Gaijin in Japan: an Overview

Although the average Japanese person on the street might think there are a lot of foreigners living and working in Japan, in reality the number is tiny, just 1.63% of the overall population here. This number, which includes Japan-born Koreans and Chinese who choose not to take Japanese citizenship for cultural reasons, compares to 8% foreign-born residents in the U.K., 9% for Germany, 11% for the U.S. and 13% for the Netherlands. Although the number of foreign barbarians in Japan may be low, the Japanese never seem to get used to us, and it's fun to observe the confusion that arises when the two worlds intersect. First of all, all Westerners are assumed to be American, which is the country the Japanese are most familiar with; similarly, Japanese expect that all gaijin can speak English. Last month I met a guy from Italy who didn't speak my language, so we stood there chatting in Japanese about various topics, a sight that provided great amusement to the Japanese people walking past us. Although I do still occasionally receive compliments from older Japanese on my use of chopsticks, for the most part people have come to terms with the idea that foreigners will do things like know how to order sushi in Japanese or have vast knowledge about obscure topics. For some reason, I've met quite a few people who were surprised when they heard I've married a local girl and have Japanese kids going to normal schools, despite having been here for 18 years.

Gaijin always seem to confused the poor Japanese.

Linguistic Quirks of Japanese

Each language is special, with unique features that may cause confusion for speakers of other languages. For example, Romance languages like Spanish and French have noun genders, forcing English speakers to puzzle over why a pen is feminine while a pencil is masculine. Although Japanese do consider it a point of pride to think of their language as being especially hard to learn, I am convinced that no language is intrinsically more or less difficult than all the others. Still, there are some barriers to learning Japanese that must be overcome, starting with the two syllable-based writing systems, hiragana (the wavy looking one) and katakana (the boxy, masculine looking one), which you can tackle by memorizing the shapes and what sound they make (we can help). Kanji is also no small challenge unless you happen to come from China, although you'd be surprised how much you can read with just a few hundred characters under your belt after a year or two of study. Grammatically there are some confusing areas, such as having to get used to two different verbs for to be (in a place), aru (ah-ROO) for inanimate objects like a car or building, and iru (ee-ROO) for anything that's alive, like people or animals. Whenever you learn something new, it's important to test it to find the limitations on that new piece of information so your brain can internalize it, and I remember bugging my sensei about which verb was correct for objects like zombies, cyborgs, freshly-killed corpses and Venus Fly-Traps.

Is a Venus Fly Trap animate or inanimate? I'm actually still not sure which verb to use.

Newest Hair Trend from Tokyo

Besides promoting world peace through shared popular culture and Hello Kitty bento boxes, I consider it my mission to try to help our readers categorize and understand this wonderful country called Japan as best I can. This can be a challenge since it is such a chaotic place, and we're never sure what new and interesting thing will come along next. The newest trend among fashionable females is called "mori hair," from the Japanese word moru, meaning to pile on (as in, to pile food onto a plate), and it describes women with hair that's lifted off the head so that it looks thick and luxurious. While the original gyaru-esque fashion style can be said to have gotten its start with the rise of J-POP diva Namie Amuro and her "Amullers" (that is, Amuro with -ers on the end, referring to the generation of girls who copied her style), this more refined look takes its cues from Japan's "cabaret clubs," hostess bars where extremely glamorous women will pour drinks for men, and is related to the Little Devil Ageha school of Tokyo street fashion. Of course, you can follow these and other hot trends in Tokyo by checking out the fashion magazines that J-List sells by convenient revolving subscription. Since you never have to pay in advance for the issues (although you have that option if you want), you can cancel or change magazines at any time. Individual issues are often available too.

"Cele-up" your look with mori-hair, which means to act more like a celebrity.

Himiko, Ancient Queen of Japan

Japan's archeology world is buzzing after evidence that an ancient burial mound near Nara may have contained Queen Himiko, the legendary early ruler of Japan. According to Chinese records including the famous Legend of Three Kingdoms, Himiko was the queen of a land called Yamatai in the nation of Wa (the oldest Chinese name for Japan), a mysterious sorceress who could use magic to foretell the future, and who was waited on by 1,000 female attendants, and one male one. She's celebrated in popular culture in many ways today, including an anime and manga series by OH! Great. Now a 280-meter "keyhole type" burial mound has been successfully dated to around the year 248 A.D., the year of Himiko's death, indicating that it may have been the actual resting place for the legendary ruler. Sadly, it's like likely that we'll never know for sure if the burial mound did contain Himiko or not. The exact location of Yamatai isn't known, and scholars debate whether it was located near Nara or instead in the Kyushu area, with each region loudly insisting that it is the location of the ancient kingdom, no doubt so they can sell little boxes of Himiko-themed cakes to tourists. The city of Saga, in Kyushu, even went so far as to create a replica of a 3rd-century Japanese village for visitors to explore, in order to cement its claim as the birthplace of culture in Japan in the minds of people.

Himiko is the legendary early ruler of Japan during the Yayoi Period.

Not Fitting In In Japan

Being half Japanese and half American, my kids don't always fit the mold that's prepared for them here in Japan. At my daughter's school they have something called fuuki kensa, which is an inspection by the teachers to make sure the students aren't doing scandalous things like dyeing their hair, shortening the hems of their skirts or painting their fingernails. Sure enough, the other day the teacher wanted to know why my daughter had lightened her hair, but of course it was her natural color, which caused a bit of a logical disconnect until the teachers realized she was haafu. Pierced ears are also a no-no in conservative Japanese schools, and the teachers were amazed to see that my daughter had had her ears pierced when she was younger. Of course, going to junior high school here means learning English in the formal "this is a pen" way that Japan loves so much. My daughter's (Japanese) English teacher was coming in to start one such lesson when he overheard my daughter singing one of the songs from High School Musical in perfect English, which just about made him jump out of his shoes with surprise.

(I am guessing that they probably did this in the U.S., back in the 1950s or 60s? It seems like something you'd expect to see in Back to the Future.)

Japanese Efficiency and K-On!

One way for companies to prosper is to be more efficient, finding ways to use technology to get more work done in the same amount of time. Over the past decade or so, J-List has been able to make use of various new technologies in order to be much more efficient, and I look back with amusement at how things were done even 15 years ago, before Internet-based conveniences like Skype, instant messaging and sending PDF files through email existed. Sadly, one of the major themes of Japan seems to be the triumph of inefficiency, and there are whole industries where people seem perfectly happy being less productive. When you drive into a company's parking lot, for example, there are often a few older men in uniforms who will guide you to an empty parking space, even though most would be able to find it unaided. Banks are another area where they just seem to do things differently. While my local branch in San Diego can get by with 4-5 employees, a Japanese bank feels the need to have 20 or more behind the counter, yet somehow the time each customer is made to wait is longer than in the U.S. I love the scene in episode 2 of the anime K-On, when Yui wants to buy a guitar and the other girls decide to help her earn money. The scene where the girls sit and manually click off a counter as cars drive by is classic Japan -- although it could be done cheaply and accurately with some kind of sensor built into the road, it's a time-honored tradition to hire people to count the cars manually instead. Today is the end of our company's fiscal year, the day the J-List staff has to count every item in inventory. Until recently, this work had to be done laboriously by hand, written up on paper and re-entered into spreadsheets, but finally the Japanese tax office decided it was okay to automate the process, which saves us a huge amount of time.

