Japanese Magazines with Free Stuff Inside

One of the coolest trends in monthly magazines is giving freebees to readers, called omake (oh-mah-kay), and many of the magazines J-List sells via our convenient revolving monthly subscription service give awesome free stuff. One of our favorites is Megami Magazine, which is apparently on a mission to bankrupt itself by giving 25+ free posters in each issue, all with awesome original art. Then there are manga or moe magazines that give you free figures and keychains and pencil boards, like Dengeki Maoh/Daioh/G's or Shonen Ace. Fashion magazines for guys and girls get in on the fun too, and you can get some great free stuff sent with each issue of Mini or SMART and S Cawaii. Men's magazines get into the act as well, and these have been so popular it's been hard for us to keep them in stock. Why not consider subscribing to some of Japan's best magazines now through J-List? You never need to pay in advance and you can cancel or switch magazines at any time.

Japan and Inefficiency

I happened to see a report that put Japan's gross domestic product per capita -- the amount of goods and services that each person produces over the course of a year -- at $38.371 in 2008, which ranked it 19th among industrial nations. While some of this is of course related to the weak economy and currency changes, it's also indicative of one of the basic themes of Japan as a whole: inefficiency. When you drive past road construction, there are sure to be several men whose job it is to stand by the road with orange flashlights, ostensibly directing traffic even though everyone ignores them. When individuals or businesses need to send money to someone, you can't mail a check as they don't exist here; instead, you go to the bank and execute a manual bank transfer (furikomi), paying a $6 fee to the bank for this privilege. And amazingly, an employee of NHK still comes around to our house every month to pick up the 2000 yen viewing fee (equivalent to the license fee for the BBC). rather than having it paid automatically the mail. In case you were wondering, the top five countries were Luxembourg, Norway, Singapore, the United States and Ireland.

Japan's efficient parking ojisans start another busy day.

Are You Ready for Valentine's Day?

Valentine's Day is just around the corner. Why not celebrate it like the Japanese do? In Japan, women give chocolate to their boyfriends, husbands or bosses to express their feelings of love or gratitude, and speaking from experience, chocolate received on February 14 is the most delicious in the world. Right now J-List is loaded with good chocolate products, from classics like Meltykiss, Japan Kit Kat and Pocky to the pre-packaged gift chocolates we're posting today. We even have handy wrappers and molds for making cool handmade chocolate, to say nothing of all those awesome Mousse-chan Paper Clay molds, which could be used to create awesome chocolates in any shape you like.

Japan and the U.S. Celebrate 50 Years of Cooperation

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the U.S. and Japan, which outlines the military arrangement between the two nations. Although it's hard to think of two countries that have had a closer and more successful relationship than the United States and Japan over the past five decades, some new challenges have cropped up recently. Prime Minister Hatoyama's government is trying to negotiate moving the large Futenma air base in Okinawa somewhere else, perhaps to Guam, which is likely to be a logistical nightmare for the U.S. military. The government recently ended its refueling mission for U.S. warships in the Indian Ocean, a condition set by the minority Social Democratic Party which makes up part of the current ruling coalition, and there's currently a lot of discussion about what would happen if China offers to take over the refueling instead. Japan could find itself passed by in world affairs, with less influence in the future.

The U.S.-Japan security treaty turns 50 years old.

Social Insecurity

How would you feel if the government lost your Social Security records, so that years of work and payments into the pension system were effectively erased? That's exactly what happened in Japan, and the government is still cleaning up the mess. During the 1970s, the records of thousands of Japanese workers went missing as they were being computerized. Part of the problem was the inherent vagueness of the Japanese language, with its complex kanji names that can be pronounced in different ways, and the lack of a standard taxpayer ID number like Social Security numbers in the U.S. added to the confusion. Anger over the pension errors was a contributing factor in the defeat of the Liberal Democratic Party last year, as voters looked for payback from politicians. I was surprised to find that I, too, was a victim of the great Disappearing Pension Payment Problem, and four years I'd spent working as a teacher were not recorded properly. Fortunately I was able to get the situation straightened out okay.

The Japanese government has had to scramble to find lost pension payments.

Gaijin Shock

The other day I was shopping in a supermarket when I suddenly came face to face with two girls around 5-6 years of age who had been browsing the Pocky aisle together. Their eyes got wide at the unexpected sight of a big gaijin in the store, and there were a few seconds of silence, which I dispelled by waving my hand at them with a friendly "Hello." Whenever I meet Japanese kids I take great care to make a good impression, since I know that I'm often the first non-Japanese they're encountering in this rural part of Japan, and doing anything they perceived as scary might make them mistrustful of foreigners in the future. Usually it works out well, but every once in a while a baby will decide to cry his head off when approached by this strange-looking blonde-haired monster.

