Announcing the Start of 2010 Japanese Calendar Season!

We're happy to announce the start of 2010 Japanese Calendar Season! Every year J-List posts hundreds of great calendars, which are printed exclusively for the domestic Japanese market, and our customers love having access to such a huge selection of fun and interesting calendars from Japan. The first 20 or so calendars for this year have been posted, including beautiful scenes of Japan in all seasons, breathtaking tea gardens, famous dogs and cats from Japan, cute idols like Yuko Ogura, and more. Note that the bulk of our anime/idol calendars will be posted in a couple of weeks from now, but you can get started checking out the traditional new calendars now.

Deflation in Japan and $9 Jeans

Despite some recent positive rumblings, the recession continues to be hard on the Japanese economy, pushing the unemployment rate here all the way up to 5.4%, very high by local standards. As I've written before, the two recessions Japan endured during its post-bubble "lost decade" have made the Japanese quite good at dealing with economic hard times, and it's interesting to see how companies deftly switch gears, lowering prices and offering new and innovative products to attract customers. The latest product to make headlines is a $9 pair of jeans that mammoth department store chain Aeon is hawking, no doubt hoping to entice buyers curious about how good a pair of $9 jeans could actually be in order to get them into the store. Unfortunately all the price-slashing has raised the threat of deflation, and a benchmark that tracks wholesale prices fell 8.9% in the month of July alone.

Would you like a pair of $9 jeans? Some prices in Japan are falling fast.

Confusion when Translating Japanese to English

It's funny how words in one language don't always match up with words in another, especially when you're talking about languages as different as English and Japanese. Take the word sasuga (sah-soo-GAH), which is used to express praise when one's expectations have been met. For example, if a man named Yamada-san surprised you by knowing a bit of unexpected trivia, you might say, "Sasuga, Yamada-san!" which could be translated as "Good old Yamada-san!" or "I always knew you could do it, Yamada-san!" or perhaps, "I had a feeling you woundn't let us down, Yamada-san!" These linguistic differences cause headaches for translators because there's often no "best" way to express something in another language, making translation between Japanese and English about the least exact science there is. Some other short Japanese phrases that crop up in anime yet have potentially long and complex translations in English include masaka! (MAH-sah-kah), meaning "You've got to be joking!" and yappari (ya-PAH-ree), translatable as, "just as I suspected."

Obon Festival in Japan

Japan is in the middle of Obon (pronounced "oh, bone!"), a four-day Buddhist holiday that's kind of like Thanksgiving in the U.S., in that this is when everyone heads home to spend time with family, but it's also similar to Halloween since the sky is supposedly filled with the ghosts of our dead ancestors who've come home for a visit. Much of Japan shuts down during August 13-16 as people travel to their jikka or "real home," meaning their parents' house. There they'll spend some quality time with family and make a special trip the family grave to wash it with clean water and leave chrysanthemums, which are flowers for the dead, something I found out when I accidentally bought some to give to my wife (oops). While I don't know much about Buddhism itself -- which incidentally is no different from many Japanese people, who often can't tell you why a Buddhist temple and a Shinto shrine are different -- I have known the Japanese to really care about their ancestors. My wife regularly looks to her dead grandmother for guidance and protection, and every morning my wife, her mother or my daughter will burn a stick of incense at the family altar to let the dead known they haven't been forgotten. Some parts of Japan have beautiful festivals related to Obon, like the floating lanterns of Nagasaki or the famous Daimonji festival in Kyoto, in which fires spelling out the kanji character for "great" are lit on a mountain above the city.

Some parts of Japan have beautiful Obon festivals, like Nagasaki's floating lanterns.

Kiki's Delivery Service Subtitle Confusion

The other day I got an odd hankering to watch one of my favorite Hayao Miyazaki films, Kiki's Delivery Service, the story of one young witch's journey out into the world. The version I was watching was in Japanese, but with English subtitles, and as the movie progressed I noticed something interesting: the subtitles didn't match the Japanese dialogue of the film very closely. They included quite a few lines by Kiki and her black cat Jiji which didn't exist in the original, and I eventually figured out that they had been transcribed from the English dub of the movie and not translated directly from Japanese. It was immediately apparent that, whoever the producers of the English version were (*cough* Disney *cough*), they didn't rate their viewers' intelligence very highly, since many of the lines added did nothing but cover five-second patches of (gasp!) silence by stating information that was obvious to viewers, anyway. It became quite interesting, seeing what parts of the movie the U.S. producers felt needed "improving" by adding meaningless bits of exposition, despite the fact that no character was actually talking. Incidentally, if you're interested in the official DVD releases of all the Studio Ghibli films, complete with extras full storyboard versions and English subtitles, J-List has them all in stock, along with a great upscaling region-free DVD player to play them on.

The English version of Kiki's Delivery Service left me puzzled by some of the changes.

South Korean ESL vs. Japan

When we were in Las Vegas we happened to see a family from South Korea playing in the pool, and I decided to say hello. The family had a boy of around five years of age, and I was immediately impressed with how good his English was: he was able to answer a few of my questions and even make a joke, saying his family was from North Korea, which got his father quite flustered. The boy knew English because he'd been studying ESL, but I was amazed all the the same. Japanese children study ESL, too, often from a very young age, but something about Japan -- its conservative and xenophobic island-nation mind-set, perhaps -- keeps most students from actually, you know, learning the language. What was South Korea doing differently that enabled children to actually interact using English? Japan should study what programs its Asian neighbors are getting results with and make changes to its curriculum, although as long as I'm wishing, I could also use a pony.

What are the South Koreans doing to learn English that Japan isn't?

Once More Into The Breach: Japanese Election Hell

Japan currently stands at the brink, staring down at an abyss so hellish I can scarcely contemplate it. I'm talking, of course, about the upcoming election in which the various political parties here will woo voters non-stop for two weeks in an attempt to win enough votes to form a governing majority. Naturally, elections are different in Japan than they are in the U.S. Most obvious to visitors from other countries are the loudspeaker cars that drive around your neighborhood shouting the name of their candidate and thanking you for your support. This annoyance aside, there are some interesting limitations placed on how politicians can advertise themselves to voters. Election posters are allowed, displayed on designated bulletin boards throughout a given city, or at private residences. Television advertising is not allowed during the election period, a big change from the U.S., where our elections seems to pivot on which candidate is running which (usually negative) ad this week. Similarly, using the Internet to reach out to voters is currently NG (a word the Japanese use meaning "no good"), and it's illegal for a registered candidate to send email or use services like Twitter to get votes during the official election season, although third parties aren't always bound by these rules. Incidentally, Japan's famous otaku Prime Minister Taro Aso was in J-List's home city of Isesaki today, here to give a speech in support of local politician.

Incidentally, don't ever steal or deface these posters, as this carries a serious penalty if you're caught by the police.

An official election poster display board;.

