The tradition of sitting on the floor in Japan, differences in business culture, and using non sequitors in Japanese

One tradition every foreigner living in Japan must come to terms with is sitting on the floor. The Japanese do a lot of floor sitting, and even the most modern house will probably have at least one traditional Japanese-style room with tatami mats and a low table that you use while sitting or kneeling in seiza style. My house is a two-story home with my Japanese wife's parents living on the first floor and all of us living upstairs. Whenever we're downstairs we sit around a low table with a heater inside called a kotatsu, sitting on little cusions called zabuton (which literally means "sitting futon"). Of course, it's not really all that comfortable to sit on the floor for long periods of time, and my wife and I are much happier upstairs in our Western-style living room with normal sofa and dining table.

Every country is different, and companies trying to do business in a new place have to change their strategy to fit local customs and expectations. 1992 was a great year for foreigners living in our prefecture -- the Subway sandwich chain, which was expanding into Japan at the time, had discovered our city and decided to put a store in. This was back in the days when the only taste of "back home" was McDonald's, and it was a major coup if a person could score some imported Doritos from an expensive department store. So the entire gaijin population of our city flocked to enjoy the novelty of eating Subway sandwiches in Japan, and everyone was happy for a while. Unfortunately the company had made a miscalculation: they had located their restaurant near the local university, which is no doubt where you put a Subway if you're in the U.S. In a country like Japan, though, it makes much more sense to locate a business across the street from train stations, where you can benefit both from increased visibility and plenty of foot traffic. Since the local university was far from the heart of the city, our precious Subway had a hard time getting enough customers and closed its doors less than a year later.

Asian students of English as a Second Language get a lot of flack for answering "yes" to questions even though they didn't understand what had just been said to them, but I can totally understand where they're coming from. Learning how to "fake" understanding in certain situations is an important part of learning a foreign language and interfacing socially with people from other countries. One strategy for communication that's used by Japanese when speaking English (and by me at times, in Japanese), is the non sequitur, a reply that can be used as a response to just about any question, including questions you might not have understood. Back in my bachelor days, I went to a live orchestra performance and was surprised to hear that the organizers had "randomly" chosen three people from the audience to get up and conduct the orchestra: a cute old woman, a little girl, and funny American who happened to speak Japanese, namely me. I got up on the conductors podium, trying to ignore the hundreds of people with their eyes focused on me, and lead the Maebashi Philharmonic Orchestra in the first few bars of Beethoven's 5th. I only got a little ways into the music, because my total lack of timing caused the musicians to ground to a halt soon after they started. When I was done, the MC asked me some questions about where I was from, how I liked my first time conducting an orchestra, and...something else, that I didn't happen to catch. Rather than embarrass myself in front of so many people by asking the MC to repeat herself, I gave her a very generic answer: So desu ne, which literally means "yes, that's so" but in practice, doesn't really mean anything at all (so it fit the bill perfectly).

We've got a wacky new T-shirt for you today, a parody of the famous ESRB rating logo for video games that rates the wearer as "Rated H" and warns others to stay away from this "very dangerous person." A really fun design that will bring many laughs, with another warning on the back that you are "extremely ecchi" and "supremely sukebe" -- great because people who get the joke will laugh, while everyone else won't know what the shirt means (always nice).

Do you love anime? If so, then why not subscribe the popular anime magazines direct from Japan, like Newtype, Animage and Megami Magazine through J-List's revolving magazine subscription system? These magazines are great for keeping your finger on the pulse of the Japanese industry and following the most popular shows and characters. And these issues are loaded with color pictures, posters and other fun stuff, even if you can't read Japanese. Best of all, all our subscriptions are month-to-month, and you can switch to other magazines or end a subscription at any time. You can also opt for credit card, check or money order or Paypal payments.

More pictures from Kusatsu. This is a cool old omiyageya-san (gift shop).

Get ready for your closs-up.

This is the official logo of the Barber's Association of Japan, the industry group that all barbers belong to. It's kind of cool and old-skool.

This is one of the little hot springs places that they set up for people to go in and bathe. There are plenty of places that cost money, but these free ones are more fun.

This was another one of the free bath places. It was hotter than a demon's arse in there, so hot that I could barely stay in for 20 seconds. I hated to be the typical "gaijin who can't get in the bath because it's too hot" but there was nothing I could do.

The Japanese get a little happy about o-yu (hot water from a natural hot spring) and go on about how it cures arthritis, chills, muscle pain, and so on. This is an actual song about the water of Kusatsu, etched into the pavement.

I visited the Kusatsu branch of G-Collections to pick up some stock of bishoujo games. Psyche! This is just a store with the same name.

This is the car that was next to ours. I snapped a pic of their license in case they scratched our car or anything, since they were kind of rowdy and were parked very close to us.

Good bye, Kusatsu...

Spring vacation without kids, our trip to some hot hot springs, and all about Jidai Geki

It's spring vacation in Japan now, and rather than having the kids hanging around the house with nothing to do, we packed them up and shipped them off to someplace they could have more fun. My son is in Okinawa with some kids from his school, enjoying the sun and hopefully learning about the culture of the island (very different from mainland Japan). My daughter, meanwhile, is 8275 km away, in Auckland, New Zealand, with a group of kids and a tour guide from our city. I lived in New Zealand for a year in 1976, and have many fond memories of glow worms, One Tree Hill and Big Ben's Meat Pies. I hope she has fun there, too.

While we've got some time to ourselves with no kids (truly the Holy Grail for any married couple), my wife an I headed up into the mountains for some quality onsen ("own-sen"), Japan's traditional hot springs. Japan is a very volcanic place, with 10% of the world's 840 active volcanoes located here, and while this can be a bad thing when there are eruptions or earthquakes, it's certainly good for people who love bathing in natural hot springs (like me). There are many towns that are famous for their hot springs all around the country, but happily, our prefecture is home to Kusatsu Onsen, considered by many to be Nippon Ichi, the best in Japan. We had a nice time, roaming the streets of the town (which has been famous for 800 years, twice as long as there have been Europeans living in the New World), stopping to take a dip at the many town-operated free baths along the way. You can't go to a hot springs without eating some onsen manju, a kind of traditional cake with sweet beans inside that's served steamed -- it's delicious.

