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

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

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

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

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

Let's go eat a steak in Japan!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"As seen on TV."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A welcome sight to any gaijin!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ah, curry, the basic food of Japan!

Funny English is everywhere!

Even more funny English!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Funny things you may see in Japan, strategies for taking tests, and an important difference between Japanese and American schools

Hello again from Japan where getting your hair colored is known as a "hair manicure."

For some reason, one of the weirdest sights you can see in Japan is two foreigners using Japanese to carry on a conversation. Although it's theoretically no different from people from France and Germany using a third language to communicate, the sight of two gaijin chatting in nihongo looks very strange here, and will often get amused giggles from passers-by. I used to have an Iranian friend who spoke no English, so we had to use Japanese to communicate. He'd ask me if America was really the way it looked in Hollywood movies, and I'd ask questions about life back in Iran, and we both learned a lot. Once I flew to the States on Varig, the national carrier of Brazil, and learned that Brazilians aren't generally fluent in my native tongue. Any small talk I wanted to make with the people around me had to be done in Japanese.

I remember those standardized tests we had to take back in school, the ones where you had to use a No. 2 pencil (although I have yet to encounter a No. 1 or No. 3 pencil in my life). The teachers would try their best to give us some strategies for the tests, like, make sure you blacken in the circles completely and, if you have time at the end, go back and check your answers. The Japanese are a bit more focused on tests than I was during my education, and the idea of studying for a university entrance exam isn't really about simply learning the subjects that will be tested, but rather how to approach the test itself. Teachers who prepare their students to take the test for a school like the prestigious Aoyama Gakuin University have to research the past year's exams so they can help predict what the students need to cram for this year, and there are prep schools that do nothing but prepare students to get into a single university. Students want results, and these prep schools will advertise the percentage of students who got into their school of choice each year. When it came time for my kids to take the "Eiken" test, the standard test of English that's usually taken by much older students, my wife plotted a complex strategy for them, allowing them to score points on their strengths (listening comprehension) while avoiding the difficult patches (long-paragraph reading and "find the grammatical errors" exercises). Both passed with flying colors.

If you've ever tried complimenting a Japanese person on something, their language ability for example, you might be surprised to hear them deny your compliment. A big part of being Japanese is having humility, which is called kenson (KEN-son) in Japanese, and as a rule people here take great pains to avoid appearing boastful and proud. When a Japanese person gives you a gift, they'll usually say, "This isn't very interesting, but please accept it," or if it's food, "I'm not sure if this tastes good or not." One major difference between schools in the U.S. and Japan that I've noticed is that here, the children themselves are responsible for every lick of cleaning that goes on in their school, from sweeping to wiping off desks to cleaning the bathrooms, including the "big cleaning" that's done at the end of the year. There are no janitors at Japanese schools, just a handyman for doing jobs like changing out lights -- all the cleaning is the responsibility of the students. This certainly has some budgetary benefits for schools, but it also helps build character and yes, a little humility, in the kids. This tradition of self-cleaning is carried over into many companies, and every Monday morning the J-List employees wipe, sweep, clean and vacuum the office to make sure we have a clean place to work in all week.

Remember that J-List sells incredibly warm hooded sweatshirts that are perfect for cooler months, or for throwing on the evenings when it cools down. Our hoodies feature cool kanji designs, from our classic "Looking for a Japanese Girlfriend" design to our fun "Respect the Emperor and Expel the Foreign Barbarians." We've also got our great Domo-kun hoodies for you, a great way to show your individuality and love of Japanese pop culture. While most of the hoodies we see being sold online are the inferior 50/50 blends that feel rough against the skin after a short time, we sell the best hoodies money can buy, with high quality 80/20 blends that are really soft and cozy.

The Japanese fear of making mistakes, the end of the Japanese blood type myth, and panty shots in anime you didn't expect to see

