Foreigners and First Names in Japan

One day I took my son out for a bowl of gyudon, steamed beef over rice, the most popular form of fast food in Japan. The restaurant was crowded, so I added my name to the list, writing "Peter" in the katakana writing system that's generally used for foreign names and loan words, and sat down to wait. "Everyone else wrote their last name," my son observed. "Why did you write your first name?" This was an interesting question, and I didn't have an answer for him right away. Ostensibly, names in Japan are written in family name, given name order, so someone named Taro Yamada in English would be Yamada Taro in Japanese. But by unwritten rule, Westerners always continue to use their name in the same order as they do back home. When I was a teacher, I was universally known as "Peter-sensei" by my students, never "Payne-sensei" as you'd expect. This probably has something to do with the innate "fun" of teachers of English (conversation) , since we're native English speakers and teach enjoyable lessons and don't give tests on grammar and vocabulary, unlike teachers of English (the actual academic subject). My students were basically on a first-name basis with "Peter-sensei," something that would be unthinkable for any of the other Japanese teachers, and this made it easier for me to reach them, I thought.

Foreigners in Japan often end up being called by their given name quite often.

Drinking in Japan vs. USA

Yesterday was my birthday, so I went on something called a "drinkabout" with some local friends, essentially a pub crawl to some excellent bars that's facilitated by a convenient "beer bus" that arrives every 30 minutes to take everyone to the next place. (If you'll be in town for the San Diego Comic-Con, give it a try -- you can see schedule details here.) In the years I've been in Japan, San Diego has gone and re-invented itself as the home of craft beers, and there is a huge selection of amazing brews to sample. Drinking in the U.S. is very different from drinking in Japan, of course. In Japan, there's much less choice when it comes to finding amazing beers, since the Japanese government likes its beer companies large and easy to manage tax-wise, and while I love Kirin and Sapporo as much as the next guy, the variety of what's available in San Diego was amazing. It was also interesting to compare the social act of drinking itself. In Japan, beer is usually consumed in small glasses, and everyone is constantly refilling everyone else's glass, though never their own, since that's a mild taboo. (If you don't want to drink alcohol, you can act out the same ceremony but with oolong tea instead.) Whenever foreigners in Japan drink together, there's an odd tension for a few moments while they decide whether they want to pour each other's drinks Japan-style, or just pour all their own beers.

Drinking in Japan is very different from in San Diego.

Bread In Japan

It's well known that the Japanese love rice, and eat it with nearly every meal, but they're no slouches when it comes to making exotic types of bread, too. Introduced by the Portuguese in the 16th century, pan (as it's called, no relation to shimapan) comes in many shapes and sizes. There's shoku-pan or normal sliced bread, awesome "curry bread" with spicy curry inside, and even "Bacon Cheese France," French bread with cheese and bacon somehow baked inside. Some varieties of Japanese bread are often made with the simplest of ingredients, such as yakisoba pan, a roll with delicious chow mein-style noodles shoved inside, or ichigo whip-sand, sandwiches made with whipped cream and strawberries, sold in convenience stores. Most of us don't think of bread as being sweet, but many types in Japan are, including anpan (a traditional round bread with sweet anko beans inside), melon-pan (vaguely melon-shaped) bread beloved of a certain tsundere girl, and honey toast, essentially a loaf of bread that's been toasted then covered with honey or syrup plus fruit and other good things.

There are many kinds of bread in Japan.

If My Heart Had Wings is Coming...

Remember that a great all-ages visual novel is coming out in English very soon. Called If My Heart Had Wings (Japanese title この大空に翼を広げて Kono Ohzora ni Tsubasa o Hirogete), it's a great story about youth and love and dreams. The game ships June 28, and you can preorder either the package or download edition now.

Shinzo Abe, the Last Best Hope for Japan?