Of course, you can be too efficient, in which case there's only one person doing all the work in any given country, which wouldn't be fun either. What do you think about the inefficiency-as-sort-of-socialism that's practiced in Japan?

The girls from K-On get a job counting cars that pass by on the street, a common job here.

Yokohama Celebrates its 150th Anniversary

2009 is the 150th anniversary of the opening of the port of Yokohama, which began when Admiral Matthew Perry sailed his "black ships" into the harbor to demand that Japan open itself to trade with the United States. When the city was designated as Japan's first open port on June 2, 1859, it was little more than a fishing village located 30 km south of the Japanese capital of Edo, but it was quickly adopted as a base of operations by the fast-growing class of foreign entrepreneurs who helped it to modernize rapidly, introducing the first Western-style newspaper, the first gas lighting and (thankfully) the first beer brewery, which would become Kirin. Today Yokohama has grown into one of the world's foremost cities, with 3.69 million citizens and dozens of diverse industries. I've always had a soft spot for the city, no doubt due to its San Francisco-like beauty and its long history of cultural interaction with foreigners, both from the West and via its well-developed Chinatown, which is a great place to eat in. My hometown of San Diego happens to be the sister city of Yokohama, another reason for the city to be at the top of my favorite places in Japan.

Yokohama celebrates its 150th anniversary as an open city.

Japan Population +1

J-List's plan to re-populate Japan is going well, and J-List employee Jun (the guy who brings you such great toys, anime figures and Japanese snacks) has a new baby boy! Little Kaji-kun is doing great and was brought home from the hospital yesterday.

The Japanese are Pros at Recession-Beating

The recession continues to take its toll here, with the export-centric Japanese economy shrinking at an annualized rate of 12.7% over the last quarter, the biggest decline since the "oil shock" of 1974. I'm impressed the calmness everyone in Japan has been displaying over the rough economy, but not surprised: after the hard times of the 1990s, the Japanese are professional recession-beaters, and are taking things in stride, knowing that the economy will improve. As is to be expected in any downturn, certain industries are doing worse than others. While virtually every well-known manufacturer of electronics has fallen into the red, convenience stores and low-priced conveyor-belt sushi restaurants are booming, and television production has been helped by the impending switch to digital broadcasting, too. Happily, there are some signs that the worst of the recession is behind us, as the government reports positive numbers on the rise for the first time. Production is starting to come back, too, and Toyota, Honda and Mazda are all resuming full factory output next month.

Just a last reminder that J-List continuing our "Fiscal Year is Ending" sale through the end of the month, in which we'll give you a $5 gift certificate code for every $100 you spend on the site. This means you've got an excuse to add another few items to your cart if you're just under the next $100 level, and save money. The gift coupons will be issued as your order is processed, and never expire -- you can use them any time. What great products from Japan can we get for you today? Hurry, though!

Better times ahead for Japan? Automakers resume full production by next month.

Don't Be Rude to the Rice

The other day I noticed a bag of rice sitting on the table. Something about the way the grains were packed together seemed to beckon to me, and I found myself tossing the bag up and down and punching it lightly with my fist, which earned me a rebuke from my wife. I was sure she was worried about me spilling the contents of the bag all over the kitchen, but instead she said: "Don't do that! It's rude to do to the rice." Rice is extremely important to the Japanese, who eat it with almost every meal, and the local version of "eat your food because there are starving children in Ethiopia" is "eat your rice, there are seven gods in each grain who will be angry if you don't finish everything." Alternately, parents will talk about how hard the local farmer worked to make the rice, which traditionally takes 88 different steps to get it from seedling to table. The importance of rice in Japanese culture is expressed in various religious ceremonies, such as funerals, when a final bowl of rice is offered to the soul of a person who has died with chopsticks standing straight up in the rice, and in Shinto purification rituals performed before starting construction on a building (which we did, for example, when we built the J-List office).

Rice is an extremely important part of Japanese life and culture. There are no cute harvest goddesses that I know of however.

Narrow Japanese Buildings

Japan squeezes about half the population of the U.S. into a country the size of California, which alone would seem to guarantee that people would be squashed together a bit. On top of this is the fact that so much of the land here is mountainous, and the Japanese have an odd cultural dislike for living on mountains, which forces people even closer together in the cities. This scarcity of land tends to make for some oddly-shaped buildings, and as a foreigner it's fun to pick out some of the more bizarrely-shaped structures, some of which are so narrow you wonder how they keep from falling over. Creating beautiful living spaces for small plots of land (called kyosho jutaku) is a highly developed art form in Japan, and there are many architects and building companies who specialize in designing homes that take up very little land yet are unbelievably spacious inside.

There are some pretty funky-looking buildings in Japan.

English Used Freely in Japan

The Japanese do like English, and use it to add a little je ne sais quoi to their language, but always on their own terms. Politicians, for example, will pepper their speeches with English phrases like "manifesto" "innovation" and "new millennium frontier" to show how intelligent they are, despite the fact that these words often mean very little to voters. (Maybe that's the point?) Because the Japanese are free from the baggage of having to create grammatically correct English, they're able to shape the language in any way that makes sense to them. Just as the Swiss accidentally hit upon the name Swatch for their Swiss watches because the designers didn't speak enough English to know that the word sounded a little strange, the Japanese have used creative English to their advantage, coming up with terms like Re-House (a company that remodels homes), Book Off! (a used book store chain) of course the Walkman, now a part of product marketing history. Often words are simplified to make them shorter and easier for Japanese people to use, for example a convertible becomes an "open car," screwdrivers come in "plus" and "minus" varieties, and when a man no longer wants children he might consider getting a "pipe cut." The English word "my" is often repurposed to reflect the warm feeling associated with owning something, and banks will often advertise low rates for a "My-Home Loan" or promote the joy of owning your very own "Dream My-Car."

If you want to enjoy your Human Car Life, you'd better get a My-Car Loan.

Difficult Cultural Nuances in Anime

While it's fun to experience Japan through anime, I wonder how often some of the more subtle cultural nuances are difficult for viewers to pick up on. In the popular anime Clannad, there are two twins, Kyou and Ryou Fujibayashi. Although they were born just minutes apart, the oneesan (older sister) Kyou is very protective of her imoto (younger sister) Ryou, and tries to get the main character Tomoya interested in her. It's common for high school kids to call each other by their last names in Japan, but when Kyou tells Tomoya, "Since both my sister and I are 'Fujibayashi,' it must be confusing, so you can call me Kyou," she basically lets the audience know that it's she who's interested in Tomoya, ready to leap-frog over her sister by getting on a first-name basis with him, which implies a special closeness. The mechanics of polite Japanese are also difficult to express properly in English. When Kyon goes back in time to meet a younger version of Haruhi, he's not surprised when she speaks to him in a commanding manner despite being three years younger than him at the time. Similarly, there's a scene in Touch where the rough coach Eijiro Kashiwaba berates two senpai who had betrayed him many years ago. Although he's filled with anger, he never drops his polite tone when addressing his former upperclassmen, something that would be difficult to conceive of in English.

