estragon

Unexpected

2006-07-28T20:25:00.000+09:00

A letter I wrote is going to be published in the Sunday, July 30th edition of the Asahi Shinbun, which is something like the Japanese equivalent of The New York Times. I wrote the letter for a class as part of an assignment, and I have to admit I'm not that fond of it. But, I never would have imagined something I wrote would get printed in a Japanese newspaper, so it's pretty cool. I will not translate it into English unless faced with overwhelming demand to do so, which I do not expect to happen. On the other hand, with just a modicum of demand (say, a single e-mail or comment), I will post the original Japanese version for kicks if anyone wants to look at the pretty kanji characters.

Bonus!

2006-06-16T23:52:00.000+09:00

This short film is hilarious. It's about 7 minutes long, so make sure you have time to watch the whole thing. And I will vouch for the general goodness of the subtitles. It strikes a good balance between not being overly literal and not taking too many liberties with the dialogue.

Oh Yes It Does

2006-06-16T23:24:00.000+09:00

Well, considering that I got a comment asking whether or not this blog is dead, I figured I should post something. Plus, I found something awesome I'd been meaning to post forever.

I've been crazy busy here recently. I rocked the placement test at the beginning of this semester a little too hard, resulting in my classes becoming much more difficult. At the same time, I was doing lighting design for an underground theatre company that's about a 3 hour round trip commute away, and I made new friends on campus in addition to the ones I already had. Among other things.

Life is awesome here, and I am already feeling uneasy that I only have 2 months left. I don't mean to offend friends and family in America when I write this, but I have to admit that I really don't particularly want to go back.

I definitely hope to return here in the future.

I think things should be less hectic from here on out, and if this is indeed the case I'll try to resume posting on at least an irregular basis in my last couple months here to talk about some of the stuff I've been up to.

In any case, a while back I went to a bookstore and what I bought was put into the paper sack pictured below, whose design can only be described as (1) mindblowing and (2) not at all related to the decorations in the rest of the store:

How true, paper sack.

How true.

By the Way . . .

2006-04-09T13:25:00.000+09:00

I heart Howard Zinn.

桜吹雪

2006-04-09T12:30:00.000+09:00

I don't really see the point in living somewhere without sakura anymore.

These pictures do absolutely no justice to how beautiful they are. Spring in Japan is the platonic form of Spring, and all other Springs lacking sakura are nothing but pale imitations.

On windy days, the petals flit about like snow. At first, I thought that I was creative for mentally describing this phenomenon as a "snowstorm of flowers," and I was so amazed that I believed I had happened upon some sort of miracle of nature that very few are ever allowed to witness. However, the very next day I heard someone use the word "桜吹雪" (sakurafubuki), which literally means just that, "snowstorm of flowers." That this flower snowstorm has gone on for about a week now, in addition to fact that 桜吹雪 is not a metaphor in Japanese anymore but simply a regular old word you can look up in any dictionary, seems to indicate that these flower storms are a fairly regular Spring occurrence. I am literally looking out my window as I type this to see more flower petals than I could possibly count raining down from the sky.

The other effect of this that should have been obvious but surprised me nonetheless was that this rain of flowers results, from time to time, in the ground being carpeted in tiny pink and white and purple petals.

You Bet I Will

2006-03-14T01:42:00.000+09:00

A friend of mine in the dorm who is graduating tomorrow asked me tonight if he could store all of his manga in my room, because he has too much of it to the extent that it's too troublesome to move it all to his apartment for the time being.

I think my answer to this favor masked as a request should be obvious.

I will indeed somehow bear the heavy burden of keeping all of my friend's manga for as long as is necessary. How will I ever cope with having thousands of pages of delicious comics at my fingertips for the foreseeable future?

Here is a completely unrelated picture of a cigarette vending machine in Nishi-Ogikubo.

Because it was there.

In Line for Food

2006-02-28T19:49:00.000+09:00

I've neglected this site very badly as of late.

Here's a picture I rather like.

My favorite part about it is the lady in red who seems particularly disgruntled at my presence for some reason or another. Usually it is only people under the age of 7 or so who provide me with, "Who is that white guy?" looks that are this precious.

Two things to note here:

1) The tiny dog. There are so many tiny dogs here.

2) The masks. People wear them when they are sick.

Pithy Observation

2006-02-16T18:20:00.000+09:00

Japanese kids into the hip music tend to use the terms "post-hardcore" and "post-rock" just about as often as they use "emo." And, yes, they do indeed talk about music genres pretty much entirely using English loanwords. I thought it might have just been the people I first talked about music with, but as I meet more and more people it has become clear that it is everyone. Make of this what you will. Or, just be totally confused by what it even means at all, depending on who you are.

Hot Diggity

2006-02-15T19:54:00.000+09:00

A new study of 100 university undergraduates in Toronto has found that video gamers consistently outperform their non-playing peers in a series of tricky mental tests. If they also happened to be bilingual, they were unbeatable.

This bit of needless ego inflation was provided by this article.

America is Big

2006-02-12T22:26:00.000+09:00

Japanese people seem to have no real conception of just how big America is. I had the following conversation yet again yesterday:

Them: So, where are you from in America?
Me: Kansas.
Them: Where is that?
Me: It's right in the middle. It's rural.
Them: How was hurricane Katrina? Was it scary?
Me: Umm . . . I have no idea, because Kansas is right in the middle. And America is very big, so it's nowhere near an ocean.
Them: Really? You can't see the ocean?
Me: No, you can't.
Them: I don't believe you.
Me: No, you definitely can't see the ocean from Kansas.
Them: But I thought hurricane Katrina was really big.
Me: That's true. But there is no ocean near Kansas.
Them: But didn't it hit Mississippi? Isn't Kansas near Mississippi?
Me: Mississippi is closer to the ocean than Kansas. But there are no oceans near Kansas.
Them: So you really didn't see hurricane Katrina? Really?

[repeat 5 or 6 times, gouge out own eyes]

Another interesting time was when one of my teachers tried to tell me that America had 52 states. She was sure of this. I insisted that it had 50, and she said, "What about Hawaii and Alaska?"

Then I died.

Hilarious.

2006-02-10T17:27:00.000+09:00

I recently found this site that has a streaming daily TV news broadcast in Japanese, which is great because watching the news is an easy way to learn, and I don't have a TV. You can get it by going to NEWS24 and clicking on the little block that says NEWS PLUS on the right. You need to be able to stream Windows Media Player to see it.

Why would you want to do this if you don't understand Japanese? Because Japanese news loves pixellating faces and voice distortion. And they interview people who run away from them all the time. It is hilarious and, as the kids would say, in your face. In a recent broadcast that you can catch yourself if you read this post soon enough, they even have slow motion black and white shots of meat processing plants to convince people how scary American beef is.

Relatedly, I am fairly certain that screaming "American beef is scary!" is the Japanese equivalent of American's "A white woman just went missing!" headline.

Another awesome part of today's broadcast is a section where their Olympics correspondant freaks out about how good Italians are at parallel parking. "I can barely fit two fingers between these two cars!" she exclaims. Then, when she watches someone else pull out of their tight spot, she can barely believe it.

JLPT Listening

2006-02-10T16:37:00.000+09:00

The listening section of the JLPT is completely absurd. It's split into two sections, one with pictures and one with no pictures. This picture of a page from 2003 version of the test we did in one of my classes encapsulates the beautiful eccentricity of the very, very strange with pictures sections of the listening exam. Click for bigness.

In 4 questions, you go from two boys talking about their favorite sumo wrestler (short, muscled), a woman describing a demon (with curly hair and pointy ears), two salarymen talking about their overworked colleague (book is open, but he's asleep), and a teacher telling students how to manipulate an abstract shape, for reasons I cannot even begin to fathom. Apparently, she really wanted half the width and twice length, I dunno. In any case, the sheer randomness of it always made me laugh.

Then, there is what may be my absolute favorite question of all the practice JLPT listening tests I did this semester:

In this question, two brothers are arguing about, of all things, how to assemble a robot. I know the creators probably had a toy robot in mind, but I could not help but imagine two little kids assembling a giant human sized killing machine. Just look at its expression. It's clearly deranged. I almost wanted to choose the wrong answer in order to prevent the damage such a robot would inevitably wreak upon their unsuspecting friends and neighbors.

All in all, I have to say I loved this section of the test when we did practice runs in class, because the questions are just consistently so hilarious because you are just assaulted with a string of non sequitur conversations on topics you would never expect. I mean, seriously, curly haired demons?

However, the actual test is run sort of like a totalitarian dictatorship, so I basically spent the whole time in constant fear that I would laugh uncontrollably and be given a yellow card. And I mean that literally. They for real give out penalty cards any time you break one of their ridiculously strict rules. Luckily, this year's test was unexpectedly not funny, so everything was okay.

One other thing to say about this test is that the conversations are not only about bizarre topics, the actual conversations themselves are so contrived and oblique you can't even believe it. No one actually says anything, and they're so circumlocutory that it's almost impossible to parody. But, they go something like this:

A: Oh, I was thinking that we should . . .
B: Yeah, me too, I mean . . .
A: So how about the zoo? There are monkeys.
B: Monkeys? I'd really rather . . .
A: I mean, if you think so . . . Then . . .
B: Definitely. I mean, it's spicy.
A: Okay, let's do it!

Then, the question and answers would be along these lines:

What will A and B have for lunch?
A: sushi
B: sashimi
C: Indian food
D: hamburgers

And you're taking the test, and you're like, "But wasn't the conversation about going to the zoo? I'm confused." And you guess Indian food because it sounds good, and somehow listening is still your best score out of all the sections on the test which you thought were much easier and more straightforward.

