The Cutest Buddhist Statues in Japan

There are many images of Japan that have become famous all over the world, like solemn temples with statues of Buddha inside, Shinto shrines with their red torii arches, ancient castles and of course Mt. Fuji. (Some images of Japan, such as geisha, are probably more famous than they should be, considering they've completely vanished from modern Japan.) When you come to Japan, it's common to encounter things you can't categorize culturally, and something that fell into this category for me were the little stone statues I saw by the side of the road, often wearing red bibs around their heads. They're called jizo or ojizo-sama, and they're Buddhist statues that represent compassionate beings (perhaps similar to Christian saints) who have attained enlightenment yet remain on Earth to help others. Jizo are the protectors of children, and the statues are placed by the side of the road to help them get home safely. These jizo statues show up in anime from time to time, for example Satsuki and Mei ask one if they can take shelter from the rain in My Neighbor Totoro.

One of the most famous children's stories in Japan is that of the Kasa Jizo, or the Umbrella Hat Jizo Statues, which I'll tell here. Once there was an old couple who was so poor, they couldn't even afford mochi rice cakes to celebrate New Year's Day. To get some money, the man wove five kasa (umbrella hats, which keep rain and snow off you) and went to the village to sell them, but he couldn't sell a single one. Resigned to having no rice cakes for New Years, he headed for home, but happened to pass by some stone jizo statues that were silently guarding the road. They were covered with snow and seemed terribly cold, so he decided to donate the hats to the statues so they'd be dry and comfortable, giving the last one the tenugui scarf on his own head when he ran out of hats. That night, the old couple heard a noise outside, and opened the door to see a pile of mochi rice cakes, fish, daikon radishes plus gold coins. The gifts had been brought by the jizo statues as thanks for the selfless gift of the hats the old man had made to them.

(If you're interested in these jizo statues, we've got a cute one that doubles as a piggy bank.)

Buddhist "jizo" statues are the protectors of children.

Anime Snacks and Drinks @ J-List

J-List sells a lot of fun anime-related snacks from Japan, including popular drinks like Tentacle Grape and unique varieties of Pepsi, plus Madoka Magika wafer cookies with awesome collectible cards inside, Kompeito star-shaped candies seen in Spirited Away, the official caramels of My Neighbor Totoro and those new "Yandere Cookies" in the only-slightly-awkward gift box. Click to see the most popular anime-themed snacks on the site now!

Political Parties and Japan

The U.S. is in "election mode" right now, so I thought I'd compare politics between America and Japan a bit. A lot of people lament the two-party system in the U.S., which makes it very difficult for a strong third party to emerge and win elections, but Japan shows having multiple parties doesn't necessarily make things better. The two major political parties in Japan are the currently-ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which draws support from employees in companies and middle-class voters from urban areas, and the pro-business Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which gets most of its support from more rural areas, including Japan's many rice farmers. In addition to the two major parties, there's a plethora of smaller parties with representation in the legislature, including the Japan Communist Party, the New Komeito (the de facto political arm of the Soka Gakkai Buddhist religion), the conservative Tachiagare, Nippon! ("Rise Up, Japan!") party, or the Okinawa Social Party, which promotes issues important to Okinawa. New parties are formed all the time. For example, when powerful politician Ichiro Ozawa (no relation to Maria Ozawa, wouldn't that be cool?) didn't like the way the vote on the Japanese consumption tax hike went, he took the 48 representatives in his faction and pulled out of the DPJ, forming the People's Life First party. So while having more choices for which political party you want to belong to might be nice, it doesn't matter much if the leadership is ineffective, as it invariably is in Japan.

Japan has many political parties, but it doesn't get them anywhere.

How To Say "Like" and "Love" in Japanese

If you watch anime in Japanese at all, one word you may have learned is suki which means "like," usually pronounced quickly so that it sounds like "ski." This compels all students of the language to say sukii ga suki! (I like skiing) as soon as they learn the word since it sounds funny to the ear. The proper usage would be something like watashi wa sushi ga suki desu, literally "as for sushi, I like it," but since the Japanese love to omit words from their sentences, a more common phrase would be just sushi ga suki, "[I] like sushi," since the subject is generally understood. In addition to serving as "like," suki also describes feelings of romantic love, and when someone confesses their feelings for another, suki desu is what they'll probably say. A variation of suki ("like") is dai-suki ("big-like"), usually said by a cute female anime character before they glomp a male character violently in a big bear-hug.