The pinnacle of moe for me, the scene when Kyou and Ryou realize they've not been chosen.

Cultural Lessons and Initial D

The other day I bought an Initial D driving game for my Playstation 3, which is fun since the mountains of Haruna, Myogi and Akagi are all real places located near J-List. I had a problem with the game, however: every time I tried to select an option I found I was hitting the cancel button instead of execute, which would bring me back to the previous menu. The reason was related to an interesting cultural wrinkle between Japan and the West: here, a circle (maru) always means "yes" or "correct" while an X (batsu) is always "no" or "wrong." So while gamers from America and Europe expect the X button to execute the current menu option, in Japanese Playstation (and PSP) games this is reversed. I first encountered this issue when studying Japanese at SDSU: when my teacher handed me my test back marked with dozens of red circles, I thought I'd gotten all the answers wrong, but I soon figured out that circles meant good. We've had similar cultural issues with the coffee maker we use at J-List, a large 12-cup model purchased in the U.S., since the girly-man coffee makers here are laughably small. The Mr. Coffee switch displays a 1 for "on" and a 0 for "off," and invariably one of our Japanese staff members will put the switch in the "circle" position, expecting the coffee to flow then wondering when nothing happens.

Living in Gunma is fun for an Initial D fan, since I can go on these real roads if I want.

Japan and the New Type Influenza

Japan is doing its best to deal with the outbreak of the "new-type influenza virus" that has taken hold here, with 302 cases officially reported, although no deaths thanks to Japan's excellent medical system. Everywhere you go, Japanese consumers are snapping up those health masks and wearing them to keep the germs away. The influenza fear is having an effect on the economy, too, as travel plans to areas where flu cases have been reported are cancelled, including my son's scheduled school trip to Kyoto next month (it's been put off for a year). Prime Minister Aso has appeared on TV and urged people to remain calm, but I know this has to run its course: once Japanese people have decided they're going to freak out about something, everyone gets on board. This is thanks to the concept of migi e narae (migi eh nah-rah-eh), an old army command that literally means "Copy the person on your right!" although it's more useful to think of it as "me, too-ism." Basically, this word describes the Japanese tendency to do whatever people them are doing. If you're concerned about the new influenza, the best advice might be to stay home and avoid unnecessary contact with others. To that end, I recommend everyone buy cool stuff from J-List. That's a great idea!

Japan is currently undergoing fear of the new influenza. Good thing we stocked up on Hello Kitty masks.

The Paradigm of Living in Japan

Living in Japan means getting used to a new paradigm, and it often feels like the country exists on another dimension from the rest of the world. Maps that aren't oriented towards the North, with swastikas written on them, since the symbol (properly called manji) denotes the location of a Buddhist temple here. People shooting off fireworks while it's still light outside. Buying a six-pack of beer and paying the same price as six individual cans. Then there's the tendency for important public messages to be delivered by cute "mascot characters" like Chidejika, whose name comes from chideji (terrestrial digital) the shika (Japanese for deer). The character, who reminds people that they need to prepare for the switchover from analog to digital TV due to take place in July 2011, replaced SMAP member Tsuyoshi Kusanagi when he was arrested for public nudity at a park at 3 am.

Chidejika is the official mascot of the end of analog TV broadcasts in Japan, which has become a massive target of online parodies with the 2ch crowd:

This is a Miku Hatsune video about Analoguma (Analog Bear).

The Most Famous Monkeys in Japan

All my life, I've heard the words "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil," but I never connected the phrase with Japan particularly. Imagine my surprise when I went to Nikko Toshogu, a beautiful collection of temples about 100 km north of Tokyo, and saw the famous 17th century wood carving of the three monkeys respectively covering their eyes, ears and mouth. The phrase in Japanese is mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru (do not see, do not listen, do not speak), and it's partially a pun, since the -zaru verb ending sounds similar to the Japanese word for monkey, saru. Like most really old things, three wise monkeys originated from outside Japan, and there are variations of the monkeys and the message in many cultures. Incidentally, Nikko is just about the most beautiful place you can find in Japan outside the Kyoto region, and it should be at the top of your list of places to visit if you're looking for something to do in the Kanto area. I love walking through the beautiful temples and going to the 5-story pagoda, which houses the bones of the single most famous Japanese person, Ieyasu Tokugawa, who unified Japan and ushered in the Edo Period.

The three wise monkeys, a famous image of Japan.

Evangelion Phone: You Can (Not) Buy One

I love my iPhone, really I do. It lets me read Wikipedia in bed, check the status of the J-List servers from anywhere, practice my Japanese calligraphy, send my random thoughts via Twitter and engage in impromptu lightsaber battles with other iPhone users. Still, there are times when the more traditional keitai (cell phones) sold in Japan tempt me. Today Japan's #2 cell phone maker "au by KDDI" announced 19 (!) new models for the coming summer season, including a solar-powered phone that can be recharged by leaving it in the sun, a phone with a Kindle-like "e-paper" display that shows information such as weather reports, and a model designed by Giorgio Armani. But the most geek-tastic new phone is from Docomo: the limited-edition tie-in with the upcoming Evangelion 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance movie, designed by Gainax and director Hideaki Anno.

Docomo's new Evangelion phone is nerdgasm-inducing.

Service and Tipping in Japan

One of the most pleasant aspects of living in Japan is getting excellent service wherever you go, whether it's at a restaurant or having your tank filled by cheerful employees who will wipe your windshield and get rid of any trash in your car for you. At the hot springs hotel I stayed at last weekend, I was impressed with the amount of effort the staff put in for us, bringing the multi-course meals and laying out the futons and making sure we knew where all the baths in the hotel were located. One might be tempted to think that the staff was going out of their way because we were foreign visitors, but that wasn't my impression: if you are the okyaku-sama (the word that covers the English concepts of guest, visitor and customer) you will be treated well. Ironically, no matter how good the service is, you can't show your appreciation by tipping. Although the Japanese have imported many customs from the West, from Western furniture and clothing to medicine, the custom of tipping doesn't exist in Japan at all.

The year 1955 is alive and well at Japanese gas stations.

