The Mechanics of Humility in Japan

Last time I talked about how 謙遜 (ken-sohn, with a long vowel on the end), meaning humility, is considered an important quality for people to have, and group dynamics depend on it, whether members in a university circle (club) or co-workers in a company. Essentially, this just means people will generally be self-effacing and avoid boasting in social situations. One thing about humility: in keeping with the uchi/soto (in-group/out-group) system that pervades Japanese thinking, humility extends to members of your own group (your family, company etc.) when you're talking with others (members of another group). A good example of this is Japanese middle-aged women who will praise the studiousness of their neighbor's children when talking with other mothers while pointing out how baka (stupid) their own children or grandchildren are, reading manga all day instead of studying. I once heard my mother-in-law doing this, talking negatively about my son to other ladies in the neighborhood for reasons of self-effacing politeness, and I took her to task over it. We don't need that kind of negativity in our house.

I looked for an image of a grandmother to put here. I found this.

Foreign Loan Words in Japanese

One interesting aspect of Japan is the many ways its language has changed since the 1868 Meiji Restoration, which abolished 265 years of rule by the Tokugawa Shoguns and "restored" power to the Emperor, allowing Japan to become a Western-style Constitutional Monarchy. During the Meiji Period foreign loan words like 珈琲 ko-hi (coffee) were introduced, archaic enough to have kanji assigned to them; then came the Allied Occupation, when words like ドンマイ don'mai and オーライ oh-rai, Japanese approximations of "don't mind" (nevermind) and "all right," entered the lexicon; and today, hundreds of English words related to computers, politics, fashion and more are imported every year. Because of this, virtually any Japanese over the age of 50 feels stress at encountering English words they aren't familiar with, and there are actually katakana dictionaries to help these people learn what "manifesto" or "innovation" or "nothing venture, nothing win!" mean. Now a disgruntled viewer has sued NHK, Japan's clone of the BBC and presumably the last bastion of "proper" Japanese. The individual, who is 71 years old, got tired of hearing words like "compliance" and "initiative" and "globalization" in katakana English in news broadcasts, and is suing for $14,000 dollars in damages.

Japanese get stressed when encountering too many foreign words.

Peter's Trip 2013 Update

I'm on the final leg of my pre-Anime Expo trip around the U.S., and finally headed towards home. After visiting Mt. Rushmore (or "Rushmore" as the locals call it) and the old west town of Deadwood, I stayed in a place called Hot Springs, South Dakota, no doubt drawn there by my long time in Japan. (The hot springs turned out to be a river made slightly warm by underground springs, but I was warned, "Be careful if you go in, there are leeches.") Now I'm in Colorado, drawn to the state's image of cool, frosty mountains...so naturally they're having the worst heat wave in 100 years or something. I'm staying at the 104-year-old Stanley Hotel, the original inspiration for The Shining, and when I'm done with this update I'll be exploring the place to see if I can find any of the ghosts that are supposed to be hanging around the hotel.

My trip around the U.S. continues. Now in Colorado!

Cool Products Thursday, June 27, 2013

Great news: the new all-ages visual novel If My Heart Had Wings (Japanese title この大空に翼を広げて Kono Oozora ni Tsubasa o Hirogete) is shipping Friday! It's a great story about youth, love, and dreams of flying in the wide blue sky, with absolutely stunning artwork with higher resultion than ever seen before in a similar game!

Humble Hokkaido

One thing textbooks don't tell you about becoming bilingual in a language is the way you'll naturally come to internalize the values of the language group over time. This is why I'll tend to take Japan's side when blogging about, say, the historical background of the island disputes with South Korea and China, though I always do my best to research the issue and present the other side's viewpoint as well. Two things that are important to the Japanese are 謙遜 ken-son or personal humility, and 調和 cho-wa, which means getting along harmoniously with others, and I learned a hard lesson related to these concepts back when I was in university at SDSU. The city of Hakodate, at the southernmost tip of Hokkaido, wanted to hire eight native speakers to teach English and act as goodwill ambassadors during city events for two months, and I jumped at the chance to go to Japan for free. I'd studied Japanese for two years at that point, and thanks to learning with manga and translating Japanese songs I could speak the language pretty well...although I had not yet internalized the important concepts above. When it came time to select who would go, the interviewer was impressed with my language skills, but he sensed my pride and headstrong nature, and I wasn't one of the candidates chosen. Not being picked for the program was a bitter pill for me back then, but it introduced me to the concepts of ken-son and cho-wa, as well as 反省 hansei, which means to reflect on your own shortcomings rather than blame others when something goes wrong. Looking back, I'm really glad I was able to learn that lesson.

I lost the chance to go to Hokkaido.

Japan Loves Awards

I happened to see that popular actress Ayame Gouriki, famous for her energetic nature and boyish short-cut hair, was awarded this year's "E-Line Beautiful" award by the Japan Association of Adult Orthodontics, which essentially means she got an award for having an extremely beautiful face when viewed in profile. If you think this is a pretty silly thing to give an award for, you're right: it's just one of dozens of awards given in Japan for purely PR purposes. There's the Nail Queen Award for the woman with the most beautiful fingernails, one for models with beautiful legs, the Nice Couple Award for the most congenial married couple, plus the Japan Megane Best Dresser Award, given to the most fashionable female who wears glasses. There are hundreds of literary awards, too, so many in fact that only a few of them are worth receiving. Virtually every publishing company has established a line of "prestigious" awards to dole out to writers each year, though the really important award for Japanese literature is the Akutagawa Award, or the Tezuka Award for manga. There's even a local version of the Academy Awards called...the Japan Academy Awards, where Japanese actors and directors win awards for Japanese films made during the year.