The world of jidai geki, or TV period dramas set in the era of the samurai, is an incredibly rich and complex one, and I've always thought that dramas about Japan's past fill roughly the same role for the Japanese as Shakespeare does for people in English-speaking countries. Japanese period dramas are incredibly popular, and there's one on most every night, either on Japan's public broadcasting channel NHK or one of the private networks. Just as there are many eras of Japanese history, there are different kinds of period drama, with highly dramatic and violent stories from the sengoku jidai ("warring states period" when different feudal lords sought to control the country) to semi-legendary stories from the more stable Edo Period, to stories about the turbulence experienced as Japan was forced open by Admiral Perry's Black Ships. Some of these dramas are fun stories about famous folk heroes with lots of swordplay, such as the popular Mito Komon, running for a mind-boggling 37 years without interruption. Over the years, there has always been a special class of jidai geki actors who distinguished themselves in this medium in the same way Laurence Olivier has in his various Shakespearean roles. Ken Matsudaira will always been remembered for his role as the Abarenbo Shogun, who loved to disguise himself as a commoner and roam the streets of Edo, and who could forget Katsu Shintaro as he original blind swordsman Zatoichi?

J-List makes a line of original "wacky Japanese T-shirts" and hoodies with fun messages in kanji, and we're very proud of how popular our creations have become with everyone who digs Japan. Our flagship T-shirt is the famous "Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend" design, which we were rather surprised to see featured in the current issue of Newsweek (April 3 issue, page 56). See a scan of the "Test your Geek Chic" here.

J-List sells many cool things from Japan, and one thing we love bringing people around the world are Japanese snacks. We sell hundreds of different kinds of unique Japanese snacks, going beyond the basics like Pocky (although we've got all flavors of that, too) to harder-to-find favorites like Melty Kiss, Morinaga Choco Ball, and the oddly-named Crunky and Asse. We also carry the amazing Japan-only flavors of Kit Kat, including the new Green Tea Kit Kat in deluxe sized packages. We're happy to bring you a new limited Kit Kat Spring Set, with samples of all the delicious Japan-only Kit Kat snacks made this year.

Heading out to Kusatsu in our new Mazda MPV.

I do think this is one of the best iPod-in-car setups I've seen. I can even pipe video to the front or rear monitors.

It was about a 3 hour drive. Because there were no kids this time, it seemed very quiet and peaceful.

This is the most famous part of Kusatsu, the Yubatake or "boiling water field."

A very beautiful scene. Of course, the air smells very strongly of sulfur.

Language reflects on culture, fun with kanji and English words, and the mysteries of April 1 in Japan

I've always thought that language both reflects culture and influences it, and part of the reason the French are so French or the British are the way they are comes from the language that they speak, and vice-versa. During my years of study, I've noticed that the Japanese language seems to be specially set up allow for the subtle nuances and indirectness that people here are famous for. First of all, it's common for various parts of a Japanese sentence to go unstated, and you might invite someone to go somewhere by only saying the verb "to go"-- Iku? -- with the who, what, where and other information assumed by both parties. When we write compositions in school we're taught to choose active over passive sentences -- "John said it" rather than "It was said by John." But Japanese uses passive voice quite often, since it's easy to create a sentence that carries all useful information but omits indicating who caused the action to take place (useful in work situations when you don't want to name the specific manager responsible for something). There are also phrases that don't really exist in English, such as "kimatta" ("it has been decided"), which describes with great finality that a decision has been made, and therefore, we all have to go along with it.

April 1 is right around the corner. Aside from its status as Shigatsu Baka (April Fool, a custom imported from the West during the occupation), April is an important time for a lot of people in Japan. First and foremost, April traditionally marks the start of the school year, and all throughout the country first graders will be timidly marching off to their first day of school while proud parents film the event with the latest Sony Handycam. April 1 is the start of the fiscal year for the nation, too, and it's customary for new laws to take effect on this date. Finally, April is the beginning of the new business year for many companies, and major firms like Toyota and IBM Japan hold large Company Entrance Ceremonies to officially welcome the new crop of employees into the company.

Every rule has an exception, and the Japanese writing system is riddled with so many exceptions, it's almost as complex as English. While the standard way to write Japanese is to use hiragana for basic words (words like "this" "is," and grammatical particles), kanji for words with definable meanings, and katakana for foreign loan words like "creap" (cream powder for your coffee) or "nice middle" (a handsome middle-aged man). Sometimes, however, katakana is substituted for hiragana in order stress a point, as we'd use bold or italics in English (this comes up in manga quite a lot). Also, there are some English words that have been in use in Japan for so long, they've gone and gotten kanji assigned to them, in violation of those neat-and-clean rules. Four examples of these somewhat archaic words are coffee, tobacco ("smoke straw," actually "smoke grass" but that's too hilarious to try to tell you with a straight face), kirishitan (the early Japanese Christians), and club.

Remember, J-List stocks the excellent Domo-kun products from NHK. The official spokes-monster of Japan's public broadcasting network, Domo-kun gets his name from the Japanese word domo, an all-purpose word that can mean thanks, hello, or just about anything else. From Domo-kun straps for your phone to Domo-kun pens to our most popular item, the Domo-kun plush from the "whenever I ... God kills a Domo-kun" graphic, we've got a great selection of rare items you can only find in Japan.

A note of caution: we're down to the last few sets of our popular Final Fantasy Potions, with only a dozen or so in stock. If you want to pick up a full set of these amazing collector's items, which come with beautiful blue glass potion bottle, different caps, foil-wrapped trading cards and protective boxes, order soon!

Had to go to Tokyo to get my son's passport renewed yesterday. The sakura were pretty, but weren't fully opened yet.

They were even blooming inside Ueno station (although I think this might have been fake).

There's a nice shrine near the government buildings, and we stopped by to pray for good luck.

Advertisement for a sale at a local department store.

