About iTunes Japan Cards -- iPad compatible, too!

J-List carries the iTunes Japan prepaid cards, which are an awesome way to get access to the latest JPOP, anime and other music that's compatible with your iPod, iPhone and iPad, like all the new K-On! songs. You can also buy fun Japan-only apps, like the Baka Test English study game, a fun dress-up anime game, and of course those Love Plus mini-games. Having a Japan iTunes account also gives you access to cool features like the Free JPOP Single of the Week, too.

J-List's "End of Fiscal Year" sale is almost ended! Rather than count all the stock we have left over, we'd rather sell it to you. For the rest of the month, we'll give you a gift coupon for $5 for every $100 you spend (shipping not included). When you add an extra artbook or interesting Japanese snack product to your shopping cart, you're helping the J-List staff out -- thank you!

Mai Waifu

It's funny how words move from one language group to another in this hyper-connected world we live in. Like the hilarious phrase "mai waifu" (my wife, but misspelled on purpose), first uttered by Kimura-sensei from Azumanga Daioh and used today by anime fans whenever they want to express their devotion to a particular anime character (as in "Kagami-chan is mai waifu!"). The other day I was checking my Twitter feed and reading some tweets by Japanese people who were following me. One person said, "Now in Akiba," but instead of writing the word "now" in Japanese (which would be 今, ima), or perhaps writing the English word in katakana (the writing system reserved for writing foreign words, which would be ナウ), he wrote "now" using hiragana (なう), usually only used for Japanese words or grammatical particles. I wondered why Japanese users would purposely write a word incorrectly, than I thought of the meme of "mai waifu" and realized it was a similar phenomenon.

 

The origin of the "mai waifu" meme, filtered through 4chan of course.

Japan, Land of Sushi

One of my favorite foods is sushi, and when someone in our family has a birthday, we often send out for a big plate to celebrate. While the classic sushi with raw fish on top (called nigiri-zushi or hand-gripped sushi) has become quite famous all over the world, I was surprised to find some variations of sushi that I hadn't known about before coming here. Like chirashi-zushi, essentially a "tossed salad" of fish pieces over a bowl of vinagered rice, or inari-zushi, a little bag made of fried tofu with rice in it, which is sweetened with soy sauce and sugar. One of my favorite varieties is maki-zushi, or rolled sushi, and we eat this at my house quite often. It's easy and fun to make: just take sheets of nori, spread rice that's been flavored with the convenient powdered sushi flavoring called sushi-no-ko, then add good things like strips of scrambled egg, canned tuna fish and mayonnaise or cucumber, roll and eat. J-List has some interesting sushi related products from Japan for you, including the awesome Hello Kitty rolled sushi molds we posted today, plus -- wow -- Sushi Food Drops candies.

Sushi comes in many delicious forms.

Lost in Lost

Well, Lost has finally ended, and I have to say thanks to the producers and cast for one wild wide. I certainly learned a lot over the past six years, like when you and your Japanese wife set out to watch a TV show that features characters from all corners of the globe speaking wildly different dialects of English, you're going to be pausing to translate a lot. (Yes, Lost is shown here with Japanese subtitles, but it's broadcast a year behind the U.S.) Over the years, Lost has provided me with plenty of neta, which is the name for the fish part of a piece of sushi, though in this context it means ideas for J-List posts. Like when I wrote about what it's like to listen to the Korean dialogue parts of the show and try to catch the few words that are the same in Japanese, such as yakusoku ("promise") or muron ("of course"). Or the "pop Buddhism" they often employ, from the Dharma Initiative (which sounds like those adorable Daruma dolls, although the two words aren't directly related) to the concept of a katami or possessions of a person who has died which are given to his friends later, or the ever-present number 108, which is the number of times the bells are rung at Buddhist temples on New Year's Eve.

So keeping spoilers to the comments, for people who haven't seen the last episode/season yet, what did you think? Emotionally satisfying but intellectually disappointing? Good? Bad? Somewhere in the middle?

The dialects used in Lost are difficult for Japanese to understand.