The Japanese Language Proficiency Test

The primary test for students of Japanese is the Japanese Language Ability Test, or JLPT, used by a mind-blowing 500,000 applicants each year to measure their language ability and serve as a goal for each year's study activities. Started in 1984 in response to the rising tide of interest in Japan around the world, the test is held each December both inside Japan as well as in 40 countries internationally. There are four levels to the test, with level 4 being the easiest -- you need to know your hiragana and katakana and maybe the first hundred kanji characters -- and level 1 equivelent to the language you'd need at a Japanese university. The test is structured so that students can move up one level each year, and I found that having the test as a personal goal was an excellent motivator. The sign-up deadline is this September, so if you're interested in taking the test, now is a good time to register. For information, see the JLPT English page, and a list of links on where you can take the test outside of Japan here. There are just 118 days before this year's test -- if you need study supplies, textbooks or other products to help you learn, J-List has you covered!

Aiming to pass the JLPT is a good way to motivate yourself to study

Noriko Sakai and "Hansei"

Well, singer Noriko Sakai has turned herself in to the authorities, admitting to using stimulant drugs with her husband for the past year. If I know anything about Japanese people, it will be time for her to show hansei, a word which can be translated as reflection, introspection, and contemplation about what you've done wrong. This concept is one that everyone living in Japan needs to understand, as it's really an important part of human relationships here. It can open doors, like the time I took a trip to Guam without getting a required re-entry stamp in my password that I needed to get back into the country, so I used my Gaijin Bambi Eyes to get the Immigration staff to make an exception for me. More importantly, hansei is a device for communicating on a deeper level than mere words that you've done something wrong and are thinking seriously about it, which is a very Japanese thing to do.

Noriko Sakai falls from grace. I hope she comes out okay in the end somehow.

I'm depressed now. I think I'll watch the Gunbuster opening theme, which she sang.

Meru Otonashi and Japan's Negative Internet Culture

It's funny how the Internet can bring out the best and the worst in people, and all of us seem to change a little when interacting with others online. Depending on various factors -- the kind of virtual interaction, the degree of anonymity of the participants and so on -- even the most passive person can turn into a fire-breathing Internet troll, spitting venom at all who disagree with their views. This strange mechanism works in Japan, too, as normally mild-mannered net users shed their polite exteriors when participating in heated discussions in chat rooms or forums like the famous 2chan BBS. Japan's negative net society is so pervasive that it's changed the course of more than a few careers, such as artists caught plagiarizing by sharp-eyed 2-channelers and one of the producers of Gurren Lagann, who was pressured into resigning by online haters. One of my favorite characters from the anime and manga Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (Goodbye, Mr. Despair) is Meru Otonashi, a quiet girl who's too shy to speak to anyone directly, so she sends them emails from her keitai. The mails she sends are so hateful and insulting that the recipients can't believe what they're reading, but since the girl is all sweetness and light in person, no one can take her to task. Of course not all parts of the Internet are full of negativity, and if you're on Twitter, feel free to follow J-List and read some hate-free, positive observations about Japan, anime and our wonky little company called J-List.

Meru-chan embodies all the hate and negativity on the Internet.

Would You Like to Climb Mt. Fuji?

There comes a time in every Japan-loving gaijin's life when he or she must take the plunge and climb Mt. Fuji. An active volcano 12,388 ft (3,776 meters) high that rises gracefully from the prefectures of Shizuoka and Yamanashi, Mt. Fuji is an incredibly beautiful image of the country. In Japanese its name is Fuji-san, with san being the correct pronunciation for the character for mountain, although this character is read yama in other situations, and foreigners are famous for using the wrong name (Fuji-yama). Climbing season is from July 1 to August 31, during high summer, since it's really hot down at sea level yet freezing cold at the apex. Climbers usually start from the 5th level, the highest point that vehicles can reach, and take one of three walking routes up to the top (the 10th level). As you climb up, you pass the various milestones and get a special stamp on your walking stick to commemorate each achievement; eventually you'll reach the top, out of breath from the thin air but happy to be having such a great experience. Traditionally mountains are associated with Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan, and Mt. Fuji has been considered a holy place for thousands of years.

Mt. Fuji, or Fujisan, is the most famous single symbol of Japan.

Don't Write a Person's Name in Red in Japan

The other day my wife was writing my name and address on a box she was going to send to our house in Japan. As she did so, she said, "P-chan," -- my nickname at home, which I inherited from an old cat we used to have, not the famous anime pig -- "I only have a red pen, so I'm going to write your name in red. Sorry about that." I didn't understand why she was apologizing, then I remembered the odd (from my viewpoint) superstition about writing people's names in red ink in Japan (and Korea). This may date from a practice in ancient Japan in which a samurai would send an official declaration to an enemy that he planned to kill, writing his opponent's name in his own blood. There are many other death-related superstitions in Japan. The number 4 is read shi, which is the same pronunciation as the kanji character death, and it's supposedly bad luck to give a person four of something -- hence, most gifts come in sets of five. It's sometimes considered bad luck to take a photograph with three people in the frame, as the one in the middle will be likely to die young, and some people will always make sure to avoid taking pictures with three subjects to avoid this taboo. Finally, it's considered bad luck to cut your fingernails at night, because you won't be able to be with your parents when they die. Superstitions can be fun!

If you write a person's name in red, something bad might happen.

Noriko Sakai is THE FUGUTIVE

Japan's entertainment world has been turned upside-down by a perfect storm of scandals this week. First, actor Manabu Oshio was arrested for testing positive for the drug Ecstasy after a Roppongi hostess was found dead in an apartment he'd been using, apparently having died of a drug overdose. He's the estranged husband of super-cute actress Akiko Yada, who became a household name after appearing in a popular AFLAC commercial, and the news has idol and J-drama fans all over the net buzzing. Then in an unrelated case, Takaso Yuichi, a former pro surfer and husband to the hugely popular J-POP star Noriko Sakai, was arrested for possessing stimulant drugs. Soon after this event the singer disappeared, apparently out of embarrassment over her husband's arrest, but as she was known to be near the Aokigahara "Sea of Trees" suicide forest area there was some fear that she might be contemplating something terrible. Instead, it turns out that drugs may have belonged to her and not her husband, and an arrest warrant has been issued for the fleeing star, which means that the poor woman now has the dreaded suffix of yogisha or "suspect" added to her name during news broadcasts. The singer, who performed the opening themes to Gunbuster and Video Girl Ai if you're an old-school anime fan like me, has a huge following in China, Taiwan and South Korea, and this scandal has fans all across Asia wondering what will happen to our cute Noripi.

Ccute idol and actress Noriko Sakai is currently a fugitive from justice.

Lowering the Age of Adulthood in Japan

The Japanese government is moving ahead with a plan to lower the official age at which a person is considered an adult from 20 to 18. Since its emergence as a modern nation, Japan has defined an adult to be age 20, and that's when a person can legally buy tobacco or alcohol and vote in elections. There's even a major day to celebrate young people's emergence as adults, Coming of Age Day in January, when all new 20-year-olds in each town will put on brand new kimono and suits and celebrate their new status as full-fledged members of society. By lowering the age a person can vote in elections to 18, the government is hoping to increase interest in politics and social issues, although it's likely that some political groups will benefit from the change more than others. The majority of supporters of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled the country for most of the past half-century, are older and located in rural parts of Japan, whereas younger, idealistic Japanese in cities usually support other parties.