Early foreigners in Japan. Man I'd have loved to see the country back then.

If English Is Your Native Language, Hug Your Parents Now

If English is your native language, make sure you give your parents a big hug next time you see them: they saved you from the horror of learning English as a second language. The complexity of English seems custom-made to vex poor Japanese ESL learners like my wife, who struggles with the language even after all these years. Once someone in the U.S. told her, "You're from Japan? Neat!" and she replied, "No, I have a job" -- she'd confused the normal English adjective with NEET, as in Japan's legendary hikikomori shut-ins. Then there was the time we were in the drive-thru and she saw the CLEARANCE sign, indicating the maximum height of cars that could pass through, and she wondered if McDonald's was allowed to sell old food at discounted "clearance" prices like that. The combination of fewer sounds in Japanese compared with English and the lack of plurals makes it easy to confuse the word "chopsticks" with ChapStick lip balm, and there's an enormous potential for L/R confusion, like the time she asked for some "gross" lipstick. Of course, I've managed to put my foot in my mouth in Japanese plenty of times, too, like the time I confused hinan (to evacuate, to escape) and hinin (to use contraceptive) when talking with a pretty girl (facepalm).

So to any readers who didn't learn English as your first language, how hard was it? Do the Japanese inherently have more difficulty with it or is it maddening for everyone?

English is a very difficult language for Japanese to master.

In Japan, America Equals "BIG"

McDonald's Japan has been marketing itself in unique ways recently, such as using a parody of a gaijin called Mr. James in its commercials, which amused Japanese and angered some foreigners and generally succeeded at getting people talking about the company's quasi-food products. Their newest idea is the Big America Burger series, four giant hamburgers named after different parts of the U.S. The current offering is the mighty Texas Burger loaded with barbecue sauce and bacon, soon to be followed by the New York Burger, the California Burger, and exotic Hawaiian Burger. The key idea is BIG, since the company knows from its past successes that Japanese consumers will buy oversized hamburgers, and it's only natural to tie this concept to America itself. The Japanese perception of United States is that everything is big, from houses to cars and various body parts, and every foreigner is automatically assumed to be taller than every Japanese by default. Back in my ESL days I'd visit someone's home to teach their kids, and the mothers would apologize for their "small house," which I always found amusing since the house was often larger than mine back in San Diego.

The Japanese associate America with "BIG."

Random Wacky Products at J-List

J-List loves being a bridge between Japan and the rest of the world and finding wacky items for our customers, like the popular Banana Carrying Case we sell , or those awesome Japanese Sandwich Makers, which turn a boring sandwich into something much cooler. Often we find things no one in the world expected to find when they got out of bed, like Lucky Cat toilet paper or the awesome Yura Yura Clover toys. Our Takoyaki Maker was so popular that customers started asking for a Taiyaki Maker for making those delicious fish-shaped sweets with pancake batter, and now we've got two different ones in stock. Finally, ever since those Star Wars chopsticks came out I haven't used any others. They're the most enjoyable chopsticks I've ever held in my hand.

Yakudoshi, my Year of Calamity

This morning my wife walked into my office with a beautifully ornate wooden name plate, which she placed on top of my bookshelf. This year I turn 42 years old, so 2010 is my yakudoshi, my unlucky "year of calamity" according to a complex Japanese belief system that crossed over from China centuries ago, and my wife had asked a Buddhist temple that her relatives run to say special bad luck-removing prayers for me, writing my name on the wooden talisman. According to this yakudoshi system, the ages of 25, 42 and 61 (for men) and 19, 33 and 37 (for women) are extremely unlucky, and you should avoid doing certain things like building a house, starting a business or otherwise making a major change in your life during these years. (The years before and after each unlucky year are also somewhat unlucky.) Of course, I privately laugh at some of the superstitions the Japanese come up with, like don't whistle at night or you'll be attacked by snakes, or if three people appear in a photograph together, the one in the middle will die young. But the yakudoshi belief is pretty much "the" primary superstition in Japan, held by every Japanese I've met, so just to be on the safe side, I'll avoid building any houses this year.

You can remove bad luck at a Buddhist temple, for a small fee.