Popular of Products on J-List Surprises Us Sometimes

Sometimes when we add new products to the J-List website, we've got a pretty good idea they might be popular with our customers, like the Samurai Sword Umbrellas we stock, but often, we never know what products will become hits. When a customer asked us to add Gatsby Hair Wax to the site we were happy to oblige, not knowing that Japanese hair care products would become a huge category for us. Ditto with the mayonnaise cups for bento -- our customers love them, and it's hard to keep them in stock. The "Food Drops" candies are another product we didn't suspect would become so popular, but we've moved more than 10,000 tins of candies. Finally, when an artist asked us to stock the Let's Make Eraser with Microwave and Paper Clay mold toys we said sure, not suspecting how many people would love to buy them. What interesting products can J-List send you today? (And don't forget that our Fiscal Year Ending Sale is still going on!)

All About the Japanese Word "Genki"

Ogenki desu ka? This is one of the first phrases a student of Japanese encounters, and it corresponds to the greeting "how are you?" although "are you well?" would be a better translation as it's a yes/no question. In the context of this greeting, genki means "fine" or "well" and you can reply to this greeting by saying Hai, genki desu (Yes, I am fine). But genki can have other meanings, such as describing children running around ("energetic"), or someone beaming with happiness about something, or someone getting healthy after an illness. (The word can also refer to the unique state a man may find himself after waking up in the morning.) The o in ogenki desu ka is an honorific prefix that shows respect, and it's often found on family titles (okaasan = mother, obaasan = grandmother), Buddhist words (otera = Buddhist temple), and "cute" words often around kids or babies (oshiri = a cute-sounding word for a person's rear end).

"Genki" is the quintessential Japanese word.

Japan Nurse Panic!

I saw a news report on the BBC's website the other day about the challenges Japan faces as its population ages. All Western democracies are getting older, but Japan is a bit of a special case due to its low birthrate, high longevity and lack of meaningful migration from the outside. One area of the economy that's starting to feel the pinch is health care, and Japan needs about 40,000 more nurses annually than are currently available. If this were to happen in the U.S. or Europe, it wouldn't be that difficult to bring in workers from countries like the Philippines, but in the case of Japan all health care workers would require a nursing license...and the ability to read kanji characters perfectly. Japan is starting to face the question of how to attract health care workers -- occasionally you'll see news reports that a group of 30 nurses arrived from Indonesia, although the fact that it's a rare enough event to warrant national news coverage speaks volumes -- but so far it's slow going. Maybe they can create a special category of nurse that can provide care to patients in areas that don't require reading kanji perfectly? Either that, or cute moe robot nurses to take care of us.

Among other problems, Japan is facing a shortage of nurses, especially the moe kind.

Narrow Houses in Japan

I recently passed by a restaurant I'd not been near for a while, and found myself doing a double take: over the past few months someone had taken half the restaurant parking lot and built a tiny two-story house on it. Because of the oddly shaped plot of land, the narrow house was about a car length in depth, and living inside it would be like living in long hallway. Yes, the fact that Japan has about half the population of the U.S. crammed into an area the size of Germany does make people do things a little differently here, like businesses built with homes above them, like the rural liquor shop my wife's parents operate, which is attached to our home. While you or I might cringe at the idea of living in a tiny, oddly shaped home, there's a whole category of architecture called kyosho jutaku dedicated to building pleasant, functional homes in places where land is at a premium, like Tokyo. There's even an interesting TV show on Saturday mornings that showcases newly built homes on fantastically tiny plots of land.

There are some oddly shaped buildings in Japan.

Site Order Problem + Sale Reminder & More

First of all, we had an unfortunate issue with the J-List website system that caused order check-out to break for several hours. Sorry for the problem -- everything is fixed now!