Will we need to make a new version of our famous T-shirt?

Back in Japan, and Sleepy...

Well, I'm back on the other side of the world, having made the hop from California to Japan, a journey of 24 hours from door to door. As usual, being back "home" is always a bit of a shock, from the terrible humidity to how clean everything looks from the window of the bus I took from the airport. I apologize in advance if this post stops making sense partway through -- jet lag is starting to take its toll on me.

It's back to school season in the U.S. right now, as millions of students prepare for studies to begin again in September. J-List has stocked hundreds of great items from Japan for those who want to have a little bit of Japan in their school life. Whether you're looking or awesome Japanese pens, mechanical pencils or erasers, stylish and kawaii notebooks or useful study aids to help you memorize any information, we've got great items for back-to-school season on the site. View them all now!

Gaijin in Japan, Continued

Last time I talked about the way Japanese perceive Westerners, who kind of hold a special place in society here because we're so obviously different from the Japanese faces all around us -- we basically have a big sign that says gaijin! hanging around our necks. One question I'm sometimes asked is, do foreigners in Japan face discrimination. Now, the Japanese are human beings just like people in every other country, and not everyone is always happy to have to deal with a bumbling foreigner who doesn't necessarily know the local language and customs yet often assumes that others are familiar with his country. I have naturally experienced some issues during my time here, from an inebriated yakuza who was clearly not happy to have an American breaking the wa in the public bath he was using to the occasional crazy individual who walks up and down the train cars in Tokyo shouting while everyone pretends he's not there. These instances have been extremely rare, and it's interesting to observe that even when a Japanese person is put off by you for some reason their usual response is to be more polite. I've observed before that most of the "discrimination" many gaijin face is positive, not negative, taking the form of people giving us gifts or letting us out of certain obligations that Japanese would have to fulfill, like the time I broke my vacuum cleaner through misuse and the electronics shop fixed it for free, just because. I think that if people coming to Japan keep an open mind about the country and try their best to respect the local customs and avoid being overly sensitive, there'll never be a problem.

It's not hard to spot the gaijin in this picture, which is something you just get used to here.

The Nebuta Festival in Aomori

In the summer the Japanese love matsuri, or festivals, which are a fun time to wear traditional clothes and carry around an omikoshi, a kind of heavy portable shrine that's hoisted around the neighborhood by a dozen or so people. There are various major festivals held around the country, from the Gion Festival in Kyoto to the Heso Matsuri (lit. "belly-button festival") held in the exact center of Hokkaido to the Awa Odori festival of Shikoku in which participants perform the most amazing choreographed traditional dances. One of the most colorful festivals is the Nebuta Matsuri, held in Aomori Prefecture at the top of the main Japanese island of Honshu from August 2~7, which may date back more than 1000 years. It's known for the gorgeous lit-up floats that are paraded through the city, portraying mythical gods from ancient Japan and China. It's the kind of beautiful traditional event that's tailor-made to appeal to foreigners, and many make the journey to see the Nebuta Festival every year.

The Nebuta Festival in Aomori is one of the most unique in Japan.

Perception of Foreigners in Japan

I'm often asked how Japanese view the gaijin that live in their midst, disrupting the precious harmony the country is so famous for. It's quite a complex subject, which reaches deep into the Japanese psyche and across Japan's 466-year history of dealing with these smelly, overly tall barbarians from across the sea. For the most part Westerners in the Japan of today exist in a special place where the rules don't apply, at least the same way they do for the natives. Western foreigners are mysterious, physically different from Japanese in obvious ways, and every time an American or a Brit enters an electronics store to inquire about a product, the Japanese staff get a little more nervous. While this seems like an unkind reaction on their part, to be fair to them we foreigners are awfully good at doing the unexpected, like talking to them in rapid English or asking if they stock impossible to find products. Often the first (and sometimes only) contact a Japanese person will have with a Westerner over the course of their lives is the happy, outgoing eikaiwa (English conversation) teacher they had in school, and often the image of Westerners is defined by this first cross-cultural exchange. As a result, the Japanese generally expect us foreigners to be happy people to be around, overly active and expressing our emotions freely...which pretty much matches my own personality perfectly.

Foreigners in Japan seem to exist on their own plane of reality, as you can sometimes tell from gaijin in anime series.

Shochu

Everyone knows sake (SAH-kay), the famous rice-brewed beverage that's one of the most famous images of Japan. But another popular drink is shochu, a distilled beverage made from various sources including barley, sweet potatoes and rice. In decades past, shochu was seen as a lower-class drink, but in recent years its image has risen, and now it's considered quite trendy. Shochu can be drunk straight or on the rocks, but my own favorite way to enjoy it is as chuhai, that is, mixed with soda water and a flavoring like fresh lemon or grapefruit juice, and I keep wondering when restaurants and bars in America will discover this exotic yet highly drinkable Japanese concoction and popularize it. If you're interested in seeing what this unique beverage tastes like, we're happy to announce that the amazing traditional Japanese Food Drops series now includes shochu flavored candies. Try them now!

I'm a big fan of the Japanese drink known as shochu. I drink it all the time (bad Japanese pun).

The Bilingual Brain

The other day I was writing one of my J-List updates, and a rather embarrassing thing happened to me: I found myself unable to recall an English word I needed, although I knew what it was in Japanese. The word in question was sekkyoku-teki (sek-kyo-koo teh-kee), which means assertive or proactive or forward-thinking, and for some odd reason only the brain can understand, I could recall the Japanese term but not its English counterpart. So I asked my Japanese wife what the word was in English, and she told me, no doubt smirking to herself; I thanked her, remembering the infrequent but fun occasions when she momentarily forgot how to write a certain kanji character and I was able to whip it out for her. Being bilingual can be fun, but a little weird, too!

J-List will be at Connecticon -- will you?

Attending Connecticon? J-List will be there, or rather our East Coast Team will be there, with many of our fun T-shirts, PC dating-sim games, manga and other products. If you'll be at the show, come by booth #603 and say hi to them.

Lack of Parking in Japan

You've been in Japan too long when you see a road with two lanes going in the same direction and assume the one on the left is meant for parking. Since Japan is quite a small country, with half the population of the U.S. crammed into an area 1/25 the size, it's not possible to make the roads as wide as some of us would like, and in some cities (notably, old castle towns that didn't get bombed during World War II) there are roads so narrow a car and a bicycle couldn't fit side-by-side. Since buying land for parking spaces is expensive, it's common for some business to expect customers to park on the street in front, despite the fact that cars stopping along the road effectively closes off one of the the two lanes of traffic. Many convenience stores are like this -- you can see five or six cars idling in front of a Seven Eleven, often with with the keys in the ignition and the cars running, since no one would steal your car in Japan.

