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.

Winter in Japan

Without a doubt, Japan is a country that loves it's seasons. At any time during casual conversation, there's a 23% chance of a Japanese person suddenly saying, "By the way, did you know that Japan has four distinct seasons? Unlike America, which has only two." (Apparently these people need to travel outside of Southern California.) Right now it's winter, time to sit in the kotatsu with the family eating delicious sukiyaki out of a pot in the center of the table, then have some mikan oranges and green tea later. One of my favorite images of winter in Japan are kamakura, traditional igloo-like snow domes which are made as part of winter festivals in the colder parts of Japan, especially Niigata, Akita and Hokkaido. (They're unrelated to the city of Kamakura, with its beautiful Buddha statue.) With electric lights and kotatsu heaters inside, they're a great place to enjoy a little hot sake while feeling the cold beauty of the snow all around you.

Kamakura (snow domes) are a great traditional image of winter in Japan.

Psychoses of Foreigners in Japan

Living in a place as homogeneous as Japan brings out some interesting psychoses in people, and one could fill a book studying what goes on in the minds of foreigners living here. I do believe every gaijin secretly wishes he were the only non-Japanese person in the country, and there's a strange tension that arises when foreigners encounter each other for the first time, as each tries to mentally categorize the other. Many foreigners living in Japan are actively hostile towards the "gaijin talents" who are able to appear on TV only (they say) because they happen to have learned the language well. This is nothing more than jealousy, although I do truly hate that guy Dave Specter, who dyes his black hair blonde to look more like a proper American as he dishes out Hollywood gossip on the morning "wide show." Then there are the "Three Stages of Eye Aversion" that gaijin seem to go through when encountering other foreigners. First, you can't keep from stealing glances at the strange foreign guy riding the train -- his very presence disturbs the glorious harmony in the train car, although for some reason yours doesn't. Then you realize how silly you're being, so you so hello to him, but then you find out that not everyone from Sri Lanka speaks English. Thoroughly embarrassed now, you vow to ever meet eyes with or talk to another foreigner again.

Some gaijin avoid looking at other foreigners.

Various Tidbits

J-List carries thousands of fun products, and one of our favorite categories are Ghibli and Totoro products. We've got a great lineup of Totoro products on the site now, like the plush Totoro and Catbus toys we've restocked today, and that awesome Totoro backpack. We've still got a few of the 2010 Totoro calendar, which functions as a picture frame when 2010 is done, and there are fun Ghibli-blessed snacks, too, like traditional Kompeito candies from Spirited Away or Milk Caramel from Morinaga, a favorite of the Catbus. You can even browse the top 50 Ghibli products on J-List right now -- fun!

In other news, we're happy to announce that Cat Girl Alliance, the newest dating-sim game from G-Collections, has gone "golden master" is will be shipping very soon. A hilarious game that focuses on the stranger side of the genre, you'll enjoy everything from cat girl cosplay to futanari and much more, and have loads of fun. With eight endings and dozens of paths to explore, this game is one that all fans should check out. Click here to see the game's official site if you like, or here to preorder the game for free shipping when it's ready.

Japan's Former Capital of Nara Turns 1300 Years Old

The year 2010 marks the 1300th anniversary of the founding of Nara, the former capital of Japan and one of my favorite places in the world. The city was built by Empress Gemmei in 710 in imitation of the Chinese city of Xi'an (where the terra cotta soldiers were buried), and it served as the center of Japanese civilization until 794 when the new capital of Heian-kyo (Kyoto) was established. During the Nara Period, Japan experienced an influx of Buddhist art and culture, and the oldest works of Japanese literature appeared during this time. Today Nara is principally famous for Todai-ji, the breathtakingly beautiful temple that houses the largest bronze Buddha statue in the world, and for deer, which walk freely throughout the sprawling Nara Park. The city government combined these two images to create Sento-kun, the official mascot commemorating the city's 1300-year history. Nara's birthday celebration will be going on all year, so if you have any plans to be in Japan, consider adding the city to your list of places to visit. (See this page for some useful tourist information.)