Life in Japan is all about enjoying each season in its own way, and J-List has many outstanding products to help you have a more Japanese summer. Want to get cool after a hot day? Try Cool Bub, a fizzing tablet that will relax you with bubbles that go all over your body while it fills the bath with minty cooling freshness. Beat the heat this year with mugi cha, Japan's famous barley tea that's caffeine free and very healthy to drink. Finally, if you're looking for something special to start the summer with, may we suggest the new line of Studio Ghibli wind chimes, with Totoro, Jiji, Ponyo and Jiji the Cat? The sound they make as the wind blows in through the open window.

Remember, J-List is having our "End of Fiscal Year" sale! Yes, J-List's fiscal year is coming to an end soon, and since we don't want to count our stock, we're having a special sale to help you help us clear it out so there's less work for our staff. For the rest of the month, we'll give you a gift coupon for $5 for every $100 you spend (shipping not included). We've seen J-List customers adding extra dating-sim games, T-shirts and even magazine subscriptions, which can optionally be pre-paid for a year. What awesome products from Japan can J-List send you today?

iPhone, iPod and USB Products @ J-List

J-List carries many cool products for the wired world we live in, from anime-themed earphones and full-sized headphones to those cool anime iPhone and iPod cases, and Japanese computer peripherals by Elecom, the famous company whose corporate slogan is, "Around the PC." (They even make a case that's great for UMPC-size laptops or Apple's iPad.) Of course our iTunes Japan Prepaid Cards are a popular way to browse and buy the latest Japanese music, from anime songs to the latest Okinawan pop tunes, plus Japan-only applications for iPhone/iPad. Click here to see the top-selling Japan iPhone and Elecom products this week!

Learning English in Japan

My daughter's mid-term tests are coming up soon, so she's been studying to prepare for them. Although she can recite whole blocks of dialogue from The Wizards of Waverly Place thanks to YouTube, she has to learn English "properly," which means focusing on grammar and vocabulary like Japanese students do. When I sat down to help her with her homework, she was writing out lists of verbs in present, past and past perfect tenses -- teach, taught, taught, eat, ate, eaten -- and so on, something I don't recall doing in school ever. In general, there are many challenging concepts in English for Japanese to learn, like the ideas behind definite and indefinite articles (there's nothing like "a" or "the" in Japanese), confusing rules for when to use "in" "at" and "on," and so on. Bottom line: if you're a native speaker of English, give your parents a hug next time you see them.

My daughter learns English using the "YouTube" method.

My Trip to a Japanese Convenience Store

Today I went to the convenience store to grab one of those pre-made microwavable bento lunches. After choosing a "hamburg" lunch, which is a Salsbury steak with rice and other side items, I browsed the drink aisle to see what interested me. American-style soft drinks are adequately represented in Japan, of course, from Coca-Cola to Pepsi NEX! to the new Metal Gear Solid Mountain Dew. The market for bottled tea is somewhat larger, and I counted a dozen or more varieties from green tea to oolong to jasmine and Kirin's British-style "Afternoon Tea." Japanese are very health-conscious, and I saw several interesting products such as Kagome's "One Day Vegetable Juice" (all the veggies you need in juice form) and a large selection of Yakult-style yogurt drinks to keep your insides clean. Nearby I saw a package for konnyaku, which is a firm gelatinous food made from boiled yams that's used in many traditional Japanese dishes, and sold in fruit-flavored packets you can pop into your mouth. (It's called Konjac or Devil's Tongue in English, although I've never met anyone outide Japan who know what it was.) It's considered a very healthy food, but for one problem: it's so firm that children and the elderly can choke to death while eating it, so they put a big warning label on the package.

Konnyaku is a firm food that can be dangerous to eat.

Emotional Highs in Anime: Old School Anime Edition

Perhaps my favorite aspect of anime and manga is the way they allow fans to access various emotions, from boy-meets-moe love stories (Hatsukoi Unlimited or KimiKiss) to series that explore the frustration of not being accepted by your peers (Kimi ni Todoke), and even an anime that enables you to experience the terror of a major disaster (Tokyo Magnitude 8.0). One of the more awesome anime/manga series to come out of the 1980s was Kimagure Orange Road, essentially an intense love triangle between a boy named Kyosuke, the cute Hikaru-chan and the enigmatic Madoka, complicated slightly by the fact that Kyosuke's family had esper powers that they must keep secret from everyone. One day I was sitting in my university history class thumbing through vol. 18 of the manga, when I suddenly realized that the story I was reading was the last chapter, which would finally resolve the love triangle. I couldn't stop reading the intense story even in the middle of class, yet I had to hide my emotions from the people around me while I cheered for the characters.