Understanding Culture Through Beans and Pickles

Beans and pickles aren't something you often associate with a country's national culture, but I've observed that you can learn quite a lot from these basic food items. The Japanese have a rich tradition of eating beans, from anko used in traditional sweets to the famous fermented soybeans called natto. While I like most foods in Japan, it took me a decade to learn to eat most Japanese beans, and I still don't do natto: they were all just too different from the beans I was used to back home, mostly of the Mexican refried and Boston baked variety. This beanocentric bias works the other way, too, and Japanese nearly always despise the beans Americans love. This tendency to prefer food from one's own culture works for pickles, too. To me, there's nothing better than a cold jar of Vlassic dills, perhaps cut up small and put on a tuna sandwich, but the Japanese aren't too keen on American pickles; they prefer their own culture of pickles, which include pickled eggplant, pickled radish (called takuwan, which smells horrible) and of course various local versions of Korean kimchee (which is glorious on white rice in the morning).

"Yes" and "No" in Japan

Today I'm continuing my series on how Japanese may experience anxiety when traveling to the U.S., feeling the need to become more assertive and speak their opinions more clearly than they do in Japan. Another big part of this phenomenon is forcing themselves to say yes and no directly, since these simple linguistic concepts which you and I take for granted aren't so simple in Japan. The word "yes" in Japanese is hai, and it's certainly used to indicate agreement to a question...but also as a general agreement word (called aizuchi) which is uttered every few seconds while someone else is talking, more or less to show that you're listening attentively, so it can have other meanings than what we expect in English. "No" in Japanese is iie (pronounced ee-EH), and it's not often used in normal speech as it's considered too abrupt and potentially rude. Instead, if you asked someone if they liked a certain food, they might reply with chotto... ("well...") which would clearly indicate their dislike. Another word the Japanese will use when they want to indicate a negative is muzukashii, which means "difficult" but is universally understood to be a softer-sounding stand-in for "no" in many situations. I've heard that Chinese, when they learn Japanese, overuse the black-and-white yes and no rather than more nuanced words for expressive agreement or disagreement -- if I had lots of free time, it'd be cool to study some Chinese and see if there's a linguistic reason why this might be so.

Aggressive Japanese II

Last time I talked about how when coming to the U.S., Japanese people will actually prepare themselves mentally to be more aggressive and speak their opinions more clearly, "just like they do in America." Most Japanese know their own kokumin-sei (the "national personality" that I write about quite often) is vague, subtle and not taken to direct communication, especially with anyone not familiar with their culture. While being vague might sound like a bad thing to you or me, there are times when it's better for communication to be more nuanced and less precise, such as a friend who tries to get you to realize that it's time to go home by looking at his watch and saying "Oh, look how late it is" rather than directly asking you to leave his house already. The guidebooks that Japanese read before visiting the U.S. always bring this subject up, reminding readers that speaking up when you have an opinion or when you need something is important in American society.

There are those Japanese who are quite good at speaking their minds, however, voicing most any opinion without feeling the need to be overly polite or humble no matter who is listening. Like my wife, who after two years of living and studying in the U.S. is quite unique among other Japanese in the way she can openly state opinions or raise questions that 100% dyed-in-the-wool Nihonjin would pretend not to have noticed. (Sometimes this can cause, ahem, problems for me.) Her unique personality has an interesting side benefit when traveling: other Asians have trouble telling that she's Japanese, which means she can get better discounts in places like Hawaii from retailers who know that Japanese usually won't try to negotiate prices. Also, when she sees really silly Japanese tourists doing something embarrassing, she can pretend she comes from another country.

Is Japan Really Expensive?

I'm having fun in Las Vegas, getting plenty of relaxing time in by the pool as I slowly recover from having three major conventions in one month. I just love being able to send out our little J-List updates no matter where I am in the world -- this Internet thing is great.

Is Japan an expensive country? It's a difficult question to answer. While Tokyo is famous for its $50 melons -- which are actually sold in gift boxes to give to others on special occasions, not just eaten by average families -- it's difficult to say whether or not the cost of living in Japan is high or not. When I first arrived in Japan I carefully checked the prices I was paying at supermarkets, making a concerted effort to catalogue the various stores around me so I could figure out the best places to shop. It wasn't always easy comparing Japan to my home country, however. Often I felt the prices I was paying to be high, like $15 for a bottle of shampoo, but then I realized that the bottle was much larger than the $6 bottles I had been buying back home. A loaf of bread or a container of milk costs about the same in Japan as in San Diego, but the unit sizes are smaller -- bread in Japan is sold in half-loaves, because a full loaf would go stale before it could be eaten. One interesting feature of Japan is the near total lack of inflation, and only a few products cost more now than they did when I arrived in Japan in 1991, such as when Coca-Cola went from 100 to 120 yen per can. This isn't true of the U.S., of course, and going back home once a year or so enables me to see how prices crawl upward, something that almost never happens in Japan.

The Mystery of "Wa" and Ga"

I recently made a few posts about Japanese grammar, specifically the little "particles" that mark parts of a sentence. One of the more challenging things for students to get down are wa and ga, two particles which aim to point out the subject and topic of a sentence...which likely won't make much sense to you, we don't think of English sentences as having separate subjects and topics. I remember my teacher doing her best to explain the logical reasoning between the two, and how you could go about choosing which one you needed to use in a sentence. Trying to think about wa and ga analytically made my head hurt, and I never really learned that part of Japanese grammar like my Japanese professor wanted, instead being content to try using one or the other in my sentences and get feedback about whether I'd picked the wrong one. Which, it turns out, is a great way to learn, and is pretty much the way children acquire language, by trial and error. The point of learning any part of a language is to internalize it to the point where you don't think about it but can use it functionally, and I was lucky to hit on this better way of acquiring Japanese, essentially making mistakes with it until I got it right.

Driving in Japan vs. America

I remember back in college, I needed a new engine for a broken-down car I was driving. My mechanic sold me a "low mileage" replacement engine from Japan, which was very affordably priced yet had only something like 12,000 miles on it, making me wonder how such a thing was possible. I was living in San Diego, a place where you regularly put 150,000 or more miles on a car during its life, but Japan is very different from the U.S. Although it isn't exactly a small country, the kinds of driving one usually does there is quite different from the U.S., with city streets instead of speedy freeways, and plenty of stop lights, one-way streets, and of course fumikiri, or train crossings, which everyone is required to stop at. Comparing how much distance you can cover in an hour of driving in the U.S. vs. Japan can get quite ridiculous.

How is the driving in your country?

Being Assertive in America

Well, the San Diego Comic-Con is over, and I'm tired but still exhilarated from all the fun. We learned many things at the show, including that it's a good idea to put one of those 3D anime oppai mouse pads on the table, since people can't resist coming over and touching it. Now it's off to Las Vegas with Mrs. J-List for a much-earned week of relaxation.

