Foreigners and First Names in Japan

One day I took my son out for a bowl of gyudon, steamed beef over rice, the most popular form of fast food in Japan. The restaurant was crowded, so I added my name to the list, writing "Peter" in the katakana writing system that's generally used for foreign names and loan words, and sat down to wait. "Everyone else wrote their last name," my son observed. "Why did you write your first name?" This was an interesting question, and I didn't have an answer for him right away. Ostensibly, names in Japan are written in family name, given name order, so someone named Taro Yamada in English would be Yamada Taro in Japanese. But by unwritten rule, Westerners always continue to use their name in the same order as they do back home. When I was a teacher, I was universally known as "Peter-sensei" by my students, never "Payne-sensei" as you'd expect. This probably has something to do with the innate "fun" of teachers of English (conversation) , since we're native English speakers and teach enjoyable lessons and don't give tests on grammar and vocabulary, unlike teachers of English (the actual academic subject). My students were basically on a first-name basis with "Peter-sensei," something that would be unthinkable for any of the other Japanese teachers, and this made it easier for me to reach them, I thought.

Foreigners in Japan often end up being called by their given name quite often.

Drinking in Japan vs. USA

Yesterday was my birthday, so I went on something called a "drinkabout" with some local friends, essentially a pub crawl to some excellent bars that's facilitated by a convenient "beer bus" that arrives every 30 minutes to take everyone to the next place. (If you'll be in town for the San Diego Comic-Con, give it a try -- you can see schedule details here.) In the years I've been in Japan, San Diego has gone and re-invented itself as the home of craft beers, and there is a huge selection of amazing brews to sample. Drinking in the U.S. is very different from drinking in Japan, of course. In Japan, there's much less choice when it comes to finding amazing beers, since the Japanese government likes its beer companies large and easy to manage tax-wise, and while I love Kirin and Sapporo as much as the next guy, the variety of what's available in San Diego was amazing. It was also interesting to compare the social act of drinking itself. In Japan, beer is usually consumed in small glasses, and everyone is constantly refilling everyone else's glass, though never their own, since that's a mild taboo. (If you don't want to drink alcohol, you can act out the same ceremony but with oolong tea instead.) Whenever foreigners in Japan drink together, there's an odd tension for a few moments while they decide whether they want to pour each other's drinks Japan-style, or just pour all their own beers.

Drinking in Japan is very different from in San Diego.

Bread In Japan

It's well known that the Japanese love rice, and eat it with nearly every meal, but they're no slouches when it comes to making exotic types of bread, too. Introduced by the Portuguese in the 16th century, pan (as it's called, no relation to shimapan) comes in many shapes and sizes. There's shoku-pan or normal sliced bread, awesome "curry bread" with spicy curry inside, and even "Bacon Cheese France," French bread with cheese and bacon somehow baked inside. Some varieties of Japanese bread are often made with the simplest of ingredients, such as yakisoba pan, a roll with delicious chow mein-style noodles shoved inside, or ichigo whip-sand, sandwiches made with whipped cream and strawberries, sold in convenience stores. Most of us don't think of bread as being sweet, but many types in Japan are, including anpan (a traditional round bread with sweet anko beans inside), melon-pan (vaguely melon-shaped) bread beloved of a certain tsundere girl, and honey toast, essentially a loaf of bread that's been toasted then covered with honey or syrup plus fruit and other good things.

There are many kinds of bread in Japan.

If My Heart Had Wings is Coming...

Remember that a great all-ages visual novel is coming out in English very soon. Called If My Heart Had Wings (Japanese title この大空に翼を広げて Kono Ohzora ni Tsubasa o Hirogete), it's a great story about youth and love and dreams. The game ships June 28, and you can preorder either the package or download edition now.

Shinzo Abe, the Last Best Hope for Japan?

