Frustrations common in Japan, and the current state of Pachinko, the national gambling game of Japan

Anyone who's ever worked in a Japanese organization for any length of time probably knows the frustration of having a pet idea shot down by the larger organization around them. It's a common occurrance here: a foreigner who naturally sees things through different eyes makes a heartfelt suggestion about something that can be improved, some new way of doing things that's more efficient. Although the Japanese person listening to his idea will repeatedly use the phrase so desu ne which literally means "yes, that is so," in reality the suggestion willusually not be deemed appropriate for the organization and the person be very politely rebuffed. After I finished my career as an ESL teacher, I worked for a few months in our local city office as the "facilitator for city internationalization" or something like that (basically, I was the bilingual person who could translate documents and help out other foreigners when they came in to use city services). During my brief time in the public sector I repeatedly ran across areas I felt could be managed better, but I was told "this is the way it's done here" all too often. My wife and I are involved with Japan Girl Scouts -- I'm the guy who brings interesting things from America for the girls, like the easter eggs we colored two weeks ago -- and we recenty experienced this aspect of Japan while trying to explain the economics of Girl Scout Cookies to the local regional leaders. Our suggestion was to see what we could to do recreate the same experience -- the girls of our troops selling something that both raises money for events as well as advertises the goals of the group to a wide range of people. Unfortunately we might as well have been speaking greek, and our ideas were rejected in record time. I'm not saying that my suggestions are always right, of course, only that there seems to some sort of inbred resistance to new ideas in many organizations in Japan.

One of the most popular pasttimes in Japan is pachinko, a kind of vertical pinball game that can be found in the more than 15,000 pachinko parlors here. A form of gambling, you basically buy $20 worth of steel balls from the counter then shoot them into the machine, holding your hand at just the right angle to make the balls fall into special holes that cause more balls to be paid out. If you do it right, you end up with more balls then you started with, which you "exchange" for "valuable" "prizes" that you can sell for cash at a separate building next door (since pachinko gambling for money is not actually legal). Our prefecture of Gunma happens to be a regular "pachinko central," with most major manufacturers of the machines located here including Sankyo, who employs Nicholas Cage for its commercials. Sadly, pachinko often goes hand-in-hand with organized crime and the yakuza, and it hardly seems a month goes by withour hearing "the man arrested was the propeieter of a pachinko parlor" on TV. Then there's the odd connection with pachinko and North Korea, with many pachinko-related businesses being operated by Japanese of North Korean descent, which leads through various mechanisms to profits being sent home to the mother country. Um, anyone else want to trade places with me? I like living in Japan, but being next door to North Korea is not really the most fun thing in the world...

As with any industry, the pachinko makers must evolve and change in order to keep its customers happy, and the pachinko industry has been quite smart about finding ways of attracting young blood into its establishments. One way they've found to keep the interest of customers in their twenties is by tying the game to popular anime shows, with pachinko machines branded with images and art from anime classics like Fist of the North Star, Lupin III, Golgo 13 and Evangelion. When a new Space Cruiser Yamato series by Leiji Matsumoto was cancelled due to lack of funding, it lived on in a line of pachinko machines that featured the newly designed characters and ships. Do you like the British rock group Queen? Come to Japan and play the Rock You Queen pachinko machines that Aruze has created. There's even a pachinko machine for fans of the heart-rending Korean soap opera Winter Sonata, a smart move to improve the game's image and get female customers in the door. But the coolest new trend in pachinko might be the new moé pachi (mo-EH PA-chi) in Akihabara, where attractive girls in gothic maid costumes will wait on you while you pour your buckets of metal balls into the machines.

At J-List, we live to bring you new and unique products from Japan, including rare Totoro and Studio Ghibli items. Every summer Japanese often use towelkets, a kind of giant towel that's useful as a light summer blanket. I like towelkets because you can use them on hot summer nights to keep the heat at bay, and you can also take them to the pool, since they're fully functional giant towels. Today we've got two cute new Totoro towelkets in stock, great items for collectors this season!

This is one of our favorite places up in the mountains, a restaurant that serves traditional Japanese sweets (meaning manju and stuff like that).

This is the cabinet where they have wax versions of the various foods they sell. Very delicious looking. This is what manju is, basically a bun with sweet beans inside (sounds bad, I know, but it's good when you've been here a while).

Among other things, they sell neri-ame, basically liquid candy that you whip with two chopsticks until it turns to a solid candy you can eat. It's really fun, but pure sugar.

Part of the reason we like this place is, the house is like 150 years old, brought here from some other part of the country. The floor is dirt, like all floors used to be back in the old days.

This is one of my favorite foods, yaki-manju, basically white bread (sans beans, although they have both versions) roasted while a sweet miso and brown sugar sauce is basted on top. Really yummy.

This was the door to the women's room. Er, I'd have thought this was really corny if I'd seen it in the States.