English as a Secret Code in Japan

There are many skills a foreigner needs if he wants to live in Japan, like how to say biiru o kudasai (beer, please) and hen na gaijin desu (I'm a strange foreigner), two of the first phrases you learn here for some reason. Learning to to kneel on tatami mats for hours on end with your legs not falling asleep is helpful, too. Another skill that comes in handy is the ability to speak extra-difficult English, which allows you to communicate with other native speakers without Japanese understanding. If you wanted to make a comment on how cute a certain girl is but keep her from letting on, you might say "I am quite infatuated with the member of the fairer gender standing adjacent to you." The trouble is, you never know for sure how good their English might be. Once in a KFC, I made a comment to a friend about how the word "Colonel" -- kaanaru as the Japanese say it -- sounded like the English word "carnal." Imagine my surprise when the Japanese girl at the register said "Yes, I've often thought that" to me in perfect English (she'd grown up in Los Angeles). Another good way to speak in code around Japanese people is to use Pig Latin, which will scramble any sentence to incomprehensibility in short order. When I taught it to my son, he thought it was the coolest thing in the world, and soon had all his friends speaking it.

You never know when someone will speak really good English in Japan.

Japan and Earthquakes

The world is in shock over the destruction from the terrible earthquake in Haiti, and the Japanese media has been covering the tragedy closely. Being one of the most volcanically active countries in the world, Japan is no stranger to earthquakes, and here small to medium quakes happen all the time, as my knocked-over Star Wars figure collection can attest. This Sunday happens to mark the 15th anniversary of the Great Hanshin Earthquake, the terrible 7.3 magnitude quake which shook Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto back in 1995. Because the Kansai area usually has less seismic activity than Tokyo, the earthquake safety codes were less strict, which caused a horrible amount of damage and the loss of more than 5000 lives. Our prayers go out to everyone affected by this terrible new tragedy...

Earthquake-prone Japan definitely feels Haiti's pain right now.

Haircuts, Hot Springs and Japanese Numbers

The other day I took some time off to hit one of the onsen hot springs located near J-List. My hair had gotten a bit long, so I opted for Yasuragi no Yu ("Hot Water of Tranquility") because it has a barber shop located on the premises, and I consider getting your hair cut then taking a long bath immediately afterwards to be the pinnacle of human civilization. I was pleased to see that they were having a "thank you sale," lowering the admission price of 500 yen down to 390 yen. The number 390 wasn't just a random number they'd come up with -- the pronunciation of the English words "thank you" are rendered as san kyu in Japanese, which happens to correspond to the numbers 3 and 9, forever linking these concepts in the minds of Japanese speakers. There are some other numbers that have special meanings, too. The number 29 sounds like the word niku meaning "meat," and if you go to a Korean BBQ restaurant on the 29th day of the month you can expect a discount. Similarly, the sound of a dog barking is wan wan! which is also how the number "one" is pronounced, and as a result, it's not hard to find advertisements of a dog holding up his finger, boasting about being "number one."

These onsen style public baths are everywhere in my city, and visit once a week or so.

Smart Companies Embrace Japan's Otaku Culture

Otaku culture is fast becoming the mainstream culture of Japan, and any company that wants to succeed at selling products to the country's multitude of plugged-in young people needs to understand this fact. Some American companies have done surprisingly well in this area, showing that they grok Japan's obsessive popular culture, or at least have sense enough not to interfere when some new meme appears on the Interwebs. Amazon established itself early on as a source for otaku culture, even open to carrying some doujinshi, and McDonald's looks the other way as Japanese artists create bizarre parodies of Ronald McDonald on Pixiv. Apple has an extensive selection of anime music [iTunes link] on the iTunes Japan store (iTunes prepaid cards are here), since the people most likely to embrace new technology also tend to be interested in anime. Microsoft even commissioned an official "OS-tan" mascot character for Windows 7, known as Nanami Madobe. Kawaii?

Smart companies learn to embrace Japan's otaku culture.

The Rise of Cheap "Fast Fashion"

The current economic hard times are bringing some changes to Japan, especially in the area of fashion. In the past, the world's most famous brands enjoyed a loyal following from Japanese consumers, who happily wrapped themselves in the latest offerings from Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Prada. With Japan's export-dependant economy on the rocks, though, many customers have shifted away from these famous brands, embracing the new generation of more affordable "fast fashion" -- the fast food of fashion, meaning inexpensive casual clothing. As a result, brands like Versace are pulling out of Japan while upstarts like Forever 21, Zara and H&M are moving up, even (in the case of Gap clone Uniqlo) into the posh Ginza district.

Cheap clothing brands like Uniqlo are booming these days.

Popular Magazine Subscriptions from Japan

When J-List started our popular "Reserve Subscription" magazine service a decade ago, we had no idea how popular it would become with our customers. You can get just about any magazine from Japan using this service, and since each issue is charged monthly, you never need to pre-pay and can quit at any time. We've got popular anime magazines (Newtype), magazines loaded with posters (Megami Magazine), magazines for game and anime fans (Comptiq, Dengeki G'z), magazines for cosplay culture (Goth-Loli Bible, Cosmode), magazines that teach you Japanese (Hiragana Times), and of course, a whole slew of great fashion mags. Many come with cool free stuff in each issue, such as figures, pencil boards and more. Click here to browse all our magazine subscriptions, or here to view the top 50 this month.