Had Loco Moco for lunch. This is my favoriteist food in the world! It's a Hawaiian dish, basically teriyaki hamburg steak ("Salsbury Steak," whatever), with egg and other goodies over rice, that you mash up to eat.

Green, thanks.

The new Tokyo Tower, an experiment in conformity, and classics of Japanese literature

There's a perception that the Japanese are more conformist than people in Europe or the States. Leaving aside the question of whether someone who is into a form of "indies" subculture is in fact just choosing a more specialized group to conform to or not (no matter what country you're from), I will say that there are times when I've felt that the Japanese choose the comfortable path of doing what everyone else is doing a little more than we might back home. Some of the sillier fashion trends to come along here, like the 8" thick sneaker soles or the "pair look" boom of the late 80s (when every couple would dress in matching outfits while on a date) would not have happened without the pressure on people to follow the larger group. When I came to Japan in 1991, the idea of a Japanese person owning a piece of "used" clothing was unthinkable, but a few years later, the rise of a trend called ame-kaji (that's "American Casual" in case you were wondering) caused the used clothing market to take off -- and suddenly all the Japanese were wearing faded jeans that had belonged to American college students a few weeks before. For the past week I've been engaging in a little "conformity experiment" of my own, using a Bluetooth headset to talk to people on my cell phone -- something that's not done in Japan at all. I've been having fun, talking to "myself" while Japanese people gasp at me as they walk past, not realizing I'm on the phone. I'm feeling a lot of pressure to give in and hold my phone to my ear like everyone else, but I'll stick it out a few more weeks and see if I can't learn something more about human nature from it all.

Every country has a unique relationship with its own past as expressed in history and literature. In English, we all have to read the classics like Beowulf (written in Old English), the Canterbury Tales (Middle English), and of course plenty of Shakespeare (which is Modern English, even though some 11th graders struggling through Macbeth might not agree). Japanese students have to undertake the same studies, wading through famous works of Classical Japanese that are far removed from the language of modern-day Japan. Kanji entered the country along with Buddhism in the 8th century, and it was the first writing system the Japanese had ever known -- the mound-builders of past ages had no way to write down their history. Early Japanese works like the Kojiki, the first record of Japan's history, were written in kanbun, an archaic form of writing that assigned Japanese readings to written kanji. The Heian Period saw the creation of hiragana, a syllable-based writing system derived from kanji, and Murasaki Shikibu used it to pen the Tale of Genji, considered to be the world's first novel -- it's about as hard to read as Chaucer is for English speakers (i.e., really hard). To help bridge the gap and make the literature of the past more accessible, it's common for the stories to be recreated as educational manga, which can capture and hold the interest of young people much more effectively. The question of when Japanese entered its "modern" linguistic phase is a little dicey, but one answer might be the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when Japan started modernizing and introducing compulsory education. Still, I find that trying to read a Japanese newspaper from the World War II era is extremely difficult -- even just 60 years ago, the language had yet to be standardized officially, meaning that text might be printed horizontally from right to left rather than the more common left to write, and archaic versions of kanji were used randomly here and there, making it all very hard to read.

It seems that a Japanese city can't be complete until it has a big tower for tourists to visit and take pictures of. Virtually every major Japanese city has a big tower in its midst, to serve as a popular spot for visitors and couples out for a romantic late-night drive. Kyoto Tower resembles Seattle's Space Needle. Marine Tower in Yokohama was the largest lighthouse in the world when it was built in 1961. Osaka Tower was built in 1887, but was melted down to make tanks during World War II, and rebuilt it in the 1950's. But the most famous tower in Japan is Tokyo Tower, a 333 meter replica of the Eiffel Tower, built because the Japanese secretly wish they were part of Europe rather than Asia. An attractive icon located near Roppongi, Tokyo Tower serves many purposes, including being a popular tourist destination and "date spot," housing an aquarium underground, and broadcasting television and radio signals to Tokyo residents. Now it looks like there'll be a new tower on the block, amazingly to be called New Tokyo Tower, a massive 600 meter ziggurat that will blanket the Tokyo area with even more radio, television, and cell phone waves. Among its benefits will be enabling "Wanseg" ("1-Seg"), a new application of terrestrial digital broadcasting that will allow people to receive crystal clear TV on cell phones, laptops, or in their cars.

Fans of Kit Kat, we're got great news for you: a cool Spring Sampler Pack of Japanese Kit Kat that includes all the delicious flavors available this year, including the delicious Green Tea Kit Kat, Strawberry Kit Kat, French Bretagne Milk, and original Kit Kat by Nestle. Stock is limited so hurry! (Remember, we remove all chocolate items from the site during the summer months because of the high humidity in Japan.)

Funny English used in Japan, Japanese subject particles, and understanding culture through shoes

Perhaps more than any other people, the Japanese import words from other languages for their daily use, nearly always taking them from English. But after they've changed the words to conform to their unique sensibilities, what's left isn't always English that you or I could identify. First of all, long English words can be unwieldy in katakana, so they're often shortened to four syllables that encapsulate the core meaning, which is where words like risutora (corporate restructure, i.e. layoffs), sekuhara (sexual harassment in the workplace) and ganpura (Gundam plastic models) come from. Then there are words that the Japanese create because they don't know how silly they can sound to naive speakers. Some of these words include "fancy shop" (a store that sells cute character goods like Hello Kitty); "guts pose" (the manly pose an athlete might make); "car navi" (a GPS system for your car); "charm point" (a person's positive features); and "skinship" (the good skin-on-skin feeling of a father holding his baby in the bath). So when you come to Japan, you need to do more than learn Japanese -- you may need to learn some English, too.