Dharma, 108 and the Buddhism of Lost

Like many others, I'm a big fan of Lost. Unfortunately my wife has gotten into it, too, which means I have to translate the difficult international accents for her, since the show seems to be tailor-made to torture Japanese ESL learners. In a recent episode, the character Jack had to give something of his father's to another character in order to accomplish a goal, and this made my wife observe, "Wow, this is just like Buddhism." (In this case the idea is katami, possessions of a person who has died which are distributed to his friends later.) Yes, the producers of Lost do seem to enjoy adding "pop Buddhist" themes to the story, such as the Dharma Initiative, the mysterious organization doing experiments on the island, which J-List readers will recognize as Daruma, the famous famous red statues that represent the Buddhist monk who meditated for so long that his arms and legs atrophied and disappeared. Then there's the computer with a button that must be pushed every 108 minutes to keep the world from ending. The number 108 is quite important in Buddhism, representing the 108 sins that a person must overcome in order to reach Nirvana, and on New Year's Eve the temple bells are rung 108 times. Interesting tidbit: in India, the number you call when you have an emergency is...108!

The producers of Lost are fond of adding Buddhist themes to the show.

How to Search Google in Japanese

Google is an amazing tool that allows us to find information in seconds, and I swear by it. When searching in Japanese, however, Googling can be a bit more complicated. First of all, to find information on an individual in Japanese you obviously need to know the correct kanji for their name, and searching with the wrong characters will bring up unexpected results just as misspelling a name will mess up Google results in English. There are many different name kanji for writing Japanese names, and the most common names can be the hardest to work with since there are so many possible variations. If you wanted to find information on singer Ayumi Hamasaki, for example, you'd type the name in to the kanji front-end processor (IME on Windows, Kotoeri on the Mac) then hit the space bar, scrolling through the many possible kanji. Which one is it? Surprise -- all of them are wrong. The singer writes her first name in hiragana.

Five common ways of writing the female Japanese name Ayumi in kanji.

And there she is!

My Favorite Place: Onsen Hotels

A friend from Italy came to our prefecture for a visit, so I took him to one of my favorite places in Japan, an onsen hotel in the small mountain town of Ikaho. While most any volcanic hot spring is a joy to bathe in, I'm a big fan of the larger onsen hotel experience, where you can roam the hallways in your yukata sampling several different baths, then do fun stuff like karaoke or table tennis. Japan can be a strangely uniform place, and features you can find at one hot spring hotel will usually be available almost everywhere. For example, I guarantee you'll find a vending machine selling Haagan-Dazs ice cream and a little shop inside the hotel that sells ramen to guests who get hungry late at night. Also, there's always a "game corner" where you can play video games, but for some reason they're always games from 10-15 years ago. The inn we chose is quite a famous one, having been operated by the founding family for the last 420 years -- wow. One thing I like about the dating-sim games we sell is the cultural tidbits you can get from them, and our game Tokimeki Check in! is filled with fun references to these hot springs inns, if you're curious to learn more about them.

The hot springs inn I went to was founded in 1576. Yes, I was amazed by that, too.

Star Wars vs. Japan

Since the two great obsessions of my life have been Japan and Star Wars, I enjoy it when they come together in interesting ways. Star Wars is of course heavily based on concepts borrowed from Japan, from bushido-infused Jedi Knights wearing kimono to the Obi-Wan-as-ronin themes to the word "Jedi" itself, which comes from jidai-geki, or historical period dramas. One of the most famous Japan-related inspirations in Star Wars was Darth Vader's helmet, which is based on the kabuto helmet of Masamune Date, 1567-1636 (family name pronounced dah-tay). He was an enigmatic daimyo who founded the city of Sendai in northern Japan, and who did some amazing things, like sending Japanese envoys to Mexico, Spain and Rome in 1619 to negotiate trade, just as the Tokugawa clan was beginning its policy of isolation from outside cultural influences. The pro-Christian daimyo was always open to new ideas, and he loved international gourmet food, which has given the city of Sendai a reputation for excellent restaurants today. His helmet is one of the most iconic in history, with perfect Darth Vader-style dimensions and a large metal crescent on the top, symbolizing animal horns. I personally believe the famous samurai lord contributed his name to cause of the Sith, too, since "Date" seems too close to "Darth"
to have been an accident.

Darth Vader's helmet is based on a famous samurai's kabuto.

Tokyo as the Center of Japan

Japan is often said to be a "vertical" society, in which a given person has a higher or lower social level based on their status, age or number of years in an organization, a concept that takes some getting used to when coming from the U.S. Interestingly, there's a similar relationship between Tokyo and the rest of the country that seems to be a relic from Japan's past. Basically, Tokyo is by definition the "heart" of Japan by virtue of its being the designated capital, which is reflected in interesting linguistic ways. For example, all trains come in two types, nobori or "climbing" and kudari or "descending," and after a while I figured that this had to do with whether the train was going towards or away from Tokyo. Similarly, there are words like jokyo suru which means "to come to the capital," a concept I can't picture us making a special word for in English. "Standard Japanese" is defined as whatever people in Tokyo happen to speak, which is again quite different from the U.S., which has no official geographic linguistic center.

Tokyo is the center of Japan in more ways than are immediately apparent to the casual observer.

Interesting Japanese Foods: Takoyaki

Japan is home to many interesting foods, only a small number of which are generally known to the outside world. Like taiyaki, sweet bean paste cooked inside a shell shaped like a fish, great to eat in the winter (see a chocolate version here), or chawan-mushi, chicken and other good things steamed inside a heavenly egg custard, often served as a separate course in traditional Japanese meals. Another enigmatic food is takoyaki, especially popular in the Osaka region ever since it was invented in 1935. In stark contrast to the English word taco, tako is Japanese for octopus; to differentiate the crustacean from the Mexican food, the Japanese always use the plural word "tacos" (takosu) for referring to the latter, even if they're talking about just one taco. Takoyaki are basically fried balls of batter that contain a piece of cooked octopus meat inside, painted with a delicious sauce, which is great to eat piping hot while walking around a summer festival. While many wouldn't be too thrilled at the idea of eating octopus meat, it actually has no taste and is strangely satisfying to chew, and it's become one of my favorite foods. Once in rural Japan my wife and I happened across a takoyaki vendor who'd decided to call his little shop Tako Bell, which was such an unexpected thing to see we howled with laughter. If you're curious about this unique Japanese food, FritoLay has created a crunchy Takoyaki-flavored snack that we've posted today.

Takoyaki is a famous food in the Kansai region that I like.

Japanese People I Have Met

Before I came to Japan, I thought I knew pretty much what kinds of people I'd find here: lots of Japanese salaryman types riding the train to work, overstressed students struggling to get into university, and so on. This was 1991, when there were no blogs to provide "slice of life" information about Japan, and it seemed that every book on the subject was written by old-timers who came here after World War II and never left. I was naturally surprised to encounter Japanese people of every imaginable type here, which makes sense of course since I only had stereotypes to work from before. For example, I met a normal Japanese businessman who was an "airport otaku," able to discuss the features and history of just about every major airport in the world in great detail. Then there was the time some very average high school students I'd been teaching asked me to come and watch them dance. They were in a "rockabilly circle" (club) that dressed in extravagant 1950's era outfits and put on impromptu street performances -- it was really cool. Even the seemingly mild-mannered Jun, the J-List staff member who keeps our site stocked with interesting snacks and toys, surprised me: in his younger days, he traveled along the Silk Road through China, India, and Iran, and had perfected the art of eating with his fingers without making a big mess.