合格！！！

2006-02-10T16:14:00.000+09:00

I just got my results in, and I passed level 2 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test with no real problem at all. I was worried, but it was apparently totally unfounded because I was nowhere near not passing.

However, with how long I've studied Japanese, I would certainly hope I would be able to pass this test, since it's just roughly equivalent to middle school level Japanese proficiency. But, the most difficult level of the JLPT, Level 1, is infamously difficult, so I thought I'd take Level 2 to get a feel for what the test is like and will take Level 1 next year, probably. So, it's less that I'm proud and more that I'm not ashamed of myself.

In any case, this result enables a series posts I can now make about how hilarious the listening section of this test is that I was putting off in case I didn't pass, in which case I just didn't want to mention I was even taking it, as it would have been pretty embarrassing.

Stay tuned for some freaking weird pictures, people. The JLPT people proctor themselves one strange standardized language test.

Kurt Vonnegut

2006-02-06T12:42:00.000+09:00

He was my favorite author during high school, when I went on a crazy reading binge and went through literally all of his published works. The novels, the short stories, the non-fiction, the essays, all of it. Out of a sense of completionism, I still read everything he puts out.

He still has it in him, I think:

Persuasive guessing has been at the core of leadership for so long, for all of human experience so far, that it is wholly unsurprising that most of the leaders of this planet, in spite of all the information that is suddenly ours, want the guessing to go on. It is now their turn to guess and guess and be listened to. Some of the loudest, most proudly ignorant guessing in the world is going on in Washington today. Our leaders are sick of all the solid information that has been dumped on humanity by research and scholarship and investigative reporting. They think that the whole country is sick of it, and they could be right.

The rest is here.

Extra Crunchy!

2006-02-06T01:26:00.000+09:00

So, I recently received a package from my family which contained the very jar of Jif Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter you can see below:

I have been craving peanut butter that tastes like peanuts rather than sugar and cream for a long time, so when I got it I immediately unscrewed the lid, ripped the seal off, and huffed its sweet peanuty odor like Hunter S. Thompson with a brand new bottle of ether.

I had no bread or jam at the time, but I wanted to taste it, so I decided I'd have a bit of it raw. Since I have no spoon with me here, I got excited and nibbled on a bit of it by using my finger. While this definitely did get the peanut butter from the jar into my mouth, it was really messy and sticky and probably generally filthy. I needed a better way. But with no spoon, what could I do?

There was only one solution . . .

That's right. As you can see, I discovered that you can, indeed, eat peanut butter directly from the jar with a pair of chopsticks. With surprising efficiency.

Two Things that Happened

2006-02-04T00:08:00.000+09:00

It is very easy when studying abroad to forget that you are in an actual place where people live their lives. The experience is so novel that it is hard to really believe you are somewhere real. Two things happened today that pulled me out of that a bit:

1) In a grocery store, there was a little boy running around scared and crying, looking for his mom. I think it was the first time I've ever seen that happen anywhere. It was a very strange experience.

2) A little bit afterwards in a movie rental place, there were two little brothers arguing with each other about which Harry Potter movies they had seen. I probably would not have started to pay attention to this conversation except that their pronunciation of "Azkaban" was so amusing. (No matter how long I study Japanese, I never seem to stop being amused by the way the language treats English loanwords--that is to say, hilariously.) Then, their mom found them scolded them briefly for using mildly dirty language. After this, one of the brothers, clearly bored, asked her, "Are you done here yet?"

Neither story is all that interesting, I guess, but seeing everyday things like this reminds me that I am in an actual country, not an amusement park built for my benefit.

Tokyo Flashback: Part 2

2006-02-03T23:57:00.000+09:00

So, here is the second installment in my posts about my first day in Tokyo. Last time I focused on a Butoh performance of sorts. This time continues the street performer focus but with a much more mundane subject: jugglers.

Nothing much to say about this. It was a fairly typical street performance with lots of crowd interaction and asking for volunteers and stuff that I didn't get any pictures of. I think I'm gonna have to say that whether you're in Japan or in the States, juggling is pretty much the same. The kids liked it.

Also note that there are many more people watching the juggler than there are people watching creepy experimental dance. Which is too bad, but not exactly unexpected.

Silly Phrase of the Day

2006-02-03T00:12:00.000+09:00

Japanese people have a nickname for musical notes.

They call them "お玉杓子," pronounced "otamajyakushi." It means tadpole.

Why do they do this?

Because music notes look like tadpoles.

Obviously.

I like it, and I propose that English speakers who deal with music notes should adopt it.

Tokyo Part 1: Butoh Flashback

2006-02-02T16:11:00.000+09:00

My semester just ended, so I now have time to make posts about all sorts of stuff I promised I'd get to but never did. For a long time, I've been meaning to get to stories about my first day in Tokyo, and I kept trying to think about how best to write about it. I can't quite digest it all into one post, so I think I'll just try to make a bunch of short anecdotes about of it.

So, with that in mind, let's flash back to my first day in Tokyo on August 18th, 2005.

That's right. On my very first day ever going to Tokyo, I saw Butoh street performers in the middle of Shinjuku.

I was so surprised I wanted to confirm that I was right and so actually asked someone random confused looking stranger, "Is this Butoh?" And she said, "No, it's street performance." I was disappointed at first, but then I realized that I was probably in a better position than a random Japanese woman to recognize and classify avant-garde dance. Also, that answer makes no sense, as Butoh and street performance are by no means mutually exclusive, so I figured she didn't know what she was talking about.

The moved with incredible precision and also incredibly slowly. Given the general strangeness of the performance, I was pretty surprised by the number of families and nice old ladies that stopped to watch two men who had shaved all the hair off of their bodies and covered in white makeup do an experimental performance in the middle of the street.

It was at this moment that I decided that Tokyo was way cooler than New York, where I never saw anything like this go on outside of a theatre building.

Hard to Argue With

2006-01-30T19:15:00.000+09:00

Anyone who is going to live in the dorm during breaks has to fill out a form. This is my second time filling out this form, and I definitely have a favorite section of it by now. This section asks me to provide my reason for staying here over the break. While some of my Japanese friends have lame reasons like "to study" and have to justify themselves, I am in the very enjoyable position of being able to write: "Because I have nowhere else to live."

I am always tempted to follow this up with something like, "Do you want me to die in the street?"

But then I know that this would, regrettably, probably not go over well with the dorm bureaucracy.

On Prolixity . . .

2006-01-29T19:35:00.000+09:00

So, I'm writing that essay right now, and apparently I absolutely cannot stay within a recommended word count even in Japanese. I am currently at about triple the suggested length. Luckily, there is no upper limit to the length, only a minimum, so the professor can't complain. But maybe he will rethink his policies in the future.

Regarding that sukiyaki I talked about earlier: It was delicious.

Probably more about that later . . .

What. A. Douche.

2006-01-27T22:40:00.000+09:00

This is the most frivolous lawsuit ever.

Shorter version of the above article: It's so hard being a white male in America waaaahhhhh school is soooooo hard waaaahhhhhhhhh my dad's a lawyer waaaaahhhhh I'm too dumb to study waaaaaahhhh it's so much harder for boys to follow the rules than waaaaaaahhhhh I can't read books but I can throw balls real good waaaaaaahhhhh, etc.

Even worse than the boy and his family is the student body president who defends him. Somehow, I don't think his biggest problem at school is that he won't "buy pink paper and frills to decorate [his] notebooks." Maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with being unable to take any responsibility or to accept that the rules also apply to him.

Where's the world's tiniest violin when you really need it?

Now, don't get me wrong, the American school system is in serious need of reform, and many of my closest friends were victims of how messed up modern education is. But this kid is just ridiculous. I mean, seriously, he suggests that it is unfair for the school to make male students follow the community service requirement, because it is somehow harder for boys to do, for reasons I can't even begin to imagine.

He also suggests that school is harder for boys because they have to follow rules. "From the elementary level, they establish a philosophy that if you sit down, follow orders, and listen to what they say, you'll do well and get good grades. Men naturally rebel against this," he says. Unlike girls, who should do what they're told, apparently.

Yes, jerk, that's exactly what this country needs, to create a system where boys can do whatever they want because they just can't help themselves, unlike girls who, obviously, are born to shut up and be subservient and decorate their frilly notebooks. That's a really good idea. Let's do it.

Again, he has actually identified an important problem with the school system. It is more based on following orders than on learning. A lot of assignments are stupid ways to suck up time, and a lot of instructors power trip and enforce rules haphazardly. This is true. But maybe, just maybe, both the reason and the solution for this problem is a bit more complicated than some sort of phantom bias against boys.

And wasn't this sort of overdone pc nonsense more of a 90s thing anyway?

(related to nothing except that i'm listening to it right now: Frank Zappa's Weasels Ripped My Flesh is awesome)

文化祭

2006-01-27T22:36:00.000+09:00

So, are these images better with or without an explanation?

I just don't know . . .

Finals and the Lonely Ninja

2006-01-27T21:19:00.000+09:00

I have just one essay and one final to go now. My goal today was to get the essay done, but instead I just read manga and gave into my most recent internet addiction by spending a lot of time in mixi. Japanese internet is better for me than English internet, and it was good to catch up with a lot of messages and such I'd not replied to. But it does not get my essay done.

On the other hand, I seriously defy anyone to claim they are behind with their e-mail until a substantial portion of it is not in their native language. The trouble with tricking your friends into thinking your Japanese is semi-proficient is that they write you letters that are really long and complicated, which is just as good for me as it is time consuming to write adequate responses to. (very)

Tomorrow night is a sukiyaki party. I promise myself I will at least have a draft of my essay done before then.