So what is your favorite anime emotional roller coaster? (Old school or not)

Orange Road was an awesome anime/manga from the 80s.

Suddenly, Without Warning, Funny English in Japan

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

When you really need to breath clean air, you need the Clean Poo.

Peter's iPad Japan Rerport

I got my iPad from the U.S., and am currently having fun with it. I was really trying to avoid buying yet another gadget that would complicate my life, but one aspect in particular attracted me to Apple's shiny new toy: the ability to buy a month of Internet access a la carte without signing up for any two-year contracts, which is a Godsend for expat-types like me who only travel to the U.S. occasionally. The official release of the iPad in Japan is at the end of the month, and so far it's looking like it'll be a successful launch -- Softbank actually had to stop taking preorders due to receiving too many of them. Still, as I wrote in my post on TUAW, I think the iPad might face an uphill battle here in Japan. While the iPhone has become a hit with Japanese keitai users, the conservative nature of Japan's corporate world means that a lot of media that would go great on the iPad will likely not be available, since Japanese companies are focused on preserving their current profit centers rather than heading off in new directions. I just can't imagine the publishers of Shonen Jump, which sells a whopping 2.8 million copies per week, being in a hurry to embrace digital publishing in a big way. Whatever interesting developments we'll see with the iPad in Japan, you can join in, thanks to the iTunes Japan Prepaid Cards J-List sells, which allow you to buy JPOP and anime soundtracks as well as Japan-only applications like those Love Plus mini-games (note, you may need to change the store to Japan for this link to work). The cards are compatible with all iPhone/iPod/iPad devices.

If you need me I'll be playing with my iPad.

Japanese Names That Sound Like English Words

I write a lot about how Japanese names work, since they're quite different from names in Western languages. Japanese people always have two names, a family name such as Yamada or Tanaka and a given name like Hanako or Taro. As in the west, naming trends change from year to year, so that the names being given to this year's crop of babies always seem strange to everyone until they get used to them. Full names are written family name first, which means that words like "first name" and "last name" are completely useless in the context of Japan, and anime fans might have confusion about whether they should say Miku Hatsune or Hatsune Miku. This rule for name order doesn't apply to us gaijin by the way: foreigners' names are always written in Western order. Sometimes Japanese names interface strangely with English, for example the fairly common names of Soh, Sho, Mai or Yuu, which phonetically match the words "so," "show," "my" and "you," causing confusion during English lessons. I even knew a girl whose name was Wako, pronounced with a long vowel in the first syllable (wah-ko), but close enough to the word "wacko" that I felt sorry for her.

Japanese names like Ai from "Hell Girl" conflict with English words.

Need Any Cool Stuff From Japan?

Do you need anything cool from Japan right now? The reason we ask is, we're having our special End of Fiscal Year sale, which means you can get an extra $5 back for every $100 you spend on the site, giving you a good reason to add some more cool things to your shopping cart. Like our spiffy Cup Noodle Coffee Cup, or those dreamy new Vocaloid Nendoroid Figures, or maybe our popular anime T-shirts and hoodies. The sale ends soon, so hurry!

Building a House in Japan

One of the joys of being a long-term gaijin in Japan is eventually building a house here. Houses in Japan are almost never pre-built by a developer as part of a community of homes as is often the case in California, or bought "used" from people who have lived in them previously. Instead, at least outside large cities like Tokyo where people tend to live in "mansions" (an apartment that's owned rather than rented), houses are generally built from scratch, starting with an architect who will create a design based on your specifications and budget. For a foreigner, this is a great opportunity to go crazy designing the Japanese home of your dreams, adding tatami rooms, shoji paper doors, and perhaps a toko-no-ma recessed area for displaying some ikebana flowers. For the record, buying a plot of land in our prefecture, about 100 km north of Tokyo, will set you back about $100,000. For a custom-built house, budget around $300,000, although you can cut that down a bit by considering one of those "import homes" where all the materials, from wood to concrete to nails, are boxed up in Canada and shipped over by container.