Walking through very old places like Nara, it might be easy to think that the fascination we foreigners feel for Japan is a new thing, but it's not. Back in the 1920s, a famous gaijin by the name of Albert Einstein visited Japan, invited to hold a series of lectures on General Relativity so that the Japanese could understand his theories. (If I know anything after teaching ESL for eight years, I'm pretty sure they smiled politely but didn't understand a word he said.) Everywhere Einstein went he was followed by reporters and fawning fans, and he stayed many months here, traveling all around the country and sharing his thoughts with leading Japanese scientists. He also schlepped around the Kyoto area, and was fascinated by the physics behind the nightingale floors in Nijojo Castle, which are designed to squeak when walked on so that ninja couldn't sneak into the castle. He also stayed in a traditional ryokan inn in Nara and walked around feeding the deer, just like foreign visitors do today. It's kind of cool to feel a kinship with such a famous person -- did he have trouble keeping his yukata on while he slept, too? How did he manage with chopsticks?

Nara is a beautiful ancient city in Japan, one of my favorites.

Kodomo Tencho, Japan's Cutest "Talent"

Japan's entertainment world is a very unique place, and it's interesting to observe it with my gaijin's eyes. Any given variety show will feature a panel of various interesting entertainers known as "talents" -- a comedy duo here, an actress there, perhaps a retired Hawaiian sumo wrestler or an American known for speaking a rare dialect of Japanese to spice things up a bit. The point is to entertain viewers with the mix of personalities and always offer something the viewer will want to watch. Currently one face you see a lot of is a Seishiro Kato, the nine-year-old child star who distinguished himself in last year's NHK Taiga Drama. He's universally known by the name Kodomo Tencho ("child store manager") due to a series of Toyota TV commercials in which he appears as the manager of a car dealership explaining about the tax breaks you get from buying a fuel-efficient car.

You can see "Kodomo Tencho" (child store manager) on Toyota commercials every day.

Back in Japan, and Other Stuff

Well, we're back in Japan after the approximately 20-hour door-to-door journey from San Diego. We had a great time in the U.S., spending time with family, shopping, and doing general "American stuff" we can't usually do here. I even got some quality time in watching a Chargers game with my son, which is impossible to do in Japan.

J-List has a huge selection of awesome books from Japan, from glossy artbooks to manga volumes to anime and manga magazines that give you free stuff in each issue. Like Azumanga Daioh? We've got the entire series in stock. Need a whole bunch of gorgeous anime posters? Hit just about any issue of Megami Magazine and your prayers will be answered. Want to explore the most beautiful art Japan has to offer? See artbooks like 100 Masters of Bishoujo Painting or Headphone Musume or the K-On! Official Guidebook. Magazines that give you free stuff are popular with our revolving magazine subscription customers, too.

Passing Decade, Coming Decade

Well, 2010 marks the end of the first decade of the 21st century, and good riddance, I say: no more trying to figure out how to refer to the current ten-year period in short form, like we do with normal decades such as the 80s or 90s. It certainly was a decade of change, with many aspects of our lives revolutionized on a daily basis, and we all got more connected with each other through the hive-mind known as the Internet. For J-List, it was an awesome decade of growth, as we served customers all around the world -- almost 300,000 of them, incredibly -- and discovered new and interesting ways to fulfill our mission of being a "Wonderful Toybox of Things from Japan" for you. Decades, of course, don't always begin or end in neat, rounded numbers. For me the 1980s ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, but the 1990s didn't start until the Street Fighter II boom arrived. So when we look back on the new decade that's just beginning, it will probably look a lot different to us. But no matter what happens this decade, J-List plans to be a peaceful island of Japanese popular culture for you!

Street Fighter II started the 90s for me. What event will be the official start of the 2010's?

Ryoma Sakamoto, Renaissance Samurai

My wife is a very happy woman, thanks to NHK, Japan's version of the BBC and the Domo-kun people. Every year the television network produces one gorgeous high-budget historical period drama called the Taiga Drama, and this year's is to be about one of the most respected historical persons in recent history, Ryoma Sakamoto (1836-1867). Ryoma was a versatile "renaissance samurai" who was responsible for organizing the domains of Choshu and Satsuma (now Yamaguchi and Kagoshima Prefectures) to work together to overthrow the Tokugawa Shogunate and form a modern government centered around the Japanese Emperor, who had been nothing more than a figurehead ruler for a millennium or so. He knew that if Japan were to experience a protracted civil war, it might find itself colonized by the European powers of the age, and he cleverly engineered a nearly bloodless change of government. The reason my wife is happy is that the new drama about Ryoma's life stars Masaharu Fukuyama, the popular actor and singer who is one of her favorites.

