ride on their favorite train, and densha lovers can even be seen in the political world here -- Land Minister Seiji Maehara is a rail aficionado who has published photographs of steam locomotives. On a TV show called Tonari no Maestro (The Master Next Door), which finds amazing accomplishments by average people and reports on them, I saw a piece on Japan's #1 train lover, who managed to visit all of the 9861 train stations in the country. His name is Takahisa Sugihara, age 61, and he spent 30 years traveling around Japan and stopping at each station, earning himself a listing in the Guinness Book as a result. On the show he reminisced about his favorite stations, like one in Kyushu that's built inside a private home so travelers can enjoy the smell of curry stewing in the kitchen as they pass through, or a station in Aichi Prefecture which faces the sea, making it the most beautiful train station in Japan at sunset.

This train station near Nagoya is the most beautiful in Japan. I want to go there now.

Ocean Waves, Good Times

Anime is a window into Japanese society and a valuable resource for anyone hoping to understand this complex country. The animated film Ocean Waves (Japanese title Umi ga Kikoeru or "I Can Hear the Sea") is a subtle story by Studio Ghibli that tells the tale of a girl from Tokyo whose parents have divorced, forcing her to move to Kochi Prefecture on the island of Shikoku with her mother. The story is about her struggles to adjust to this new part of Japan, where (she says) everyone talks like they came out of a samurai period drama on TV, and of a love triangle formed when two friends fall in love with her. Against the backdrop of the story is the group of high school students who instinctively create a stable group dynamic where everyone can feel like they're a member and no one need feel ike an outsider, which is quite different from my own high school experience, let me tell you. The scene near the end of the film, when the students all have a reunion and share food and beer together while some members of the group dare to confess their secret loves, is great to observe.

"Ocean Waves" is a subtle and deep film by Studio Ghibli, and one of my favorites.

Gift ideas: Wasabi Doritos, Star Wars Stuff, Calendars

J-List remains in Super High Efficiency Mode, processing orders and getting them processed and out the door as quickly as possible. Snacks have been especially popular this year, as customers fun snacks like Japanese Kit Kat or Wasabi Doritos. There are a lot of Star Wars fans in the world, and a lot of people buying wacky Japanese Star Wars gifts for them, like the Lightsaber Chopsticks we have in stock. If you look on our new Plush Toy Page (now separate from our Totoro & Ghibli page), you can see some of the cute new yutanpo toys we've been selling, soft plush toys with hot-water bottles inside to make your bed toasty. Finally, J-List's 2010 anime, J-POP and other calendars have been a huge hit this year, so much that we're selling out of things left and right. The last of the Shirow calendars and the already-decimated Kyoto Animation calendars are in stock now, but for how long? Browse now!

Kanji of the Year for 2009: Shin (New)

Each year the organization that publishes the Standardized Kanji Test announces the "kanji of the year," the character that best sums up the events of the past twelve months. Previous characters have included inochi (life) in 2005 to mark the terrible young lives lost in suicides that year, tora (tiger) in 2003 to comemorate the Hanshin Tigers' victory that year, nise (fake) in 2007, a year marred by manufactrers intentionally mis-labeling food products, and hen (change) for 2008, symbolizing the many changs the world went through that year. The official kanji for 2009 has been announced, and it's...shin, meaning "new." (Correctly pronounced like "sheen," not like the bone in your leg.) There are many things that were renewed this year, starting with the historic change of government in Japan as the Liberal Democratic Party was defeated by the Democratic Party of Japan, ending a half-century of nearly unbroken rule. The presidency of Mr. Obama was no doubt on the minds of the people who voted for this year's kanji, and perhaps the H1N1 influenza variant, which was a certainly a major concern for everyone this year. It was also a year of renewal for the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation organization itself: scandals involving improper use of funds by the group's former president racked the organization this year, which nearly caused Kyoto's Kiyomizu Temple to deny them permission to hold the iconic ceremony there.

The official kanji of 2009 isshin (new), presumably not related to Crayo Shin-chan.

Moe Moe Blood Donations!