Or maybe I'll just read Naruto. It seriously is the most emo manga about ninja ever. Please note the following scene in which Naruto wins the battle by coming to terms with his own deep seated loneliness, causing him and his opponent, Gaara, to spend the rest of the battle wallowing in their own sadness:

Granted, it probably helped when, earlier in the battle, Naruto used his ninja powers to clone himself a thousand times and attack Gaara with the kind of ridiculously over the top 2000 hit combo that manga does best. That was definitely also a factor:

And that's just what makes Naruto work. Wacky ninja powers . . . and unbearable loneliness. For a manga about super powered ninja, they sure spend a lot of time on the verge of tears, contemplating their feelings . . .

Hooray for addictive escapism. Way better than doing your homework, and much easier than reading something worthwhile.

And the only thing better than ninja?

Sad ninja.

They may be trained to kill, but they just want to be loved, people.

Bovine Splendor

2006-01-23T22:23:00.000+09:00

File this under things that would probably not sell in America:

You, too, can be as pretty as a cow.

Because nothing says beauty and cleanliness like livestock.

Needless to say, this is my favorite soap. Despite its fairly boring white bar form, just knowing that it's called Cow Beauty Soap somehow makes bathing more fun.

I especially enjoy the juxtaposition of fonts. The blocky bluntness of the college sports team logo type of font for "cow" just plays so well against the cursive daintiness of the font for "beauty soap."

It just looks like a parody of the worst possible marketing for a bathing product. But it's oh so real.

やっと詠んだ

2006-01-23T18:34:00.000+09:00

Today was the last day of my kanji class this semester. We already finished the textbook, so we read and then wrote haiku. Feeling particularly uninspired, I lamed out and wrote the following meta-haiku:

今眠い
俳句を詠むの
はできないな

Line by line, that's just:

I'm tired now
Writing a haiku
is something that I can't do.

While neither version is particularly good, trust me that it is much better in the original Japanese. Most importantly, there is no obnoxious rhyme in the Japanese version, and the grammar sounds more natural. On an awfulness scale, I would put the original at about a 6 and the English version at a perfect 10.

It was able to make the teacher and some of the other students laugh, though, which was more than I expected from it.

NO ESCAPE

2006-01-18T22:14:00.000+09:00

You cannot defy him.

You will take public transportation, and it will be adorable.

(See Suica Penguin parts 1, 2, and 3.)

Aloe Yogurt

2006-01-18T22:08:00.000+09:00

Yeah, that's right.

Aloe yogurt.

You can buy it in any old convenience store. It's actually pretty good.

Do American hippie types know about this?

蟲師

2006-01-18T00:38:00.000+09:00

I bough this manga today 100% because the cover was so fricking sweet.

Watercolors really stand out among the very crowded manga racks.

You're just gonna have to trust me that it looks infinitely better in person. I only have a digital camera to do a scanner's job, so the colors didn't turn out so well. Also, the frankly awesome quality of the paper stock really doesn't come across in the picture even a little bit.

In any case, it's the kind of book that feels good to hold in your hands.

I have no idea if it's any good, and I won't have time to read it proper for a while. But I flipped through it, and my expectations are high.

Yay comics.

He's Everywhere

2006-01-18T00:22:00.000+09:00

Did I mention yet how much I love the Suica Penguin?

Yeah, I guess I did.

(finals equals really busy equals lots of posts about penguins)

oh wow

2006-01-15T22:15:00.000+09:00

So, if anyone was under the impression that maybe I wasn't a huge nerd, you should look at the previous two posts, in which I gush over dolls of imaginary creatures and really big ninja stars. Right in a row.

I didn't mean to give myself away so thoroughly, it just sort of happened.

Note to self: Keep topics that dorky separate by at least a day or two. Or at least not side by side.

Did I mention that Naruto can summon giant frogs by channeling the power of the nine tailed fox sealed within him?

Yeah, that's right. I said it.

Cactrot, Moogle, Tonberry

2006-01-15T21:45:00.000+09:00

So, I went to a toy shop and saw these:

I had to use every once of resistance in my body not to buy all three at once. Especially the moogle. (For those of you not familiar with random Final Fantasy mythology, the moogle is the white one.) These dolls tapped into wells of nostalgia that proved to be much deeper than I ever could have anticipated. Plus, like the liger, they are bred for their skills in magic and offer a degree of protection. I somehow managed to leave with my wallet unscathed, but I cannot guarantee that I will be able to make it the next 8 months without giving in. It is highly likely that one of these guys will end up on the plane back home with me come August.

Guilty Pleasures

2006-01-15T21:04:00.000+09:00

When I was still in America, my friend Sajo told me about some manga called Naruto. I have to admit that I wasn't initially particularly interested, because it's the sort of serialized entertainment with no planned end in sight that usually irritates me. However, in the couple days between getting here and before my classes started back in September, I had a lot of free time and decided I'd pick up some manga. Largely because I remembered its name, I bought Naruto.

The only real thing I knew about the story was that it vaguely involved ninja. That was sort of interesting, but not exactly novel. However, I soon before a convert to Naruto when I saw stuff like this in the very first volume:

Now, regular old ninja stuff I can resist. I've seen a lot of ninja stories in my day. But ninja throwing shuriken half the size of a human body? It's just too fun not to read. Now, it's not deep by any means, but it's great mindless entertainment. Naruto just feels like the natural product of ninja mythology and over the top manga stylization, and I can't help but like it.

It's actually being released in America right now in both anime and manga versions, but I hear the translations of both aren't so great. I have no idea, so I can't recommend them. However, given the potential for this to make a lot of money in America, I would guess that the probability of the official American release being focus grouped to death and ruined is extremely high. Also, I personally wouldn't recommend the anime version even in Japanese, but that's probably just me being a snob.

The other great thing about Naruto, as it turns out, is that everyone reads it. An incredibly easy way to meet strangers is to be a white person reading manga in Japanese in Japan, and it's especially easy when it's something as popular as Naruto. I have literally had strangers come up to me and ask me where I am in the story.

Also, Japanese comics are very economical and accessible entertainment. Popular comics are released as collections, so I can read Naruto from the very beginning of the story without having to dig around through expensive and rare old issues like you I would have to in America. Plus, whereas in America comics are about $3 for 25 or so pages, the collections here are about $4 for 200 pages. I'm on volume 11 of about 30 right now. It's a very cheap, very fun way to study. And something to do when you're on the train.

It's Just a Fact

2006-01-14T18:53:00.000+09:00

The Suica Penguin is the best mascot ever.

How can you not love this guy? Doesn't he just make you want to take the train?

I Control the Weather (sortof)

2006-01-14T18:50:00.000+09:00

When I thought it was a bit snowy during the snowboarding trip, it turns out it was actually really, really snowy.

Apparently, the most on record since they started keeping track of this sort of thing.

I would also like to point out that the year I leave Minnesota is unseasonably warm this Winter while Japan is unseasonably cold. Granted, it's still way, way warmer here than in Minnesota. In the area where I live here, it only snowed once, and it was gone by the afternoon. But it's still weird that cold weather is following me around like that.

O'Reilly v. Letterman

2006-01-12T21:35:00.000+09:00

This is gorgeous.

This may be old news in America? I have no idea.

Infants and Eyeballs

2006-01-12T20:13:00.000+09:00

So, a Japanese idiom that I particularly enjoy is, "It wouldn't hurt even if you shoved it in your eye."

It would be used in situations like, "Oh, that baby is so cute it wouldn't hurt even if I shoved it in my eye!" This simply means that said baby is very, very cute and that the speaker probably loves the baby very much.

But I just can't help but see images of loving parents trying to force their infants through their eye sockets whenever I hear it.

Too Good to Make Up

2006-01-12T20:07:00.000+09:00

In a move that seems as if it could have no other purpose than to conform to American stereotypes of Japanese wackyness, the mascot for much of Japanese rail is . . . a penguin who sleeps on the moon.

Because nothing says public transportation like penguins.

Right?

(Context that makes this less funny: Okay, he doesn't always sleep on the moon... This ad is just a cross promotion between rail and hotels. Nonetheless, I will still consider it to be official canon in the story of the Suica penguin.)

クリちゃん

2006-01-09T22:43:00.000+09:00

As a follow up to the earlier post I made about the silly nicknaming that goes on here, here's what happens to my name when it is put into diminutive/affectionate form.

First, it's important to know that basically no one says "Chris" like native English speakers do. With a very, very small number of exceptions, everyone pronounces it like it is written using Japanese characters, which is クリス (kurisu). Note also that the Japanese "r" sound is something like a cross between an "l," an "r," and a "d." (It's actually almost identical to a properly pronounced Spanish "r" sound, actually.)

The basic formula is to lop off some syllables and then add on a diminutive suffix, either くん (kun) or ちゃん (chan). With boys, くん (kun) is more common, but it's not the rule. Which of the two suffixes it ends up being and how many syllables get lopped off is not exactly something that can be logically expained, but think about how Richard can become Rick, Ricky, or even Dick but generally not Richy. It makes no sense, it's just how it goes, and it's not really something a non-native speaker can learn outside of memorization.

So, in my case, you lop off the very last syllable "ス" (su) and tack on a "ちゃん" (chan).

This ends up with me getting called:　クリちゃん (kurichan).

Funny.

And Randomly: Sometimes this whole business gets more complicated and involves switching from one reading of a kanji character to another. For example, a friend named 金井 (かない -- kanai). The first character in his name is "金," which means "gold" or "money" and is read "かな" (kana). But, it can also be read (among other options) きん (kin). For some reason, his diminutive/affectionate name uses this alternate reading, rather than the one actually in his name, and he becomes 金ちゃん、read "きんちゃん" (kinchan).