Being fixated on Japanese, bittersweet themes in anime, and my recent culture shock

When you spend many hours focusing on something, whether it's building a model train set or learning a foreign language, it's natural to get a little obsessive over it. I've known many gaijin students of Japanese who had favorite kanji characters that they especially liked to write, a slogan or poem or proverb they were fond of, and so on. One Japanese word I myself like is setsunai (set-tsoo-NAI), translatable as painful, lonely, wistful, or heartrending. It describes the deliciously bittersweet blending of sorrow and happiness that's quite common in many Japanese stories. Enka, the traditional music of Japan that's similar to American Country music in some ways, often deals with such tear-jerking themes as crossing the Tsugaru Straits between Honshu to Hokkaido in the ferry to search for your lost love, longing to return to one's furusato (hometown), etc. Artistically beautiful stories of sorrow can be found in anime, too, like the melodramatic tales of Leiji Matsumoto (Space Cruiser Yamato or Galaxy Express 999), and of course the classic A Dog of Flanders. Another anime that uses setsunai emotions to tell a great tale is Maison Ikkoku, the story of university ronin Godai's long battle to win the love of Kyoko Otonashi, whose husband Soichiro died leaving a hole in her heart. When Godai finally finishes college and finds a job, he's finally able to propose to Kyoko...

Godai: "Please marry me. I'll never do anything to make you cry. Give the remainder of your life...to me."
Kyoko (after an agonizingly long pause): "Make me one promise. Please...even if it's just for one day...live longer than me. I could never be alone like that again."

(Peter reminds himself to write that "Everything I needed to know about Japan I learned from watching Maison Ikkoku" post...)

You'd think after living in Japan for fifteen years, I'd be pretty immune to culture shock. But when I went with my daughters Girl Scout troop on their annual barbecue yesterday, I had more than my share of surprises. Besides the usual types of meat or sausages, a "barbecue" in Japan can include bean sprouts, eggplant, cabbage, yakisoba noodles and even seafood like scallops. While we were doing the cooking, I was mortified to see the other mothers pull out a bag of squid and plunk the contents down on the grill next to the beef we were grilling, so that the juices ran together -- as an added bonus, there was a sardine that had apparently been in the squid's stomach, that they also grilled that too. Not exactly your average American BBQ experience. Then it was time for S'Mores, or as they call them in Japan, Some Mores, for reasons of simplicity. These were S'Mores with a cultural twist: since there are no graham crackers to be found in Japan, we made them with Saltines. In addition to the standard white marshmallows, one of the mothers had brought along...coffee flavored marshmallows! It all went very well with the dark chocolate they had prepared.

You often hear about Japan being a place divided into in-groups (uchi) and out-groups (soto), and foreigners here generally have the image of not really being accepted into society -- the term gaijin literally means "outsider" after all. I often wonder if this is really true, though. My own theory is that language determines about 70% of how we interact with others, and if the average person could converse in his own language naturally with someone from another culture, he'd generally treat the person as he would want to be treated. I certainly didn't feel like an outsider as I talked with the other mothers in Girl Scouts about our kids, and a friend of my son's spent several years in the States and speaks English perfectly, making him just like any other American boy even though he's Japanese. Our city is quite an international one, with 3% of the registered population being foreigners from Brazil and Peru, working in factories or in construction and providing many valuable services in the community, since they're willing to do the so-called "three K" jobs that are kitsui, kitanai, and kiken, meaning hard, dirty and dangerous. There are so many children from South America here that our city has a special elementary school for them where they can learn in Portuguese and Spanish. I'm sure that it seemed like a good idea to teach the children of foreigners working here in their native languages, but to my mind it's a very bad thing: it erects barriers between the local Japanese and the kids from other countries and keeps them from getting to know each other. A much better approach would be to teach all kids in Japanese (this being Japan and all), including kanji, with special classes available to kids that need the extra help in their native languages.

J-List carries dozens of great original T-shirts and hoodies, which feature wacky or aesthetically beautiful Japanese messages, and cute original anime designs, too, like Totoro and Cat Bus. We've received word that the Carolina Blue hoodies we print the Cheshire Totoro designs has been discontinued by the manufacturer. This is just a heads up -- if you like the look of this warm, soft hooded sweatshirt, you might want to pick one up before your size is gone.

Our barbecue was a lot of fun, except for the squid. I guess most people don't associate barbecues with chopsticks?

After eating, we worked off some calories playing dodgeball.

Then it was time to add the calories back. Here are the fixins for the S'Mores, which (in case you're not from the States and are reading this) are a magical treat from America consisting of graham crackers, a toasted marshmallow and melted milk chocolate. About 800 calories per serving...

Coffee marshmallow.

The toasting commences.

This one came out the best. Really, the chocolate and marshmallow are so sweet, there's no great loss from the lack of graham cracker. But still, it's a bit like not having spaghetti sauce and substituting ketchup.

All about the word "banzai," a giant love hotel in my city, and more on differences between languages

The word banzai is one of the most well-known Japanese phrases in the West, up there with geisha, samurai, ninja and kamikaze on the list of words most everyone knows. It literally means "10,000 years" and is most famously a gesture of respect for the Emperor. Shouting tenno heika banzai! literally means "May the Emperor live for 10,000 years!" making it analogous to the British phrase "God save the Queen." Although the term will forever carry the image of Japanese soldiers during World War II, it's much older, and has been in use in China since the Tang Dynasty in the 8th Century AD. In modern day Japan, it's mostly used as a general term of support, commonly heard at political rallies or shouted by headband-wearing employees of department stores before a big seasonal sale.