If I could, I'd build an awesome house like the one in Summer Wars.

Japan's McEnglish Conversation Schools are Having a Hard Time

Before I started J-List, I had a career as a teacher of eikaiwa or English conversation. In Japan there's a strict distinction drawn between the concept of "English conversation" (that is, doing useless things like communication in a fun environment) and "English" (learning proper grammar for tests), and since I could teach both subjects, I was always in demand with my students. It was certainly a fun job, and I was able to meet hundreds of Japanese people during my time as a teacher, from small kids to older Japanese who could tell me about what Japan used to be like. Sadly, the past few years haven't been kind to Japan's eikaiwa industry. The country's largest chain of McEnglish conversation chains (NOVA) croaked in 2007, and last month GEOS joined them in death. The reasons these schools went bankrupt are many, including bad management, poor working conditions for teachers and trying to force students to sign muti-year contracts just to sign up. Disruption from the Internet played a role, too, as Japanese realized they could learn English almost as well with services like Twitter.

Times are hard for Japan's English schools.

"Taco Rice" is a Bridge Between America and Japan

The other day my wife had a surprise for us: Mexican tacos, which were certainly more welcome than the local version would have been, since tako is octopus in Japanese. "But we only have one small package of tortillas," she said, "so when those run out we're going to have 'Taco Rice.'" This is a popular dish from Okinawa, the prefecture that spent a quarter-century as a U.S. territory after World War II, and it's basically taco flavored ground beef served over rice with cheese and lettuce piled on. It's more than just a delicious food: like the Spam Musubi, a Japanese-style onigiri rice ball made with pressed ham that's a staple food in Hawaii, Taco Rice a bridge of culture between East and West. While we ate our tacos and our Taco Rice, we carefully applied Taco Bell sauce from the hoard of packets we brought back from the U.S. last time, such a valuable commodity here. Remember, you can sample many different unique tastes from Japan including Taco Rice with our traditional Food Drops candies and new Food Furikake series.

'Taco Rice' is a hybrid Japanese-American-Mexican dish from Okinawa.

Following the J-List Customer Wishlist Additions RSS Feed is Fun

J-List has an excellent RSS feed system, which you can use to see when certain new products on our site become available using a convenient RSS reader like Google Reader. I like to watch the J-List Wish List Additions feed and see what products our customers are adding to their wishlists, which can optionally be made public. Over the weekend I saw plenty of Evangelion UCC Coffee figure sets, Samurai Sword Umbrellas and excellent study products, like the Kanji Practice Flashcards from White Rabbit being added. Click here to view all the J-List RSS feeds.

Remember, J-List is having our "End of Fiscal Year" sale! Yes, J-List's fiscal year is coming to an end soon, and since we don't want to count our stock, we're having a special sale to help you help us clear it out so there's less work for our staff. For the rest of the month, we'll give you a gift coupon for $5 for every $100 you spend (shipping not included). So if you've got $85 worth of cool bento boxes or anime artbooks in your cart, you have a good reason to add a T-shirt or a couple of fun J-snacks to your cart and put yourself over the next $100 amount.

Japan is Relaxed About Sex in Media

One aspect I like a lot about Japan is the general lack of "uptightness" people and companies have about the ecchi side of society. Many of Japan's top artists, from Code Geass character designer Takehiro Kimura to Sgt. Frog creator Mine Yoshizaki, have extensive careers on the steamer side of the industry as well, yet no one rends their garments shouting "think of the children!" because of this fact, and huge companies like Bandai are perfectly happy to work with them. Actually most of the top Japanese game and anime companies have eroge in their past, including the mighty Gainax, and no one bats an eye about this since that's part of life, too, and there's no reason to build a wall between the two sides. Recently it was announced that JAV star Nao Oikawa was going to star in Ryoma-den, the high-budget jidai-geki drama about the life of Ryoma Sakamoto. You might think that having an actress from her line of work would cause some raised eyebrows on the straight-laced NHK network, but there was no negative reaction to the news at all -- since she'll be playing a woman of ill repute from the Yoshiwara district of Edo, she's perfect for the role.