It's been seven months since the return of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), the pro-business conservative party that ruled Japan for much of the postwar period. Mr. Abe (pronounced "ah-beh") had a brief stint as PM back in 2006, when he was heralded as the youngest Japanese leader ever, but he quit after only a year for "health reasons" brought on by frustration over the fact that young leaders have very little political capital and generally can't get anything useful done. His return to power last year was made possible by China and South Korea, who had spent so many months whipping their own people into an anti-Japan frenzy, over the Senkaku/Daioyu Islands in China's case, and as part of the normal election cycle for South Korea, all of which angered Japanese voters enough to return the LDP to power. Abe promised to get Japan's economy humming again, and unleashed a program of monetary easing and public works projects which have worked wonders for the economy so far. Last week he announced his third volley of reforms which promised to break down many of the barriers harming Japan's international competitiveness, but the changes fell far short of what economists say is needed. Hopefully after the upcoming Japanese election we'll see some bolder reforms.

Shinzo Abe, the last, best hope for Japan?

Bullying and "Ijime" in Japan

One sad aspect of Japan's society is いじめ ijime (pronounced ee-jee-MEH), the cruel bullying that happens in school, sports and other social situations. We're all human, of course, and various forms of hazing can be found in any group, from college fraternities to making the new guy at McDonald's count all the pickles in the pickle bucket as an initiation ceremony, but it's become a real social problem in Japan. There are some reasons why ijime is especially bad in Japan, including the strictness of the top-down senpai-kohai relationship system and Japan's custom of organizing students into classes which never change for the entire year, so instead of each student going to a random classroom each hour, you've got the same people around you for 7 hours a day, six days a week. (Yes, Japanese students have to go to school on Saturdays.) Of course, ijime can happen to anyone, and my wife even had problems with some of her co-workers at a company she used to work at. Once, everyone was going out to a French restaurant, and they told her to dress in normal, everyday clothes, but when she arrived wearing jeans, she saw that everyone else had secretly dressed up just to embarrass her. My half-American daughter has also experienced some ijime in her almost-homogeneous school from time to time, like the cruel girls who told her she couldn't join their club "because their Tamagotchis didn't understand English." The topic also comes up in our excellent English-translated visual novel YUME MIRU KUSURI: A Drug That Makes You Dream. One of the girls in the game is a transfer student who's being bullied by her classmates, and you must find a way to protect her and eventually form an, ahem, special bond with her.

Bullying is a sad aspect of life in Japan.

Eating Too Much in the U.S.

There are many differences between Japan and America, and one of the biggest is food. Obviously the things that I eat while visiting the U.S. are very different from what I'm used to back in Japan, with less fish (either cooked or eaten as sushi or sashimi) and of course no large portion of steamed white rice with almost every meal. While I've been in San Diego, I've been visiting several restaurants I want to eat at "just once" -- my favorite Mexican restaurants near the J-List San Diego office, the local In-N-Out Burger, the Cheesecake Factory -- but these meals can add up quickly, and I know when I get back to Japan I'll be going on a big diet. Another problem with being in the U.S. is finding unsweetened beverages -- many restaurants, the local Subway sandwich shops included, have been replacing normal iced tea with super-sweet Honey Green Tea® and Raspberry Blast® flavors, which are impossible to drink after 20 years of consuming healthy unsweetened barley and green tea in Japan.

There are many foods to eat "just once" while in the U.S.

Lower Prices on Great English Eroge + Visual Novels

Remember that J-List recently executed a big permanent price drop on almost 50 of our popular English-language eroge and dating-sim games, making it easier than ever to pick up some awesome games to play! We've permanently lowered prices on almost 50 of our great visual novels, from The Sagara Family to Yume Miru Kusuri to Kana Little Sister and Brave Soul. Prices have been lowered by $5 or $10 on a huge number of games, so it's a great time to browse the reduced-price visual novels and eroge and see which titles you'd like to pick up!

My Top Ten Places to Visit in Japan

I'm often asked to recommend places to visit by J-List customers who are planning a trip to Japan. It's a big topic, since there's so much to see in Japan, but I'll try to throw some ideas out. So if it's useful to you, here's my top ten recommended sights to see in Japan.