J-List is based in Isesaki, Japan, a small city near the geographical center of Japan, with a population of around 200,000, thanks to some neighboring towns that incorporated into our city a couple years ago -- pretty much the only way a town's population goes up here. Local landmarks in our city include a giant Ferris Wheel painted to look like a sunflower, a big sign forbidding anyone from bringing nuclear weapons within city limits, and a giant love hotel that looks like the cruise ship Queen Elizabeth. Because Japanese young people usually live with their parents into their 20s (or indefinitely, if they're the oldest son or daughter), it can be difficult for couples to find free time alone to, well, you know. So they go to a love hotel, where they can "rest" (2 hours) or "stay" (all night). Many rabuho (as they're abbreviated) are organized around a theme, such as the Taj Mahal, the Forbidden City in Beijing, Alkatraz, and even Disney and Hello Kitty. Since couples going to a hotel want privacy, the management makes sure they never need to see anyone -- at some places, you can check out by phone, and put your money in a tube that will be delivered to the front desk.

When you learn a language as different from English as Japanese is, you have to get used to concepts not always translating over on a 1-to-1 basis -- words just don't match up with each other like they might between say, English and Spanish. When the Japanese talk about other planets, they often use the word hoshi, which is confusing since this word really means star, not planet. There are separate words for white ducks (ahiru) and brown ducks (kamo), and gaijin will invariably produce the wrong word 100% of the time, to his great embarrassment. There are many English loan words used here, but sometimes they're split into two different words, to make them easier for the Japanese to use. For example, the word for a strike in baseball is sutoraiku but a labor stoppage is a sutoraiki (ki on the end instead of ku). Some other dualistisic loan words include gurasu for a glass of water but garasu for glass in a window, or bureiku for taking a break when you're tired but bureiki for the pedal you press to stop your car.

At J-List, we carry a great line of Japanese T-shirts that feature fun, wacky and aesthetically beautiful messages in kanji. Today we're adding some interesting T-shirts from Japan, called "Match Label" since they sport detailed tags featuring matchbook images from the Meiji Era, and a beautiful Japanese image of a lion on the back. The shirts are really well made, with thick 100% cotton fabric, hand-sewn labels, and come in size LL (about equal to U.S. size L).

Let's go eat a steak in Japan!

Besides love hotels that look like ships, my prefecture has a fairly good steakhouse and microbrewery. In the genkan (er, near the front door), there's a fascinating "history of beer in Japan" essay printed on glass. Unfortunately no one in Japan cares about this, so they cover it up with signs.

At this steak house, they put a special daikon sauce on, and then cover it with a napkin to keep the sizzling sauce from burning you.

Here's the steak. It's Aussie Beef of course, since Japanese beef is a huge delicacy and American beef is nowhere to be found.

Here's another pic of a love hotel I found. I just love the silhouette of the couple.

Shinto funerals vs. Buddhist ones, what to wear to a funeral, and the three ages of anime

I attended a Japanese funeral over the weekend, after when the father of a friend passed away at the age of 84. Japan can be a very death-centric place, and when a person goes to that ramen shop in the sky there's a complex rulebook of customs that automatically kicks in, letting everyone know how to act as they express their grief and condolences to the bereaved. This funeral threw us a curve ball, however, since it was a Shinto ceremony rather than Buddhist. As a general rule, the Japanese intermingle these two traditions over the course of their lives, tending to turn to Shinto rites for happy events like baby christenings and the first prayer of the New Year, and solemn Buddhist ones for funerals and ceremonies remembering the dead. A Japanese wedding, when it's not done Western-style, is always Shinto -- think of Arnold's wedding from Happy Days, if you remember back that far. Shinto funerals stress happier images of the deceased's life, make use of evergreen plants as an icon of returning to nature, and play a beautiful Japanese instrument called the sho. Since Shinto funerals are far more rare then Buddhist ones, my wife and mother-in-law (to say nothing of me) weren't sure how to conduct themselves, when or how many times to bow, which was to hold the little camellia leaf they handed out, and so on. As at most such events in Japan, money was involved, with an old 10,000 yen note presented in a special envelope for this purpose, to help the family copy with their loss. You have to use an old bill though -- giving new, crisp money implies the death was anticipated, which is very rude in Japan.

The "uniform" for formal events is the "reifuku" ("ceremonial clothes"), a standardized black suit that looks similar to a tuxedo to Western eyes. The reifuku is a great invention because you can wear it to weddings (with a white tie) or to funerals (with a black tie). There's never a concern for fashion, no worrying about what to wear -- just keep a reifuku suit in your closet and you'll always be set for any formal occasion.

Anime has been with us for a long time, and just like American comics, you can slice it up into different eras. The Golden Age of anime would be the true old-school classics of the 60s and 70s, from Atom Boy and Heide, Girl of the Alps up through the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, the first show where the characters were more important than the robots. Silver Age, it seems to me, would be the 80s, when anime grew in scale and took its place in the minds and hearts of fans all over the world. The Modern Age would be the 1990s through today, when anime truly arrived as a major worldwide industry, influencing everything from Hollywood films to video games. One of the first anime series to enthrall me way back when was Space Cruiser Yamato (aka Star Blazers), which featured fascinating characters that evolved as the story progressed to its conclusion. I'm honored to have a really cool item for Yamato fans -- a giant model of the ship by Bandai that you build in section.