Takehiro Kimura made the classic Viper series, and Code Geass.

Foreign Loan Words, Ramune an Johnny's Entertainment

While all languages change over time, the massive shifts the Japanese language has been through over the past century and a half have been incredible. When Japan began modernization during the Meiji Era (1868-1912), it had to come to terms with the many foreign loan words that were being imported into the language, something that hasn't always been a smooth process. One thing I've noticed is that a person can often tell when a foreign word entered use here based on how "messed up" it is compared the original. I was reading about the legendary talent agency Johnny & Associates, who created pretty much every successful boy band in the past four decades. In Japanese the company's name is "Johnny's" but the katakana is mistranslated so that it seems to be "journey's" or "jannies" (ジャニーズ instead of ジョニーズ). From this I guessed that the company had been around since the 1960s, and I was right -- they were founded in 1962. Some other examples of English words that were imported incorrectly decades ago are donmai which means "never mind," said by baseballl players consoling a teammate who has just struck out (from "don't mind"); hatsu which is the word for chicken hearts; and good old ramune, which started as "lemonade."

Arashi is one of the red-hot boy bands managed by Jahnnies, er, Johnny's.

The Japanese Love Waiting in Line

One interesting thing I've observed about the Japanese is that they love to line up for things. If a Japanese person is walking down the street and sees people lined up to buy something -- doughnuts at the newly opened Krispy Creme in Osaka, perhaps -- there's a good chance they'll get in line, too. It seems there's something innately fun about standing in line to buy something, and the general rule is that the longer the wait is, the better the food will be -- and if no customers are waiting to eat, it's a sign that the food isn't very good. I've experienced this phenomenon firsthand when I took my son down to Tokyo for his Lego robot soccer tournament, and we walked around the city trying to find something good to eat. We ended up lining up behind two dozen Waseda university students for an hour to eat was the best chashu pork ramen in our lives. These days, technologies like Twitter are changing the way people line up, since you can check current wait times before going over to the popular Gundam Cafe in Akihabara if you like.

(By the way, the ramen shop we went to is this one. Doesn't look like much but it was delicious.)

There's something fun about lining up for hours for something.

Awesome Japanese iPhone Accessories @ J-List

The iPhone has caught on in a big way in Japan, which is great for J-List customers since it means great hard-to-find iPhone and related products for us. Like our popular line of Evangelion iPhone cases and new Touhou iPhone cases (!), cases that let you add awesome Japanese phone straps to your iPhone, and even anime-themed earphones and so on. Of course don't forget the iTunes Japan prepaid cards, which give you access to a wonderful world of anime, JPOP and other music from Japan. Click here to see all iPhone Japan products ranked by popularity.

Encountering Unknown Words in Japan

After studying Japanese for four years at San Diego State University and living here for nearly twenty years, I'm about as fluent in Japanese as I could ever need to be. I'm able to communicate with the people I encounter on a daily basis and handle Japanese in business settings including negotiating contracts (that was difficult at first, let me tell you). Still, I never know when a word that I've never encountered will come out of nowhere. The other day my wife was telling me about a TV show she'd seen on ways to manage stress. "They suggested you try rhythmically tapping something repeatedly, like Buddhist priests when they tap their mokugyo." "What's that?" I asked, having never happened across that word, although I guessed corrected that the kanji would be "wooden fish" (木魚). It turns out to be a fish-shaped percussion instrument that Buddhist priests play during ceremonies, although I don't know how my wife expected me to have known this. Later that day my father-in-law came out of our rural liquor store with our beagle Marron. "I'm taking the dog to get her shot for kyoken-byo," he told me, using another word I'd never heard, though I could tell the kanji must mean "mad-dog-disease" （狂犬病）. I knew that kyogyu-byo (狂牛病）was Japanese for "mad cow disease," and I imagined some kind of canine version of foot-and-mouth infecting our beloved dog, until I figured out that he must have been talking about rabies.