Suki desu is the most common way to confess your love for someone.

Steak in America

When I'm in the U.S., I like to take the chance to drive around to different places in my 2002 Miata, like Reno or San Francisco or hunting for Star Wars locations in Death Valley. Over the weekend I drove up to Palm Springs, a pleasant little city with some nice resort hotels and a giant statue of Marilyn Monroe that I'd have expected to see in Japan rather than America. While I was there, I went into a restaurant and ordered a nice steak. When it arrived, I did something that surprised me: I reached for the plate of hot steaming white rice that should have been next to my steak, but of course wasn't. In Japan, you always get a plate of steamed white rice (always called "rice" using the English word, never gohan as it's called in Japanese, as steak is "Western" food). It's nice to eat the meat and rice together...the juices blend nicely with the rice and make it all taste great. I guess I'll have some when I get back to Japan.

The Japanese usually eat steak and rice together.

The Japanese "Peace" Sign

If you go to Japan, you'll see many things there. Beautiful temples and shrines and sakura trees. Vending machines that accept the equivalent of a $100 bill then bow to you after you've made your purchase. Squid-and-mayonnaise pizza and green tea ice cream, plus a favorite of mine, aloe flavored yogurt. You're also likely to see people taking photographs while making the "peace" sign, known as "V for victory" in another age. It's the most Japanese of gestures, the hand automatically making this sign just about anytime someone pulls out a camera. No one is completely sure when the gesture became a part of the Japanese gestalt -- it could have come about as a result of the U.S. occupation, been imported during the anti-war years of the 60s, or (according to another source) it could have gotten popular during the 1972 Sapporo Olympics, when U.S. skater Janet Lynn fell during her routine then made the "peace" gesture as she got up to hide her embarrassment. The best theory seems to be this: in 1972 Konica hired actor and comedian Jun Inoue to promote its newest camera in a magazine ad. The actor ad-libbed the peace sign during the photoshoot, and this reverberated greatly with the Japanese public. Of course, the gesture is closely tied to photography, since saying "peace" makes you smile in the same way we "say cheese" in the West. Japanese also say "what's one plus one?" which is ni in Japanese, if you want to try this on Japanese people and watch them jump out of their shoes in surprise.

Exploring the origin of the Japanese "peace" gesture.

J-List's 16th Anniversary Sale

Remember, October is J-List's anniversary month, and we're having a big sale to celebrate. This month, you can get 2x J-List Points on all anime cosplay and Japanese fashion products, as well as all English visual novels and eroge. J-List points give you an instant discount on your next order. You can use them at any time, or store them to get larger discounts later. We'd like to say thank you for being such great customers and making our job a happy one! (You can see all sale products ranked by "wishlist" popularity using this link.)

The Real "Yakuza" in Japan

I saw that the U.S. had taken action to freeze the assets of a major yakuza group in the U.S., so I thought I'd write about what it's like to live in a country alongside such a flamboyant class of criminals. The yakuza, of course, are a group of highly organized criminal gangs with roots going back to the Edo Period, who profit from protection schemes, illegal gambling, high-interest loans to people who can't qualify for bank loans, and so on. The name "yakuza" comes from the numbers 893, which add up to the worst possible hand possible in the traditional Japanese card game Hanafuda, making the name similar to the Internet meme "orz" (showing a man bowing in disgrace) in meaning. While violence between yakuza gangs sometimes flares up, they're extremely careful never to harm civilians, both out of Japanese-style politeness and to maintain the truce they have with police. While groups such as the Yamaguchi-gumi and Sumiyoshi-kai do engage in many kinds of illegal activities, they view themselves as a chivalrous organizations, and they were among the first groups to organize shipments of blankets, food and water to the thousands of people affected by the March 11 earthquakes and tsunamis last year.