J-List loves the Internet since it makes it easy for us to reach out and meet so many cool people who are fascinated with Japan. On the other hand, we hate one corner of the Internet -- Yahoo's free mail service -- for consistently failing to deliver mail properly to or from our websites, to say nothing of being a source of email scams. If you're using Yahoo's mail service, we highly recommend that you switch to Gmail, Google's reliable, free service. If you'd like us to send you a Gmail invite (which is required to get an account with Gmail), shoot us an email and we'll get one out to you right away!

Chinese New Year and Japan, what Japanese drivers' put on their cars, and our faithful dog

Chinese New Year is going on right now, and throughout Asia people are celebrating the cultural holiday. Although Japan switched from the Lunar Celendar to the Gregorian system as part of its modernization during the Meiji Era, many cultural elements from the old calendar live on. The Japanese follow the Chinese Zodiac, and some people believe what animal sign you were born under will determine part of what you will go on to become. My wife and I were both born in the Year of the Monkey (1968), so we get along, but monkeys and dogs like to fight, so someone born in the Year of the Monkey might not want to marry a Dog Year person -- or something like that. I've noticed that some superstitions remain rooted in the Lunar Calendar. For example, there are "unlucky years" for people, called yaku-doshi (Wiki article), during which you should take extra care to avoid accidents or sickness and avoid starting new projects like building a house -- the ages of 19 and 33 are two unlucky years for women, and 24 and 42 for men. I've observed that these unlucky years seem to follow the Chinese calendar, i.e., they don't kick in until the Lunar New Year has arrived. Chinese New Year is not officially marked in Japan at all, but one old custom from the old days survives: Setsubun, on February 3rd, a day when fathers put on a scary mask and pretend to be a devil trying to bring bad luck into the house. Children throw dried soybeans at the devil and yell oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi! ("out with devils, in with hapiness"). On this day, you're supposed to eat your age in soybeans to bring you good luck.

This year is the Year of the Dog, and our New Year's Card this year featured our kids with our old faithful dog, Chibi, who's been guarding our rural liquor shop for the past 18 years (126 in dog years, wow!). We're glad we took the pictures because this morning we found that good old Chibi had passed away in the night. He was a good dog, always happy to go for a walk on his little snub legs, and while he was a bit of a sukebe (more than most male dogs or humans, anyway), he was always faithful to us. He will be missed -- my daughter was so boro-naki (bawling he eyes out) she couldn't go to school.

Getting a drivers' license in Japan is a little different from how it was for me back in Califorina. First, the driving age is 18, but only students who have already graduated from high school can start studying for their license, which causes a huge rush during the summer. Students must go to an intense driving school, usually for a month but longer if they have trouble passing the test quickly. The cost is a cool $3000, quite a bit more than the $200 I paid for two days of driver's training back in 1984. Drivers who have had been driving with less than a year need to have a special sticker on their car, called a Beginner's Mark, to let others on the road know that they're inexperienced drivers. By customer request, we've got these cool Beginner's Mark magnetic stickers in stock on the site now. They're a great way to stand out on the road and bring shock to any Japanese who might see your car. Plus they're highly reflective and make your vehicle more visible on the road.

Various pic I've got in my collection. DId I mention they sell iTunes and iPods at Seven Eleven Seven & i Holdings?

Another item I can't remember if I posted. This is a "Star Wars Episode III Cereal Bowl" set from Kellogg's, sold only in Japan. Comes with bowls, coffee cups and little plates featuring Darth Vader. It's right up there with my R2-D2 cereal holder that's also very cool (remind me to post pics of that sometime).

Found a picture of the plate. While the grown-up, slightly cynical Star Wars fan in me says, why show Darth Vader with the red light saber in the Mustafa flames, I can overlook it becauase of my son, who allows me to enjoy childhood again vicariouosly through him.

Ad for a Proctologist inside a train. It might have been less bizarre if the train hadn't been decommissioned and turned into an udon and soba restaurant, forcing us to look at this while eating.

A sign in a toy shop that says, "We regret that we are forced to decline all persons asking us questions like, 'Where is the Maid Cosplay Coffee Shop'' and so on."

Our love of Japanese hot springs, thoughts on government and the private sector, and the most beautiful Pocky box ever

As part of my son's homework, he keeps a diary about the past day's events, alternating entries between Japanese and English. It seems that every Sunday night's entry is the same -- he writes about what Japanese hot springs we went to that weekend. Japan is a very volcanic country, which means there are a lot of underground hot springs, or onsen (pronounced OWN-sen) to tap for bathing. Most every weekend we head out in our Mazda Bongo Friendee (sort of an MPV with a top that can be raised, like the old Volkswagon Vanagons) and enjoy a steaming hot bath somewhere in the mountains. Bathing in hot springs has been a part of Japan's culture for centuries -- one of the most famous onsen towns in Japan is Kusatsu (koo-SA-tsoo), located right in our prefecture, and it's been known for its baths for the past eight hundred years. One of the small linguistic quirks of the Japanese language is that there are separate words for cold water (mizu) and hot water (yu), and gaijin will invariably use the wrong word, to the amusement of everyone here. Bathing is so important in Japan that the word yu commonly gets the honorific o attached to the front (e.g. o-yu), as a sign of respect.