The current outbreak of the "new type influenza virus" (as H1N1 is callled in the Japanese media) is having a negative effect on an unexpected area, the nation's blood supply, and the Japan Red Cross is reporting that levels of blood in Japan is at an all-time low. But the Red Cross in Akihabara has come up with an innovative way to get Japan's millions of otaku to open a vein for a good cause: using the popular Vocaloid character Miku Hatsune. The office has been renovated to look like some kind of futuristic space, with beautiful lights and dozens of Vocaloid-related toys and figures on display, including a real 3D hologram that fans can gaze at. They can watch Miku-chan performing her eerily beautiful computer-generated songs on TV while blood is drawn, and Miku thanks them when they're done.

The Akihabara branch of the Red Cross uses Miku Hatsune to get more blood donations -- smart.

Of Christmas in Japan, and Reindeer Hamburg Steak

Christmas is upon us, and for a gaijin living in Japan that means one thing: being asked to dress up like "Santa-san" for Japanese kids. I've been asked to play Santa many times, and it's always fun to bring a little joy to the kids, who are sure you're the real Santa because you're a gaijin. At one preschool I was ho-ho-ho'ing at, there was a question and answer period where the kids asked me things like, "Where do you live?" (er, Norway) and "What is your favorite color?" (red). One kid asked what Santa's favorite food was, and I got creative and replied, "Reindeer hamburg," which kind of freaked them out a little. In Japan, a hamburg in Japan is a steak made with ground beef, which we used to call a Salsbury Steak back in the days of tin-foil TV dinners before microwave ovens came along. Meat is expensive in Japan, and a steak made from ground beef is a more reasonable menu choice. Some restaurants such as Denny's and Coco's go out of their way to brand themselves as selling "authentic hamburg steak just like Americans eat," and with the bad economy here, sales of the reasonably-priced steaks are booming. In case you were wondering: just as a "hamburg" is essentially the hamburger part without the bun around it, the word for a hot dog/frankfurter eaten all by itself is a "frankfurt."

I don't know a single gaijin male who was not pressed into service as Santa-san at least once.

More Gift Ideas: Hello Kitty, Snacks, iTunes Cards & More

It's time for more random gift suggestions from Peter. Of course we do have an outstanding selection of unique Hello Kitty products from Japan, and it can be fun to check the top 50 items this week, or browse all Hello Kitty items. If you check the top-selling snacks page, you'll see that the Japan Kit Kat flavors we carry are really popular, like the new Royal Milk Tea flavour. Our traditional Food Drops continue to be popular with customers, and they've all but taken over the top "traditional" products page. Finally, the iTunes Japan prepaid cards and convenient J-List Gift Certificates are an awesome suggestion for anyone -- you can even gift 3000 yen worth of iTunes credit now!

Space Battleship Yamato Reborn

This has really been an awesome year to be an anime fan in Japan. In addition to the usual stream of worthwhile series on TV, there have been some excellent releases on the big screen, and I realize now that all my trips to the movie theatre this year have been to watch anime films, except for the new Harry Potter movie. (Aside: have we nerds taken over the world, or what?) First there was the Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance film, then the recently released Macross Frontier movie, both of which were great to see. And now we've got another treat: a brand-new Space Battleship Yamato film, which is set to "roadshow" (as a movie premier is called here) this Saturday. A melodramatic space opera in which Japan's most famous battleship is reborn to save the Earth from the Americans and their atomic bombs the evil Desslar and his radioactive planet bombs, Space Battleship Yamato (or Star Blazers, as it was known in English) is one of the major achievements of the era, telling a compelling story with love, death and all those other themes no one thought that animation should deal with. Fans of incredibly complex sci-fi shows like Battlestar Galactica or Babylon 5 absolutely have Yamato to thank for showing us the way.

The Yamato is off to save the Earth again this weekend, and I've got my Wave Motion Goggles ready.