My wife and son arrived during the convention, and we've been having fun going to various places in San Diego after the show each day. We decided to take in the new Harry Potter movie last night, but were disappointed when the electronic sign at the theater declared the late-night showing we were planning on seeing to be sold out. I decided to ask if seats were available anyway, and it turned out that the sold out sign had been displaying in error -- there were still plenty of seats left. This tied nicely into a message I'm always trying to drill into my son's head, which is that America is a country where you have to be aggressive and speak up if you need something, rather than being silent and expecting others to notice you've got a problem, which is the norm in Japan. We'd learned this lesson before: when my son was five, we put him in a daytime activity program here in San Diego to interact with other kids and practice his English. When it came time for everyone to eat their lunches, he didn't know where his was, and didn't know to yell or ask for help from anyone. Since he was such a good quiet boy, none of the teachers noticed that he had no lunch, and the poor guy went hungry all day.

J-List Will Be At the San Diego Comic-Con -- Will You?

Japan had a partial solar eclipse which was really cool if you happened to be in Okinawa today, where the sun was completely blocked out by the moon. I watched from San Diego via video chat, and although I couldn't see much, it was fun to get swept up in the eclipse-mania that all Asia experienced today. Technology is an amazing thing.

We're getting into Comic-Con Mode preparing to meet and greet thousands of fans in booth 129, right in the middle of Anime Alley near the rightmost wall when facing the San Diego convention center. We'll have all our best T-shirts, great dating-sim games, hundreds of toys, figures and bento items, and much more, so we hope you'll come by to browse our booth or just say hello. And to anyone who's not able to attend the biggest and best convention in the world, we're happy to announce a special discount all week long just to make you feel better. For every $100 you spend at J-List (not counting shipping), we'll send you a $5 coupon for your next purchase, giving you a great excuse to throw another Pikachu Onigiri Shaper into your cart to reach the next $100 level. Hope to see you at the show!!

Japanese Grammar and Your Friend "Ne"

Recently I wrote about some of the interesting grammatical particles that exist in Japanese, which "mark" the various parts of a sentence, including the subject/topic, the object, and so on. There's a related group of sentence-ending particles that change the tone of the overall sentence, such as ka, which changes a statement into a question. Another of these is ne, which you can easily hear if you watch more than a few minutes of an anime or J-dorama. In general, it means something like "isn't it?" or "aren't you?" but can have some other nuances to it. Here are some brief examples:

Biiru, nihon desu ne?
Kono anime wa omoshiroi desu ne.
Ne, ikimashou! Hayaku sakura o mitai desu!

The first sentence means, "That will be two beers, right?" and is asking for confirmation. The second sentence means, "This anime is very interesting," and in this case the ne adds some stress to the meaning: it's a really interesting anime show. The third example means, "Come on, let's go! I want to see the cherry blossoms quickly!" In this case the ne is just acting like a prodding word to get the person's attention and/or convince them to hurry up. The ne word ending is generally used by girls more than guys, and any male students of the language should be careful that they don't pick up too much feminine-sounding Japanese, because suddenly finding that you've been talking like a girl for the past six months really sucks. Don't ask me how I know, I just do.

Japan, Land of a Thousand Islands

Japan is an archipelago consisting of more than 6800 islands, which was created by the volcanic activity that gives the country its earthquakes and wonderful hot springs. There are four main islands: large Honshu ("main province"), slightly bigger than Great Britain; southernmost Kyushu ("nine provinces," since there used to be nine kingdoms there), closest to the Korean peninsula and always a doorway to new cultural influences such as Buddhism, kanji and Christianity; small Shikoku ("four provinces"), which still has four prefectures; and Hokkaido ("sea road to the north"), known for its dairy products and potatoes. In case you're curious about what the fifth largest island is, I'll tell you: it's a tiny island in the Sea of Japan called Sado, off the coast of Niigata Prefecture. It's mostly known to history as a place of banishment, and over the course of 1,000 years many disgraced Japanese historical figures were sent there to live out the rest of their days. It was also the scene of a gold rush in the Edo 

Japan Drives on the Other Side

I do like my current life, living in Japan yet getting to visit the U.S. frequently to attend fun anime conventions and stock up on American peanut butter and tortillas. But flitting between the two countries means being at peace with driving on the opposite side of the road, thanks to Japan's long tradition of modeling its institutions on the U.K., including driving on the left. While it's really not that difficult to switch from one system to the other -- just go the same way the other cars are going, and always make sure your body is closer to the center of the road than your passenger at all times -- I do occasionally forget and start driving on the wrong side late at night when there are no other cars around, to the horror of whoever's riding with me. While the driving pedals are of course in the same locations no matter which side of the road you're on, the steering wheel controls for the "winker" (as a turn signal is called in Japan) and the windshield wiper are reversed, which means it's quite easy to go to make a turn and find your windshield wipers are suddenly moving. Also, I am generally unable to get into a car on the correct side to drive it on the first try, to the general amusement of my wife, who snickers as I pretend I had decided to take a stroll around my car for no reason.

Politeness in Japan: Humility and Exhaultation

Japan is a country that believes in getting along harmoniously -- a good idea, considering that they have half the population of the U.S. crammed into an area the size of New Mexico. The Japanese have evolved a system of politeness that acts as a guide in many formal and business and some day-to-day situations, which consists of two parts. The first is that you should act in a humble way, keeping strong opinions to yourself in certain situations and deflecting praise others might direct at you away from yourself ("no, this cake I baked isn't delicious at all, please have some"). You then raise up others to a higher position than you -- say, someone you're doing business with, a customer in your shop, or a guest in your home -- with special language, called "exalting" speech. Certain common phrases, like irasshaimase (ee-rah-shai-MAH-say, meaning "welcome"), which is what employees in a business say to customers as they come in, are based on this formal system of politeness. Of course, Japan isn't always such a well-mannered place, and you can verify this by going to a supermarket and watching the middle-aged women beat each other for the last tray of sashimi, but by and large, politeness plays a big part of getting along in Japan.

Love, Do You Remember?

It's time to mark a very special anniversary which has meant a lot to many of my generation. While you might reasonably expect me to write about the anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission and mankind's first historic walk on the moon, which will have been covered by others, I'm actually talking about the Macross 1984 movie "Do you remember love?" film, which began its general release on July 21, 1984, exactly 25 years ago Tuesday. (This was the then-15th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, Japan time; the film had a limited showing two weeks before in two Japanese cities.) The release of the Macross movie did nothing less than redefine everyone's perception of anime up to that moment, showing how good extremely well-made animation could be and cementing Macross as one of the major achievements of the era. Like the release of Star Wars in 1977, the Macross movie imprinted itself on the minds and imaginations of a generation of otaku, and will forever be remembered with nostalgia. Back in high school I rented a VHS copy of the movie from a comic shop in San Diego and took it home to watch with my friends. It was my first exposure to the Japanese language, to say nothing of my first anime shower scene, and it really opened my eyes to an amazing new world.