I happened to catch an interesting TV show about Ryoma's life, which featured several television personalities sitting on the floor of the room Ryoma had been in when he was assassinated by Shinsengumi-allied samurai at the age of 32, which has become as famous to the Japanese as the Dallas Book Depository and the Grassy Knoll are in the U.S. They discussed many aspects of Ryoma's life, including his role as an "idea man," able to apply some of the ideas he learned from John Manjiro (a fisherman who was rescued by an American vessel and spent several years in the U.S.) to the strict world of the Edo Period Japan. He was fascinated with the technology of the West, and was the first samurai to wear Western-style boots instead of traditional geta sandals, and he also carried a Smith & Wesson pistol, as innovative a gadget in his age as the iPhone is today. He's also credited with founding Japan's first modern corporation, a trading company that would eventually grow into the Mitsubishi conglomerate of companies. All around, a pretty amazong person, and worthy to be thought of as the George Washington of modern Japan.

The Kyoto inn where Ryoma was assassinated is part of history; Ryoma was famous for wearing western-style boots.

Our San Diego Japanese New Year's

We had a nice Japanese-style New Year's at home in San Diego. After cleaning the house from top-to-bottom (known as Osoji or "big cleaning"), we settled down to watch to watch the 60th annual Kohaku, the "red-and-white song battle" that pits the top male and female J-POP singers against each other in a competition to see which team can put on the best show, which was broadcast on the Japanese channel our cable company offers. The Kohaku show is more than just the best J-POP event of the year, it's also a bit of entertainment history, and everyone from AKB48 to Jero to Ayumi Hamasaki is there each year. (Fans of J-List's prepaid iTunes Japan cards can browse this year's Kohaku music on iTunes via this link.) After the Kohaku show it was time for Yuku Toshi, Kuru Toshi (Year Going, Year Coming), a show that broadcasts solemn images of people making their way to beautiful Shinto shrines, Buddhist temples, Christian churches and Muslim mosques to do hatsu-mode (ha-tsu MOH-day), the first prayer of the New Year, overlaid with the sound of a bell thhttp://www.math.nus.edu.sg/aslaksen/pictures/horoscopes-s.jpgat chimes 108 times, a Buddhist tradition tied to the 108 temptations that mankind is subject to. Happy New Year!

Some of the best bands in Japan (and South Korea) performed at Kohaku 60.

The Story of the Chinese Zodiac

The story of the Chinese Zodiac is one that's as familiar to Japanese children as Noah's Ark is in the West, so I thought I'd tell it to you. On the day of the New Year the Gods (or Buddha, depending on which version you read) declared a race among thirteen animals to come and offer New Year's Greetings. The Ox knew he was the slowest animal, so he started out before the others. The Rat noticed this and hopped on his back, jumping off at the last minute to claim first place. The Ox came in second, followed by the fleet Tiger. The Rabbit was next, with the kind-hearted Dragon behind, who was delayed by helping the Rabbit across the river. The Horse ran along then, but the Snake slithered between his legs and startled him, beating him in the race. The Sheep, Monkey and Rooster were working as a team to get across the river, and arrived next. Then came the Dog, delayed because he stopped to take a bath along the way, with the Boar coming in last -- he'd gotten confused and climbed the wrong mountain, forcing him to backtrack. The thirteenth animal was the Cat, who had forgotten what day the race was held and asked his friend the cunning Rat, who told him the wrong date, which is why there's no Year of the Cat, and why cats hate mice today.

These are the twelve kanji of the Chinese Zodiac.

Happy New Year from J-List

Happy New Year and akemashite omedetou from J-List! It's excellent to be here for another year, bringing you Japanese bento boxes, anime toys, unique snacks and other products, as well slice-of-life reports from Japan by me. 2010 is the Year of the Tiger according to the ancient Chinese Zodiac (in Japanese, tora), and as you can see we've chosen a nice Toradora! theme for our New Year's greeting to you. (If you like, you can download a nengajo New Year's Card version in PDF format to print it out.) Thanks for being a fan of our little company, and we hope to continue to be a bridge between Japan and the rest of the world all year long!