My top ten list of places to visit in Japan.

• First, Tokyo. All the obvious stuff like Akihabara and Shinjuku are great to take in, just don't fool yourself that Tokyo isn't a massive concrete jungle. Try to hit Akiba on the Sunday after payday (the 25th of the month) to really feel its power.
• Nikko, a pleasant collection of temples dating back to 766 AD. You can see the grave of Tokugawa Ieyasu and also the "see no evil, hear no evil" monkeys. If you like miniatures, visit Tobu World Square nearby, which recreates the world's grandest places in perfect detail.
• Kamakura, home of the second largest bronze Buddha statue in Japan. Be sure to ride the Enoden train, in operation since 1900.
• Mt. Fuji. Making the climb to the top is not difficult at all, and it will change your life forever. (I sang the Space Battleship Yamato theme at the top.) The climbing season is July and August.
• Moving to Kyoto, Kinkaku-ji is simply the most famous Buddhist temple in Japan. Built in 1397, it was burned down in 1955 by a mentally ill monk who thought the beautiful building didn't match the austere tradition of Zen Buddhism.
• Ryoan-ji, the Zen Buddhist temple famous for its rock garden. You can lose yourself for hours here.
• Sanjuusan-gendou, or the Hall of 33 Bays, a collection of 1000 wooden statues of Buddhist "Kanon" (kind of like Buddhist saints who have been raised to deity status). It's said you can find your own face among them if you look long enough.
• Fushima Inari, the temple in Kyoto where you walk through thousands of torii (Japanese arches), which simulates our passage through life.
• In between Kyoto and Nara is the down of Uji, famous for green tea as well as the Byodo-in temple, displayed on the back of Japan's 10 yen coin. It's one of the most peaceful places in the world.
• Finally in nearby Nara, Todai-ji is one of the most amazing places in all Japan. It's the largest wooden building in the world, and it houses the largest statue of Buddha in Japan.

Thoughts on Language and Pants Falling Down

Language has many uses, including communicating great ideas, recording the events of history and ordering pizza. It also helps define the people who speak it, and I'm always fascinated by the connection between Japan's language and its people. Japanese is well-known for being a vague language in which information is omitted from sentences if it's understood by the context, to the point that foreigners have to pay close attention in order to follow what's being said. Correspondingly, the Japanese are also vague -- or "about," an English word they've re-purposed to mean vague and imprecise -- and they're masters as fitting deep nuance into the words they use every day. Another function of language is, at times, to hide your conversation from others. In Las Vegas my wife and I were shopping in a Ferragamo store (if you marry a Japanese woman you'll become quite familiar with these), and some interesting customers came in to buy shoes. They were sporting the current "pants at half-mast" vogue, and thanks to Japanese, I was able to call my wife's attention to them so she could witness the latest in silly fashions trends in the U.S.

We got to check out the latest fashions in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas Vacation Update

Mrs. J-List and I had fun in Las Vegas, relaxing by the pool and turning off our brains for long periods of time. We ate some amazing food, lost and won some money at the blackjack tables, and are now very refreshed. Time to get back to work!

I like going to Las Vegas because there's such a variety of people to be found there. Obviously there's a huge cross-section of Americans there, from Texas and Florida and New York and Boston. But Las Vegas is also a "Mecca" for visitors from all over the world, and we had several interesting conversations (and a few drinks) with folks from England, France, Sweden and a few other countries. We also managed to see a famous K-POP singer (we weren't sure who she was) being mobbed by Korean fans, which added to the international flavor.

We had fun in Las Vegas. Artist's concept above.

J-List Will Support the Sony PS4

There was a lot of buzz last week about the upcoming Sony PS4 "winning" the next-gen console wars because it would have a lower price than Microsoft's Xbox One and didn't block the sale of used games. We think the PS4 will be a hit for another reason: like the PSP, PSVita and PS3, the PS4 will be region free, meaning anime fans can buy ecchi fighting games, Hatsune Miku pantsu simulators dancing games and other otaku-friendly titles and play them on hardware from anywhere in the world. While we wait for the PS4 to arrive, why not browse our lineup of great anime games for the current Sony platforms? All games are fully region free.