When you know kanji it's not impossible to figure out new words.

Raising Kids in Japan

I often write about what it's like to raise kids in Japan, since this subject may offer some insight into the country that would hard to find elsewhere. As a general rule, Japan seem more focused on education than the U.S., at least compared with my own experiences with public schools in Maryland, Virginia and California. Both my kids attend juku, or evening schools which help the kids keep up in their studies, and the general culture of attending these extra lessons helps keep them more focused on learning than they would be otherwise. (These schools are often translated as "cram schools" in English, although that word is better applied to yobiko or "preparation schools" which are specifically for getting students into universities, slightly different in this case.) It also seems to me that there is a lot more contact between schools and parents here, in part due to the custom of impressing parents into volunteering to be special helpers for school events, which everyone hates, although it does bring parents and kids closer together. The other day my wife attended a parent-teacher-student meeting to discuss my daughter's future direction. The teacher hadn't figured out that our daughter was haafu (half-Japanese and half-American) and was going on and on about how good her English was. We got a good laugh out of that one, and made sure not to correct her misunderstanding.

Asuka is one of the most famous haafu characters in anime.

Groundbreaking Ceremonies in Japan

I'm sure you've all had the experience of being called home on short notice to participate in a Shinto ceremony in your living room. This happened to me once -- we were starting some "reform" work (what the Japanese like to call remodelling) in our house, redoing our bathrooms and replacing the older, allergy-causing tatami mats with Okinawa-style square mats, and so we called our neighborhood Shinto priest out to bless the house before starting the construction. There are two main religious traditions in Japan: Shinto, which sees kami or spirits in natural objects and which is generally called on for life-affirming events such as baby namings, weddings or starting construction on a new house; and Buddhism, which Japanese generally turn to when dealing with death, funerals or remembering lost loved ones. For our groundbreaking ceremony, the priest spread out an offering consisting of fish, rice, clean water, oranges, a daikon radish and sake, and proceeded to bless the house and its inhabitants. The Shinto priest who performed the home-blessing ceremony was the same one who did the groundbreaking ceremony when we started construction of the J-List office more than a decade ago, and he was fascinated with how far our little company had come, bringing interesting Japanese products to people all around the world.

Building something in Japan? You'd better call a Shinto priest.

Curry, the National Food of Japan

"You've been in Japan too long when you no longer find anything amusing about the concept of 'Vermont Curry.'" Although you may think of certain foods like sushi, sashimi, tempura and sukiyaki as popular Japanese dishes, the honorary national food of Japan has got to be curry, or as the Japanese always call it, curry rice. Curry spread out from India during the 1700s, a gift from the British Empire that's enjoyed in Japan more than any other kind of food save rice itself. Many companies compete to bring the best curry to market, with products like House The Curry (the Japanese love to add the word "the" to product names), Java Curry, and Vermont Curry, flavored with the mild kiss of Vermont apples. One of the rules of curry-eating is, it takes even better after it's been left to sit out all night, and "second day curry" is just heavenly (although my son discovered that "second day Chef Boyardee ravioli" is pretty good, too). Curry is available in many forms in Japan, poured over fried pork cutlet; as udon noodles in a curry soup, a popular dish from Nagoya; or as curry bread, a doughnut-like ball of bread with curry inside. If you'd like to try some Japanese curry, why not sample our Food Drops candies or Food Furikake?

Mmm, Vermony Curry, why do you tempt me so?