Being a fan of Japanese sento (public baths) and onsen (volcanically heated hot springs), I've encountered many colorful yakuza over the years, as it's quite common to see them bathing with their full-body dragon tattoos. They're very polite, of course, and always interested to meet a foreigner who can speak Japanese with them. One even asked if I could tutor his daughter in English, although that was a little more weirdness than I could stand at the time, and I turned him down politely. It's generally considered a smart idea for businessmen to cultivate good relations with the local yakuza bosses, and we've got a friend who owns a small factory near our house who has a lot of these connections. He tells us, "If you ever get into any kind of trouble, just let me know and I'll have it seen to by some friends of mine." Yakuza are related to the bosozoku (lit. "violent running tribe"), those annoying motorcycle gangs that drive through Japanese cities making as much noise as they can, who run various errands for the larger groups.

Observing the "real" yakuza in Japan.

Typhoon Season in Japan

Japan, of course, is a very seasonal place, with a strong tradition of doing different things during each of the "four" seasons. In reality there are more like eight seasons in Japan, since the dreary rainy season in June-July is nothing like true summer, and the super windy period in December called kara-kaze is very different from real winter. September is typhoon season, when most storms blow up from the Pacific to wreak havoc on Japan, usually hitting the southern islands of Okinawa or Kyushu but often reaching the more populated areas around Osaka, Nagoya and Tokyo. Yesterday Typhoon no. 17 (also known as Typhoon Jelawat, though Japan always uses numbers instead of names) made landfall smack in the center of the country, with 180kph winds that broke trees and downed lines and washed one unfortunate man out to sea. It also overturned an itasha car decorated with characters from the Clannad anime, to the general horror of Japan's anime blog readers.

September is 'typhoon season,' and very dangerous.

J-LIst Anniversary Sale!

October 1st is the 16th anniversary of the founding of J-List! Yes, it was 16 years ago that we officially founded this wonky company, determined to create an awesome place to buy anime figures and manga and related products directly from Japan. The years brought many changes in technology as well as in the world we all live in, but thanks to our awesome customers J-List is doing better than ever. To commemorate our anniversary, we're having a sale on all anime cosplay and Japanese fashion products, as well as all English visual novels and eroge -- during this month, get 2x J-List points on all these awesome products. And thanks for being a great J-List customer!

 

All About Names in Japan

Just as in the West, Japanese parents-to-be obsess over what name to give their new baby. In addition to reading books which give background on various trendy names, they will often consult a Buddhist priest who will advise them on what characters are lucky for that year. The number of strokes used to write the name are important, too, and my wife took great pains to ensure that our daughter's Japanese name would have the same number of lines as hers, "so she can enjoy the same strong good luck I've had in my life," according to my wife. Names can be written in hiragana, foregoing kanji altogether for aesthetic reasons, but most parents choose kanji characters for the names of their children, being sure to choose from the official list of approved name characters the government publishes. One big difference between the West and in Japan are the lack of Biblically-derived names here -- every country in Europe has a local version of "Peter" (Pedro, Pierre, Pietro), but these don't exist in Japanese. Certain Western names are associated with famous names from Hollywood. For example, you might know several people named Jason, but in Japan, there's only one: the famous killer from the Friday the 13th movies. There are many Michaels in the world, but in Japan Michael Jackson is the name that springs to everyone's mind when they hear the name, and if you name is Clara, Japanese of a certain generation will probably identify you with the girl in the wheelchair from the famous anime Heidi, Girl of the Alps.

If your name is Jason or Freddie, you might scare people in Japan.

Japanese Visual Memes

It's fun to study random bits of Japanese culture, like the way children who want the weather to be good tomorrow will make a little man called Teruteru Bozu out of tissue paper and hang him by the window sill as a prayer to make it stop raining. Another fun traditional meme you encounter Japan is a face made from hiragana characters, called heno heno moheji (which is what the characters say when pronounced out loud), which Japanese kids like to doodle in their school textbooks. It's totally meaningless, but a widely recognizable visual image of Japan, known to show up on bento boxes from time to time. One of my favorite visual memes is called aiai-gasa, which means "two people walking together under an umbrella," and if you've watched a few anime series, you've probably seen it drawn on a chalkboard once or twice. The Japanese believe that walking together in the rain is very romantic, and drawing an umbrella with the names Taro and Hanako underneath implies that they like each other.