Bilingualism is a Fleeting Thing

After 4 years of studying Japanese at SDSU and 22 years living in the country, I'm as functionally bilingual in the language as I'd ever need to be, able to talk with business partners and review contracts in Japanese, able to get my car repaired and order pizza, etc. Still, the brain only learns what it needs to know, and all I need to do to cut my linguistic competence in half is to walk into a history museum and expose myself to words from even a century ago, since the older words are so unfamiliar to me. (Japanese underwent many changes as it modernized over the past 80 years, including changing its writing direction, as seen in the Sakuma Drops candies with the logo written in the 'old' horizontal direction of right to left.) One good thing about living in Japan is that it will give you a real appreciation for fish, and I've really learned to enjoy everything from saba stewed in miso to broiled sanma with soy sauce and grated daikon radish on top. Of course, I have no idea what these fish are called in English since I've only encountered them in Japan...though the Internet tells me they're Japanese mackerel and Pacific saury.

An example ofarchaic right-to-left yokomoji writing. Flavored with Setsuko's tears.

Funny Place Names in Japanese

It's fun to look up odd place names, like Intercourse, Pennsylvania, Climax, Michigan, Whiskey Dick Mountain in Washington State or the island of Poopoo in Hawaii. Naturally, there's a large body of place names that sound naughty when pronounced in Japanese, too. Places like Nampa, Idaho, which is funny because 軟派 nampa happens to be a common slang term that roughly means "girl hunting," what bored young men in Japanese cities usually do on weekends, asking random girls they encounter to go to karaoke or out for drinks with them. (If girls go hunting for boys it's 逆軟派 gyaku-nampa or "reverse nanpa.") Boyne City, Michigan holds a special place in the hearts of Japanese men, since "Boyne" becomes ボイン boin in Japanese, essentially the "boing" sound of boobs moving. There's a mountain in Malaysia called Mt. Panty (Gunung Panti), one in Indonesia called Mt. Baka (Bukit Baka, baka of course meaning "stupid"), and good old Scheveningen in the Netherlands, which comes out sounding like スケベ人間 sukebe ningen in Japanese, meaning "perverted human being." (I'm sure they could use some of our T-shirts there.) But the grand-daddy of funny-sounding place names is of course Eromanga, a mining town that's the farthest point from the sea in Queensland, Australia, with a name that sounds like ecchi manga comics. I swear I will go here someday and write a J-List post about it.

I want to visit Eromanga, in Australia.

Buying Stuff in San Diego

Mrs. J-List has joined me in San Diego, and I've spent a few days taking her around doing "San Diego-ey" things, like visiting the iconic Hotel del Coronado and exploring restaurants downtown. I've also taken her shopping to buy various things she needs to pick up while in the U.S., like make-up (brands that cost $9 at Target are three times that much in Japan), taco and fajita mix, Zip-Loc bags, and Jell-O brand pudding which are unavailable in Japan. Buying omiyage -- souvenirs -- is a very big deal to the Japanese, and a lot of our time has been spent shopping for gifts for friends, the J-List staff in Japan and/or business acquaintances. Some of the gifts she's picking up are quite interesting, including cinnamon flavored Colgate toothpaste (American toothpaste has more fluoride than in Japan, so it makes a practical gift), Newport cigarettes (they're unavailable inside Japan and thus are a sought-after item by men who smoke) plus those Tide detergent "Pods" which my wife just loves. My son back in Japan made a request too, that she bring back a box of Lucky Charms, which he says "tastes like America."

(Now we're off to Vegas for our vacation, so no update on Friday. See everyone next week!)

I've been shopping for odd American products with my wife.

Moekanji Cards are Now In Stock!