Japan's "Middle Class"

One interesting aspect of Japan is that around 80% of the people here consider themselves to be "middle class," which might represent the best approximation of the "classless society" that so many have tried to create in the past. One mechanism that helps this idea take root is "study-based meritocracy" in which students who study hard and pass tests are able to get access to the best schools, which also happen to be the most affordable. While the top universities in the U.S. are expensive private schools like Harvard or MIT, most of the top schools here are national universities like Tokyo University or Kyoto University. While competition to get into these schools is unbelievably fierce, the education students receive there is presumably the best, and tuition is just $5000 a year. Japanese kids often show "filial piety" (that is, respect and thanks to their parents) by studying hard to get into one of these national universities, which reduces the financial burden on the parents compared with a private university like Waseda. There are of course exceptions to this system, but by and large the idea that anyone can get ahead by studying hard is very real in Japan.

Japan is a great meritocracy, in which 80% of people are middle class (despite the BMW in their driveway).

Making Suggestions at Japanese Companies

Anyone who's worked in Japan probably knows the frustration of making a heartfelt suggestion to one's employer, only to have it politely shot down. Of course, having an idea rejected by your superiors can happen in any country, but there's something unique about the process in Japan, somehow. Almost by our mere existence, we gaijin are on a different wavelength from the Japanese people all around us, and the fact that we see the world in a different light often causes us to notice things that Japanese would never think twice about. Sometimes this can be a good thing, like when a former ESL teacher gets the idea to start an online shop selling awesome products direct from Japan, as I did with J-List back in 1996. But more often than not, when a foreigner working for a Japanese company suggests something that could be fixed or improved, the following will result. First, the boss will use the phrase so desu ne, meaning, "Yes, that is so" -- by an accident of linguistics, the word 'so' is exactly the same in English and Japanese -- although in this case the phrase just means he's thinking about your suggestion, not necessarily agreeing. Then you'll hear the word muzukashii, which literally means "difficult" or in this case, "impossible, but I'm too nice to say that to you directly." Finally, they'll promise to kento shimasu, which means "we will study the suggestion," by which they mean they will not study the suggestion. Having what you're sure is a great idea rejected can cause you say nyoro~n and feel disappointed, although thinking back, many of the ideas I suggested to my former employers were rejected for good reasons that I just wasn't able to understand at the time.

Suggestions from foreigners are usually not accepted at Japanese organizations, for various reasons.

J-List T-Shirts & Special Sale!

Ever since we brought out our first "Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend" T-shirt a decade ago, J-List has been making awesome original T-shirts that our customers love. If you browse the top 50 anime and kanji T-shirt page, you can see that the new offerings like Yandere or the Code Geass "OBEY" parody are really popular now, but we have so many fun shirts to browse through, too. I love our Haruhi T-shirts, or the tribute to tsundere voice actress Rie Kugimiya, and of course any Touhou T-shirt is okay in our book. What wacky Japanese T-shirts, hoodies or hats can J-List interested you in today?

Announcing the 2010 J-List End of Fiscal Year sale! J-List's fiscal year is coming to an end, so we're doing like Japanese companies do and having a special sales event. At the end of May, the Japanese staff has to count each and every product we have in stock, every bento box and every Hello Kitty personal massager. Since we'd much rather sell it to you rather than count it, we're going to have a sale for the rest of the month, giving you a gift coupon for $5 for every $100 you spend (shipping not included). This means you have a great excuse to add another T-shirt or box of Calorie Mate to your order to get to the next $100 level. The coupons can be used on either website and never expire.

Scissors Bag or Man-Purse?

Humans are strange creatures. It's okay for a man to carry a laptop bag or "messenger bag" or a backpack, but if the shape of this bag strays just a little from certain norms he'll be derided by his friends for carrying a "man-purse," which is frankly ridiculous, since guys need to carry stuff, just like girls do. But I'm going to come out of the closet and admit to carrying one of these wherever I go in Japan. It's called a "scissors bag," a name which comes from barbers who use them to hold their tools when cutting hair, and I keep my wallet, camera, keys and other important stuff in to I don't lose it -- plus it's got kanji printed on the outside, which is cool. One of the good things about living in Japan is the different set of social norms in place here, which allows me to pick and choose which I'll follow.

So what do you think? Is it okay for a man to carry a "scissors bag"?