Part of the reason I enjoyed learning Japanese in college is that the grammar and structure are so very different from English -- there was less potential for confusion than if I'd studied, say, French (or at least it seemed that way to me at the time). The word order of Japanese is subject-object-verb, compared with the subject-verb-object in English, which took some getting used to. Something that seems unique to the Japanese language is the existence of grammatical "particles" or verbal markers for parts of sentences, such as the object, conveniently o (as in sushi o taberu, to eat sushi); no, a marker for showing ownership or association (Keiko no okaasan, Keiko's mother); and ni, a particle showing direction (anata ni ageru, I will give it to you). Two of the more troublesome grammatical elements for students are wa and ga, which mark the topic and subject of a sentence, respectively, and which many students never seem to quite figure out on a conscious level -- in fact, I am one of them, even though I'm fluent in the langauge. Although the two are often interchangeable, wa is the wider subject of the sentence (often omitted), and ga acts like a "second subject" or object -- it's easy to think too much about it. A sentence that uses both would be watashi wa sushi ga suki desu, literally "As for me, I like sushi." Japanese people seldom know anything about their own grammar so if you want to confuse one, ask them to explain the difference between wa and ga. (Oh and by the way, this is a different wa than the wa (和) meaning harmony.)

One of the rules of Japanese cleanliness is that anything related to feet or shoes is kitanai (dirty, unclean), and shoes are always left at a special recessed area near the front door called the genkan. The custom of putting shoes near the front door can lead to some interesting social interaction that we couldn't conceive of in the States. For example, a genkan full of shoes is an immediate signal that a party is going on, and if a girlfriend drops by her boyfriend's apartment and sees a strange set of woman's shows there, she knows without going inside that he's fooling around. In Doushin - Same Heart, a dating-sim game that will be released in English soon, there's a sub-plot where one of the characters sees her sister's shoes in the genkan despite the fact that the lights in the house are off -- she immediately knows that her sister must be up in her room, and that something must be wrong.

Some shots of coming back from Karuizawa a couple weeks ago. My friend is into touring around Japan on his bike, therefore he has a copy of Touring Mapple. Incidentally, you've been in Japan too long when you can hear a word like "mapple" and not break out into hives.

One of the long-term problems about living in Japan is learning enough kanji to say, tour around the countyside with a map only in Japanese, becuase no English or bilingual map would be reliable enough. The solution is to just learn to read it all.

The snow was largely melted when we were up there two weeks ago. I'm sure it will all be gone this weekend. That's Mt. Asama by the way, the volcanoe that erupted lasat year.

Having some beer? Nothing goes better than peanuts & rice crackers and French Toast sticks.

Random shot of a poem by Mitsuo Aida. It says, "Happiness is always decided in your own heart." I really respect the work of Aida-san, who is one of the most famous calligraphers of postwar Japan and has done great things with using characters as poetic design elements.

A great day for Japanese baseball, all about the Cherry Blossom, and March construction season

Japan is ecstatic over its 10-6 win over Cuba, which allowed the country to clench the first-ever World Baseball Classic championship at Petco Stadium in my own home town of San Diego. All through the country Japanese stopped what they were doing to watch the game, and in Tokyo's Akihabara electronics district, all display TVs were tuned to watch while hundreds gathered to cheer. The victory was celebrated in all corners of the country, and the fervor got so heated there were some injuries among people lining up to buy copies of the newspaper proclaiming Japan's win. Watching it all on the news, I remember thinking that Japan needs more of this kind of positive national feedback to stay healthy as a people. Sometimes I think that Japan is too reserved, and when I look at my wife and her mother -- who have never shared an emotional embrace, even after my wife came back from years of studying in the U.S., since it's just not done here -- it seems to me that Japan needs more positive ways to show their emotions. Anyway, congratulations to the Japan team!

The national flower of Japan is the chrysanthemum, but anyone visiting the country could be forgiven for assuming that it was the cherry blossom, or sakura. At the beginning of spring each year the sakura bloom beautifully throughout Japan, and during that time, tens of thousands of people will descend on parks with sakura trees to engage in hanami, or flower viewing, basically an excuse to spread out a blanket with some friends and get drunk while sakura petals fall all around you. During this "season of the sakura," the Japanese news features daily "sakura reports," letting cherry blossom enthusiasts know the current condition of flowers in various parts of the country as the trees bloom from south to north. It all comes to a head as the flowers reach mankai, becoming fully opened and at their most beautiful. Yesterday marked the official opening of the first sakura in Tokyo, coming a full week earlier than most years. Flower viewing has been popular for centuries, beginning with nobles in the Nara period (710-784) and catching on with commoners in the subsequent centuries.

Today I had to drive across town, and it took me about an hour to get there due to all the traffic. It wasn't because of an accident, but instead a normal phenomenon found in Japan this month: the end-of-year road work, when government agencies hurry to use up their budgets before the Japanese fiscal year ends March 31. Japan is a country addicted to construction, and by law all car- and gasoline-related taxes must be used to build roads and only roads, even if there's no particular need for more roads this year. As a result, March always marks a huge increase in road work throughout the country, with no actual benefit visible to anyone. If Japan wants to devote so much of its budget process to construction, why don't they use it in ways that are more useful, like burying those ugly power lines underground, or bringing fast Internet to more parts of the country?

Bilingualism and "English wars" between my kids, the American-or-British question, and 4-kanji phrases

I've always been fascinated with the subject of bilingualism, of how the brain adapts to thinking in two languages, and I watch this process in my kids whenever I can. The other day I caught an interesting exchange between my son and daughter, who both speak both Japanese and English, but with different areas of expertise. For some reason, they were having a fight, and Rina (whose pronunciation of English is excellent) asked teasingly, "Kazuki, can you say the word 'perfect'?" This word, like "girl" "jewelry" and "It's the rich aroma and full body of Excella that wakes the morning all around the world" (from Meg Ryan's Nescafe commercial), seems to be difficult for Japanese to say, and my son has a complex about having a "katakana" accent when he speaks English. Kazuki knows a lot more vocabulary than his sister, though, and fired back, asking if she knew what "condensation" meant (a word he picked up in his science class). He scored a victory when she didn't know the word. I was having great fun eavesdropping on their "English wars."