We’re happy to be carrying the “Moekanji” cards, an awesome way to master the first year of kanji by harnessing the power of moe. Best of all, the cards “force” you to memorize vocabulary using hiragana rather than Romanized Japanese (e.g. the English alphabet), which helps your spoken accent a lot. The Moekanji card series is now in stock and ready to ship out to you immediately. Why not order a set now?

The Japanese Love to Line Up To Eat Ramen

Over the years I've learned a few things about the Japanese people. They are hardworking, honest and way more punctual than I could ever hope to be. They also love to line up for things. If a Japanese person is walking down the street and sees people lined up to buy something -- takoyaki or Belgian waffles perhaps -- there's a good chance they'll stop what they were doing and get in line, too. It seems there's something innately fun about standing in line to buy something, and the general rule is that the longer the wait at a restaurant is, the better the food will be -- and if no customers are waiting to eat, it's a sign that the food isn't very good. (Similarly, Japanese will avoid going to a restaurant that only has a few cars in the parking lot, but are happy to stop if the parking lot is full of cars.) I've experienced this phenomenon firsthand when I took my son down to Tokyo for his Lego robot soccer tournament one year, and we walked around the city trying to find something good to eat. We ended up lining up behind two dozen Waseda University students for an hour to eat was the best chashu pork ramen in our lives, perhaps because we had waited for so long to eat it.

In Japan, if you don't have to wait in line for it, it's not delicious.

The Kanji For "Person" Teaches Us How To Be Better People

During the two months I'll be here in the U.S., I've got a long list of things I need to get done, including performing various software installs and upgrades in J-List's San Diego office, finalizing a refinance on my house in San Diego (if you think dealing with banks is difficult, try doing it from the other side of the world), and making sure to stock up on American cold medicines like Nyquil and Alka-Seltzer Plus, as Japanese medicine doesn't work so well on my giant gaijin body. I'll also be picking up some herbal supplements a lady I know from my gym asked me to get. When my wife heard of this, she said, "Why are you helping that lady? You don't even know her." I countered with a Japanese proverb 人の字は１人じゃ立てない hito no ji wa hitori ja tatenai, meaning "the kanji character for 'person' cannot stand up all by itself, it needs the support of another." This saying -- that the kanji for 'person' (人) is drawn with two lines because each side is holding the other up, which represents the way people support each other as we go through our lives -- is one of the more interesting observations I've encountered in Japan.

The character for 'person' cannot stand up by itself.

Learning About Japanese Culture Through Shoes

It's funny, the little bits of Japanese culture you can pick up from random episodes of anime. I've been trying to keep up with the current season (not an easy task as there are many good shows this time around), including Oreimo, aka Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai, aka My Younger Sister Can't Be This Cute, which has really given fans some satisfying episodes this season. In a recent episode, Kyosuke officially starts dating the enigmatic Ruri, more commonly known by her Gothic Lolita persona of Kuroneko ("black cat"). In one scene, Kyosuke is waiting for Ruri in her house when Ruri's two younger sisters get home. They immediately know that something isn't right because they see "a strange pair of shoes" in the genkan, a recessed area by the front door where shoes are always removed in Japanese homes (and some businesses, including J-List). If the story had been part of some other culture, Kyosuke might have hidden from the girls, but thanks to Japan's tradition of removing shoes there was no way for him to escape. Stories involving shoes -- for example, a drama in which a girl stops by her boyfriend's apartment but knows instantly that he's entertaining female company the moment she opens the door because she sees unfamiliar shoes -- are something that could only come from Japan.

Kuroneko is the ideal otaku girlfriend.

Cosplay Products from Japan

The summer anime conventions are almost here, but there's still time to get cool cosplay related products from Japan. Whether you need some awesome Japanese "Absolute Zone" socks, cat ears that are controlled by your brain, anime-style cosplay glasses or really bizarre masks, J-List is loaded with cool products for you to browse. Click now to see the top apparel and cosplay products, as ranked by our customers!