Happy New Year from J-List. We plan to make 2010 a year to "tora"-y (try) many new things!

The Japanese Passenger on the Titanic

Among the fun things we're doing here in Las Vegas, we took the kids to see Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition on display at the Luxor, which lets you experience the history of the ship through the objects recovered from the wreck. My kids were in awe at the various items they'd brought up from the bottom of the sea, from plates to ceramic toothpaste containers to perfume that -- incredibly -- still managed to give off fragrance after 90 years at the sea bottom. There's even a giant bulkhead that they managed to bring up in one piece, which was just amazing to see. As you go into the exhibit, they hand you a "boarding pass" containing the name of a random passenger, and at the end you can look at a list to see if you're alive or dead. Mine was unfortunately one of the third-class passengers who didn't survive...

One passenger who was lucky enough to live was interesting to us, since he was the only Japanese on the ship. Masabumi Hosono was an employee of the Japanese Transportation Ministry sent to Russia to study railroads, and after finishing his assignment, he prepared to cross the Atlantic on the Titanic. When the ship had its fateful collision with an iceberg at 11:40 pm on April 14, Mr. Hosono was asleep, and didn't wake until someone knocked on the door of his second-class cabin to tell him to put his life-vest on. He eventually made his way to the lifeboats and, hearing an announcement that there was room in lifeboat no. 10, he jumped in. His life was saved, but he might have wished it hadn't been: he was attacked in the Japanese press for living when so many others had died, and fired from his job at the ministry, and some even called for him to commit suicide to atone for his dishonorable act. If he'd died, the world of music would have been less bright: he was the grandfather of Haruomi Hosono, one of the founding members of the influential band YMO, which helped bring Ryuichi Sakamoto to the world stage. Anyway, the Titanic exhibition was fantastic, and if you're going to be in Vegas any time soon, I highly recommend you go see it.

Do you know the story of the Japanese passenger on the Titanic?

Have a Happy New Year

Well, it's the end of another year. Time to watch the parade of famous singers on this year's Kohaku Uta Gassen (Red and White Year-End Song Festival), and eat soba noodles which supposedly give you long life since the noodles are long. This has been an awesome year for J-List, and we thank everyone for helping make it a successful one. The way to wish someone a Happy New Year while it's still December is yoi o-toshi o (yo-ee oh-toh-shi oh), literally meaning "[please have a] good New Year." After January 1st has arrived, you say akemashite omedetou (ah-kay-ma-shtay oh-meh-deh-toh), literally "congratulations on entering the New Year." So until we meet again, please have an awesome (and safe) New Year's celebration, and yoi o-toshi o!

Arashi is going to be featured in a big way at this year's Kohaku.

Abercrombie & Fitch is the new "Gap" of Japan

We're still having fun here in Vegas, doing tourist-ey things with the kids like exploring interesting casinos and seeing what shows we want to take in. We're also in "power shopping" mode, hitting all the outlet malls and loading up on clothes, shoes and other things to take back home. Being Japanese, my wife is quite good at organizing her shopping, and she's made a point of hitting the after-Christmas sales at Aba-Kuro, also known as Abercrombie & Fitch, the newest in-demand trendy American clothing brand in Japan. While Japanese are paying $100 or more for a single piece of clothing from the just-opened flagship store in Ginza, my wife will smile at the more reasonable prices she paid at the sales here in the States.

Abercrombie & Fitch is the new "Gap" of Japan.

Strange English in Japan

The Japanese are extremely creative when it comes to language, and often invent new English words to describe the things they use every day, a phenomenon known as wasei eigo or "made-in-Japan English." Sometimes these words can be quite confusing if you were to hear them used in casual conversation, like pepa doraiba, or "paper driver," meaning someone who has a drivers' license yet doesn't drive regularly; or risutora, from the word "restructure," which means having one's job eliminated; or rokehan ("location hunting"), to scout for a location for a video shoot; or ekiho, what the girl at Starbucks calls out when I order my coffee "extra hot." After a while you start to get a feel for the cognitive leap that caused the word to be created, like the way the word "skeleton" is used to mean translucent, like the original iMac. The worse thing is when I get used to these strange "English" words and am crazy enough to use them on anyone outside of Japan. If someone wished you a Meri-Kuri, would you understand that they were talking about a Merry Christmas?