When I was studying Japanese at SDSU, I enjoyed hunting down and learning a certain kind of phrase that exists in Japanese (and Chinese) called yomoji jukugo 四文字熟語 or four-character idiomatic compounds. Similar to the concept of idioms in English, these phrases are always written with four kanji characters, and Japanese people usually don't expect foreigners to know them, which makes them extra-fun to learn. The phrase happo bijin (八方美人, ha-POH BE-jeen) literally means "eight-direction beautiful person" and describes someone who tries to be liked by everyone but is trusted by no one. Next, nana-korobi ya-oki (七転八起, na-na koh-ROH-bee yah-OH-kee) could be translated as "fall down seven times, get up an eighth" and is similar to "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Jigo jitoku (自業自得, ji-GOH ji-TOH-koo) is written with kanji that mean "self-enterprise, self-profit," and the phrase corresponds to "you've made your bed, now sleep in it" or "it serves you right." One of the most famous 4-character compound words is the slogan of the Meiji Restoration, when pro-Emperor reformers worked to overthrow the Shogunate and "restore" the Emperor to power as a monarchy, sonno joi (尊王攘夷, sone-NOH JOH-ee), or "Respect the Emperor, expel the foreign barbarians" (just like our T-shirts). Finally, there's a word I like a lot, issho kenmei (一生懸命, ee-SHO KEN-mei), which literally means "risking your only life" and corresponds to "trying hard with all your might."

Almost all Japanese study six years of English by the time they're done with high school, but there's a question with no official answer: do they study American or British English? The Japanese have always had great respect for England, a brethren island nation with a strong culture, and have patterned much of their government after the U.K., right down to NHK, which is essentially a clone of the BBC. Still, the Japanese tend to study American pronunciation and spelling ("color" not "colour"), as a general rule, in part because of the long influence of the postwar occupation but also because of the "Hollywood factor" -- the cumulative effect of all those rented episodes of '24.' I've got a singer friend named Chaka who went to Australia and was told she had an "American" accent, which really surprised her, since she never thought much about what kind of English she was learning.

J-List is hiring! We have a full-time opening in our San Diego office that involves packing orders, working at anime conventions and assisting printing of T-shirts and hoodies. If you're in the San Diego area already and are interested in helping us spread our brand of Japanese pop culture to others, we hope you'll consider applying. For more information and an application, see this page.

Cultural reasons behind self-introductions in Japan, how to find good sushi, and Zeta Gundam III

A word you hear a lot in Japan is jiko shoukai (自己紹介) which just means "self introduction" but which has a special cultural meaning here. In almost any situation where people will be interacting, be it a classroom, a part-time job or the local PTA board, a new member will always stand and make a formal self introduction, telling the others their name (including how to write it in kanji), where they're from, what their hobbies or other interests are, and so on. Giving this information to the other members of the group allows them to categorize the newcomer properly, and in a country like Japan where factors like age and how long a person has been associated with an organization can determine their position in the senpai/kouhai (senior/junior) system, an official self introduction is important for everything to work properly. The new member of the group will usually use the phrase yoroshiku onegai shimasu, which is often translated as "nice to meet you" but is a lot deeper than that -- it carries with it a humble request that the current group members take the new person under their wing and aid them in the future. Jiko shoukai are used in ESL teaching a lot, too, and since formal self introductions are seen as the "most basic" form of human communication in Japan, the first thing a Japanese student of English leans to do is introduce themselves.

Our landlocked prefecture of Gunma is as far from the sea as you can get in Japan, but we love sushi nevertheless, and are always looking for good sushi restaurants. Japanese usually eat their most famous food mawari-zushi style, with plates of sushi moving along a conveyor belt, allowing you to take whatever you feel like eating as it glides by. Over the past half decade or so, Japan has experienced a deflationary spiral, with the prices for several everyday items actually falling. During that time, it seemed that the only sushi restaurants that could flourish were the cheapest ones, which offered plates of sushi for 100 yen or less. My wife and I disliked this trend, since the neta (the fish part of the sushi) at these places always left a lot to be desired, and life is too short to eat bad sushi, after all. Happily, we finally found a place that serves better quality fish at reasonable prices, with delicious red maguro and beautifully shaped ebi and tako, just the way we like it. As I've mentioned before, the very best sushi in Japan can be found in Narita City, near the airport. If you're ever in the area in the evening, take the train to Narita Station and ask any taxi deiver where Edokko sushi is (it's a three-minute walk from the station).

I took the day off early yesterday to go to a movie with my son. It was the third and final chapter in the Zeta Gundam: A New Translation movie trio, which compiles the 1985 Zeta Gundam anime series into three movies, adding new animation and various scenes in. As a card-carrying old school anime fan, I've always liked Zeta Gundam, the proverbial "Empire Strikes Back" of the Gundam world, when everything came together just so. It was great seeing the new designs for the characters as well as the new, improved ending. Being the father of a ten-year-old boy has given me a great excuse to experience a second childhood along with him. Oh, see the trailer here (Quicktime 6 req'd).

The Japan-only Kit Kat flavors have been extreme popular this year, and now we've got a new variety: delicious French Bretagne Milk, a white chocolate Kit Kat created by Le Patissier Takagi, who you may know from his appearances on Iron Chef. It's in stock on the site now! We've still got the excellent Green Tea Kit Kat for 2006 in stock, too, although we've sold through more than a quarter of our stock in just a week, so we recommend picking yours up sooner rather than later.

Spring is here, and there's no better way to deal with the constantly-changing weather than with one of our J-List hooded sweatshirts! J-List's hoodies are soft and warm, made of the best 80-20 blends available. We've got wacky messages like "Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend" and "Support the Emperor and Expel the Foreign Barbarians" as well as other aesthetically pleasing kanji. We're happy to announce reduced shipping on all our hoodies both inside the U.S. and for international customers, making it easy to pick up a hoodie!

Some shots from the film. If you're afraid of spoilers, stop reading now, although Zeta Gundam fans seem to extremely rare, well below the species threshold. Here's a shot of Camille, which according to Wikiedia is spelled Kamille (ugh).

This is Hamaan Kahn, the cool bitch of the Zeta universe. Damn, now I have to watch Gundam 0083 to see her 5 second cameo in that show.