All things considered, I did not expect to meet Rockabilly fans when I came to Japan.

English Words with Kanji

I wrote last time about an amusing marketing campaign by Georgia Coffee to sell canned coffee using the slogan "Yes, we can!" with the final word written in kanji. Say what -- a kanji character for an English word? While the general rule is that the katakana writing system is reserved for foreign names for people and places along with imported words like "bottle keep" (when you leave a bottle of bourbon you've purchased at your favorite bar with your name on it, trusting that no one else will drink it) or "skinship" (the Japanese word describing the important connection between a parent and child), some English words have been in use in Japan for so long they've been assigned honorary kanji, such as tobacco, coffee, or beer. This is an example of something called ateji, essentially assigning a pronunciation to characters that have a similar meaning. Sometimes the results are amusing -- for example, the characters for tobacco happen to be written with characters for "smoke" and "grass."

My Son and the Coming Exam Test Hell

On Sunday my wife and son drove to his juku, or evening preparatory school (a.k.a. "cram school"), for a formal meeting with the teacher who oversees his studies there. Next year my son starts the third year of junior high, which is the beginning of juken hell as he prepares for the entrance exam to get into high school, and the meeting was to make a concrete study plan for the next 18 months. Japan's educational system is complex and difficult for Westerners to understand, but basically, compulsory education ends at junior high, making high school effectively optional, which creates competition for the best schools. Under Japan's meritocracy system, students who want to attend one of the top schools must study hard, and there's an entire ecosystem of large and small juku schools to help students reach their educational goals. My son is interested in engineering and has decided to shoot for the top boy's high school in our prefecture, a difficult goal which will mean many hours of studying on top of his normal schoolwork. It'll be hard for him, and also for me, since it means many months of doing almost no father-and-son stuff like playing catch or evening lightsaber battles. But it's all part of raising a kid in Japan.

Yoyogi Seminar is one of the largest "cram" schools in Japan.

Yahoo vs. Google: Which Female Users are More Sexy?

Women who use Yahoo vs. those who prefer Google -- which are sexier? That's a question posed by one ladies' magazine, which polled 600 female users of both websites about how they perceived themselves. While Yahoo's star may have been eclipsed by Google in the U.S. and Europe, the brand is still going strong here in Japan, where less-sophisticated users often associate the Yahoo website with "the Internet" in general, often not knowing there's anything beyond it. Yahoo just seems to "get" the Japanese market in a way that other companies have trouble emulating, and their market share for search in Japan stands at 51% compared with 39% for Google. The magazine's poll found that among female Googlers, 23.5 ranked themselves as "sexy" or "somewhat sexy" while just 9.6% of female users of Yahoo described themselves this way. The article went on to postulate that users of Google thought the service was kakko ii or "cool" because of its more technical approach to the web, while Yahoo Japan users thought less deeply about what tools they were using to get information.

Yahoo is still king of search in Japan, especially among females.

Thoughts on Newsweek Japan and Job Interviews

My wife reads the Japanese version of Newsweek, and sometimes I thumb through it to see how it compares to the U.S. version, or the laughable "International" edition that just happens to have exactly one news story from each region it's sold in, e.g. India, Singapore, Japan, etc., whether or not there was any important news going on. Although Newsweek is published here in Japanese, the editors know their readers tend to be interested in English and international business, and I once came across an article on how to tackle an American-style job interview. The Japanese are used to treating English as if it were an exact science, with "one" right answer to a given question, e.g. the correct reply to "How are you?" is "Fine, thanks, and you?" These questions, however, would have been linguistic torture for Japanese ESL learners, with open-ended questions ("tell me about yourself"), requests that they accurately evaluate themselves ("what are your strengths or weaknesses?") and so on. This is the complete opposite of how job interviews are handled in Japan, where people looking for employment are expected to act in an extremely humble way, accurately representing your past work or educational history while dressing down what they're achieved in the past, and avoiding standing out from other applicants. If you don't wear this mantle of modesty during a job interview you certainly won't be hired in Japan.

The Japanese edition of Newsweek knows their readers are interested in English.

Interesting Social Observations Over a Bag of Chips

The Japanese, as I've often written, are a group-oriented people, and it's interesting to observe the subtle body language that goes back and forth when people get together. If you have a bag of interesting chips that you want to offer to friends, the correct way to do it is to open it "party-biraki" style, placing the bag with the seal facing upwards, then ripping the entire bag open so that the contents sit on the opened wrapping. This makes it convenient for everyone to take some of the chips, but it also helps your guests get past their enryo block. The Japanese have a tendency to avoid taking something that's offered, called enryo (translatable as restraint, reserve, or as a verb, to refrain from doing something), and it can be difficult to get people at a party to lighten up and have fun if they're so busy being polite to each other. By opening the bag so that the contents will go to waste if your guests don't eat, you give them an excuse to dig in.

The correct way to encourage Japanese guests to eat.

Famous English Phrases in Japan -- Yes, We [kan]!

For some reason, I'm able to recite the "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" part of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address address in Japanese. It's one of the most famous phrases in English, up there with the "I Have a Dream" speech, and since my students had to study it in their English classes, I picked it up while teaching them. Snippets of the Bible and of Shakespeare make their way into the Japanese language, too, and anyone who reads newspapers or magazines will be familiar with the local versions of "pearls before swine" or "frailty, thy name is woman," although they might be fuzzy on the source. The most famous English phrase in Japan is probably one you're not familiar with. It's "Boys, be ambitious," which was spoken by Professor Clarke, who taught English and agriculture at what would become Sapporo University in 1876. I have no idea why these words would become so well known here, but the Japanese of the day certainly took them to heart. The latest English phrase to become known by everyone in Japan is "Yes, we can!" and Georgia Coffee even made an advertisement for their canned coffee, substituting the kanji for "can" (kan) in the slogan.

(Although foreign loan words are written in katakana, there's a small subset that have been in use so long they have been given honorary kanji.)

Georgia Coffee came up with an amusing way to advertise their products using English.

Japanese Females and Constipation

I've been fascinated with the women of Japan ever since I arrived here, and over the years I've managed to pick up a few bits of wisdom regarding this most interesting of animals, which I'll pass along to you if you like. First, Japanese females are extremely proper, always trying to do what is expected of them socially and always aware of hito no me, the "the eyes of others" watching them, one of the most important mechanisms for making Japanese society the way it is. They are frighteningly well-organized, and will make a promise to meet a friend two months in the future and somehow manage to actually be there without forgetting. Japanese females seem to be unable to resist popular trends, and once a new fashion catches on it will be everywhere overnight. Perhaps it's just my own experience, but I've known Japanese girls to be quite focused on marriage, and from a guy's perspective it can be unnerving when that particular subject comes up for discussion on a first date. While many Japanese females possess a Vulcan-like ability to hide their own emotions, others openly embrace Japan's unofficial religion of kawaii, and love to speak of themselves in the third person just like some characters do in anime. Because they eat rice three times a day, Japanese females are always constipated, but good luck trying to convince them to give up rice, the staple food of the country. Finally, if you ever need to buy shoes for a Japanese female but don't know their shoe size, go for 23.5 centimeters. For some reason, every Japanese girl I've ever known has had feet of that exact size.