Strange Tastes in Japan: Melonpan, Ginger Ale Kit Kat and More

Coming to live in Japan means getting used to new things, like navigating streets with large uncovered ditches beside them for gaijin to ride their bicycles into in the dark, and the agony of finding you've run out of kerosene for your space heater on the coldest night of the year. It also means encountering a lot of new and sometimes strange flavors, such as melonpan, a vaguely brain-shaped round bread with sugar and melon juice on the outside. The Japanese are fond of milk-flavored products like "milk-bread," which is not something my brain is set up to process, and milk-flavored "soft cream" (soft-serve ice cream) is also quite common as a separate flavor from vanilla entirely. The Japanese go out of their way to eat healthy foods, and my wife is always giving me strange things like cookies made from black sesame seeds, washed down with a cold glass of vinegar. Aloe may be great for making your skin supple, but the Japanese think it's tasty, too, and there are several brands of aloe yogurt to choose from in the supermarket. If you've ever browsed J-List's extensive list of snack offerings, you've probably been surprised by one or two items, such as Ginger Ale Kit Kat or the unique Azuki flavored Pepsi, and if you really want to enjoy a selection of unique flavors, there's always our line of Japanese Food Drops, candies that taste like some of Japan's most famous dishes.

Shana of the Blazing Eyes is a big fan of Melonpan.

Let's Bring Our Family to Japan to Live!

I caught a TV show the other day that dealt with the issue of Japan's falling population, focusing not on the Japanese themselves by on the relatively low number of foreigners who come to live here permanently. The show discussed countries like Ireland and Singapore, which have policies encouraging foreigners to immigrate and integrate culturally, bringing many benefits including a more diverse workforce and a healthier tax base. By and large, Japan has no plan to try to entice people from other countries to come live and work here, aside from a few halting programs to bring in healthcare workers from Malaysia or the Philippines, which is tragic since the time for visionary policies that define Japan's position in the world is now. One interesting exception to this lack of an official immigration policy is the town of Niseko, Hokkaido, which has become popular with gaijin from the U.S., Australia and Europe thanks to its excellent skiing and golf courses, and the number of foreigners buying land and building houses there is very high. I like to think I've done a good job of giving something back to the country that's become my second home, founding a successful company and hiring employees and promoting a deeper interest in Japan among people around the world. I'd love to see Japan become a more open place where this kind of success story could be more common.

By the way, I weirded the Japanese staff out with this image, I think.

A parody of a famous poster advising Japanese to immigrate to Brazil I whipped up.

Random Gift Ideas from Japan

J-List is a great place to find unexpected gifts for that special person on your list, especially if they have a fascination with some aspect of Japan or another. J-List's 2010 calendars have been extremely popular this year, so popular that they're starting to sell out way sooner than expected, so you might browse our selection and see what gift-worthy items are there. There's nothing like keeping the inner geek alive even as you enter the business world, and we think the otaku-approved business card holders we got in today are pretty cool. Our ukiyoe art skins for Sony PSP and Nintendo DS are awesome, too, and reasonably priced. 2009 has been the Year of Christmas Bento, and checking our selection of bento boxes or bento-related accessories might be a good place to start looking. Finally, we always carry tons of Hello Kitty items from Japan, such as the Sanrio-approved "shoulder massagers" (honest), which can be bought in sets of three for a discount, if you want to give them as gifts.

Of Thanksgiving and Tiramisu

On Sunday it was time for our family's Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, I know, whoever heard of an American having Thanksgiving in December, but both my kids were in the middle of studying for important tests at school, and I was asked by the family in general if we could delay things a week or two. We had all kinds of Costco-enabled good things to eat, from chicken to mashed potatoes to what my wife described as a "bucket of tiramisu" for dessert, which was so large and so delicious and so cheap that it's receiving quite a lot of buzz in the Japanese blogosphere. I think that there's something about living in a foreign country that makes a person more flexible than they'd otherwise be, as you realize that the cultural ideas we all take for granted don't always need to be adhered to that closely. If I ever become leader of the world, I'll make a law that says that all young people must live for at least a year in some other country, to give them some much-needed perspective on their own lives.

"American" Tiramisu compared with Japanese. This picture encapsulates things nicely.