Communist Ape Soldiers!

2006-01-09T22:39:00.000+09:00

But seriously.

Mister Donut

2006-01-09T20:07:00.000+09:00

There is a Japanese doughnut chain here called Mister Donut, and their selection is awesome. My favorite so far is エンゼルクリーム (enzerukuriimu), which is just the English word "Angel Cream." It is basically a sugar doughnut that has, no joke, been stuffed with whipped cream. It pushes the boundaries of how much sugar it is appropriate to have in your mouth at once in a way that I enjoy.

Another strange part of the Japanese doughnut eating experience for me is how thick milk is here. It's basically cream. Conversely, Japanese people who have drank American milk often say that American milk tastes like water. One upshot of this is that Japanese people don't drink milk in the quantities that Americans do, as drinking straight up cream is pretty rough on your stomach and doesn't taste all that great. If I could somehow mix the selection of Mister Donut with American style thing milk, I would probably die.

Finally, I highly recommend watching Mister Donut's fine commercials. They are strange enough that they can be enjoyed whether or not you understand them.

Update: And, you can be further amused at their weird mascots in this bizarre internet game. The explanations are all in Japanese, but it's aimed at a pretty young audience, so you should be able to figure it out somewhat. And it's worth it to click on the link just to see all the mascots.

Warren Ellis and Why I Like Japanese

2006-01-08T23:06:00.000+09:00

To follow up on the last post, another reason I like Warren Ellis is that he also writes excellent comic theory because he loves the medium but hates what is being produced. I was lucky enough to find him at the exact moment when I still liked comics as a medium but was getting bored enough with mainstream superhero stuff that statements like the following one from this interview, which really resonated with me (this interview is post-Transmetropolitian and thus obviously more recent than when I learned about him, but he's been saying stuff like this for some time):

Really, it doesn't seem to me that there are many comics being written for me. I want something with a little more muscle and bite than standard-issue power fantasies, whimsical romance, the autobiographies of people who never do anything and things with elves. The Western medium has cycles, and it's currently in a creative downturn. That doesn't mean there isn't excellent work being done. That simply means there's not much of it. And, on a personal level, little of it is talking to me. Not many comics reflect the fact that I live in a multicultural society fitted with a global communications net, nor do they reflect the fact that I don't own a pair of Superman underpants.

When he talks about the Western comic book medium, it is at least in part because in places like Japan, for example, comics are a much healthier medium. I must admit that at least one part of my desire to learn to read Japanese was to be able to finally read good comics again.

One More Thing About Nagano . . .

2006-01-08T23:02:00.000+09:00

And here's the last entry in today's avalanche of posts.

In case I haven't given you enough excuses yet to take a trip here some time in your life:

If like skiing or snowboarding, you must go to Japan. I can't stress enough how beautiful the mountains are here. And doesn't the idea of a skiing for a couple of days then spending the rest of your time doing more relaxed museum going, sight seeing, and generally taking in the culture to cool down just sound like a great vacation plan?

Pictures, Public Intoxication, Bus, Sleep

2006-01-08T20:59:00.000+09:00

I took basically no pictures during the trip, because it's just not convenient or safe to bring a digital camera along with you while you're actually snowboarding. I was planning to take pictures on the bus ride back, but I only managed to get these two of Masato (left) and Yuusuke (right) before my battery promptly died and my spares were buried too deeply inside of my bag to care about. Both pictures are blurry, but they are funny and I like them.

Note that Yuusuke is both drinking inside the bus and holding a comfort cigarette. It actually reached a point on the trip back where he opened a window and closed the blinds so that he could hide behind them smoke. I think I should also take this opportunity to note that laws about where you can drink and smoke are much more lenient here than in the States. Basically, you do either almost anywhere. Also, while you technically cannot buy liquor until you are 20, no one gets carded when they go into a bar, and you can buy beer from vending machines.

At the same time, it should also be said that while I have seen a lot of people here drink a ton, I have never seen anyone get angry in the way that people drinking in America do quite frequently. And, as I've written before, you tend to always eat while you're drinking. During a party during this trip, someone asked me about drinking in America, and when I told him that American college students don't tend to eat like Japanese people do when they drink, he asked me, "Why would you do that? Don't people throw up?" The only real response I had was that people do that because they're stupid, and they throw up a lot.

The way alcohol is treated culturally is just fundamentally different here even by rowdy college students, and it is worlds away from the aggressive fratboy posturing that seems to typify the drinking culture in the States. Whereas America has laws against drinking in public that seem to make sense because of the way people get rowdy and aggressive, there are no such laws here and it does not seem to cause any problems. You can even drink on the subway in Tokyo. Granted, drinking or eating anything on the subway is considered to be bad manners and at least childish if not vaguely barbaric, but it's still legal. So, I wouldn't do it because I wouldn't want to further inflame negative images of foreigners as being rude, but you definitely can, if you want to. (For a considerably better written and Canadian take on this subject, go to Hunkabutta, which is a much better blog than mine about living in Japan. I recommend reading his post on this subject very, very much.)

So, to shift subjects back to the trip to Nagano: As I wrote in the previous post, we went as part of a larger group travel thingamabob, which is much more common here than in America. I would guess this is probably at least in part because it is much less common to own your own car, among other reasons. Group travel was sort of an alien concept to me and group travel by bus seemed especially unappealing at first, but it really is quite convenient to just get bussed to and from your destination and have your hotel arrangements and such just done for you. In this picture you can see the bus we were on, and the seats were actually quite spacious and comfortable.

And, for some reason, the seats were covered in doilies.

One other funny thing about the experience was that we went to the bus at night so that we would get to Nagano by the following morning. In theory, you should sleep on the bus. Obviously, no one can do this, as a result of both being on a bus with your friends who are excited to go on a trip and the fact that sleeping on a bus as it drives through the mountains is not particularly easy. So, after the first day of snowboarding (which was my first day ever snowboarding and thus very painful), we were all so exhausted that we slept from 5pm that to 7am the next morning, except for when we were woken up briefly to eat an evening meal that was included in the travel package, after which we promptly fell asleep again.

On Snowboarding/I'm Not Dead

2006-01-08T19:49:00.000+09:00

So, for some crazy reason, I decided that a 3 day trip in Japan would be a really good time to pick up snowboarding for the first time. For those of you that know me, the thought of me snowboarding probably causes you either to laugh or wonder how I am still alive. And justifiably so. This post is fairly long, if only because the reactions of most people who knew about this trip were summed up very well by Misty, who thought, "Wait... that involves fast speeds and physical coordination. This is CHRIS we're talking about. This could potentially end badly." Hence, a long explanation to let you know how I survived.

One thing that I did not know when my friends asked me to come along on the trip was that they are very good at it. So, while they were practicing wacky jumps and such, I was struggling to stand up. The upshot of this, however, is that they were able to teach me what to do. I think I have probably never valued being able to understand Japanese more than while learning to snowboard, if only because understanding what someone told me was directly correlated to how painful or not the experience would be. Luckily, Yuusuke, who is probably the best among my group of friends at explaining stuff to me, did most of the teaching.

On the first day I got acquainted with how to theoretically control myself on the board, but the only real skill I got good at in any practical sense was how to fall down without getting hurt and to get up quickly after falling down. This seems like a pretty basic thing, but if you've ever been to a ski resort with a lot of snowboarders and seen the hordes of people lying down in the snow, boards stripped to their feet, completely immobile and forming a sort of human obstacle course for the other patrons, you will understand that getting up is not quite as easy as it sounds. Additionally, when both of your feet are buckled into an wooden board, it's really important to be able to fall and get up in a way which does not rip your knees in two. And if you want to actually make progress, you have to learn to get up quickly.

Luckily, I fell more than often enough to get as much practice as anyone could hope for in this regard. And, by the end of the first day, I had more than enough experience with all the different variations by which one can fall down into the snow that I could quickly recover from any of them and get back on my way. (Granted, usually only to fall down again 10 to 15 seconds later. I got a lot of practice falling down and getting up.)

Right about the time I felt like I could actually control myself on the first day, it started to snow so heavily that I literally could not see more than 5-10 yards ahead of me, which led to even more practice falling down and getting up.

It got much better from there. Eventually, I was even able to separate the Pavlovian connection ingrained into me on the first day between "snowboarding" and "pain." While I am by no means good at snowboarding, I did eventually reach a point at which I could get down to the bottom of the mountain and only fall down 2 or 3 times in the process. This means that, instead of falling something like 5 times a minute, I would only fall down once couple of minutes. While not skillful by any means, significantly less painful.

Granted, I was going really, really slowly to do this. But you have to start somewhere. And, during the course of the second day, I was doing better than some people who had not just started the previous day. And, I was told that I was doing the best out of the people who just started on that trip. (Group travel is much more common in Japan, so while I was going on the trip with 5 friends who I knew and who were all really good at snowboarding, there were also a bunch of people I didn't know before the trip, some of which I managed to actually get better than as a result of what must almost certainly be divine intervention.) I would be really proud of this, except that I went skiing a bunch when I was younger, so it does seem rather like it would be pretty pathetic if I wasn't able to apply at least some of those principles to get a bit of a jump on people who had absolutely no idea what they were doing. So, my actual reaction to hearing this was much less being proud and more along the lines of, "Well, I would certainly hope so."

But, all in all, it did eventually get fun. At the end of the first day, I basically could not move at all. However, I ended the second day actually feeling rather energetic. (Falling, apparently, is much harder on your body than not falling.) So, this is definitely something that I would do again at some point.