The ending was reworked. While I won't give anything specific away, I'll say that "all the stupid stuff was undone" (and that goes for all of ZZ Gundam). Here's a money shot of Sayla, Char's sister and a character in the original series (famous for saying "Casval-oniichan!").

Mirai had to get a scene at the end, too. Amuro, too.

Another shot of Hamaan. God I love the redesign on her.

This totally snuck up on me! One of my favorite comics ever, coming to to a theatre near me. How thoughtful.

American magazines in the Japanese news marketplace, creases on your eyelids, and the truth about slurping noodles

Japan is a very literate nation, and there are many daily newspapers and weekly magazines that report and compile the news for Japanese readers. Over the past decade, as people here have gotten used to more and more participation in all forms of Japanese life by American and European companies, the American magazine Newsweek has worked to make a name for itself in the Japanese-language news market. Although most of us take the Time-Newsweek-U.S. News magazine format for granted, I'm sure it took some time for Japanese readers to get used to it. Compared with Newsweek's general approach to the week's evebts, most Japanese magazines are more specific, covering politics (AERA, Focus), business (Nikkei Weekly, President), arts and literature (Bungei Shunju), local events (Tokyo Walker, Pia), and so on. While color pages are always present, most Japanese magazines are still largely black-and-white, making Newsweek's all color printing a pleasant surprise for readers. There's one other big difference: it's common practice for some weekly news magazines typically read by men to include a few pages of beautiful models who appear au naturel, to give a little kick to the week's news, something that Newsweek doesn't emulate. The past week's issue had an interesting article asking "who owns English?" which discussed how the language is changing as it's adopted by countries all around the world. Japanese tend to obsess over "correct" English from America and the U.K. to the exclusion of all else, yet English is everywhere, in use in nearly all corners of the world, and always changing. So when the makers of Pocari Sweat come up with a new slogan for their sports drink ("Re-Body," click here to see the commercial I'm talking about), maybe it's not quite as weird as it first sounds.

Last night we had udon (oo-DON) noodles at my house, which are the fat, white noodles, as opposed to the thinner, grey soba (buckwheat) noodles. If you know anything about the way Japanese people eat noodles, you can probably guess that it was a very loud dinner, with everyone slurping away at full volume. We weren't being rude or anything -- you're supposed to slurp your noodles while you eat, bringing the little bowl of noodle sauce close to your mouth and sucking in both noodles and the sauce as you guide the noodles with your chopsticks (this makes it taste better). On several occasions I've found myself on the receiving end of comments from Japanese people that I eat "very quietly," not slurping my noodles enough, but after fifteen years here I think I've got the slurping thing down. While slurping ramen, soba or other noodles is perfectly okay, this doesn't extend to spaghetti, and every once in a while we see someone in a restaurant slurping his pasta like a vacuum cleaner, to the amusement of the other patrons.

In Japan, there are often concepts that are very difficult for Westerners to grasp. One measurement of beauty here is related to the number of creases in a persons eyelid when their eyes are open -- one crease (hitoe, hee-TOE-eh) or two creases (futae, fu-TAH-eh). Single-creasers have slender, traditionally Asian eyes, while those with double creases have larger eyes that look European to the Japanese. Getting plastic surgery to change the appearance of your eyes is quite popular among TV stars and young Japanese (although not as much as South Korea). I have to admit, I'd never considered that people had different numbers of creases in their eyelids until coming here -- it was a totally alien concept to me. Incidentally, we sell a wacky item called Double Eyelid Makeup, basically eye makeup that's very sticky, which "glues" your eyelids so that your eyes look larger, more like a foreigners'. We love to bring you our trademark "wacky things from Japan," this this item certainly fits the bill!

The Final Fantasy XII Potion was a smash hit, the most popular item over the weekend by far. Happily, we've been able to get additional supplies of this great item, which is a blue-colored health drink loaded with herbs and caffeine that comes in a gorgeous blue glass bottle that looks like a health potion from Final Fantasy, with one of six different caps. Whether you want to recharge your hit points or just display this oh-so-cool item, we've got stock for you, and at a reduced price, too. Also, we've posted full sets of these great potions to the site now, at least until our stock of these sells out. Each potion comes in a special box and contains a foil-wrapped card, and will be carefully shipped to you by our dedicated Japanese staff.

I went up to Karuizawa again over the weekend, and decided to visit the outlet center they have there.

Being an outlet, they have lots of stuff like L.L. Bean, Levi's and Eddie Bauer, which may be boring to you, but when you live in Japan these are shops that are convenient to have around. Here you can see that the Nike shop keeps their English at the level of most customers.

I liked this restaurant name.

Among the many stores in this large shopping center, there's one that sells Bounty paper towels, which are a big hit with Japanese housewives, tired of their puny Japanese paper towels.

I wasn't ready for a big jolt of culture shock, when I saw all the Spam you could buy. I mean, the only time I ever had anything to do with Spam was when we played our annual game of Spamball (you hit a can of Spam until it breaks open) at the anime club at SDSU. I go to Japan for a while, and Hormel gets delusions of grandeur?

Good and bad foods from Japan, three Japanese words for you, and lack of "DIY Culture" in Japan

My diet has certainly changed since I came to Japan back in 1991. Like some Americans I wasn't too keen on fish back then, but in the last decade and a half I've really come to appreciate all manner of things from the sea. In addition to many broiled fish I know the names of in Japanese but not in English, I love all types of sushi and sashimi. Other dishes I dig on are donburi ("big bowl of rice") items like Oyakodon ("parent and child bowl" with chicken and egg cooked together over rice) or Tekkadon (slices of maguro on rice with soy sauce mixed with wasabi poured on); gyoza (Chinese dumplings, known as Pot Stickers in the U.S.); and udon and soba noodles. There are plenty of Japanese foods that I can do without, of course, including the infamous natto (fermented soybeans), shirasu (little tiny white fish with big black eyes, my wife loves them), nankotsu (a variety of chicken-on-a-stick made with chicken cartilage), ikizukuri (raw fish that's prepared while it's still alive), and cho (fried up beef intestines, popular in Kyushu). Lately I've been eating a lot of saki ika, which is basically dried, shredded squid you eat like beef jerky. It goes great with beer, and is very low in fat and calories. Maybe there's a squid jerky boom in America's future? (We have some cool cookbooks and saki ika on the site if you're interested.)

