My Favorite Japanese Word: 勤勉 (kinben)

One of my favorite Japanese words is 勤勉 kinben (pronounced keen-ben), which means industrious, diligent, and studious. Just as America has always had the Protestant Work Ethic to serve as a model for what hardworking people should aspire to, Japan values diligence and hard work as excellent traits for a person to adopt. Doing an hour or two of overtime each day is probably the norm at most Japanese companies, where employees show their やる気 yaruki (hardworking spirit) to their colleagues and boss in a unit that everyone can easily recognize, time. The pinnacle of the kinben concept of hard work is the 徹夜 tetsuya, which means working all night in order to get the important project finished, and if an employee pulls an all-nighter to get his work done on time, he'll probably gain a lot of respect from his boss and coworkers. This Japanese tradition of working and studying hard has rubbed off on my son, and as he prepares to take the last tests of his high school career, he can often be seen cracking the books until 1 am or later, something that would have been unthinkable for me until I got to university.

A Japanese proverb: "Diligent hard work is the mother of success in life."

Traditional Kimonos and Japan

When I came to Japan back in 1991, Terminator 2: Judgment Day was playing in theaters, the first George Bush was President and the NCSA Mosaic browser -- the first program we'd be able to identify as a web browser -- wouldn't be released for another two years. My first impression upon arriving at Narita was surprise at seeing even more Asians here than in San Francisco followed by general amazement at the number of high-tech vending machines selling canned coffee to me. I was also surprised to see several women wearing kimonos in the airport or on the train, which seemed impossibly beautiful to me. Kimonos are one of the most famous traditional clothing of Japan, still an important symbol of the country despite the fact that most Japanese only wear them a few times in their lives, such as at weddings or coming-of-age ceremonies, though the wife of a former president of the Sapporo Ramen company I used to teach English to wore a kimono often. Naturally there are several variations to what we think of as a kimono, including yukata (colorful cotton kimonos, usually worn at summer fireworks festivals), happi (a short summer kimono), and so on. If you're interested in Japan's beautiful kimonos and other traditional apparel, we've got some interesting items for you to browse.

Traditional kimonos in Japan.

We Love Strong Anime Females

If you want to make an anime drinking game, there are plenty of classic situations you can start with. Like, take a drink whenever a school club's existence is in danger because there aren't enough members, whenever a male main character is brave enough to fight demons with his bare hands yet can't summon the courage to ask a girl for a date, whenever a character that was just introduced in an adversarial role becomes the new "transfer student" in the class at the end of the episode, or whenever a character trips and falls in a way that provides fanservice. Another theme that's seen quite a lot is strong female characters who fight to defend the men they love, boldly declaring 守ってあげる mamotte ageru ("I will protect you"). Whether it's Mikasa fighting to save Eren, Asuna defending Kirito after a betrayal or the classic Eva scene when Rei tells Shinji, "You won't die, because I'm going to protect you," strong female characters often end up becoming the most memorable in anime. Another good example of this theme is the new Witch Craft Works in which a mild-mannered male main character with no particular direction in his life (take another drink) finds that Ayaka, the popular school idol, is really a fire witch whose only goal is to protect him from murderous magical enemies.

Strong protective female characters are a big theme in anime.

Awesome Chocolate from Japan In Stock

Valentine's Day is not far off now, and J-List is loaded with unique Japanese chocolates, from Evangelion to Hello Kitty and awesome Japanese Kit Kat. Whether you're a female giving chocolate to the special boyfriend/husband/father etc. in your life (which is the custom in Japan) or are going the other way around, the gift chocolates we've got in stock right now are great!

The Japanese Love Mayonnaise

There are certain things the Japanese just seem to really like for reasons that are difficult for foreigners to understand. Like the Carpenters, whose music seems to be far more popular here than in the U.S. Or Colombo, whose crime-solving gruffness is popular enough that he can still be seen regularly on TV here. Another thing the Japanese like a lot is...mayonnaise! It's true: the Japanese love mayonnaise and put it in salads, on traditional Japanese dishes like Okonomiyaki, and even on pizza and french fries (often alongside ketchup, so you can dip your fries in either or both). A person who loves mayonnaise is known as a mayoler in Japanese, and this is a joke that pops up in anime from time to time. Last week there was some bizarre news from the Kansai area about a rash of attacks by a deranged 25-year old male who was attacking random people by squirting mayonnaise down their shirts. Happily the dangerous villain has been safely apprehended, making Japan safe for us all once again.

If you like mayonnaise, you should come to Japan right now.

Karaoke is a Mirror for Japanese Society

The J-List staff had fun at our New Year's Party on Friday, eating and drinking on J-List's tab as a reward for their hard work over the busy Christmas season, followed by a few hours singing "You wa Shock!" (YouTube link) at a nearby karaoke box. I've always been a fan of karaoke, having used it to help me learn Japanese, since learning vocabulary by memorizing songs can be an effective memory tool, plus it gives you new connections to the country that are more important than the vocabulary words you happen to pick up. Karaoke is a good topic to explain the concept of 空気 kuuki, which literally means "air" and by extension, the social atmosphere around a given group. When you pack ten people into a small karaoke box, obviously making sure everyone in the group has fun is important. I love to sing a lot, but if I hog the karaoke machine others might not be happy, so handing the karaoke book song input computer device thing to someone who hasn't had a turn yet is good manners. Japanese have a natural tendency to demure to others in social situations, a concept called 遠慮 enryo (to refrain from doing something out of politeness), and it's important to break through this by encouraging those who haven't sung yet to choose a song, of course without pushing too hard in case they really dislike singing in front of others. If you're with a group of otakus it's fine to sing anime songs to your heart's content, but this might turn off people from different groups, so I make sure my repertoire of songs includes general songs as well. People who aren't good at understanding the often complex social situations around them are called K.Y. in Japanese (for 空気読めない kuuki yomenai, meaning "can't read the air"), and part of learning a language like Japanese involves becoming sensitive to the subtle social cues around you.

You can learn a lot about Japan from singing karaoke.

Do You Love Super Sonico?

Last night I started watching the new Super Sonico The Animation series, a fun show if you like music, fanservice and the ever-voluptuous Sonico-chan. Sonico is more or less the modern embodiment of moe: stylish and feminine with amazingly large, er, eyes, and her "charm points" are her doji chara (cute clumsy girl character) nature and the AKG headphones that have apparently been surgically fixed to her ears. Sonico is the semi-official mascot of Nitroplus, the company responsible for such awesomely dark visual novels as Saya no Uta, Deus Machina Demonbane and Steins;Gate as well as the Madoka Magica anime. Sonico made her first appearance at a musical event in 2006, and since then she's taken the company in a new direction, exploring the nature of moe cuteness and serving as a vehicle for everything from hug pillows to sexy figures. Since her name is somewhat similar to a certain famous electronics company, there's a tendency for Japanese to think she's an official character for Sony, which might explain why Nitroplus writes her name using hiragana rather than katakana, e.g. そに子 instead of ソニ子. Can you imagine of Sony were hip enough to make a character as cute as Sonico for their mascot? I'd kind of like to live in a world like that.

There's a new Super Sonico anime to watch, if you like really big...headphones.

2014 Anime Calendar Sale at J-List!

J-List is having a great 2014 Japanese Calendar Sale, with reduced prices on all calendars plus 25% off the total if you grab two or more, to help you help us clear the stock our. We've got everything from Totoro desktop calendars to Sailor Moon schedule books to awesome art calendars by Tony Taka and Shirow Masamune. Browse our selection now!