Plus, near the very end, I realized that I seem to snowboard much more easily in goofy style than in the normal stance. (Again, to those people that know me, this is probably expected and fitting.) Retrospectively, I realize now that I spent most of the time snowboarding resisting my body's tendency to want to settle into goofy style, and when I finally just gave in and went goofy all the way I didn't have enough time to really experiment with it. But this is an important realization to have made that I think will help out with any future snowboarding experiences.

And, frankly, there will be future snowboarding experiences, if only because a snowboard is just so much more convenient to carry around than skis, which are obnoxious. And I'm just that lazy.

. . . and I'm Back

2006-01-08T19:19:00.000+09:00

So, back from Nagano.

A lot to say, so I'll just use this post to make some scattered observations:

1) I don't think people ski very much here anymore, especially young people. I would say a good 60& to 70% of the people were snowboarding, at the very least. Also, with a couple exceptions, the only skiers I saw under the age of 30 seemed to be kids with their parents who probably had no choice. I think this may be related at least in part to the way young Japanese people are very focused on always looking really cool, which I have wrote about occasionally in earlier posts. I haven't gone skiing in some time, so I have no idea if this phenomenon (of skiers being such a minority nowadays) is true in America as well. If anyone knows, I would appreciate it if you could comment or (more likely, since most of you reading this just know me anyway) e-mail me to let me know if skiing is falling out of fashion in America too.

2) The most amusing announcement I heard while riding the lifts: [after announcing where someone could pick up their lost phone] "This took our staff an incredibly long time to find. If you drop your cell phone, the odds of finding it are extremely low, so please make sure you keep it on you at all times." (but, in Japanese, obviously) Again, to anyone who has gone skiing or snowboarding recently, is this something that has to be said in America now as well, or do Japanese people just love their cell phones that much?

3) Japanese uses a really fun verb for "to ski" or "to snowboard" that I think would be fun for English speakers to pick up. Of course, they have "to ski" and "to snowboard," which are:

スキーをする (sukii o suru) -- literally meaning "to do skiing"

ボードをする (boodo o suru) -- literally meaning "to do snowboarding"

But, there is a more fun alternative in the verb 滑る (すべる suberu). This literally means "to slip," "to slide" or "to glide." For example, if someone walks on a icey road and trips, you can use this verb to describe it. It could also be used to describe sliding around on a sippery floor in your socks. But, you can also use it to talk about skiing or snowboarding down a mountain. So, this weekend, a lot of people asked questions like, "Do you wanna go slip again?"

One more fun use of this verb: If someone makes a really bad or otherwise failed joke, you can use this verb in the past tense and say, "滑った" (すべった subetta), meaning, "You slipped" to make fun of them. I don't know if this is in widespread usage or if it's just my friends being weird.

Another fun thing about this verb is that its kanji character (滑) is easy to remember, because the left radical (those three slashes on the left) means "water" and the radical on the right means "bone." At least in my head, "water" and "bone" create an easy mnemonic for slipping. So, for all these reasons, I love this verb.

Trip to Nagano . . .

2006-01-03T18:08:00.000+09:00

So, I'm going to Nagano with some friends on a ski/snowboarding trip soon. There will be no internet during that time. Also, there will be very light, if any, posting today and tomorrow as I finish up preparations to both go on the trip and head back into and finish the semester, which still has about a month or so to go here, since the school year is on a completely different schedule. (Without getting into too much boring detail, school here starts in April.)

Things should be back to normal in about a week.

Japanese TV

2006-01-02T20:52:00.000+09:00

About 60% of it is just dogs riding bicycles. I swear to god.

Akira Rocks.

2006-01-02T00:50:00.000+09:00

This is yet another post where I get all nerdy about how much I love reading the manga of Akira in Japanese and gush about why it's so much better than the movie. If you haven't seen the movie, this will probably make no sense. On the other hand, if you haven't seen it, you really should.

So, as I wrote about earlier, I figured the manga would have to diverge substantially from the movie because Akira is an actual living character rather than just a bunch of preserved organs kept in jars, which clearly makes a big difference, given that the title of the story is Akira. As it turns out, oh man was I right, and it's awesome. Here's a picture of the cover of volume 4 (out of 6) to emphasize how different it gets for anyone familiar with the movie story:

Whereas in the movie Akira destroying Neo-Tokyo is the very the end of the movie, in the manga it's just the end of the first half. The second half of the story, so far, involves Akira being set up as the figurehead leader of The Great Tokyo Empire, a separatist state of sorts that is led by Tetsuo, formed in the rubble of the destroyed section of Neo-Tokyo, as can be seen in the above picture. It's way sweet.

And, it carries the main idea of Akira as symbol of military power, particularly nuclear weaponry, much further. Whereas the movie is so fast and condensed it functions best as some sort of trippy, David Lynch-esque action movie, the manga is more clearly a product of both Cold War mutually assured destruction policies and Japan's tradition of nuclear-bomb literature.

I am so happy my friends let me borrow their good things.

Also, given just how totally bizarre the story is, it's great for study as well, largely a result of the diversity of characters involved. Between the gang members, the military, the politicians, the cult members, and the clairvoyants, there's all sorts of weird slang, specialized vocabulary, and generally unusual speech patterns up in this thing.

First Meal of the Year . . . and Towels!

2006-01-01T19:48:00.000+09:00

After waking up at 4:00pm, I walked to the convenience store that's only about a minute away from my dorm to get my first meal of the year. I left with the following things in my bag:

Cup ramen (Japanese brands taste a little more like food and come with beef and shrimp and such)
Shrimp and mayonnaise onigiri (shrimp and mayonnaise in a rice ball wrapped in dried seaweed)
Mandarin juice (This was clearly a silly mistake, as tea would clearly went better with the other two items. It did, however, make for a tasty desert.)
Onsen Towels!

Tsutomu was working, and after he made fun of me for sleeping until it was dark out, we talked about preparations for the ski trip in Nagano some of us are taking in a couple of days. In what I will consider to be a good omen for the trip, his boss overheard Tsutomu talking about needing to buy special towels for the onsen, and so he just gave us both a bunch of extras the store happened to have in stock for free.

This is clearly a Very Good Thing. As anyone who has read the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books knows, there is basically nothing more useful to a traveler than a towel.

Houses Are Small

2006-01-01T19:31:00.000+09:00

One other thing to note: Japanese houses are small. The apartments that broke college students rent are especially small. As a result of this, big parties of the kind Americans think about when they think of college parties are comparatively rare. The Christmas party I posted on a while back (and still am not quite done with) was an exception, but note that it was only possible because my friends rented a venue. And, even in that case, the amount of people that could attend was still tiny by American party standards. Generally, if you want to have a party with a lot of people, you have to do it at an "izakaya," a Japanese-style pub (which I keep saying I need to post about, but haven't yet... but, basically, totally different than whatever you're thinking about if you haven't been to one).

So, on events that Americans tend to associate with big gatherings full of people you barely know (like New Year's Eve), it is more common in Japan to spend a night with 10 or so close friends, because any more just wouldn't fit. I absolutely love this, personally, as I have basically always found groups of 10 or so close people to be much more fulfilling than huge parties, which tend to be fun to me only to the extent that they are rare. Of course, big parties are fun from time to time, but I have always hated spending days that seem like they should be important, like New Year's Eve, at big parties with people who I largely couldn't care less about.

On Names . . .

2006-01-01T19:03:00.000+09:00

This post is especially for Sarah, who asked for more information related to what I had mentioned earlier about how different perceptions of masculinity are here. Here is another observation that I'd been meaning to make for some time but which particularly struck out after last night:

To a much greater degree than I would have expected, Japanese guys give each other cutesy nicknames all the time, particularly when they're drinking. The basic formula is to take the first syllable of someone's name and then add "kun" to it.

For example:

Mitsuru ---> Mikkun
Tsutomu ---> Tsukkun

Maybe my friends are just strange, but it just seems to me that Japanese males, or at least Japanese males of this generation, are considerably less freaked out about looking masculine than American males are. Resultantly, they are much more openly affectionate with each other. Really, the whole "metrosexual" fad in America would be completely meaningless here, as it seems like everyone's already been dressing themselves well for some time. In America, things like "dressing well" and "not being an emotionless jerk" are for some reason seen as feminine. This is definitely not the case here.

Relatedly, I have also yet to meet a single Japanese young person who does not fastidiously shape their eyebrows. (If you don't believe me, look at all the pictures in previous posts.)

I, however, am still as filthy as ever.

大晦日

2006-01-01T18:09:00.000+09:00

I woke up at about 4:00 pm today, and I am going to declare last night's New Year's festivities to be a resounding success. It does tend to get dark here around 4:30 though, so I do feel rather like I missed out entirely on the first day of the year.

My friends had work until about 11:30pm yesterday, so we were scrambling to get 年越しそば (toshi koshi soba) ready before 2006 began. 年越しそば (toshi koshi soba) literally just means soba, a type of Japanese noodle, for crossing over (越し (koshi) is the noun form of 越す (kosu), the verb meaning to cross over or surpass) from one year (年,　toshi) into the next. So, it's year crossing soba.

In Japanese, New Year's Eve is called 大晦日 (おおみそか　-- oomisoka). "大" （おお -- oo) means "big" or "great" or "most." "晦" (みそ miso) is the last day of the month. And　"日" (か -- ka) means "day." So, the biggest/most important last day of the month. Our 大晦日 party started late, but it lasted well into the New Year.