Driving in Optimistic America

Whenever we go to the U.S. for a visit, it seems we discover new differences between our two home countries, and this time we learned that driving habits you pick up in one country can be difficult to discard in another. I'm not talking about driving on the opposite side of the street -- that's not that difficult, as long as you take it slow and go the same way as the other cars on the road. It's other things, like the polite Japanese custom of flashing the emergency lights twice to say "thank you" to a car that's just let you in in front of them, something that isn't done in California, though we found ourselves doing it anyway. Japan's politeness behind the wheel extends to the car's horn, and I found myself actively avoiding the Japanese "short greeting beep" since it might get me dirty looks in the U.S., where honking the horn is usually done in anger. In Japan, all cars are required to stop for three seconds before driving over railroad tracks, and it felt odd to zoom over them without stopping in the U.S. Some driving customs are just too dangerous to bring over, though, like the habit of turning off one's headlights at a stoplight to keep from blinding the person across the intersection from you. I opted to be rude and keep my headlights on.

While in the U.S., we happened to pass by a car with a custom license plate that read SKY LMMT. "That probably stands for 'the sky is the limit,'" I explained, and my Japanese wife observed that this was a very "American" sentiment to have on a license place. I've often been told by Japanese that their impression of Americans is that we're always positive and optimistic about things, an idea which (I've been told) goes back to the days after World War II, when the confidant, can-do attitudes of the American soldiers helped lift the spirits of the defeated Japanese. I encountered the "optimism gap" between Japan and America back in 1996 when I announced to my wife that I wanted to quit my English teaching job and do something with this new thing called the Internet. I knew in my heart that a company selling random and wacky things directly from Japan would be a great business, but the reaction from my Japanese family (especially my conservative mother-in-law) wasn't exactly positive, and I had to work hard to change their minds. So what do you think? Are the Japanese correct in viewing Americans as optimistic, positive people?

Seen from Japan, Americans are very optimistic and positive-minded.

Valentine's Day is Coming!

Valentine's Day is right around the corner, and it's a great time to think about picking up some delicious chocolate products from Japan. J-List stocks hundreds of fun and wacky Japanese snack items, from various flavors of Japan Kit Kat to the awesomeness of Meiji Meltykiss to all the new 2010 flavors of Pocky and new snacks that are fun to discover. Remember, too, that "chocolate season" won't last forever: when the weather starts warm up, we are forced to remove all chocolate from the site to keep it from becoming so much Meltykiss. Click here to see all the snack items we carry, or here to view the top 50 food items on J-List this week.

Coming-of-Age Day in Japan

Today is a holiday in Japan, Seijin-no-hi, or Coming of Age Day, when everyone who turns 20 years old this year is officially recognized as an adult and a full-fledged member of society. Venture into any Japanese city right now and you'll see hundreds of young people decked out in beautiful kimonos and smart new suits, greeting each other and taking group photos together. In Japan, the official age of adulthood is 20 (as commemorated in our wacky "You Must Be 20 Years Old to Purchase Tobacco and Alcohol" T-shirt), and today is a special day to endure long speeches by elderly community leaders, have lunch with friends, then maybe go drinking. For parents it's a proud day, too, and doting fathers are all too happy to plunk down $5000 for a gorgeous kimono that their daughters will in all likelihood wear only once. In the past, Coming of Age Day was always held on January 15, even if that day fell on a weekend, but a few years ago the Japanese government began its "Happy Monday" initiative, which moved these holidays to the nearest Monday.

Sadly, there are fewer new adults in Japan than ever before: just 54,100, a drop of 2794 people from last year due to the low birth rate.

Coming of Age Day is a great time to catch up with old friends while wearing a kimono.

Hanko Name Stamps in Japan

One interesting difference between Japan and the West is the use of hanko, or name stamps, when indicating approval on a document, filling out forms at the bank, and so on. A custom imported from China ages ago, virtually every Japanese carries one of these unique name stamps with them. As a newly-arrived gaijin in Japan, having a name stamp meant the ability to choose an official kanji name for myself, and I remember how much fun it was registering my hanko at my local city office. There are various ways to go about assigning kanji characters to a foreigner's name, including basing it on the pronunciation or assigning your name as an unofficial reading for the kanji that represents your name. Incidentally, J-List has a great custom name stamp service, which includes free assigning of a kanji name to you, based on your preferences. The hanko stamps are even legal for use in Japan!

For some reason, it doesn't occur to anyone to steal your hanko stamp and withdraw all your money.