I've yet to meet a Japanese female who isn't locked in a life-and-death struggle against constipation.

My Drive to Brazil

My daughter recently asked me if I could drive her to the nearby town of Oizumi so she could visit a friend who lived there, and I was happy to do it. In my 18 years here I'd never been to the "Brazil in Japan," famous for having the highest percentage of nikkei Brazilians and Peruvians in the country, and I thought it'd be a cool trip to make. Officially, the number of foreigners living in the town is just about 10% of the overall population of 40,000, but this doesn't account for the thousands of unregistered (illegal) residents, and the real foreign population more like 25%. It was certainly interesting to drive down the street and see all the businesses sporting Brazilian flags, and walking into the all-Brazilian convenience store was a good excuse to buy some interesting chocolates and something called Inca Kola. The people of the town are largely dependent on factory jobs at companies like Sanyo, and times are very hard for them right now, prompting the Japanese government to take the unprecedented step of offering financial assistance to any guest worker who wants to go home but who is unable to for economic reasons. I think towns like Koizumi are good for Japan, providing them with a vision of their own country that isn't so homogenized. On the other hand, the nikkei living here could do a lot more to meld with the overall Japanese society, embracing the language and customs, as I have strived to do. Whenever I attend local events like hatsu-mode (hatsu-moh-day) on January 1st, standing in the freezing cold at the Shinto Shrine to pray for happiness in the new year, I look to see if there are any other foreigners in line with me, perhaps a Peruvian who I can practice my pathetic Spanish with, but I'm always the only gaijin around.

You can get Inca Kola, the famous soft drink from Peru, in Japan.

The Age Perception Gap Between East and West

When the cute-as-a-button Aki Hoshino tried to enter a casino in Macau the other day, she suddenly found herself forbidden from doing so by the staff. The reason was supposedly that they thought the famous gravure idol -- that's a made-in-Japan French word which means a model in a sexy bikini -- was under the age of 18 and thus forbidden from entering the casino premises by law, so they blocked the door to keep her out. It seems hard to believe that a 32-year-old woman could be mistaken for a minor, but I'm inclined to believe it. I remember shopping in America with a former student who was 24 at the time, and when she pulled out her credit card to make a purchase, the clerk said, "Sorry little girl, you can't use a credit card here." It seemed that to his eyes, this average Japanese girl in her 20s seemed no older than a teenager. The phenomenon of being unable to accurately assess age between East and West goes both ways, and my wife will often snort with laughter at actors portraying high school-age students on TV, yet who look to her eyes like they're in their mid 30's or higher.

Google Touches a Cultural Nerve

Google has revolutionized the world, adding ten points to the collective IQ of humanity by allowing us to summon up the information we need quickly and efficiently. When the company added a cool feature to view classic maps with its Google Earth software, it faced a backlash from some users, as the maps in question show areas of Japanese cities where Japan's lowest caste used to live. Since the days of Hideyoshi Toyotomi, the infamous almost-Shogun who started out as a peasant farmer yet became the most powerful man in the country, Japanese society had been divided into four sections: samurai warriors, farmers, artisans and merchants. (The merchants were supposedly on the bottom, but since they leant money to everyone else they were actually quite powerful.) There was one more class of people so low they didn't even merit inclusion in this social system, called the burakumin, who did "unclean" jobs like tanning leather and cremating the dead. (Similar classes of outcasts existed in other Buddhist countries, such as Korea to Thailand.) Today the subject is a huge taboo, almost never discussed openly, and using the old burakumin system to discriminate against people is forbidden under article 11 of the Japanese constitution. I was interested to see that, although the Google issue has been widely reported on by the International press and the blogosphere, it's been ignored by the domestic masu-komi, as the news media here is called (from "mass communications"). None of the Japanese staff of J-List had even heard about it until I told them.

Google goofed by using maps that reveal the secrets of the past.

Suki: All About the Word "Like"

If you watch anime in Japanese at all, one word you will probably become aware of quickly is suki which means "like," usually pronounced quickly so that it sounds like "ski." This compels all students of the language to say sukii ga suki! (I like skiing!) as soon as they learn the word since it sounds funny to the ear. The proper usage would be something like watashi wa sushi ga suki desu, literally "as for sushi, I like it," but since the Japanese love to omit words, a more common phrase would be just sushi ga suki, "[I] like sushi," since the subject is generally understood. When one person confesses their feelings for another, suki desu is what they'll probably say, although this is actually using the word for "like" rather than "love"; in at least one manga I can think of, a character had to revert to English -- "Like or love?" -- to get around the vagueness that seems built into the Japanese language. A variation of suki ("like") is dai-suki ("big-like"), usually said by a cute female anime character before they glomp a male character violently in a big bear-hug.

In the manga ending to Kimagure Orange Road, Madoka has to ask for clarification: "Like, or Love?"

Japan, where Gender Surprises Are Commonplace

Getting into anime means having your horizons broadened, learning about strange and new concepts like senpai and kohai (senior/junior in a school or organization), something that doesn't exist in English. It also means getting used to some gender-related surprises, thanks to the extensive Japanese tradition of stories involving males assuming female roles or vice-versa. Appreciating the comedy and/or drama of mixed-up gender roles goes back very far, to the kabuki plays of the Edo Period in which extremely talented male actors would fill female roles, or the Takarazuka Revue, the all-female troupe that's put on on a variety of shows with women expertly playing male roles since 1913. Anime is rife with stories that break gender rules, from the classic Rose of Versailles, which follows Lady Oscar, raised as a boy, throughout the events of the French Revolution, or the Rumiko Takahashi classic Ranma 1/2, about a boy cursed to change into a girl whenever he gets wet, usually with hilarious results. Even the dating-sim games we've been involved with have been known to bend a gender or two, such as the X-Change series. Perhaps the highest expression of the mixing-up of gender roles is Maria Holic, centered around a boy who dresses up as a girl to attend a prestigious Catholic school at the behest of an eccentric grandmother.

Maria Holic, the pinnacle of the Japanese tradition of gender-mashing.

J-List Special Sale Continues!

J-List is continuing our special End of Fiscal Year for another month, since we'd much rather sell the excellent bento, snack, anime figure, plush toy and other products to you rather than count it during inventory day. For every $100 you spend on cool products from Japan, we'll give you a gift coupon for $5, which gives you quite a nice excuse to add another few packs of Black Black Caffeine Gum (or whatever) to your shopping cart if you're near the next $100 point. Coupons can be combined and they never expire. What great products can J-List send you today?