I prepared by buying 八海山 (hakkaisan) for everybody:

八海山 (hakkaisan) is probably my favorite 酒 (さけ sake), and, quite honestly, probably my favorite of any kind of liquor I've ever had. And reasonably priced! I had a little bit of sake before I came here just to see what it was like. But, as it turns out, a lot of the sake you can buy in America is really, really bad. Decent Japanese sake, however, is almost dangerously easy to drink. For example, if I was to compare the taste of 八海山 to any other liquid, I would probably have to pick water. It really is just that smooth.

The festivities went on for too long to describe in detail, but some of the odder highlights of how time was passed between midnight and 9am include:

Food was attached to walls with darts.

[I will probably post on those wasabi-beef chips later. Their mascot is hilarious.]

The 人生ゲーム（じんせいゲーム　jinseigeimu) was played.

[a blurry Tsutomu, Yuusuke, Akiyuki]

Temples were visited.

[Mitsuru, blurry and crouching Akiyuki, Kazuki]

[Akiyuki, goofy white guy, Kazuki]

Another thing that happened that I have no pictures of is we played one of those party games where a killer and two detectives and randomly assigned by drawing cards and everyone tries to find the killer before the detectives get killed. If you aren't familiar with these games, just know that the game revolves largely around lying long enough not to get killed and catching other people's lies soon enough to kill them. Note that it is much harder (and, consequently, more fun) to convince someone not to kill you in a second language.

Update: Eh, here's a picture of that anyway. You totally can't see anything, but what the hell. The most visible thing here is probably actually the kotatsu heater in the back, which will also get a post devoted to it at some point. Kotatsu = awesome.

Two other quick comments:

I had never played The Game of Life in English, so having to learn the rules for the first time during 人生ゲーム was quite interesting.

I did not expect to go to a temple last night, and I certainly did not expect to go to a temple at 4:00am. There are temples all over Japan, and this one was under a five minute's walk away from Tsutomu and Yuusuke's apartment. The interesting thing to me about it is that none of them are even mildly religious, it's just a fun tradition. In the picture that I am in, Akiyuki and Kazuki are teaching me how to ritualistically clean my hands.

"Slaves for fashion dislike bulges."

2005-12-31T20:08:00.000+09:00

Everyone must visit Audio Atrocities.

It is a collection of badly translated and badly acted voice clips from videogames. And it is amazing. It's definitely the funniest thing on this here inter-web I've ran into in some time. Bad acting in videogames is very, very bad.

If you don't know where to start, I highly recommend the clips from Megaman 8, Super Bust A Move 2, Martian Gothic Unification, and Shining Force 3. All are frighteningly awful in their own, special way.

Well, with 45 minutes left in 2005, off to go do the New Year's thing . . .

What Exactly Is He Smoking?

2005-12-31T18:34:00.000+09:00

There are just too many awesome things going on in this sign telling you only to smoke in designated areas to even get into, really.

I will say that I really enjoy the image of a crazy old man being conjured our of your cigarette smoke to scold your bad manners.

But, seriously, click on it for bigness, as it's quite hilarious.

Armor

2005-12-31T13:12:00.000+09:00

Because it's frickin sweet.

On Pretension . . .

2005-12-30T15:16:00.000+09:00

You could say that it all started when I realized that nothing is any good if other people like it.

As of late, however, I've felt a bit like a sellout enabler.

Or maybe I'm just wallowing in irony, like the kids say.

(and thank you, diesel sweeties, for always understanding.)

I Finally Did It

2005-12-29T02:20:00.000+09:00

No, I didn't clean anything.

After years of refusing to participate in ridiculous networking sites like Friendster, Facebook, xanga, myspace, and all of those other cancers of the internet, I registered for mixi.

It like all those above mentioned sites, but it's for Japanese people. (Or, in my case, friends of Japanese people.) And, I have to say, designed much more prettily and generally less obnoxious, compared to what I've seen of friends of mine who do those sorts of things in America.

Also, I will admit: Totally addictive. Must... add... friends... to network...

One fun thing about it compared to all its American alternatives is that in the "post a picture" slot, no one puts up silly internet style pictures of themselves looking ironic or wacky or sultry or of themselves taking a picture of themselves in a mirror or as if they just don't care or whatever. They're all weird, non-sequitur pictures of toothpaste or cats or nature or those Russian dolls with other dolls inside of them, just to name some examples I can see right now. That alone makes it refreshingly less gross.

Contrast Is Funny

2005-12-29T00:33:00.000+09:00

Well, I think so anyway.

I Can't Clean Anything

2005-12-29T00:01:00.000+09:00

I had one goal for this day of my winter break, and one goal only: Finally clean my room, which has, as usual, become ridiculously messy.

Mostly, I didn't do this at all. The few times when I did try to clean, I looked very much like this 6th century terracotta tomb ornament that the Tokyo National Museum called "Haniwa Man in Formal Attire:"

There was definitely a lot of standing in the middle of my room, putting my hands on my hips, looking around for a while, picking up a tiny piece of something and moving it into some sort of pile of something else, then standing with my hands on my hips and pacing some more.

I think I am probably actually literally incapable of cleaning anything. If there is some sort of mental disorder that is the opposite of obsessive compulsion whereby people get really uncomfortable if they to be live in a really organized environment, I am sure that I have it. As much as I logically know there are many benefits to having a clean living space, I just cannot bring myself to do it.

Also, isn't that guy just sweet? He's not at all what I used to think of when I thought about ancient Japanese artifacts. (Usually, I would think about big, imposing Buddhas and generals and such, like in the previous post about the museum.) But, apparently, pre-Bhuddist Japanese art had lots of adorable guys like this all over the place. I'm a big fan.

On a more positive note: While I didn't get any cleaning done today, I did just meet with Tsutomu in the alley behind the convenience store where he was working to finally exchange Akira volumes 1 and 2 for volumes 3 and 4. So, I'm about read that manga so hard it won't know what to do with itself. For real.

Return of the Panda

2005-12-28T18:20:00.000+09:00

Longtime readers will recognize this character from my first post made from Japan.

He looks much creepier at nighttime. And, is it just me, or does it look like he's probably listening into their conversation?

「超メリークリスマス！」 (Part 2)

2005-12-28T17:41:00.000+09:00

So, here's the follow up to my earlier and very vague post about the Christmas party my friends threw.

One of the cool things about my friends here is that they like to throw various events and things occasionally. For example, they rented a venue to throw a little Christmas event last week. Here's the outside of where it was held, a tiny hole in the wall coffee shop:

On the table in the above picture are polaroids of the people who had already showed up. Yuusuke (very blurry in the above picture) took everyone's picture when they arrived.

Next is a picture of my friend Masato waiting for everyone to settle in, followed by a picture of Masato and Tsutomu (who I've written about earlier here and here, although without naming him--he lent me Akira in the first link and holds the baby in the second) rocking out like the kids do with a hip drums and keyboard instrumental number.

Note the classy classy suits. It was generally a casual situation, but they were just being silly about it. It was just to create a fun atmosphere, which is probably clear from the pictures from my last post on this event with all the balloons and the glowing lights and the masks and the whatnot. Conveniently, both Masato and Tsutomu work at a convenience store that is barely a minute's walk away from my dorm.

Next is a picture of Mitsuru (left) and Honma (right).

Mitsuru is hilariously smart, and I'm pretty sure he's read everything. When I first got here, I would ask people about all the amazing books I read for my Japanese literature classes, and nobody knew them. I started to wonder if anyone actually read them at all, and it was pretty disappointing, actually, because I really, really like Japanese literature. Eventually, I just gave up asking until I met the people who would eventually become my actual friends, who brought all of those books up on their own as recommendations to me, not expecting me to know about them and certainly not thinking that I'd ever read them. (Granted, largely in English translation. Japanese = hard.) So, as it turns out, people do actually read good books here, but, like in America, only cool people. Also, Mitsuru has a amazing of cool stories and pictures because he spent a long time this summer traveling all over South America.

On the right is Honma. One of the main things I've noticed from people's interactions with Honma is just how incredibly mean Japanese people are to you if you're overweight. There really are not very many fat people here, to the extent that I remember when I saw an overweight person at the train station for the first time after being here for about 3 weeks and it completely threw me off. First, because of how much they stuck out here, and second, because of how long it had been since I'd seen anyone overweight. But, seriously, I don't know how Honma puts up with it. His nickname among my group of friends is, literally, "pig," and they constantly make fun of him for being overweight. It's not ill-natured, as everyone is friendly about it, but it seems to go quite a bit farther and crueler with it than the equivalent sorts of interactions do in America.

More on this party and related associations later . . .

東京国立博物館

2005-12-28T00:49:00.000+09:00

So, I went to the Tokyo National Museum Today . . .

In related news, I have a new favorite museum.

Those pictures are all from just one room. They give no real sense of scale, but let me assure you that the first and the third are bigger than people, and the figures in the middle picture of all the generals, while smaller in size, are amazing beyond my capabilities of description. This was the first room I went into, and I was completely overwhelmed from the very beginning.

The whole experience was almost dizzying, really. I have never been so completely defeated by a museum in terms of wanting more and more and more and yet there being just so much that I wasn't able to take it all in. I was there for nearly 4 hours and did not come close to even scratching the surface of all the museum has to offer. When the announcement came on that the museum was about to close in half an hour, not only had I not come close to really looking at everything in the buildings of the museum devoted to Japan, I had not even set foot into the building with displays from the rest of Asia. I then spent about 20 minutes frantically rushing through 5 floors of exhibits with items from China, Korea, India, Egypt, and surely other countries I didn't even have enough time to notice or remember.