It's fun to study Japanese visual culture.

The Zen of Japanese Money

The currency used in Japan is yen, called en in Japanese, a word which literally means "circle," which was probably why the yen rate was officially set at 360 yen to the dollar in the decades after World War II. Because yen prices involve numbers that are quite high, you quickly get used to paying 980 yen for lunch, or 8,000 yen to fill your gas tank, or 178,000 yen for a new computer. Like Europe and Canada, Japan uses coins for a lot of currency denominations, with the 100 and 500 yen notes (equivalent to $1 and $5 bills) having been replaced by coins many years ago. One of my favorite Japanese coins is the 5-yen coin, shown below, which always makes me think of the bamboo fountain at Ryoan-ji, one of my favorite Buddhist temples in Kyoto (it's the place with the "sea" of rocks that you can sit and contemplate for hours). The 5-yen coin is considered especially lucky because its name in Japanese (go-en) has the same pronunciation as a word roughly translatable as "a fortuitous encounter with someone who will be important to you for the rest of your life." Hence, a lot of Japanese omamori good luck charms contain 5-yen coins inside.

The 5-yen coin is my favorite type of Japanese money.

Go! Go! Nippon!

Remember: J-List is here to help you learn about Japan, and one fun way you can start is with Go! Go! Nippon!, a fun all-ages visual novel that simulates a visit to Japan. Developed for foreigners who are fascinated with Japan, this fun game lets you explore the Tokyo and Kyoto areas, accompanied by two cute girls, which you get to fall in love with. Which girl will you choose? Because the game displays both Japanese and English text, you can learn by playing the game. Order now!

The "Mystery of Translation"

One subject I write about a lot is the way learning a foreign language helps you to understand your own brain better. Currently we're working on the long-delayed Moero Downhill Night Blaze, the third and final eroge about Initial D-style mountain racing (the one with actual racing in it). This title was delayed because the company that made the game had the bad fortune to be based in Sendai, in northern Japan. which was heavily damaged in last year's earthquakes, forcing us to find a new programmer to port the game (happily no one at the company was hurt). As I go through the game files, finishing up the final few lines that need translating, I'm amazed at the way the actual act of translation doesn't seem to be managed by my conscious brain at all, but somewhere deeper. I mentally place a word or sentence that I want to translate into a special place in my mind and -- ding! -- a few seconds later I have the translation I need, just like cooking something in the microwave. Any translation from one language to another must match the feel of the original line, of course, and my brain seems quite adept at judging whether the "voice" (including formality or lack of it, feminine or masculine intonations etc) of the translated line matches the original, all without conscious thought by me. We plan on getting the third Moero game out soon, and we hope you'll consider preordering it, or perhaps picking up the specially-priced set of the first two games while we finish the third game.

I'm fascinated by "the mystery of translation" in my brain.

China Musume: The Invader Came from Beyond the Sea

The saber rattling between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands continues, with China officially canceling a planned event to commemorate 40 years of diplomatic relations and goodwill between the two countries. I've been watching various news programs on the crisis as seen from Japan, which have been interesting. One commentator pointed out that virtually every young person in Chinese urban areas is an only child thanks to the "One Child Policy" in place since 1978; with the Chinese preference for boy children over girls, this means a high number of alpha males with a lot of anger, which fundamentally changes the dynamics of the country's psychology. Of course, the Senkaku islands aren't the only potential trouble spot in the region: China has territorial disputes with nearly 20 countries, including the Spratly Islands, which are claimed by China, the Philippines, Brunei, and Vietnam. Back in 1988 actual shooting broke out between China and Vietnam, resulting in the deaths of 70 soldiers on both sides.

There is, naturally, lots of fun "fanart" on Pixiv regarding the Senkaku Islands. This is "China Musume."