I'll teach you three words of Japanese that are fun to know, and which pop up in anime or our PC dating-sim games rather often. First is yappari (やっぱり, ya- PAH-ree, with a small pause where the double consonant is), a word that can be translated as "just as I thought" "as I suspected" or "now that I think about it." If you were to discover that a suspicion you had about someone was true, you'd shout out Yappari! Next is osana najimi (幼なじみ) or childhood friend, a close friend you've played with since before you can remember. In anime it's common for there to be a girl who grew up with the main character, who knows everything about him and who sometimes beats him to a pulp for comic relief. Third is the famous Japanese word gambaru (頑張る), which can be translated as "to work hard" or "try one's best." Japan has a country has great respect for hard work, and they gambaru to pass their college entrance exams, gambaru for the success of their companies -- cute girls will even gambaru to win the hearts of the boys they like. It often appears as a request, gambatte kudasai (gahm-BAT-tay koo-da-sai-ee, "please do your best") or as a command, gambare! (gahm-BAH-ray, "give it your all!").

Each country is different, and the way people buy goods in each country is different, too. One thing I've noticed is a lack of "DIY culture" in Japan, a tendency to take the comfortable route and rely on the services of established companies rather than doing things for yourself. If you're a college student needing an apartment in the U.S., there are probably a lot of places where you can go and read ads for people looking for tenants -- just call them up and make the arrangements. In Japan, though, you'd usually go through a real estate agent or other company who will take one month's rent as a fee. Want to sell a car? In most cities there are areas where people park their cars along the street with a price and a phone number posted, but when Yasu saw this in Philadelphia he experienced culture shock, since you always sell your old car to a professional dealer in Japan.

We've got two big announcements on the J-Snack front today, our first being a welcome one to Japan Kit Kat fans: the availability of the new Green Tea Kit Kat for 2006! This year's Green Tea Kit Kat is better than ever, with a delicious mild taste made with real Uji Matcha, grown near Kyoto. We've got limited stock of what was our single most popular snack item last year, a deluxe package containing 17 individually wrapped Kit Kat bars. We weren't able to get as many of these Kit Kat packages as we wanted to this year and are worried that we might sell out, so if you're a fan of Kit Kat, order yours now!

Then, by massive customer request, we've got another cool item for you: the Final Fantasy XII "Potion" Premium Bottle from Suntory, which are health drinks containing royal jelly, vitamins, herbs and caffeine, made into the shape of health potions. It's really a great concept: you get a one of six beautifully designed large bottles of hit point-healing health potion in a special box, great for displaying or drinking when out doing battle. Each box also has a cool foil-wrapped card, too. Please hurry though, as they are probably not going to last the weekend. If we do sell out, we'll be taking backorders and filling them on a first-come, first-serve basis as we try to get more stock.

Looking for something really unique to wear? J-List has dozens of our original "wacky Japanese T-shirts" featuring unique designs and funny messages, from the bizarre ("Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend") to the aesthetically beautiful. All shirts are full U.S. sizes, printed with loving care by our staff in San Diego. We've updated the photos of our T-shirts with larger images that hopefully make it easier for you to choose which designs might be right for you. Why not browse our wacky T-shirt page today?

Try living in a country with no real peanut butter and no guacamole chips. You'll beg to buy it when you find some. Note: I didn't eat them together.

Picture of a Really Big PC at Yamada Denki. This is like a 32 inch monitor with TV function. It was not actually terrible as far as these things go, but it was being closed out so I guess it didn't take off with customers.

DS Lite is making such a splash right now. I've got one on order for my wife, since she wants to try one out.

A boat of sashimi. This is the best thing in the world. Good with lots of wasabi.

Image of the pathetically small cereal aisle in a Japanese supermarket, not really something you could call an aisle at all. Special K has been on sale here for a few months, but it's just not the same thing as the real stuff back home.

Being a Champion of Justice, thoughts on "Image English" in advertising, and the perfect gifts for White Day

I remain convinced that the foreigners who live in Japan furnish an important service to the country, by providing a voice of criticism and pointing out things that need to be changed. Time and time again I've noticed the power the opinions of gaijin have to effect change in Japan, whether it's asking to have a non-smoking section added to a restaurant or pointing out that the restroom was not as clean as it could be (things Japanese would say "it can't be helped" about). Just today, while going to lunch, we spotted a young woman driving with her 4-year-old daughter who was standing up in the front seat. The idea of child carseats are still somewhat alien to Japan, a country that only passed its first carseat law in 1999, and children playing inside moving cars is something I've seen all to often. When we stopped at a light I went into seigi no mikata ("champion of justice") mode, got out of the car, and publicly reprimanded the mother, telling to put her damn child in a seat belt, at the very least. She immediately complied, embarrassed at being lectured while people in the surrounding cars looked on. Because it was an American doing the admonishing rather than a Japanese person, I'm sure that it's an event she won't soon forget, and hopefully she'll change her ways.

"You know you've been in Japan too long when you are jealous of your friend because the camera strap that came with his new Minolta camera says 'With you for the best scenes of your life' and yours doesn't." Japanese people do have a special relationship with the English language, since nearly all of them study six years, or up to ten years if they go to college. While most don't become fluent in the language, the fact that people are familiar with it is not lost on companies, who have gotten quite good at creating poetic "Image English" for their products. Just as the creators of the Swatch brand came up with that name because they didn't realize it sounded kind of silly in English, Japanese creators of English slogans can be quite creative, and the slogans can make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Some examples of Image English I like are:

For Beautiful Human Life (make-up company Iona)
A happy present from the earth (printed on stationery)
Fashionable Picture Magazine (on magazine masthead)
Urban Contemporary Wave (slogan of hair gel maker Mandom)
Inspire the Next! (slogan of Hitachi)
Drive Your Dreams (Toyota)
Feel Wood (Sumitomo Forestry)
For Precious Life (toilet maker Inax)
Young and Clean (political slogan for the LDP some years ago)

Are you ready for White Day, on March 14th? This is the day when men who received a gift of chocolate on Valentine's Day give some sort of return gift -- okaeshi in Japanese -- to the wives, girlfriends, daughters and female co-workers who gave them something. It's pure marketing fluff, of course, but kind of fun, and companies are happy to take advantage of the event by thinking of ways to sell products. Even Apple gets into the spirit of White Day their Japan store page, by suggesting that men buy engraved iPods for their better halves as a way of saying "Thanks for the chocolate!"