It's been seven months since the return of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the pro-business conservative party that ruled Japan for much of the postwar period. Mr. Abe (pronounced "ah-beh") had a brief stint as PM back in 2006, when he was heralded as the youngest Japanese leader ever, but he quit after only a year for "health reasons" brought on by frustration over the fact that young leaders have very little political capital and generally can't get anything useful done. His return to power last year was made possible by China and South Korea, who had spent so many months whipping their own people into an anti-Japan frenzy, over the Senkaku/Daioyu Islands in China's case, and as part of the normal election cycle for South Korea, all of which angered Japanese voters enough to return the LDP to power. Abe promised to get Japan's economy humming again, and unleashed a program of monetary easing and public works projects which have worked wonders for the economy so far. Last week he announced his third volley of reforms which promised to break down many of the barriers harming Japan's international competitiveness, but the changes fell far short of what economists say is needed. Hopefully after the upcoming Japanese election we'll see some bolder reforms.

Shinzo Abe, the last, best hope for Japan?

Bullying and "Ijime" in Japan

One sad aspect of Japan's society is いじめ ijime (pronounced ee-jee-MEH), the cruel bullying that happens in school, sports and other social situations. We're all human, of course, and various forms of hazing can be found in any group, from college fraternities to making the new guy at McDonald's count all the pickles in the pickle bucket as an initiation ceremony, but it's become a real social problem in Japan. There are some reasons why ijime is especially bad in Japan, including the strictness of the top-down senpai-kohai relationship system and Japan's custom of organizing students into classes which never change for the entire year, so instead of each student going to a random classroom each hour, you've got the same people around you for 7 hours a day, six days a week. (Yes, Japanese students have to go to school on Saturdays.) Of course, ijime can happen to anyone, and my wife even had problems with some of her co-workers at a company she used to work at. Once, everyone was going out to a French restaurant, and they told her to dress in normal, everyday clothes, but when she arrived wearing jeans, she saw that everyone else had secretly dressed up just to embarrass her. My half-American daughter has also experienced some ijime in her almost-homogeneous school from time to time, like the cruel girls who told her she couldn't join their club "because their Tamagotchis didn't understand English." The topic also comes up in our excellent English-translated visual novel YUME MIRU KUSURI: A Drug That Makes You Dream. One of the girls in the game is a transfer student who's being bullied by her classmates, and you must find a way to protect her and eventually form an, ahem, special bond with her.

Bullying is a sad aspect of life in Japan.

Eating Too Much in the U.S.

There are many differences between Japan and America, and one of the biggest is food. Obviously the things that I eat while visiting the U.S. are very different from what I'm used to back in Japan, with less fish (either cooked or eaten as sushi or sashimi) and of course no large portion of steamed white rice with almost every meal. While I've been in San Diego, I've been visiting several restaurants I want to eat at "just once" -- my favorite Mexican restaurants near the J-List San Diego office, the local In-N-Out Burger, the Cheesecake Factory -- but these meals can add up quickly, and I know when I get back to Japan I'll be going on a big diet. Another problem with being in the U.S. is finding unsweetened beverages -- many restaurants, the local Subway sandwich shops included, have been replacing normal iced tea with super-sweet Honey Green Tea® and Raspberry Blast® flavors, which are impossible to drink after 20 years of consuming healthy unsweetened barley and green tea in Japan.

There are many foods to eat "just once" while in the U.S.

Lower Prices on Great English Eroge + Visual Novels

Remember that J-List recently executed a big permanent price drop on almost 50 of our popular English-language eroge and dating-sim games, making it easier than ever to pick up some awesome games to play! We've permanently lowered prices on almost 50 of our great visual novels, from The Sagara Family to Yume Miru Kusuri to Kana Little Sister and Brave Soul. Prices have been lowered by $5 or $10 on a huge number of games, so it's a great time to browse the reduced-price visual novels and eroge and see which titles you'd like to pick up!

My Top Ten Places to Visit in Japan

I'm often asked to recommend places to visit by J-List customers who are planning a trip to Japan. It's a big topic, since there's so much to see in Japan, but I'll try to throw some ideas out. So if it's useful to you, here's my top ten recommended sights to see in Japan.

My top ten list of places to visit in Japan.