Last weekend we picked a nice-looking onsen in a village called Showa-mura and headed up there. It wasn't our first choice for a destination, but some of our regular hot spring spots are located high in the mountains, and we didn't want to hassle with driving in snow. The facility, the Showa-no-yu General Welfare Center, was pretty much what we'd come to expect: a washing area where you clean your body before bathing; a good mix of indoor baths to choose from; an outdoor bath where you can take a dip while enjoying "vibrant greenery"; and a sauna. There was also a large common room where you can relax, have a beer and enjoy some karaoke or a game of go after your bath. Also as expected, the facility was built by the local municipal government and operated with tax money, rather than by a private company. From swimming pools to the Kampo life insurance sold by the post office to a chain of luxury hotels subsidized by postal savings accounts, there are dozens of areas where the Japanese government intrudes on the private sector, doing things that often could be done efficiently by regular companies. The overall effect of this interference by the government is that Japan is less of a market-driven country and closer to something like socialism, a fact born out by the extremely low rate of entrepreneurship here. On the one hand, I'm happy to have access to a nice, hot bath in a small village that probably couldn't support such a venture without public money, but on the other hand, I wonder if Japan's public works-based approach to driving the country forward can be sustained.

Pocky has gone from being a wonky snack that a few anime fans knew about to being a major force in the world-wide snack market. The chocolate-covered pretzel stick, named for the pokki! sound they make when you break one, was first introduced in 1965, by Glico, a confectionery company founded by a man who swore to improve the health of Japan's children by introducing sweets containing glycogen harvested from oysters (which is where the name Glico comes from). There are many different flavors of Pocky available, from traditional chocolate to slightly bitter Men's Pocky to the luxurious line of Pocky that look like decorated cakes and even the surprise of the season, Black Sesame Pocky. Now Glico has introduced two new varieties of thick Mousse Pocky for 2006: Murasaki Imo (a purple-colored sweet made with sweet potato), and a favorite of J-List customers, the new Green Tea Mousse Pocky! In addition to being just plain delicious, the new Mousse Pocky boxes are some of the most beautifully-designed I've ever seen, with amazing traditional Japanese images on them. Sure to be a collector's item in years to come -- no B.S., I think I will save a case of each in a cool, dry place just in case it goes up in value someday. Available by the case, too!

Happy news at Torino, things foreigners find odd when they come to Japan, and all about Japanese heaters

The Torino Olympics have been going on for two weeks, and Japanese fans have been eagerly watching all the events as they cheer on their athletes and hope for some strong performances. Sadly, Japan had been having one of the worst outings ever this time, with not a single medal to show for their athletes' years of preparation and hard work -- not a gold, not a silver, not a bronze. All this changed this morning when Shizuka Arakawa slam-dunked her figure skating routine and earned Japan not only its first medal of the Torino Olympics, but its first-ever gold medal in figure skating, too. As is common- place in Japan, she bowed petitely to her fans, showing the famous Japanese modesty that I've talked about before -- a bit of a change from the emotion and exuberance displayed by most athletes from the U.S. and Europe. In Japanese, athletes get a special suffix on the ends of their names, similar to -san or -sensei, which is -senshu, 選手, meaning player or team member. Good job, Arakawa-senshu!

It's getting warmer, but winter is still very much with us, making the momohiki (Japanese for long underwear) a requirement for survival for this San Diego boy. One of the problems of winter in Japan is that there is no central heating, and you always heat just the room you're currently using, usually with an electric kerosene heater that blows hot air, or with a simpler free-standing kerosene heater, which the Japanese call a "stove." Going from a heated room to one that you haven't been using brings a huge drop in temperature, and one big problem is trying to sleep in a freezing bedroom if you forget to pre-heat your room. I've found the perfect solution to my heating woes, however: an oil-filled radiator-type heater with a 24 hour timer. I can program it to turn on 2 hours before I go to bed, switch off during the night, then come back on again in time to make the room toasty in the morning. It's a life-saver for me.

When foreigners visit Japan, there are many things that stand out as odd to them. Using coins for the equivalent of $1 and $5 bills, which Americans aren't used to (although it's really convenient, trust me). Horizontally oriented stoplights (except in Northern Japan, where heavy snowfall requires that the lights be vertical, to keep the snow from piling up). Stores which let you know they're about to close by playing Auld Lang Syne through store speakers. Drinks with names like Pocari Sweat and Calpis. High school girls wearing those outrageous bulky "loose socks." Toilets without seats. It's all very odd, but then again, that's the fun of going to another country, seeing what it has to offer and comparing it with things back home.

Perhaps no word describes the heart of otaku culture in Japan better than moé, pronounced moh-EH. Originally meaning a seed budding as it grows into a plant, the term has come to describe the super-stylized "ideal girl" characters with big eyes and pure hearts that you see so much in anime, manga and dating-sim games. So-called moekko characters are loyal, honest, and dedicated, and of course impossibly kawaii (cute). Similar to the word otaku itself, a formal term which means "you" or "your family" but which has come to describe aficionados of just about anything (train otaku, karaoke otaku, there are even Louis Vuitton otaku out there), the term moé can also refer to a "burning passion" for anime-related hobbies. If you love the bikini idol Yuko Ogura, you are Yuko Ogura moé, or if you like girls wearing anime costumes, you are probably cosplay moé. We've created a new J-List original T-shirt incorporating the moé kanji, a super way for otaku to show their love of Japan popular culture with pride. And we think it looks great!