The Law of Scarcity When Living in Japan

When you pass a Subway sandwich shop, do you enthusiastically head inside, happy to be able to eat such a rare treat? When I'm in Japan I often do, since there aren't any of them in my home prefecture of Gunma, located about 100 km northwest of Tokyo. When I make a trip into Japan's capital or to the U.S., I'm always happy to have a Subway sandwich for lunch, because it's something that I can't eat whenever I want to back home. Really, there's nothing in your life that wouldn't become extremely valuable to you if you were suddenly transported to a place where it was unavailable, and I am much fonder of things like Raisin Bran or Pop Tarts or Lite Beer from Miller than I would otherwise be, since they're things I can't get easily at home. I first learned about this phenomenon when I went to live in New Zealand in 1975, which was before a lot of the foreign chains started doing business in the country. As I recall, there was one McDonald's and one Pizza Hut, and they were a godsend to an American family living in a new place.

J-List will be at Otakon -- will you?

;color:#3b3b3b">Today's update is being written beside the lapping shores of the Chesapeake Bay, as I get ready to attend Otakon 2009. I'll be there in a semi-unofficial way at booth 331, with a subset of our awesome products from Japan including PC dating-sim games and some funky Hello Kitty vibrating shoulder massagers (ahem) people have requested, along with a supply of our world-famous J-List pocket tissue and the new J-List printed bags. Please come by and say hello! We're also trying to get a late-night game panel going for Friday or Saturday. Check the JAST USA page for news on this if you're interested in being there.

Also, just in time for Otakon, we're happy to announce that our awesome new PC dating-sim game Family Project is in stock and shipping now! This is a remarkable game that illustrates the depth and quality that these games can attain, and it's one we hope you'll consider adding it to your collection. In this fabulous title, you band together with several other individuals who all have nowhere to go in order to form an impromptu family, which you call the Family Project. It's a really amazing offering by the creator of some of the best-loved games ever released in English, and we hope you'll pick it up. We've also launched the new Family Project Official Site, which is a great place for you to read up on this most memorable game.

Election Time in Japan (Ugh)

Bad news for anyone in Japan who likes sleeping late in the mornings: election season will be starting at the end of August, which means lots of politicians riding around in speaker cars shouting things like, "My name is Tanaka! I will work hard for you! Thank you for your vote!" Japan has a British-style parliamentary democracy with two houses and several political parties, which compete for enough seats to be able to form a government and elect a Prime Minister. The major parties are the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has been in power very nearly without interruption since the end of World War II; the upstart Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), hoping to win the upcoming election; the New Clean Government Party (Komeito), which is the political arm of an evangelical Buddhist sect called Sokka Gakkai, although you're not allowed to say that on TV; and the Japan Communist Party, with 400,000 members, one of the largest in the world. Japan's elections are tightly structured, and there is a long list of things candidates are not allowed to do, such as give or receive many kinds of gifts or make personal attacks against competing candidates, although for some reason attacking the Prime Minister the minute he assumes office a national pastime. The stakes are high in this election, as Prime Minister Aso (famous for being an anime otaku) and his LDP may bear the brunt of electorate's anger over the state of the economy. If the DPJ wins, it might mean some pretty disruptive times for Japan.

A poster invoking Gundam to get young people to vote.

Japanese Grammar Overview

The Japanese language is, of course, very different from English -- about as different as you can get, as languages go. Instead of a subject/verb/object word order, it's subject/object/verb, although the subject is frequently left off if it's clear from the context to make things extra-challenging for foreigners -- or so it seems at times. Japanese is an agglutinating language, which means more information like past tense or passive voice is stored in the verb form, but the upside is no helping verbs like "he would have been able to go" to memorize. One of the first things any student of the language has to get used to is grammatical particles, short "markers" which indicate parts of the sentence, such as wa and ga (the nuance-filled "topic" and "subject" markers), o (the object marker), and so on, which are not particularly difficult, just new. Then there's the question particle ka, which goes on the end of sentences and indicates that the statement just made is a question, e.g. Bento o tabemasu ka? "Will you eat your bento?" I found breaking sentences down into almost mathematical formulas that I could memorize then switch words in and out of helped me get past the different-ness relatively easily.

Japanese grammar is very different from English. Not really harder, just different.

Tipping in Japan

Unlike other nations in Asia, the Japanese have no custom of tipping for good service, and no matter how good a particular customer experience was (or wasn't), you're never expected to leave a tip. In fact, doing so would probably result in the server in question chasing after you to return the cash you accidentally left on the table. Still, Japanese know that tipping exists in the rest of the world, and part of preparing for a journey abroad involves studying up on how and when to leave a gratuity. When an American eats at a restaurant, he'll probably toss a couple dollars onto the table when he leaves, perhaps rounding up if the service was especially good. But Japanese are likely to meticulously calculate the correct 15% tip for the meal they just ate, counting out the coins on the table. I've lived in Japan long enough that some of this nervousness about tipping has spilled over to me, and I found myself putting a few $1 bills in my pocket so I could hand it to people who helped me with my bags at the airport, etc.

Living in Japan will make you worry about tipping like the Japanese do.

More on Japanese Sound Words

Last time I talked about the sound words in Japanese and how they're a little different from the onomatopoeia we use in English. There are actually two kinds of these sound words in Japanese: giseigo ("imitation voice words") which mimic an actual sound like a bird cawing, and gitaigo ("imitation condition words"), which describe a state or action in a way that's totally different from anything we have in English. Sometimes these words work as adverbs, modifying verbs: for example, a star shining brightly in the sky is described with kira kira; an employee can work bishi bishi (fast and efficiently) or dara dara (slowly, lazily); and someone who is bilingual in another language might speak it pera pera (fluently). At other times, these descriptive words work as adjectives, expressing a state: pika pika is used to describe a brand-new toy, literally describing the sound of gleaming streaks of newness; someone who is sneaking around is being koso koso; and someone who is nervous or excited about something is doki doki. Naturally, these strange, unique words are among the most enjoyable for students of the language to learn.

Where are Japan's Patriots?

For whatever reason, one of the themes of Japanese society is that its citizens don't show much in the way of patriotism. Loving one's country is something that most Americans take for granted, and I found it puzzling when I went to Japan and found it populated with people who were pretty ho-hum on the subject of their own country, despite its many impressive achievements in the world today. This is understandable to a certain extent, since it was an abundance of nationalistic fervor that caused so much pain and suffering in the last century, and many Japanese wouldn't feel comfortable expressing too much love for their country in any visible form. This means that the only active "patriots" in Japan are, sadly, those annoying right-wingers who drive around in loudspeaker trucks blasting revisionist speeches about World War II and singer Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi's famous song "Japan! Where are you going? Japan! What are you doing?" (oddly, sung in English). It's embarrassing, but to wear a Japanese flag on your clothing essentially identifies you as someone who shares the views of these extreme groups. Personally I'd like to see normal Japanese start some kind of "take back the Japanese flag from nationalist crazies" campaign, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

Are Japan's nutty right-wingers the only patriots in the country?