The "Tyranny of the Majority" in Japan

Japan is a great place, really, with clean streets that are always safe to walk down at night, an excellent public transport system, and toilets that wash your butt for you. The people are nearly always polite, unless you get between an obasan (middle-aged housewife) and a sale item she's got her eye on in the supermarket, and there are many amazing foods to discover, like "aspara-bacon" (asparagus wrapped in bacon), a favorite dish of mine at izakaya restaurants. But there is one problem, brought about by Japan's homogeneous society in which 98% of people believe themselves to come from exactly the same genetic stock, which can be thought of as "tyranny of the masses." The Japanese think bread should be white and fluffy, so don't expect to find a huge selection of cracked wheat, oat and other types of healthy bread in supermarkets here. They also tend to like thick, creamy milk with 4.2% milkfat or higher, and it's not uncommon to find no lowfat milk available in the store -- and just forget about ever finding skim milk. Most Japanese cities require trash be separated, with moeru gomi (burnables), plastics, aluminum and steel cans, PET bottles and so on all being put out on different days from 6-8 a.m., which is kind of hard on people like me who stay up late (since I have to overlap my day with the J-List San Diego office). Finally, the Japanese often don't "get" non-standard food lifestyles, and if you're a vegetarian or need to avoid rice or caffeine for health or religious reasons, it can be a bit of extra work.

Of course, can you imagine a bunch of self-entitled foreigners in America whining that Americans don't do things exactly as they would like? They wouldn't get very far.

Japanese love thick, creamy milk.

The Top Hello Kitty Products from Japan Today

You can always depend on J-List to carry fun and interesting Hello Kitty products from Japan. We've got fun Hello Kitty bento and onigiri items, a popular Hello Kitty ice cube maker, fun Hello Kitty muffin makers plus a kawaii way to store your glasses overnight. Click here to see the most popular Japan Hello Kitty products, as ranked by our customers!

Educational Variety TV in Japan

Japanese TV never fails to entertain, or to provide me with good neta, a word which means the fish part of a piece of sushi, though in this case it refers to ideas for these little updates that I write. One aspect of Japanese TV I've been generally impressed with us the large number of popular shows that manage to offer educational value. The other day I was watching "Time Shock!," a Japanese quiz show in which teams of actors, commedians and other television personalities took turns sitting in a special chair while they were asked ten questions on subjects like geography, English or history. If they failed to answer at least six questions right, the chair would spin them around and upside-down at a very fast rate, emitting noise and steam. On the surface it may seem like another crazy Japanese "game show" (not really an accurate term, since no prizes are awarded and the participants are all professional entertainers), but I like the show because the questions are fascinating, and quite useful to my high school-age kids. A lot of these educational TV variety shows started appearing 6-7 years ago when Japan's policy of yutori kyoiku (lit. "Take it Easy" Education) failed miserably, leaving Japan dead last in academic competitions with other countries in Asia. Considering the percent of American television that apparently seeks to rot the brains of viewers (*cough* American Idol *cough*), a fun show that actually teaches something is a breath of fresh air.

If players can't answer the questions, their chair spins then around and around!

Kawaii or Beautiful?

You probably know that the Japanese word for "cute" is kawaii, an adjective that's been in use since the Heian Period (794-1185) to describe endearing features in women, babies and cats, assuming they had cats in Japan back then. The Japanese certainly are fans of all things cute, from panda-themed coffee cups to surprisingly adorable Rilakkuma personal products, and have a tradition of employing kawaii models and idols to deliver important public notices, like fire awareness campaigns ("Did you extinguish all flames and turn of all heaters before sleeping? These are the words that can save your family.") It's interesting to observe that while kawaii-ness is in the eye of the beholder -- for example, many Japanese find crooked teeth charming while others don't, and there's a slang word busu-kawaii that means "homely, but in a cute way" -- the more refined concept of "beauty" (bi in Japanese, pronounced "bee") is more universally defined. For a man or woman to achieve true beauty, the Japanese say, they must be tall, with a body "eight heads high" (that is, their head should take up 1/8th of their total frame). They should have a "high nose" (not flat like most Japanese), and larger eyes with two creases in the eyelid (futae), not the narrow single-creased eyes of most Japanese (hitoe).

Former Morning Musume member Erina Mano reminds you to turn off all flames before bed.