Hello Kitty Teacher Stamp Set. Hello Kitty stamps that say things like "thank you" and "you did a good job."

Here is a "stove" in case you're wondering what they look like. Didn't have a "fan heater" around to take a picture of the other type.

This is what they look like with the lights off. Actually, if you're looking for a romantic evening with a girl on a budget, these will fit the bill nicely. (No fireplaces or bear rugs in Japan.)

Talking about moé. This is the maid cafe that appeared in Densha Otoko. I really dig on the cat ears.

"As seen on TV."

Buying a new car in Japan, roundup of new 2006 features, and an anime fan's first trip to Tokyo

We've been in "buy a car" mode for the past few weeks, driving around to various dealers to see their current offerings. In Japan, there's a top-to- bottom check-up of all cars that must be done every two years called sha-ken, which is part safety inspection, part tax, and part penalty for not supporting the local economy by buying a new car as often as you could. Rather than paying another $1500 or so to keep driving our current vehicle, we did what many people do and decided to just buy a new one. As is commonplace in Japan, cars are sold through showrooms that are operated by the car manufacturers, a direct-sales business model that you'll be familar with if you've ever bought a Saturn. If you want to look at Toyota you hit your local Toyota Netz dealership; to see the latest Nissans you visit either the Red Stage or Blue Stage (I'm still not sure what the difference between them is). You never drive off with a car that day, but instead order it and wait three weeks while they make it in the factory, like they used to do back in the U.S. I've come to realize that this period of anticipation for your new car is actually part of the fun of the car-buying experience.

We had really enjoyed driving our oddly-named Mazda Bongo Friendee, which is a minivan with a top that opens like the old Vanagons, great for watching fireworks with the kids (there's a cult following for them in the UK). We wanted to replace it with something that was just as much fun. The keyword in the 2006 crop of Japanese minivans is "business class," and the new versions of cars like Toyota's Estima and Nissan's Elgrand sport reclining second-row seats with extendible foot rests -- they have cool names like "Captain's Chair" or "Super Relax Seat." I really liked the swivel seats in the Elgrand, allowing everyone in the family to face each other for an in-car game of Uno if the weather turns bad. Other features we liked in several new models included interior illumination (LEDs that fill the car with a cool blue glow) and the RFID-based "in pocket key" that lets you start the car without taking your key out of your pocket. In the end we decided to go with the newly redesigned MPV by Mazda, which had the business class-style seats, all-flat third seat and a hideaway space for me to store my onsen bath stuff.

I'll never forget my first trip to Tokyo, which I made a couple of weeks after arriving to Japan. As an anime fan, I knew I had to make my way to see the various real places that had appeared in the shows I'd watched. First I went to experience the weekend bustle of Shinjuku and stand before the famous Studio Alta television, and of course stare at the grandeur of the My City department store, which popped up in City Hunter from time to time. The icons of Tokyo's hip Shibuya area were my next stop -- I had to see the Shibuya 109 building and cross the famous "scramble intersection" (so named because you have to scramble across quickly or you'll get hit by a taxi), and of course pay homage to the statue of Faithful Dog Hachiko. Then it was over to Tokyo Tower, the 333 meter high scale replica of the Eiffel Tower, which is featured prominently in many CLAMP anime stories. It was a great time to be alive.

More images from Tokyo. This is the South Side of Shinjuku, which is where you go if you want one of the more pleasant Starbucks, or to go to Kinokuniya, the massive 6-story bookstore (and the best place to buy English books in Tokyo).

In addition to Tokyo Tower, there's a replica of the Empire State Building that I hadn't noticed before. It looks pretty cool but it's way smaller than the original, to the point of being ridiculous.

This is Takashimaya Times Square, a really cool Borg Cube of a building, basically the area of sixteen JC Penny's or something, stacked one on top of the other.

Apple's iPod seems to be doing really well in Japan, and all the wanna-be competitors keep making crappy products that no one wants to buy. Their biggest competition might come from AU, who is blending phones and iPod like features. This is their LISMO download service, which parodies Apple's silhouette and colors.

There's the Starbucks, on the right. Kinda cool the way it's out there by itself. Course, you can never get a seat inside, since there are so many people there.

The cell phone industry in Japan, ways that language reflects culture, and buying a "mansion"

The local cell phone industry has been turned on its ear by the news that Europe's Vodafone was quitting the Japanese market. Vodafone bought ailing J-Phone and tried to make their successful business model work in Japan, but technical issues and business mistakes such as introducing blocky "candy bar" phones in a country that prefers sleeker flip-style handsets kept them in the red. Yahoo mogul Masatoshi Son, the Japanese of Korean descent who is often seen as the Bill Gates of Japan, is rumored to be buying Vodafone's assets. I hope he makes a successful run of it, as the cellular industry here could use a dose or two of healthy competition. Things seem to have gotten into a rut, with NTT Docomo and KDDI's AU both seemingly happy with their respective market share of 50% and 33%. Change may already be on the way, though, in the form of the upcoming "Big Bang" reforms that will require carriers to let customers take their phone numbers with them even if they change to competitors.