Good Times in a Japanese Izakaya Bar

Peter's favorite thing about Japan, #345: izakaya (ee-ZAH-kah-ya), a kind of cozy Japanese pub-restaurant that's filled with exotic food and drinks which seem to be tailor-made to appeal to wide-eyed gaijin. Inside one of these establishments you can find big frosty beers, hot sake and other drinks, as well as a complex world of izakaya food that's great fun to explore. Food like yakitori, teriyaki chicken on skewers; gyoza, the amazing Chinese dumplings you may know under their puzzling English name of "pot stickers"; and edamame, those delicious soybeans. I probably owe my current appreciation for fish to Japanese izakaya food culture, since there are many unique kinds of fish on the menu, like sashimi or broiled hokke fish, which the Internet informs me is called Arabesque, although I've gone for years only knowing its name in Japanese. If you visit Japan sometime in the future, I hope you'll visit one of these unique places to eat, drink and enjoy a new slice of Japan's culture. Although you'll likely be more confused than ever (I've never seen a lick of English on a menu in an izakaya), you'll have lots of fun.

Watch Out for the Bento Boys

There's a new social phenomenon in Japan right now, as single males embrace the art of making beautiful and healthy bento lunches to bring to work rather than eating out every day. It's called bento danshi, or "boxed lunch boys," and it's an idea being pushed by a popular website that encourages males to trade information and recipes on making their own bento lunches. A big part of the motivation is economic, as recession-strapped Japanese salarymen look for ways to save money, and since a bento lunch can easily be made for less than half what lunch at a restaurant would cost, single males at Japanese companies are forming support groups to help them make their own boxed lunches. A similar phenomenon is suito danshi, or "thermos boys," who bring a thermos full of iced tea so they don't need to buy canned drinks and can save that money. Incidentally, J-List has a large selection of bento boxes for guys who are looking for a less-kawaii bento experience. Why not browse them now?

Onomatopoeia, or Sound Words in Japanese

Onomatopoeia are the "sound words" that are all around us, and it's funny how they work differently in other languages. The word "boo" would be interpreted by native English speakers as expressing disapproval for something, or with an exclamation point ("boo!"), a word meant to scare someone. But in Japanese, the same sound (buu) is the "oink" sound a pig makes, or depending on intonation and the length of the vowel, the sound of flatulence. Once you've lived in Japan for a few years, you start to accept the Japanese sounds as reasonable representations of what we all hear, like nyan nyan for a cat, wan wan for a dog or kokekokko (roughly, koh-keh-KOH!-koh) for a rooster. And then you go to your home country to visit your family and you make some of these bizarre sounds around native English speakers, and they look at you like you're totally crazy.

Bad Things About Living in Japan #727: Pollen

There are many benefits to living in Japan, including being able to enjoy a cold beer while riding the train home from work or having a full selection of onigiri rice balls stocked at your local convenience store 24-7. Still, there are a few downsides, too, including being in a country with houses that are not well constructed since it's almost taken for granted that most people will have their homes torn down and rebuilt every 15-20 years, so they're not built to last. Another problem is the pollen that plagues the country in the spring and fall. Due to a short-sighted postwar decision to standardize nearly all commercial forestry on the Japanese cedar (sugi) and cypress (hinoki), huge swaths of the country are covered with these trees, which naturally release their pollen at the same time. This has the effect of creating huge problems for the one-in-five Japanese who are susceptible to pollen allergies when the trees flower, forcing many to use health masks to keep the stuff at bay and generally be miserable. I had a terrible time with allergies when I got to Japan, but after about two or three years I somehow managed to develop a resistance, and now I'm not bothered at all.

Yippie Kay-Yay Mother Facker

When I was an ESL teacher, I worked hard to find innovative ways to teach my students, which was always a challenge. I had a small treasure trove of English textbooks and workbooks and games I'd play with my students. Occasionally I'd rent a movie and watch it with some more advanced students, coming up with some exercises to help them pick up vocabulary or useful phrases from the film. One day I rented the movie Die Hard, which they'd asked to see, and we watched it together with the Japanese subtitles. I hadn't realized the number of swear words that were present in the film, and before I knew it I was teaching a lesson on the various nuances of the "F" word to my students. And yet, it's funny how neutral such words can become when you're outside an English speaking country -- most Japanese know a few English swear words, but they have no teeth in Japan.

America, Japan and Breakfast

Whenever I come to the U.S., my mind becomes a flurry of activity as I notice things that are different between my home country and Japan and make mental notes for future J-List updates. It can get quite annoying for my family when I suddenly pull out my iPhone and start pecking away with no warning, wanting to capture some new observation. One thought that recently occurred to me was, Americans really know how to do breakfast well. From Denny's with their late-night Grand Slam menu to chains like the International House of Pancakes to The Pantry, the delightful Los Angeles diner we ate at during Anime Expo, which apparently hasn't closed since 1923, I've eaten a year's worth of satisfying breakfasts since I got here. Japan's idea of the first meal of the day usually consists of white rice, nori seaweed, fried salmon, miso soup and perhaps some natto to top it all off with. It's certainly certainly healthy, just not always as satisfying as what I've been sampling here in the U.S. (For the record, they do have Denny's in Japan, but there's nary a breakfast item on the menu.)

Understanding Japan Through First and Second Pronouns

In the book Startide Rising by David Brin, humans have bio-engineered dolphins to be intelligent, and modified their spaceships so dolphin crews can work alongside humans in space. In the book, one dolphin remarks how amusing it is that humans bother to hide their feelings from members of the opposite sex; the sonar capabilities of dolphins allow them to see the internal changes in other dolphins and tell if one is interested in them physically, so there are never any secrets about who likes who. It was an interesting concept, and one that I sometimes think about in the context of Japan. In Japanese, people use different first- and second-person pronouns depending on how they perceive themselves and others, which sometimes betrays their intentions and their insecurities. For the pronoun "I" you could choose from watashi (formal, used more often by women), boku (semi-polite, usually used by younger males), and ore (OH-reh, mainly used by "manly" men); words for "you" include anata (formal, used by women more often than men); kimi (familiar, used by guys to their girlfriends or by anyone talking to a younger person); and omae (oh-MAH-eh, again, a "macho" sounding word generally used by males). This last word is especially interesting since it basically asserts the superiority of the speaker over the person he's addressing, a concept that doesn't exist in English. When a man uses the word omae to a female he's in a relationship with, the implication is that the girl "belongs to" him in a romantic sense, but a male using the word in other situations might indicate wishful thinking about how he wants others to view him. By paying attention to what pronouns people use, you can catch which guys are trying to act tougher than they feel and which girls are pretending to be more feminine than they are.

Michael Jackson, Japan and "The Way We Pretend Things to Be"

One of the invisible pillars of Japanese society is tatemae (tah-tay-MAH-eh), literally meaning façade but in actual use, "the way we pretend things are, even though we know they're not"; the word is usually paired with honne (HOHN-neh), which means the way things really are, or a person's real intentions. I learned about these concepts during my brief career as a city employee when I served as the Facilitator of Internationalization, doing things like translating documents for the mayor and helping out foreigners who couldn't speak Japanese. On the surface, I was in charge of coming up with new ways to serve the foreign community of our city, yet every suggestion I put forth to the bureaucracy was declined with a polite so desu ne, a phrase which literally means "yes, that's so" but which appears to carry the nuance of "forget it, silly gaijin," too. Of course, Japan isn't the only country to wear different faces for different situations. During the love-fest surrounding the death of King of Pop Michael Jackson by the media that did nothing but tear him down at every opportunity while he was alive, I'm reminded that America, too, has its tatemae and its honne at times. Anyway, Michael, thanks for all the fun memories over the years!