Ayame-chan won an award for having a beautiful profile.

Peter's USA Trip, Part 2

My pre-convention season trip across the U.S. continues, having taken me from Utah to the other side of Wyoming, where I visited the beautiful Devil's Tower National Monument, which has been on my bucket list since seeing Close Encounters of the third Kind (Japanese title: 未知との遭遇 michi to no souguu or "Encounter With the Unknown") as a child. It was a breathtaking sight, though I couldn't find any aliens no matter how hard I looked. My Japanese wife and I are quite strange: she's always been more fascinated by the U.S. than her home country of Japan, while I've been more focused on Japan. As a result, I've been all over Japan but my wife has only been to a few places like Kyoto and Osaka, and on the flipside, she's visited several parts of the U.S. (Florida, Wisconsin, New England, Mt. Rushmore) that I'd never been to. So I'm happy to be catching up with her just a little on this trip.

There were no aliens. Apparently Haruhi hasn't summoned them yet.

J-List Anime Figure Sale Almost Ended

Just a note, our 2x points sale on all anime figures will be ending soon. The sale covers all prepainted figures, the amazing super-posable Figma and Revoltech action figures, the super-kawaii Nendoroid line, plus "cast off" (naughty) figures. Preorder figures are also included, so preorder the figures you want now! Click to browse all anime figures, ranked in order of awesomeness by our intelligent, attractive customers!

Japanese Tourists Abroad

I once saw an interesting thread on Japan's ubiquitous BBS 2ch entitled, "Things Japanese people do abroad that mark them as Japanese," and I thought I'd talk about this topic. The list included things like, being extremely detailed about giving exact change or stressing about leaving an accurate 15% tip, or waiting quietly for the rear door of a taxi to open automatically for you. (Taxis in Japan have a hydraulic lever that allows the door to open automatically.) Back in my university days you could go assume that a person wearing highly evolved fashions with Engrish phrases like "I feel happiness when I eat a potato" was Japanese, but the fashion landscape has changed a lot since the 80s, and most really strange English comes from China these days. Of course the body language of Japanese people is somewhat unique, from indicating "me?" by pointing at the nose instead of the chest, or making that ubiquitous "peace" sign (though that's become quite accepted all around Asia by now). Another way to tell Japanese people from other Asians is to listen to their speech. Japanese is (thankfully) not a tonal language language at all, unlike Mandarin or Cantonese (which have 4-9 different ways to pitch a given syllable). If the speech sounds "flat" to your ear then it might be Japanese.

There are some interesting things Japanese tourists do when travelling.

Abenomics and Japan's Women

One of the stated goals of Prime Minister Abe's "Abenomics" is to make sweeping changes that empower Japan's women to help revitalize the economy, though this isn't going to be an easy job. Japan ranks 101 out of 135 countries on the Global Gender Gap Report, which compares the economic and political participation, education attainment and health and longevity. This is a number I've taken issue with before because it places Japan only slightly ahead of Cambodia (103), India (105), and the UAE (107) and implies that Japanese women are unable to live their lives as they choose, which couldn't be farther from the truth. The situation of women in Japan is a complex one, and frankly not one easily understood by self-important Scandinavians coming up with rankings that they can put themselves at the head of. While the list of problems that need to be addressed is long -- waiting lists for daycare, a lack of understanding in company environments when a female employee has to take a day off because of a sick child, a troublesome law that gives married women a tax incentive to earn less then $10,000 per year, which obviously limits the potential she can achieve -- the idea that Japan's women are being actively repressed just because 50.0% of them aren't running for political office is not an accurate view of "life on the ground." One aspect of the country that was hard for me to comprehend was the way many Japanese women (more out in Gunma where J-List is located, fewer in Tokyo) actively want to be housewives and raise their children at home, often quitting careers they prepared for for many years before returning to work when the kids are older. While there is still plenty to fix in male-dominated Japan, the fact that women usually have this option available to them is a huge social achievement in my book.

Some thoughts on Japanese women and "Abenomics."

Utah, the Harem State

Since I've got another couple weeks before I get busy with the anime conventions, I decided to throw a suitcase into my 2002 Miata convertible and head out for a part of the U.S. I've not been to yet, starting with Utah. I've had a great time so far, spending the weekend hiking and riding horses through Zion Canyon National Park and taking pictures of breathtakingly beautiful mountains. I'm not used to experiencing culture shock in my own country, but I've encountered some in this somewhat unique U.S. state: last night I was in a pizza restaurant, mildly disappointed that the restaurant didn't serve beer...while a family sitting next to me was miffed that the restaurant offered no caffeine-free drinks other than water. When I brought this up with my Twitter followers, a Utah-born Japanese person pointed out that she experienced a similar kind of culture shock while visiting Japan, so I guess it goes both ways. Utah residents seem to have a good sense of humor about things, such as the locally brewed beer called Polygamy Porter (motto: "Why have just one?") or a restaurant that sold an ice cream treat called Never On a Sundae.

I'm having lots of fun in Utah.

Random Snacks from Japan @ J-List

J-List sells hundreds of fun snacks from Japan, some of which are almost guaranteed to make you say "What??" (which is kind of our goal). from do-it-yourself Pudding to famous March of the Koalas cookies to unique flavors of Cheetos from FritoLay Japan and Moko Moko Toilet Candy, our Japan snack lineup is always fun. Click here to see the top snacks from Japan today, as ranked by our customers!