• First, Tokyo. All the obvious stuff like Akihabara and Shinjuku are great to take in, just don't fool yourself that Tokyo isn't a massive concrete jungle. Try to hit Akiba on the Sunday after payday (the 25th of the month) to really feel its power.
• Nikko, a pleasant collection of temples dating back to 766 AD. You can see the grave of Tokugawa Ieyasu and also the "see no evil, hear no evil" monkeys. If you like miniatures, visit Tobu World Square nearby, which recreates the world's grandest places in perfect detail.
• Kamakura, home of the second largest bronze Buddha statue in Japan. Be sure to ride the Enoden train, in operation since 1900.
• Mt. Fuji. Making the climb to the top is not difficult at all, and it will change your life forever. (I sang the Space Battleship Yamato theme at the top.) The climbing season is July and August.
• Moving to Kyoto, Kinkaku-ji is simply the most famous Buddhist temple in Japan. Built in 1397, it was burned down in 1955 by a mentally ill monk who thought the beautiful building didn't match the austere tradition of Zen Buddhism.
• Ryoan-ji, the Zen Buddhist temple famous for its rock garden. You can lose yourself for hours here.
• Sanjuusan-gendou, or the Hall of 33 Bays, a collection of 1000 wooden statues of Buddhist "Kanon" (kind of like Buddhist saints who have been raised to deity status). It's said you can find your own face among them if you look long enough.
• Fushima Inari, the temple in Kyoto where you walk through thousands of torii (Japanese arches), which simulates our passage through life.
• In between Kyoto and Nara is the down of Uji, famous for green tea as well as the Byodo-in temple, displayed on the back of Japan's 10 yen coin. It's one of the most peaceful places in the world.
• Finally in nearby Nara, Todai-ji is one of the most amazing places in all Japan. It's the largest wooden building in the world, and it houses the largest statue of Buddha in Japan.

Thoughts on Language and Pants Falling Down

Language has many uses, including communicating great ideas, recording the events of history and ordering pizza. It also helps define the people who speak it, and I'm always fascinated by the connection between Japan's language and its people. Japanese is well-known for being a vague language in which information is omitted from sentences if it's understood by the context, to the point that foreigners have to pay close attention in order to follow what's being said. Correspondingly, the Japanese are also vague -- or "about," an English word they've re-purposed to mean vague and imprecise -- and they're masters as fitting deep nuance into the words they use every day. Another function of language is, at times, to hide your conversation from others. In Las Vegas my wife and I were shopping in a Ferragamo store (if you marry a Japanese woman you'll become quite familiar with these), and some interesting customers came in to buy shoes. They were sporting the current "pants at half-mast" vogue, and thanks to Japanese, I was able to call my wife's attention to them so she could witness the latest in silly fashions trends in the U.S.

We got to check out the latest fashions in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas Vacation Update

Mrs. J-List and I had fun in Las Vegas, relaxing by the pool and turning off our brains for long periods of time. We ate some amazing food, lost and won some money at the blackjack tables, and are now very refreshed. Time to get back to work!

I like going to Las Vegas because there's such a variety of people to be found there. Obviously there's a huge cross-section of Americans there, from Texas and Florida and New York and Boston. But Las Vegas is also a "Mecca" for visitors from all over the world, and we had several interesting conversations (and a few drinks) with folks from England, France, Sweden and a few other countries. We also managed to see a famous K-POP singer (we weren't sure who she was) being mobbed by Korean fans, which added to the international flavor.

We had fun in Las Vegas. Artist's concept above.

J-List Will Support the Sony PS4

There was a lot of buzz last week about the upcoming Sony PS4 "winning" the next-gen console wars because it would have a lower price than Microsoft's Xbox One and didn't block the sale of used games. We think the PS4 will be a hit for another reason: like the PSP, PSVita and PS3, the PS4 will be region free, meaning anime fans can buy ecchi fighting games, Hatsune Miku pantsu simulators dancing games and other otaku-friendly titles and play them on hardware from anywhere in the world. While we wait for the PS4 to arrive, why not browse our lineup of great anime games for the current Sony platforms? All games are fully region free.