It also made me realize how little I know about early Japanese history. I know quite a lot about the history from a little before the Meiji Restoration in 1868 to now, but how little I know about the history before then is a little embarrassing, actually. I really felt rather buried under the weight of all the history while I was there, especially when I started to think about the fact that native Japanese people had been living here since around 30,000 B.C. (And, apparently, seem to be the first people in the world to have discovered pottery . . .) As is probably rather obvious, it's pretty amazing to be able to see the changes in Japanese culture chronologically from over 30,000 years ago to the present.

So, given that student admission is just a little over a dollar, let's just say that I am definitely going back. And definitely more than just once. More pictures of stuff from other rooms to come . . .

Do You Like Music? (Part 2)

2005-12-25T17:07:00.000+09:00

And, if samurai.fm isn't doing it for you at any given time, try Deep Mix, which is a minimalist electronic station out of Moscow. Usually, between those two stations, one of them is doing something pretty cool.

Do You Like Music?

2005-12-25T13:25:00.000+09:00

Then listen to samurai.fm. There's a live stream anyone can access anytime on the internet, and there's an English version of the site as well, so no worries as far as language goes.

Mission statements are usually stupid, but samurai.fm has one that is not only clear but actually quite accurate, so I'll just give you that instead of my explanation:

Breaking down terrestrial boundaries, speaking the international language of rhythm, samurai.fm is your gateway to a new international soundscape.

Featuring the freshest sounds from the international scene as well as the finest home grown talent from Japan, we act as a portal for Japan to the rest of the world and the rest of the world to Japan.

Not sticking to one kind of music we simply play anything we think is new and exciting. With 24 hours of new shows every week, cooked up by the artists themselves especially for samurai.fm or recorded at live events, they're sets and shows you won't be able to hear anywhere else.

We give you the music, but please help us by spreading the word, tell everyone about samurai.fm act as a catalyst for this musical revolution.

But, basically, listen to it, or you're a punk. And, like they say, tell your friends.

Update: To emphasize how great and fun this station is, I just went from really good jazz into really good traditional tribal music (is there a better way to say that?) in about 10 minutes. Listen to this station.

I cannot emphasize enough that, if you are one of those people who say you are into any kind of music as long as it's good, then you must listen to this station. And I know a lot of my friends who read this fall into that category. It is made for you.

「超メリークリスマス！」

2005-12-24T17:38:00.000+09:00

Translation: "That's So Merry Christmas!" or "Uber-Merry Christmas!" or "Now That's Merry-Fucking-Christmas!"

Let's break it down:

「超メリークリスマス！」　(choumeriikurisumasu)

「 & 」 -- Japanese style quotation marks. This just me indicating it was an overheard phrase.

超 (ちょう chou) -- It literally means "beyond," "super" or "uber." For example, this kanji character appears as a prefix in compounds like 超人的（ちょうじんてき　choujinteki), meaning "superhuman" 超現実的 (ちょうげんじつてき chougenjitsuteki), meaning "surrealistic." However, in practice, it's most commonly used as a slang-ish intensifier. Japanese college students throw 超 (ちょう chou) around in a way very similar to the way American college students throw the word "fucking" around to add force whatever they mean.

メリークリスマス (meriikurisumasu) -- As you can probably guess, "Merry Christmas." Fun sidenote: This phrase also contains my name here, クリス (kurisu). Very few people can say "Chris" well, so most everyone here calls me kurisu or kulisu. I will miss it.

In any case, this strange phrase was overheard often at the following Christmas party:

I'll probably post some less vague pictures and also an explanation later. But, for now, let's just say that it was definitely 「超メリークリスマス！」 Whatever that means.

Japan Is the Best

2005-12-24T05:06:00.000+09:00

The chief difference between the way that Americans students drink and the way that Japanese people, renowned worldwide for their love of alcohol, drink is that Japanese people tend to always drink until 5am. Which sounds horribly destructive, until you realize that the only way this is achieved is by keeping everyone together at a good but not rushed pace that can sustain 5 or 6 hours of solid alcoholism. So, compared to the drinking culture at American colleges which is focused almost solely on who can get so blasted that they can't think anymore, Japanese drinking culture is about drinking and eating and talking together with your friends for a really long time.

That being said, it's 5:11am, and I'm going to bed.

More on this later, because it really deserve some explanation.

And, one more time, I am so happy to have found the friends that I did, who are actually willing to fix my language mistakes if they don't think I am talking suitably rude enough.

A Request

2005-12-23T13:50:00.000+09:00

Please do not see Memoirs of a Geisha.

The book was bad enough, and there is no way that the movie is somehow less simplistic and stereotypical. It just doesn't work like that. If the over 400 page book version couldn't get its facts straight, there is no way that things will get better in the inevitably condensed 2 hour long movie version. As a basic matter of the differences between written and visual media, the movie will be an even bigger mess of stereotypes and nonsense than the source material it came from.

If you insist on seeing it, just realize what you are watching is not a movie about Japan but rather a movie about the image Americans have of Japan. Approach it the same way you would a fantasy movie, because that's basically what it is.

Pretty soon, I'm gonna put up something about real Japanese movies that are actually good, if you're interested in seeing Japan on film. But, for the time being, just don't watch Memoirs of a Geisha and think that it has anything to do with Japan. Because it doesn't.

Peanuts of Good Quality

2005-12-23T13:11:00.000+09:00

If they started selling these in The States, I guarantee you they would make a gajillion dollars:

I like how the packaging suggests that their peanuts are harvested by a race of tiny people the size of peanuts who dress like Japanese stereotypes of early 20th century Europeans. And that they are just so ridiculously happy to tend to their peanut crop. Also, is it just me, or does it look like they are using the child labor of their tiny race of enslaved peanut-sized people? Is that legal? When you think about all the tiny peanut-sized people who lost their lives to make your sandwich, it can sort of ruin the taste.

Anyway, it's basically just a peanut butter sandwich, but there is no crust. Also, Japanese peanut butter is very sweet and fluffy and seems like it must be at least 50% whipped cream. So, this is more of a dessert-ish Little Debbie-esque thing than a sandwich you would ever want to eat for a meal. But it tastes real good.

Relatedly, one of the food items that I do miss is real peanut butter that tastes at least a little bit like actual peanuts, rather than peanut-flavored frosting. Now, this kind of fluffly peanut-flavored cream stuff is good on its own merits, but it does nothing for someone with a peanut butter craving.

I Wish I Was that Funny

2005-12-21T18:43:00.000+09:00

First, watch this clip called Lazy Sunday, which is a rap about two guys going to watch The Chronicles of Narnia that was shown on Saturday Night Live. Hat tip to The Pop Culture Blogulator for alerting me to this, as I have no idea what's on the TV right now.

Do you like?

If so, go enjoy yourself with all the fun over at The Lonely Island, the comedy troupe that is responsible for that bit of goodness. The best things to watch first to get a feel for what they're like is their rejected pilot for Awesometown and then Adam Sandberg's standup comedy bit, both linked on the front page. And, if you watch The O.C., you must check out their parody of it called "The 'Bu." But, man, it's all pretty good. And there's a lot of it.

Demon Cat

2005-12-21T02:34:00.000+09:00

There is this cat that's all over campus. I don't think anyone owns it, it just preys on the kindness of students. People here leave windows open a lot, so it is not unusual to see it inside buildings as well. Sometimes, it waits around inside the dorm, and if it sees you it will not stop following you. It will demand to go inside your room, and the only way to prevent this is to trick it somehow. Sounds annoying, but actually sort of fun.

I had made it my goal to get a picture of this rascal, and after many camera-less encounters, I finally did it. The results were frightening:

Look at its crazy glowing eyes. It clearly harbors arcane powers beyond those of the average feline. I am almost certain that it is guided by demonic forces that humans are not meant to fully comprehend.

Other things to note in this picture of the dorm hallway:

Note the umbrella hanging on the window. People leave umbrellas lying around buildings all the time. Every single lost and found is full of umbrellas that people just didn't care enough to take with them after the rain stopped. When it rains, everyone has an umbrella. Even if it's what Americans might consider a pleasant rainfall. But after the rain is done, people just leave them lying around in enormous quantities. This picture of a single umbrella does not really do the phenomenon justice.

Also, note the shoes outside doors. Everyone does this, leaving their shoes outside their rooms. This would clearly be impossible in an American dorm, as they would undoubtedly be stolen within an hour.

Finally, note the barely visible Piglet (from Winnie the Pooh) doll tacked onto someone's door in an all men's dorm. This is a whole different subject that deserves a lengthy post at some point if I can ever consolidate my thoughts here, but, for now, just know that perceptions of masculinity are so different here that you can't even begin to imagine it.

Yay Freedom!

2005-12-21T02:15:00.000+09:00

So, about that election in Iraq...

With more than 60 per cent of votes tallied, Washington's hopes that the former prime minister Iyad Allawi might pull enough support to build a secular administration have faded dramatically.

Instead, a religious alliance is in the box seat. These parties are already imposing a strict religious code on daily life across swathes of the country and are closely aligned with neighbouring Iran, one of George Bush's "axis of evil" enemies.

So, here's a good joke for you: Wouldn't it just be gut bustingly funny if we took out Saddam Hussein's crazy but Iran hating regime only for it to be replaced by an equally crazy but Iran allied government? With a grudge against the U.S. who they see as occupiers? Who probably see Abu Ghraib as more than just frat shenanigans and aren't going to forget or forgive our legacy of torture and blatant disregard of their religious beliefs any time soon? Man, I'm laughing so hard at this I don't even know what to do with myself. What an awesome joke. Hilarious, I tell you.

Well, at least we can feel safer knowing we got rid of all of those WMDs.