Did everyone have a Meri-Kuri (Merry Christmas)?

Spirited Away + Earthquakes = Strong Emotions

I wrote a few weeks ago about how I believed I'd "cracked the code" as to why Japanese animation is so compelling to people around the world: it's all about the emotions. From boy-meets-moe love stories to anime series with involved love triangles, and even stories that make you taste the sadness of losing someone you love or jealous rage through the characters on-screen, there's something special about the way anime pushes our emotional buttons. One anime I've enjoyed recently is Tokyo Magnitude 8.0, an extremely realistic series about a young girl and her brother who are caught in a devastating quake in Tokyo. The story is about how Chihiro Mirai grows as she is spirited away to a magical world caught in world of death and destruction, and you really feel the fear and confusion in the characters as you watch them deal with great adversity, like Tokyo Tower falling down around their heads. Other forms of media have their emotional highs and lows, of course, but I think there's something about the way the Japanese combine character, setting, and unique visual elements to really make you feel the story in unique ways.

To me, anime is at its best when it conveys strong emotions.

Japan's "Forget-the-Year" Parties

Hello again from J-List, now in Las Vegas, where we've taken the kids for some post-Christmas relaxation. We hope you had a great Holiday!

2009 is winding down, as everyone looks back to reflect on all this year has held for us. Right now it's the season for bounen-kai or "Forget-the-Year" parties in Japan, and any bar, restaurant or izakaya (a kind of cozy traditional Japanese pub-restaurant) you visit will be crowded with groups of people having these year-end parties. Since it's naturally a big time for Japan's major beer manufacturers, there are plenty of advertisements in trains and around town promoting good times with friends and lots of ice-cold Asahi Super Dry or Kirin Ichiban Shibori to go with it. Not only does Japan have traditional Year-End Parties as an excuse for friends to get together and drink, there are New Year's Party for celebrating the new year that's just begun, held in January. Japan does love to drink socially, and even has a word for the concept: "nomunication," which is the word nomu (to drink) + the English word "communication."

Japan's beer companies are heavily advertising for "Year-End Parties."

New Year's Cards for 100 Million

Can you hear that endless mechanical noise? It's the sound of thousands of inkjet printers in Japan, grinding out nengajo, the traditional New Year's Cards that are so much fun to receive on January 1st. Just as video camera technology around the world is greatly aided by Japan's tradition of school "Sports Day" events, when children run relay races as proud parents capture the action with the latest HD video camera, printing technology owes a great debt to the custom of New Year's Card giving in Japan -- I wouldn't be surprised if the printer driver installed in your computer has built-in support for a paper size called hagaki, which is Japanese for "postcard." Every year hundreds of New Year's Card-related products are offered to consumers, from newfangled inkjet printers to professional printing services offered by Fuji Film, which are being pitched by Maki Horikita this year. 2010 is the Year of the Tiger, so I expect a lot of people will be incorporating tigers into their New Year's Card designs. What will our nengajo be? Find out on January 1st, like every one else.

Maki Horikita is this year's Fujicolor Image Girl, and very kawaii.

The Customer is God

Recently I wrote about how one of the more pleasant aspects of Japan was the high level of service you can generally expect. The Japanese version of "the customer is always right" is okyaku-san wa kamisama, literally "the customer is God," and it's not hard to see this attitude in action. Most of the time you'd expect store employee to try to sell you stuff you don't need, but when I tried to buy some stupid plug-in cards for a camera I was getting, one employee went out of his way to tell me they were a waste of money. Once I dropped the tray that holds water to make ice cubes in my refrigerator, and when I went to order a replacement I expected them to charge me $100 or more, but to my surprise they charged me just $1, despite having me by the proverbial octopus balls. I'm also impressed whenever I get my car serviced at the Mazda dealership, operated by the company directly, as is the norm in Japan. As I pull out, the employee who was helping me walks out into the street to stop traffic for me, literally placing himself at risk of bodily injury to make that final good impression on me. The strategy might be working: I realize we've bought four cars from them over the years.

Getting your car serviced in Japan might make you feel like God.