The Nice Guy of Japan's Entertainment World Has a Bad Month

Singer, comedian and all-around nice guy Tsuyoshi Kusanagi has been a fixture on Japanese TV for the past two decades as a member of the popular group SMAP, appearing in many drama and variety shows and even learning Korean so he could be a bridge of comedy between Japan and South Korea. Given his squeaky-clean image, fans were shocked when was arrested for public nudity at 3 am in a park in Tokyo a few weeks ago. He'd been drinking heavily and had apparently thought he was at home, as his clothes were removed and folded neatly beside a bush. His arrest caused shockwaves in the Japanese entertainment world, and got the poor guy yanked from some high-profile advertising contracts as the media engaged in an unprecidented feeding frenzy. Happily, Tokyo prosecutors have stated that they won't be "sending the documents" (a Japanese idiom that means to officially file charges) against the singer, mainly because he'd shown remorse and reflection for what he'd done. While his future career is still up in the air, some years ago another SMAP member got in trouble for running away from a police officer who was trying to give him a parking ticket, injuring the officer, which got him banned from the group for six months. Hopefully Tsuyoshi will be able to get back to work soon.

The ii hito (nice guy) of Japan's "talent" world got in trouble after drinking too much.

John Manjiro, the First Japanese Man in America

The first Japanese person to set foot on American soil was Manjiro Nakahama, a 14-year-old fisherman who was rescued in 1841 by an American whaling vessel and brought to the U.S., where he received a full education in English. This was during the era of sakoku ("chained country"), when Japan was officially shut off from contact from the outside world except for a single Dutch trading outpost in Nagasaki, and it was death for a Japanese person to travel abroad or have contact with foreigners. After 12 years of living outside Japan, "John" Manjiro went home, determined to try to convince his country to end its isolationist policy. When Admiral Perry's Black Ships arrived in 1853, John Manjiro became an important figure, acting as translator and interpreter between the two parties and communicating what he'd seen in the U.S. to the Shogunate, including American ideals like on democracy. He went on to teach English, mathematics and ocean navigation, and was a major inspiration to future reformers like Ryoma Sakamoto, the "Che Guevara" of the Meiji Restoration. His contribution to the positive relationship between the U.S. and Japan in those early days can't be overrated. I read recently that the home he lived in in Fairhaven, Mass., will be opening as a museum in honor of the first Japanese to live in America, on May 7. If you're in the area, go check it out!

John Manjiro is the first Japanese to live in the U.S., and was an important bridge between the two countries.

Happy Ramune Day

Today is Ramune Day, marking the 137th anniversary of the famous Japanese soft drink's manufacture in Japan. A carbonated beverage with a lemon-lime taste, Ramune is fun to drink because of the glass ball at the top, which closes if you try to swig it too fast. While a fun novelty now, using a glass ball to seal in carbonation was quite high tech back when it was invented by British engineer Hiram Codd in 1872, quickly spreading to Japan through traders. Originally a corruption of the English word "lemonade," Ramune was a favorite of sailors in the Imperial Navy during World War II, and is closely associated with summer festivals today. The sign of a Ramune bottle is sure to cause Japanese to exclaim natsukashii! (nots-ka-SHEE), meaning "nostalgic," and I've known many Japanese to fondly tell me of the days when they were so poor all they had to play with were the glass marbles from Ramune bottles, which makes me wonder if this isn't some kind of shared group memory or something. The Ramune brand isn't owned by any one company but (like the Kewpie Doll) is generic, manufactured by several different bottlers throughout Japan. While we don't sell Ramune itself (too difficult to ship glass bottles internationally), J-List has dozens of great Ramune-themed items, from our logo T-shirt to delicious snacks and gum, and even the fun Ramune-scented parody pen.

Ramune is a popular icon of the past in Japan, and for us gaijin, of how fun and wacky Japan can be.

The Ancient Art of Speaking a Foreign Language While Inebriated

Back in my college days at SDSU we had a "Japan-America Friendship Club" that would organize events like beach side bonfires attended by the ESL students from Japan and gaijin who were trying to learn Japanese. It was at events like these that I learned the ancient art of speaking a foreign language while mildly inebriated, which allows you to communicate significantly better than you otherwise would, at least until you pass out. It's as if there's a barrier in the mind that's always trying to keep you from making a fool of yourself, which gets deactivated when you have a beer or two. Of course, the benefits of alcohol on foreign language ability are as fleeting as cherry blossoms in the spring, and you can quickly find things going in the opposite direction if you're not careful. Happily, the Japanese have another tradition I've been known to make use of from time to time: whatever a person says or does while under the influence is generally forgotten about and ignored forever. Isn't this country great?

Alcohol can help your Japanese-speaking ability...and then harm it.

The Socio-Fashion Phenomenon Known as Gal-Mama

Whenever I go to Tokyo, I start to pay more attention to my surroundings when the train hits Omiya, a large city on the outskirts of the sprawling capital. This is the point that all the Japanese females around me start to become extremely fashionable, with expensive name-brand clothes, tall leather boots, expertly styled hair and a general air of elegance I've found nowhere else in the world. While New York or Paris might be ahead of Japan when it comes to setting worldwide fashion trends, I don't believe there's anyplace where females spend more energy on looking oshare (oh-SHA-reh), the catch-all term for being stylishly dressed. One of the most enigmatic groups in Tokyo's fashion world are the gyaru, or "gals," the young women in Shibuya or Harajuku who feel compelled to place fashion before all else. This general social trend has changed and morphed many times, starting out with the Amullers who imitated popular singer Amuro Namie, moving through ganguro or "black face" girls who spent hours at tanning salons, the older and more sophisticated one-gyaru, and finally the current age-jo (ah-gay-joh), named after a butterfly called ageha that's become the symbol of their generation. I'm extremely interested in the socio-fashion phenomenon known as gyaru mama, essentially extremely stylish girls who have gotten pregnant and become mothers, but since they're not willing to relinquish their love of beautiful clothes and make-up, they share this world with their children. It's quite interesting to see these girls, wearing the most flamboyant outfits while they push their baby carriages, and I can tell it really takes an inner strength to resist the never ending pressure from society at large to conform. If you're interested in the Japanese fashion world, be sure and browse the magazines like Egg and FRUiTs and S Cawaii, available either as revolving subscriptions or as single issues.

A Golden Week to Remember

It's shaping up to be a Golden Week to remember here in Japan, as hundreds of thousands of Japanese make use of the extended holiday period to travel to exotic destinations like Guam, Hawaii, Australia or California. Fears of the "new-type influenza virus" (as it's being officially referred in the news) will certainly make things more interesting when they all come home, and Narita Airport is on its highest state of alert, scanning returning passengers with special cameras that show body temperature in case anyone gets infected abroad. There were two reported cases of the new virus here in Japan, but happily both turned out to be the more conventional Hong Kong strain -- whew. The Japanese are already quite at home wearing surgical-style health masks whenever they feel under the weather or during hayfever season, and these masks are even more common nowadays. Anyway, we hope you all have a safe and enjoyable Golden Week, wherever you are in the world!

Mask-sporting Japanese tourists head overseas. Glad I'm not among them.