Although the Japanese generally study six years of English (or up to ten if they take it in college), they're not as a rule famous for their linguistic skills. There's a long list of reasons why this is so -- English is considered a "test" subject like math, science and Japanese history, grammar and vocabulary are invariably taught in Japanese by Japanese teachers, there are relatively few native speakers around to practice with, and so on. Another big reason many Japanese can have trouble attaining competence in a foreign language is fear of making errors. I saw a concrete example of this many years ago while working at a Japanese supermarket in San Diego, where I noticed a tiny sticker that read "curry" stuck on a box of Vermont Curry. (By the way, you've been in Japan too long when you no longer find anything unusual in the concept of "Vermont Curry.") Being the curious type, I removed the sticker to see that the company had accidentally printed "carry" on the package, a natural enough mistake for a foreign company to make, and had been compelled to fix the error in a way that actually brought more attention to the problem. Many Japanese seem to be quite fearful of making mistakes when speaking English, and it's hard for them to overcome this barrier when they go to a foreign country and must get over "pre-thinking" what they want to say before saying it. In reality, errors are part of the feedback essential for communication, and I've never forgotten a vocabulary word that I screwed up royally with when using the first time. If I had a secret weapon when it came to studying Japanese it was that I never concerned myself with the zillions of errors I made as I try to get my point across to someone.

Historically, the Japanese have placed a great store in what blood type a person is, and some (admittedly silly) people adhere to the belief that the shape and antigen type of your red blood cells can determine your personality. Supposedly, type A folks are straight-laced, serious about everything, very organized, like Felix from The Odd Couple if you're old enough to know what I'm talking about; type B are "my pace," e.g. they go at their own pace, live in their own world, quickly get bored with things that don't interest them, and speak their minds to a fault; type O are very bold, hate to lose and have good leadership skills; and AB people are often so smart they look strange to everyone else. A few years ago there was a series of TV shows that purported to do experiments on groups of people, seeing how kids of different blood types would solve problems for example. For years, my wife would make pronouncements about me or my kids, that we did such-and-such because of our blood type, but she recently received a shock that caused her world view to come crashing down, when a doctor friend of ours asked my kids if they'd like to see their own blood in a microscope. It turned out that both my meticulous son who keeps a detailed log of all his weekly allowance expenditures and my not-a-care-in-the-world daughter who passed a difficult English test by guessing at the answers are both type O, and not A and B as she'd expected.

Have you gained some weight? If you're a big person and come to Japan, be prepared to hear light-hearted comments about your weight. Although it's usually not polite to make direct mention of a person's girth in the U.S., in Japan it's quite common to start a conversation with an acquaintance by asking him if he's gained weight recently before getting down to the discussion at hand. It's not fun, but you get used to it quickly enough, and the Japanese mean no harm in it -- it's just a kind of small talk, like discussing the weather or the economy, since there are so few people who are on the big side here. (Actually, it's okay when they comment on your weight. If they stop mentioning it altogether, you might have a problem.)

We've just finished doing more upgrades to the J-List website today. Unfortunately the changes to the site might have caused browser cookies to be reset, clearing the shopping cart contents for some customers using the site right as we did the changeover. Very sorry for the inconvenience if you were using the site at the time. Pesky IE7 and its mis-directed anti-phishing warnings...

Remember that J-List sells a magazine that's personally done a lot of good for me, Nihongo Journal, a monthly periodical featuring Japanese lessons for many levels, from beginner-intermediate on up, covering a variety of language areas, from business Japanese to conversational speaking to preparing for the JLPT. We carry the magazine via our popular "Reserve Subscription" service which lets you get Japan's most interesting magazine sent to you each month. As with our other subscriptions for Japan's anime, manga, fashion, JPOP, men's and other magazines, you can pay month-to-month as each issue comes in via credit card, check or money order or Paypal, or you can pre-pay for a year's subscription all at once.

I've been on quite a tear recently, watching classic anime like Touch (the most excellent baseball manga ever), Arion (hilarious combination of Zeta Gundam characters with the Greek Pantheon), and lately, the original Yamato. I thought it'd be fun to compare with the original U.S. release.

There are, ah, a few scenes that I don't remember seeing before. And don't even get me started on Dr. Sado (Dr. Sane) and his "spring water" with the "sake" kanji clearly written on the label.

The fan translation I'm watching is done by Central Anime in Kansas (major shout out to you guys!), which is funny since Gunma (where I am) is probably the "Kansas" of Japan. These guys put lots of great commentary in the translation like what was going on historically when the episode was first aired. They also did the Touch translation.

Most interesting, of course, where the World War II sections that were not in the U.S. version, at least to my recollection.

As I recall, they said "The Yamato" in one line, then renamed it the Argo (bleah) right away. This version had a long scene devoted to the last battle of the Yamato.