My First Dajare Joke

My first Japanese textbook was Foundations of Japanese Language by Soga, a book which I'm thankful for now but which was frustrating to use at the time, teaching us the term for the Chinese Zodiac before useful words like "man" or "woman." In one of the first chapters it explained how kanji characters often have hiragana written beside them to show how to pronounce them, which are known as furigana, lit. "attached kana." Since the prefix furi sounds like the English word "hurry," the textbook author went out of his way to describe how you could think of furigana as "hurry-gana" for people in too much of a hurry to look up the proper reading for the character in a dictionary. I didn't know at it at the time, but this was my first exposure to the silly category of joke known as dajare (dah-jah-reh), a bad kind of pun that middle-aged Japanese men are especially known to make. Now it's my turn to make bad jokes in Japanese, and I'm quite good at it (which is to say, my Japanese jokes are quite bad).

Japan's Most Loyal Dog: Hachiko!

Do you know the story of Japan's most famous dog? His name was Hachi, an Akita dog who was owned by a university professor in the 1920's in Tokyo. Every day, Hachi accompanied the professor to Shibuya Station, and in the evenings, the man would come back to find the dog waiting faithfully, a happy expression on his face. This continued for years, until one day, the man died suddenly while away from home. Loyal Hachi waited for his master to return for ten years, wagging his tail in front of the station every afternoon until he, too, eventually died. Tokyo residents erected a bronze statue in Hachi's memory, which would forever represent the loyalty of the dog in the minds of citizens, er, until it had to be melted down during World War II. But it was replaced after the war ended, and is now one of the most famous landmarks in Japan. Richard Gere is in Tokyo right now to promote the opening of his new film, Hachi: A Dog's Story, a full-blown Hollywood film about Japan's most famous dog. (Hachi is better known by the name of Hachiko, the koh suffix being used for people or animals who we're very close to.)

Going from Japan to the U.S. and Back Again

Because I'm fortunate enough to flit back and forth between the U.S. and Japan several times a year, I get to enjoy the best of both sides of the Pacific. I've lived in Japan so long that there's always some reverse culture shock waiting for me when I go home again. For example, after getting used to the smaller but quite adequate portions served in Japan, some of the food amounts in America really floor me. In Japanese restaurants, you nearly always pay for your meal at the cash register as you leave, but in the U.S. you usually ask for the check and pay at your table -- I sometimes have to think deeply to figure how which to do. Although Japan has been getting rid of more places where smoking is permitted, it's still okay to smoke in most restaurants. Forgetting where I was, I once strode into a Denny's in San Diego and asked to be seated in the non-smoking section, receiving a funny look from the employee, since all the seats are non-smoking in California. Reorienting myself to driving on the right side of the street, instead of on the left as in Japan, is not as difficult as you might imagine, despite the fact that I am mildly dyslexic. The trick is, no matter what country you're driving, you should be closer to the center of the road than the passenger seat.

Japanese Girls and the Kawaii Things That They Do

I'm big fan of Japanese girls and the kawaii things they do, and when I was a teacher, I loved observing the never ending parade of attractive female students I had. In Japan it's supposedly bad manners for a girl to laugh while showing her teeth, and the way they cover their mouth when laughing really starts to look cute to a guy after a while. Then there's the two-handed "bye-bye" wave that girls will do amongst themselves when parting, which is fun to watch, if a little bizarre. But the cutest thing I've ever seen a girl do is get embarrassed about something, then try to pull her bangs forward as if she could hide her red face underneath her hair. While I think the unique mannerisms of Japanese girls are kind of cool, not everyone agrees, and the derogatory word for girls who act like super-cute children to push the emotional buttons of males is burikko (boo-REE-kko), lit. "pretending girl." The culture of acting to cute is raised to a science in magazines like Bomb or in Japan's idol world, and I'm quite powerless to resist their magic.

Japan has Overly Peaceful

Another year, another Anime Expo. As usual, this year was a blast, with a bazillion J-List fans and customers (and more than a few of my Twitter followers) coming by to say hi. We sold a ton of T-shirts, Totoro plush toys and H-games, and I scored the autographs of all the members of Morning Musume on our spiffy new J-List printed bags. See everyone next year!

Japan is a strange and wonderful place, and you never know what will become popular next, like the current boom in taiyaki, a fish-shaped snack loaded with sweet anko beans (or sometimes chocolate), or the traditional "Food Drop" candies we have on the site. Once I found a video that consisted of nothing but a pretty girl staring at the camera, looking out of your computer at you for long spans of time. I can't figure out what the point of having a girl stare intensely at you for many minutes on end is, but it was strangely compelling, and I guess it's a good way for hikikomori types (hardcore otaku who never leave their homes) to get used to interacting with others. Below the video, one of the comments by a Japanese viewer read, "Japan is really heiwa," meaning peaceful, and this is a concept you encounter quite a lot: Japan's awareness that their country is especially blessed with peace, a unique place where crime is low and there is no war or religious strife, and people have the freedom to make silly videos and post them on the Internet. A related concept is heiwa-boke (hei-WA boh-keh), literally meaning "numbed from too much peace," which describes the state of literally being made stupid by living in a country that's overly harmonious, like the Japanese who traveled to Iraq in 2004 to help rebuild the country only to be promptly kidnapped because, well, they were in friggin' Iraq.

We had fun at AX, and Morning Musume signed our spiffy new event bags; weird J-Girl stares at you.

All About Natto

We're done with the first day of Anime Expo, and have spent the day meeting and greetings thousands of J-List fans, as well as giving our packed dating-sim game panel. We're tired, but it's a good kind of tired. If you'll be at the convention, we hope you'll swing by booth 825 and check out the awesome anime toys, bento boxes, T-shirts, manga and other products we've got for you. Just look for the really tall J-List flags in the room.

The fermented soybeans known as natto (NAT-toh) are one of the most famous foods in Japan, enjoyed throughout the country, although people from Osaka and most gaijin dislike it, including this one. Eaten by a wide swath of Japanese from children to the elderly and everyone in between, the sticky beans are usually mixed with yellow mustard and eaten over white rice. There are many legends about how natto was first discovered, but the most famous seems to be that in the year 1083 the general Yoshiie Minamoto was on campaign with 100,000 troops near a town called Mito, and stopped at an inn to rest. Some soybeans had been steamed and wrapped in straw for the horses to eat, and these fermented naturally while sitting on the floor of the stable. Some of the soldiers tried the beans and liked the taste, so they offered some to their lord, who loved it, which is where the name (which means "offered beans") comes from. If you're "natto curious" and would like to see what all the fuss is about, we've got an awesome item for you: authentic "drop" natto-flavored candies. Like the popular ramen, soba and and other traditional foods you can eat in candy form on J-List, these traditional Sakuma Drop-like candies taste just like the real thing.

Natto, one of the most enigmatic foods from Japan.