Hey gaijin! You are "good head"

I've written about how speaking a foreign language requires a special "other" sense, which the Japanese call kan (kahn). If you are kan ga ii (having a good sense about abstract things) you might be able to figure out that someone who compliments you by saying you are "good head" is probably telling you you're smart, since atama ga ii (good head) is how you express intelligence in Japanese. But while a big part of interacting with people from other language groups means understanding what they're saying to you even if it's not communicated clearly -- like when my wife asked for "gross lipstick" for Christmas, meaning gloss -- there are times when you need to get meaning across to others. When my mother was visiting from the U.S., I left her alone with my kids as much as possible so they could have lots of time practicing their English with her. (Apparently I register as a Japanese person to them, since they know I speak Japanese, and they speak almost no English when I'm in the room.) My daughter was saying something about how much fun she'd had at Sea World in San Diego the previous summer, but she couldn't remember the English word for the animals she'd seen. So she used her imagination, flapping her hands together like flippers and barking like a seal until my mother knew what she was talking about.

In other news, did you know that the word for brains in Japanese is noh-miso, lit. the "miso paste of the brain"?

What's better than making an order for some great bento, J-snack, anime or traditional items from J-List? Getting a free give back in return, which is what you get during our "End of Fiscal Year" special sale. For every $100 you spend, we'll give you a cool gift code for $5 to use with your next purchase. Why not see what excellent products from Japan J-List has for you today?

Japan: Land of Exotic Desserts

Before I came to Japan, I fancied myself a bit of a dessert aficionado. Pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream was one of my favorites, and I've always had a soft spot for dipped chocolate soft-serve ice cream from Dairy Queen. I learned how much I'd been missing when I got here, though, as I was introduced to a world of amazing sweets from all over the world. The Japanese have a long history of taking ideas from the outside and improving on them, and many of the exotic desserts found here were brought over during the Meiji Period, like the dreamy Japanese-style custard-filled cream puffs called shu cream, pronounced just like the stuff you clean your shoes with (from the French chou a la creme), which naturally come in Hello Kitty and Totoro-shaped variations, too. Another French dessert the Japanese have embraced are crepes, and my kids have an amazing ability for knowing where the nearest crepe vendor is so they can beg me to buy them the strawberry and whipped cream-filled pastries. While some sweets were imported so long ago they seem uniquely Japanese now, such as the 400-year old konpeito candies and famous Castella sponge cakes from Nagasaki, some are more recent imports, like Nata de Coco, a dessert from the Philippines that's eaten in yogurt. You can often see the exotic side to Japanese desserts in the snacks we sell through the site, like the smash hit of the season, Tiramisu Kit Kat (which will be disappearing from the site soon, fair warning). One side benefit to living in Japan is learning to appreciate that a very small yet very delicious food is superior to something mass-produced and served in large servings.

The Japanese love crafting delicious desserts as much as I love eating them.

Foreigners and the Japanese

The most common word for "foreigner" in Japanese is gaijin, written with the characters for outside + person, although since this word has a slightly negative connotation you'll generally hear the softer-sounding gaikokujin -- outside-country-person -- spoken on the news. Foreigners serve many purposes here, teaching English or translating or working as fashion models or manufacturing goods in factories. Since native English speakers usually work as ESL teachers, the first impression most nihonjin have of non-Japanese is the English teacher who taught him to say "apple" and "banana." To the Japanese, we foreigners often come across as overly outgoing, and very emotional, always expressing our joy or dislike on the surface rather than holding it inside, as is more common here. That's part of the general character of gaijin, though, and if we weren't getting excited and going on about something, they'd probably ask us what was wrong. The Japanese have become quite comfortable with the fact that many gaijin are advanced anime otaku, and are no longer very surprised when they encounter a foreign visitor with extensive knowledge about obscure anime and manga.

Native English teachers provide the first impression of gaijin to most Japanese, and yes, this guy looks creepy

Fun with Japanese Sound Words

One aspect of the Japanese language that's fun to study is onomatopoeia, the words we use to describe the sounds all around us. Naturally, the Japanese have assigned unique words to the physical sounds in their world, for example a dog says wan wan! to the Japanese but woof woof! to us. Some other examples of these sound words are "twinkle twinkle" (kira kira), "drip drop" (potsun potsun) and the sound of rain pouring down (zaa zaa). Some of the sounds they think up can seem quite strange. For example, the "sound" of eyes looking left and right is kyoro kyoro, as in the popular line of bento boxes we sell, which is not something any English speaker would think a sound was needed for. The sound of snow falling has a word, too, shin shin (pronounced "sheen sheen"), which summons up pleasant images of whiteness outside a frosty window. There is a "sound of silence" in Japanese, which is shiiin ("sheen," with a lengthened vowel). When I make a joke that my kids don't think is funny, they'll usually make this sound to highlight how bad my joke was.

The many sound words used in Japanese are fun to learn.

Buddhism vs Shinto

There are many things that American houses have which their Japanese counterparts lack, and vice-versa. A Japanese home will generally have a recessed area by the front door for people to leave their shoes, hardwood floors with unusually steep stairs, and at least one washitsu or "Japanese room" with traditional tatami mats and paper doors and other cool things like that. Homes in America are different, with big ovens for baking (very rare in Japan), a garbage disposal for getting rid of uneaten food (not allowed here because rice would gum up the pipes), and central heating (unthinkable in this country where rooms are heated one at a time). Another thing you'll find in Japanese homes but not in most American ones is a butsudan (boo-tsoo-dahn), or Buddhist Altar, the centerpiece of Japanese family life, and afterlife, if you will. Every morning, my mother-in-law takes the first bowl of rice out of the rice cooker and offers it at the altar along with three sticks of incense, so so her mother and father know they're not forgotten. Strictly speaking, only the head of a household will have one of these altars; other family members such as children who have moved out will return to their "base home" to participate in family events at various times during the year, which binds the family together in ways that are difficult for Westerners to comprehend. To my unfamiliar eyes, the Buddhist altar in my house is very similar to the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark, a radio for talking with one's dead ancestors.

While Buddhist icons like temples or home altars focus attention on those who have gone on ahead, the other side of Japanese religious imagery is Shinto, which celebrates kami or spirits in natural objects like a mountain or a stream. While the austere imagery of Buddhism provides comfort during times of sadness such as funerals, Shinto ceremonies are happy and life-affirming: weddings, naming a new baby, breaking ground on a house to be built, praying for good luck on the New Year or carrying a mikoshi, a kind of portable shrine, around at the summer festivals. For cultural reasons that I can't quite understand, it's much more common for those of us who became interested in Japan through its popular culture to be more familiar with Shinto imagery than Buddhist. Whether you're talking about the manga stories of Rumiko Takahashi or watching the many anime characters who wear the now-famous garb of a Miko-san (Shrine Maiden), it's far more common for the themes found in Shinto to find their way to the minds of outsiders like us than Buddhist imagery. I wonder why that is?

A Buddhist Altar is a radio for talking with one's ancestors; some otaku have fun carrying a mikoshi in Akiba.