Through one of those bizarre coincidences Japan likes to throw at you (like the one about how, through random chance, I just happened to come live in the city where the creator of my favorite anime/manga Touch was born and marry a woman who happened to share his birthdate of 2-9), they showed Otokotachi no Yamato, the film about the end of the ship, the next day, and it was "timely-sugiru" so I watched it.

It's hilarious to realize how totally Star Trek (TNG and beyond) gets its cues from the Yamato series. Like the Holodeck.

A reeeeally cool bunch of parody anime dubbers (no, not that bunch of parody anime dubbers) called Cornpone, who have made many things that I haven't seen, did a great (long) short film called Animation vs. Live Action, in which they basically pit the TNG Enterprise against the Yamato/Argo, and other fun stuff.

Japan's latest shining baseball star, fun space-saving innovations, and Japan is wasted on the Japanese

Japan takes its baseball seriously, and right now the whole country is closely watching Daisuke Matsuzaka as he starts his new career with the Red Sox. A longtime favorite among Japanese baseball fans for his boyish face and strong pitching repertoire, Daisuke is the latest player to make the hop into the Big Leagues. This guy was literally born to play baseball -- his mother named him after Daisuke Araki, the star of the Koshien high school baseball championship the year he was born, and he went on to win the Koshien championship with his high school in 1998. When he joined the Seibu Lions as their #1 draft pick, he distinguished himself further by striking out the .380-batting Ichiro three times in a row the first time they went head to head, which no had ever done. Like every Japanese baseball player, he married an attractive "announcer" (newscaster), but his relationship with the lovely Tomoyo Shibata caused quite a scandal at the time, since she's five years older then him (they called her a cradle robber). As usual, the Japanese go wild over their citizens who achieve recognition outside Japan, be it baseball players like Daisuke or Ichiro, directors like Otomo or Miyazaki, or mangaka like Shirow Masamune, and this is no exception. (When Kenzaburo Oe won the Nobel Prize for literature it was funny to watch most Japanese people wearing questioning manga faces, saying "Who's that?")

Since Japan has just 1/25 the land area of the U.S. but half its population, people here have to come up with innovative ways of using land efficiently. Some friends of ours recently built a restaurant near the center of town, and did what many business owners do: they built their house above their restaurant, with a separate entrance and everything. My house is the same, with half of the downstairs taken up by our rural liquor shop, especially handy when I run out of beer late at night. Imagine if the Denny's near you was built on stilts to allow cars to park underneath, so that the parking lot and the restaurant itself could share the same plot of land? In Japan that's how it's usually done. Sometimes when I go to the Prefectural Office in Maebashi I put my car in the vertical parking garage, essentially a giant elevator that stores your car until you're ready for it, then spits it out when you need it again. And whenever my mother comes to Japan, she has to get a picture of the Japanese gas stations with the pumps located above the cars with hoses that drop down, enabling a gas station to be constructed in a much smaller space than could otherwise be used.

Youth is wasted on the young, they say, and in a similar way, Japan is wasted on the Japanese. Foreign visitors are always taken with the beautiful temples of Kyoto and Nara or the graceful Himeji Castle near Kobe, yet all too often it seems that Japanese are quite ho-hum about the amazing country they live in. I've travelled all around Japan, hitchhiking or taking the Youth 18 ticket that lets you go anywhere you want within a 24 hour period for around $20 as long as you don't consider spending 16 hours inside a slow local train to be a drawback, but I've yet to meet a Japanese who feels quite the same way about this place as I do. Japanese high school students usually take a school trip to Kyoto but most of the time they're bored when they get there, and when my wife saw the beautiful rock garden at Ryoan-ji in Kyoto she admitted a strong desire to run out and mess up all the little rocks that were combed so neatly. Taking your own country for granted certainly isn't limited to Japan, of course -- I have a friend in Rome who's never been to Venice, just a few hours away by car, and there are many places the staff of J-List has visited in the U.S. that I've never been to. So I guess it's all part of being human.

We've got a treat for fans of PC dating-sim games: we're permanently dropping the price of Casual Romance Club by $10. A fantastic game from Japanese publisher Libido, it's in a class by itself since it was released in Japan already translated, and it's the only game where you can choose to hear the girls' voices in the original Japanese or cutely accented English. In addition to a unique gaming dating system in which you actually go on dates with the girls in the club, the game comes in a large Japanese box with the most beautiful printed game manual you'll ever see, hardcover and glossy and fully translated into English. Enjoy the game at its new price!