Language reflects culture and vice-versa, and there are many examples of this phenomenon here. Japan is a place that usually values one "correct" way of doing things -- for example, studying hard to get into a famous university then going to work for a respected company as a salaryman is seen in a better light than, say, quitting your job as an English teacher to start a company selling all forms of Japanese pop culture, as I did with J-List. There are many words that represent this tendency to prefer doing things the way they should be done, such as chanto ("properly") or kichinto ("correctly"). Ditto for writing Chinese characters -- each kanji has an exact stroke order that must be learned, and when people count something on paper here, they write the five-stroke kanji for "correct" rather than make "chicken scratch" tally marks as in the West. There's even a proper way to sit, called seiza (meaning "correct sitting"), which is a polite way of kneeling with your rear end resting on the bottoms of your feet. Seiza is widely used in martial arts, flower arranging, and zen meditation, as well as many formal settings when you need to show respect to others. Last weekend, my daughter attended tea ceremony with the Girl Scouts, during which everyone had to sit in seiza style for two hours or so. My "gaijin" daughter had no problem maintaining the kneeling pose, but my Japanese wife's legs kept falling asleep, the great amusement of the instructor.

A friend of mine just bought a mansion in Kyushu. It may sound like he's got a lot of money, but in Japanese the English word mansion (マンション) is one of many words that has been redefined to mean something slightly different, in this case a high-rise apartment that's usually owned rather than rented. There are many examples of this subtle re-mapping of English words in Japan, including bike (always a motorcycle, never a bicycle), rouge (what lipstick is called here), manicure (nail polish), hip (buttocks), short-cut (a short hair-cut), limousine bus (those comfortable busses they have at airports), cooler (air conditioner), and lynch (which just means "to beat someone up" in its Japanese usage). Yes, words are tenuous things. Once I was teaching English, and a (very attractive) female student introduced me to her her boyfriend who was sitting in on the class. The trouble is, that wasn't the term she used -- instead, she introduced him as her "lover" (in Japanese, koibito or "love person") which caused the temperature in the room to rise considerably for the rest of the lesson.

Continuing our shopping in Karuizawa. Of course, to go anywhere special is to see tons of omiyage for sale, and this place is no different. The word means souvenir for the folks back home.

A delicious-looking chocolate cake set with the name of "Forest of the Snow Fireflies." Very poetic.

In classic Japanese style, English can be seen on many of the packages. It's good that many cacaos wer eused to make these.

Readers in Europe might be natsukashii (nostalgic) to see Heidi, Girl of the Alps, a popular anime from the golden age of anime when you could actually be moved to tears. I guess Karuizawa, which is up in the mountains, feels kind of Alps-ey to the Japanese, so the fit is there.

A welcome sight to any gaijin!

Japan's shock over Virginia Tech, how Japanese names work, and on the psychology of foreigners in Japan

Japan is numbly watching the aftermath of the sad events at Virginia Tech as they unfold. Much like Europe, it's illegal for most people in Japan to possess guns, and as a rule real firearms are a distant part of life for Japanese. The subject of guns has come up in my English conversation classes many times over the years ("How many guns did you own when you lived in America?"), and I always did my best to present the complex issue in a way that my students could understand, which was not always easy since they don't have a feel for our history. While incidents of gun-related violence are less common in Japan, they're not totally unheard of, a fact that we were all reminded of when Mayor Ito of Nagasaki, an outspoken opponent of nuclear weapons, was shot in the back by an irate yakuza boss on the same day as the tragedy in Virginia. The gangster in question had managed to run his Mercedes Benz into an open ditch at a construction site several years ago and had tried to make the city take responsibility for the repairs, and his frustration finally came to a head. This isn't the first time a Nagasaki mayor has been targeted: the city's previous mayor was shot by a right-winger in 1990 after he made remarks blaming former Emperor Hirohito for the events the war.

You may know that Japanese, like other nations in Asia, reverse the order of the family and given names, so that the name Hayao Miyazaki in English would be Mizayaki Hayao here. Essentially, the ideas of "first name" and "last name" are useless in Japanese, replaced by the family name and namae (nah-mah-EH), or the given name, which is so close to the English word "name" that it's spooky. Like learning to say your phone number in Japanese, it can be quite a challenge to make your brain un-learn a name memorized using one language when you need to use it in another. When you learn the name of Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa, the name takes up one gestalt part of your memory, and having to say the name in the reverse order causes your brain to do some fast calculation. Although the family name comes first with Japanese names, this rule doesn't apply to foreigners, whose names are always used as they are in English.

Living as a gaijin in a place that's as homogeneous as Japan brings out some interesting responses in people, and one could write a book studying the psyche of foreigners in Japan. For example, there are the "three states of eye aversion" they seem to go through when it comes to looking at other foreigners around them, not wanting to directly meet the gaze of a an unknown foreigner on the street. There are many gaijin from various countries who appear regularly on TV speaking fluent Japanese and giving an "outsiders view" on things, but foreigners living in Japan often hate these TV personalities, if for no other reason than because their Japanese is better than ours. Among the foreign-born "talents" you can see on TV here are Bobby Orogon, the bumbling Nigerian comedian who makes Japanese language mistakes on purpose to get laughs; dashing bilingual Italian Gioramo, always there to provide his views on travel shows or documentaries about the Roman Empire; and the eternal Dave Spector, the most famous American in Japan, who has his own gossip section on the morning TV news where he reports on what all the American stars are doing this week.