One of the most popular new products to come along recently has been Unazukin (oo-NA-zu-keen), a line of stylish electronic toys that look like a cross between Russian nesting dolls, Weebles and Easter Eggs. These electronic toys interact with you, by nodding (unazuku in Japanese, where the toys get their name from) or shaking their heads from side to side when you talk to them. Bandai has a great new idea for the toy line: Unazukin Gift For You, made specially for giving as gifts, with messages printed right on the toys and a place for you to write a personal note on the box. Today we've got Happy Birthday, Anniversary, and Thank You in stock (the last one might be good for White Day...?). Since they're quite inexpensive, why not buy several to keep in your desk at work for when you need a gift on short notice?

To be a foreigner in Japan is to be at peace with standing out in a crowd, since more often than not you're going to be the only non-Japanese around. Sometimes the best way to manage this is to embrace your differences openly, and show off your uniqueness for all to see. In this spirit, we used our wacky shirt-making minds to create Kiss Me, I'm Gaijin, a really cool design that that shows a stereotypical foreigner holding a cup of coffee, with a message that makes use of the blocky, uniquely Japanese style of the katakana writing system. A great potential conversation starter with cute Japanese exchange students on campus!

I snapped some pictures of the chick in the car before I got out and told her what for. She was very pretty, and appeared to spend a lot of time on her face and make-up. Doesn't she know that the Japanese are dying as a race, and each and every one of them is important? Jeez, stupid mothers...

Over the weekend we took a "Sayonara Bongo Friendee" trip to Numata, our favorite onsen spot. The car's sha-ken is up in a week or so so we have to give the car back to Mazda while we wait for our MPV to be delivered.

Although predictably we seldom opened the top (mainly because the kids would eat up there and spill food), we sure enjoyed this car. If you're in the U.K. and like the looks of this car, maybe you can find one for sale. I'd think they'd be popular in Australia/New Zealand, too.

Japanese city in respoe.

I'm surprised to say I've actually been using my iPod with Video to watch videos. I'm up to episode 13 in Mai Hime. I walk carefully holding the iPod and watching my vids. It works surprisingly well.

A new electronics law in Japan, fun with hi-tech toilets, and some words to live by

Japan is declaring war on used electronics with the upcoming "PSE law" that will take effect next month. Basically, it's a requirement that electronic devices such as televisions, computers or stereos have a special "safety sticker" on it, and since no products sold before 2002 have the sticker, their sale would presumably be illegal. It's a problem for stores that sell vintage video game systems, musical instruments and amplifiers, and other kinds of older electronic devices. Many older Japanese housewives prefer the old 2-tub washing machines to today's newfangled automatics -- you have one tub for washing/soaking and another for rinsing, which some say gets clothes cleaner. Since they're not made anymore, those who prefer the old way have to buy used, which would be hard to do under the new law. Happily, there seem to be quite a few loopholes, for example retailers may perform some inspections themselves, so maybe the effect of the new law won't be that big.

Japan is nothing if not technologically advanced, and living here is a lot of fun if you like gadgets. From phones with eye-poppingly advanced features to those dreamy chairs that massage away your daily stress, a trip to an electronics store in Japan is never boring. When I first came to Japan I was fascinated by those toilets that wash and dry your butt for you, which Japanese toilet maker Toto has named the washlet. In addition to providing a warm seat to sit on, so welcome on cold winter nights, the unit sends a stream of warm water to clean your nether regions, with options like a bidet (for ladies, although being a guy I'm rather fuzzy on all the bidet stuff), a water massage feature, and an air dryer for paperless operation. These washlet units are extremely popular here, with 60% of Japanese homes owning them -- the fact that they help constipated people get through their business is probably a major selling point, as all Japanese women seem to suffer from this problem. They're starting to appear in the U.S., too, although I don't imagine most homes come with convenient electric plugs installed behind their toilets as they do in Japan.

The Japanese spend a lot of time worrying about the welfare and education of their children, perhaps because there are so few of them being born. If you drive around our city you can see these metal signs put up by the local PTA, with thoughtful slogans like "those who don't show respect their parents won't receive it from their children" and "think of ways to make your household a bright and cheerful place for your child to come home to after school." I heard of a new slogan that adults teach to kids to protect them from some of the more unsavory elements of society: ika no osushi (ee-KA no oh-SOO-she, meaning squid sushi). The word breaks down into the following parts: ikanai ("don't go" e.g. don't go anywhere with a stranger), noranai ("don't ride," e.g. don't get into a stranger's car), okii koe wo dasu (yell for help if you need it), and sugu ni shiraseru (tell a grown-up right away if you have a problem). This feel-good Japanese message has been brought to you by the Sunday night "anime golden time" of Chibi Maruko-chan and Sazae-san, which are part of the end-of-weekend ritual at our house.

My wife is a collector of Licca-chan, the cute fashion doll made by Takara that's been sold in Japan since 1967. This is a rare item, a Hina doll set made using Licca as a base.

This was a limited edition item, with just 200 made in the whole country. My wife really wanted the version with Licca sitting down, but had to settle for this one instead.

Licca is half Japanese, half French, which is kind of the risou (ideal) for Japanese doll fantasy building. She's the daughter of a Japanese fashion designer and a French musician, about as cool as you can get.

My wife kept insisting that Licca's boyfriend was named Ken, then she remembered his name is Takeru.