Remember that J-List carries all the greatest PC dating-sim games from Japan, but translated into English. With a huge catalog of games for all tastes, there's something for everyone, whether you want games with incredibly cute characters, story-centric dramatic games, hilarious comedy dating-sims, all-ages titles or whatever. The upcoming YUME MIRU KUSURI :: A Drug That Makes You Dream has been declared Golden Master and will be shipping in a very short time. Why not preorder it for free shipping when it's printed?

A meal I ate the other day. I am a major Sukiyaki buff, and a restaurant that we go to often has it has a lunch item.

They say that Japanese food is very healthy, but if you pay close attention you see a lot of refined grains, lots o sugar even in foods you figure wouldn't contain any, and so on. Teriyaki sauce, which isn't eaten in Japan much at all (go figure), is soy sauce mixed with sugar, I think.

Near the cash register of the restaurant. Good Kobe beef!

Ah, curry, the basic food of Japan!

Funny English is everywhere!

Even more funny English!

Funny English in Japan, teaching about America through Easter Eggs, and confusing Japanese company names explained

Japan can be such a funny place. You could be going along, minding your own business when suddenly, bam, the country will hit you with English that's so bizarre you have to stop what you're doing and gaze at it with amazement. I took my kids to the onsen (public hot springs bath) over the weekend, and while I was getting dressed I looked up to see an air filter with "Clean-Poo" written on the side. In neighboring Takasaki (sister city with Kelloggs home Battle Creek, MI, in case you were curious) there's a swimming school called Koma which decided to be cute and write its name with a "c" instead of a "k," resulting in Coma Swimming School -- not exactly where I want my kids learning to swim. The letters L and R are the same phonetic concept in Japanese, which causes a lot of confusion when speaking English, and most bilingual Japanese I know go out of their way to avoid the word "election" for this reason. A couple of years ago there was a poor restaurateur who built a large Texas-style steak house in our city with a giant sign that proclaimed RONE STAR -- I never did find out if he got the name wrong on purpose to show his originality or if it was an accident. I don't have to go very far to find funny English: the rural liquor shop that my wife's parents run has a delivery van with RIQUOR SHOP YANAI printed on the back.

Nippon, Nippan, Nissan, Nisshin. What's up with those similar-sounding Japanese names? The name of Japan in its own language is Nippon or Nihon, with the former having a little more official-ness by virtue of it being the term used by NHK, Japan's version of the BBC. The name means "origin of the sun" (日本) and was bestowed on the country by China, which names itself the "kingdom at the center of the world" （中国). Since the Japanese communicate ideas with kanji characters rather than an alphabet as we do, it's natural for words to be created by combining kanji the way we make acronyms in English. Since no one wants to bother trying to remember a name like Nihon Shuppan Hanbai Kabushiki Gaisha (日本出版販売株式会社), it's was natural for Japan's second largest book distributor to adopt the more reasonable name of Nippan. Ramen powerhouse Nisshin took a famous slogan meaning "to live a pure life every day" and boiled it down to the most important two characters to get their name. Japan's famous automobile maker Nissan's name originally was "Japan Industrial Corporation Ltd." (日本産業株式会社) but in its abbreviated form (日産) it essentially means "Made in Japan," about as direct a name as you could ask for. Often, a company will come to view its kanji name as outdated and will re-brand itself with cooler English-sounding name, which is what happened when Nippon Denki Kabushiki Gaisha (日本電気株式会社）, aka "Nichiden" （日電） decided that it would call itself NEC instead.

Although it sounds corny, I do consider myself to be a kind of ambassador for the U.S. in Japan, and I like to spread awareness of all things American when I get the chance. On Sunday we had a late Easter with my daughter's Girl Scout troop, decorating eggs and making Easter Baskets and doing all that stuff that you might take for granted, but which is very exotic and mysterious here in Japan. The girls had loads of fun learning to color the eggs and arrange everything nicely, and the new Brownies were especially thrilled since they'd never seen anything like it. Since the Japanese aren't too keen on eating something that's been on the ground, we used foil-wrapped Cadbury Eggs for our egg hunt, and the kids all had a blast. We had one small cultural break-down when my Japanese mother-in-law boiled the eggs we were to color only partially, thinking that they were to be decorated but not eaten, so that everyone who opened one of their eggs got oozing egg yolk all over the place.

Remember that J-List sells a magazine that's personally done a lot of good for me, Nihongo Journal, a monthly periodical featuring Japanese lessons for many levels, from beginner-intermediate on up, covering a variety of language areas, from business Japanese to conversational speaking to preparing for the JLPT. We carry the magazine via our popular "Reserve Subscription" service which lets you get Japan's most interesting magazine sent to you each month, paying on a month-to-month basis or for a year at a time. We have dozens of other effective tools for studying Japanese, from textbooks like the Genki series and kanji workbooks and great flashcards for learning hiragana, katakana and kanji. Why not browse them all now?

Ah, they finally came. I think I've entered that magical world known as "Nerdvanna."