Kill Bill O'Reilly

2005-12-21T00:32:00.000+09:00

Even in Japan, people talk about the whole American "War on Christmas" kerfuffle on the radio news all the freaking time. I thought that I had escaped that sort of nonsense. The first time I heard it, I was amused that it came up at all here and figured it was a one time thing. Now that I have heard it come up over and over it makes me angry at my country. Frankly, it just makes us look stupid.

I think the best response I've heard to the various "War on Christmas" boycotts on companies that say "Happy Holidays" or whatever came from Sam Seder, who had this to say:

I think what should happen is companies should calculate how much money they're getting from people who are celebrating Christmas and provide exactly that much amount of Merry Christmas, because that is exactly how I would want any type of religious holiday to be celebrated.

You can see the whole video of Sam Seder talking about the "War on Christmas" at Crooks and Liars. It's quite funny.

Shorter version of this post: Bill O'Reilly always ruins everything.

On an Ice Bucket

2005-12-20T18:53:00.000+09:00

Suntory products very consistently have the absolute best English craziness on them:

"A glassful of drops
each drop is tomorrow's dream
sip your dreams by drops"

Count the syllables in this. Yeah, that's right. 5/7/5, people. Five-seven-five. This isn't any old nonsense, it's nonsense in haiku form. A gibberish haiku written on the side of a bucket full of ice. How awesome is that?

Sadly, only a single, small cell phone picture of this exists. I didn't have my camera with me, and my cell phone's flash isn't that great. Luckily, Mamiya (the same friend who was upset with Lost in Translation) has a better camera in his phone (because everyone has a camera in their phone) and was willing to oblige me by taking this picture and mailing it to me. So, don't get the idea that his irritation with the movie means that he isn't willing to laugh at Japan's silliness, because he definitely is.

Answers: Lost in Translation

2005-12-20T18:09:00.000+09:00

So, Chris of the excellent Chris and Qualler's Pop Culture Blogulator fame (i.e. not me, but a different Chris altogether) had this question:

"do japanese people hate lost in translation?

sincerely,

curious pop culture blogger"

So, funny you should ask. Right before I read this question, a friend of mine (named Mamiya) who had just seen Lost in Translation had quite a lot to say to me about it, none of it positive. You could say he was angry, even.

One of the more interesting things to come out of the conversation was that he didn't realize that Americans generally consider the movie to be, at least in parts, a comedy. Resulting, obviously, in him having a completely different viewing experience than most American audiences who spend the majority of the moving laughing at how craaaazzzzzyyyy Japan is.

For Japanese people, the "jokes" in the movie are either things that are so familiar they would not even notice they are supposed to be jokes or, even worse, portrayals that are flat out wrong to the extent that they are irritating. He was particularly angry at the translator character in the movie for doing such a bad job. This may seem like an odd complaint to levy against a movie called "Lost in Translation," but if you're on the other side of the fence I imagine a constant running joke about how Japanese people are too stupid to translate probably doesn't go over too well.

So, basically Lost in Translation just seems like a very boring and irritating drama.

Mamiya was even more upset when I told him that the best use he can probably get out of the movie is that it gives a really clear picture of what American stereotypes about Japan are. This left him completely incredulous, because he basically figured that no American would be stupid enough to have an image of Japan like that. He main reply to that was, simply, "More Americans need to come here."

Short Answer: Yeah, it definitely does seem like they hate it.

Answers: Chopstick Manners

2005-12-20T17:15:00.000+09:00

So, Flinn asked: "Question: is it rude to point your chopsticks at someone accidentally when making a point or talking? Also, is it rude to stir something with your chopsticks?"

I really knew basically nothing about chopsticks before coming here. Not just manners and such, but I literally did not have the faintest idea how to use them in a way that allowed me to consistently get food into my mouth. I have since become pretty proficient with them because I would rather eat than not eat, but I am definitely a chopstick novice. So, I can't give an ultra official answer, here's what my friends say:

Pointing (at people or objects) and stirring are both considered to be impolite. Other things you shouldn't do with your chopsticks include moving plates around and stabbing food as though your chopsticks were a fork or something. In general, you're not supposed to use them for anything but putting food into your mouth. And, occasionally, other people's mouths.

I will say, though, that my experience of how people actually use chopsticks is different from the answer I got when I asked directly what appropriate chopstick manners are. People break the rules on occasion in informal situations. I have, indeed, seen chopsticks used to stir things. In general, the safest and easiest thing to do as far as manners go is to watch the people you're eating with and imitate as best as you can. If you strictly follow every single rule of dining etiquette when you're just hanging out with your friends, it makes you seem a bit stuffy, no matter where you are. So, in a situation where the rules are unfamiliar, just mimic your surroundings instead of trying to memorize every rule. People will forgive little mistakes and will be happy to answer your questions.

Requests? Questions?

2005-12-18T20:30:00.000+09:00

So, Flinn asked a good question about chopstick manners in the comments section that I'll get to blogging about later, and that made me come to the realization that other people might have questions they want answered. I basically just blog about whatever is on my mind whenever I am free, which tends to be whatever is the most recent thing that happened to me. So, for example, I blogged a ton about the 焼き肉屋 (yakinikuya) and associated events because it is fresh in my memory and I had time to write weekend. At the same time, there are a lot of things I don't write about just because I don't want to spend all my time in Japan blogging, basically.

So: If you have questions or requests, use the comments section in this post (or in any other post, really) to ask me things you want answered. That way, I can prioritize things people want to hear about above whatever I randomly decide to post. Feel free to ask for opinions or photographs as well, not just factual reports. If no one asks for anything, I'll just keep on doddling along, writing about whatever is on my mind when I have the time.

And randomly, because I can't not let you all know about this: There is a karaoke program on the radio, and some middle aged Japanese man is singing a bizarre version of YMCA that is about 30% English and 70% Japanese. It is the funniest thing ever, and I believe that 30/70 is probably the precise ratio at which songs in broken English and Japanese are maximally humorous. I love this country.

Yay America!

2005-12-18T12:19:00.000+09:00

1) Check Out Books, Meet Federal Agents

2) President Admits He Is a Criminal, Hates Civil Liberties, Generally Above the Law

Are we winning yet?

Update: Thank you, Senator Feingold:

"Yesterday morning, Republican and Democratic Senators blocked a flawed bill that extended parts of the Patriot Act that are set to expire without fixing the fundamental problems with the law. Nobody wants these parts of the Patriot Act to expire -- we want to fix them before making them permanent, by including important protections for the rights and freedoms of innocent American citizens. . . . The President's shocking admission that he authorized the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens, without going to a court and in violation of the Constitution and laws passed by Congress, further demonstrates the urgent need for these protections. The President believes that he has the power to override the laws that Congress has passed. This is not how our democratic system of government works. The President does not get to pick and choose which laws he wants to follow. He is a president, not a king." [all emph. mine]

Update II: Funny analysis about investigating people for subversive reading in a post from the fine folks at Bloodless Coup titled, Thank God I Have My Own Copy:

That's right. We can't keep a hold on Zarqawi, but damn we're good at catching people who are reading books. . . . [emph. in original]

I've always loved Mao's Little Red Book. Seriously. It's hilarious. No authoritarians ever have better rhetoric than the communist authoritarians.

Why Manga Is Fun

2005-12-17T16:38:00.000+09:00

So, my friend Tsutomu is lending me the manga of Akira, which is apparently way better than the movie version that I already love. Its mix of political intrigue, telekinetic fighting, biker gangs, and clairvoyants is useful for learning a wide variety of colorful phrases and words including:

腐れて死んじまえ！　（くされてしんじまえ - kusareteshinjimae) "Rot and die!"

買収工作　（ばいしゅうこうさく - baisyuukousaku) "bribery scheme"

超人的　（ちょうじんてき - chyoujinnteki) "superhuman"

予定調和　（よていちょうわ　- yoteichyouwa) "presdestined harmony"

Cleary a good manga for educational purposes. And, seriously, way better than the movie. At this point, I have absolutely no idea what will happen next, despite having watched the movie countless times. The (anti-)climax of the movie, where Tetsuo finds that Akira is actually long dead, is in the original manga a scene where Tetsuo actually meets the still living Akira:

At this point in the movie, the story is nearly over. But the above scene is only about 1/3 of the way through the original manga version of the story. I am really excited to see where it will go form here, as it clearly must diverge substantially from the movie, given that the manga's big instigating event that I assume will propel the final 2/3 of the story (meeting Akira) was replaced in the movie with an anti-climax (finding out that there's no way to meet Akira).

Another intersting thing about this series is that while Akira is comparatively famous in America among people know about into this sort of thing, in Japan it's a fairly obscure, underground comic that not a ton of people know about. Which, to me, is pretty suprising, because everyone here reads manga. Apparently, Akira is a weird story even to Japanese people. Interestingly, outside my group of hipster friends, I have found that my professors have been much more likely to recognize it than my classmates. So, again, I have to emphasize how lucky I am that I found a group of friends that likes strange, underground movies, music, and manga. Even better, they're not anti-social otaku types, as can be seen in the picture below of the very same friend who lent me Akira rocking out in dingy club:

The image is very dark, I know but that's just how these places are. He's still spottable in any case, as he's the one in the middle with a guitar. If you demand a clearer image of him, see the previous friendsbabybooze picture. He's in the middle, holding the baby.

International Hipster Fun Society, Go!

Mini Photo Essay: 草大福

2005-12-16T23:15:00.000+09:00

I love candy in ways that should probably not be legal. My sweet tooth is unmatched, as far as I am aware. There is actually a funny Japanese word to describe people like me that I learned at the 焼き肉屋　(やきにくや -- yakinikuya) yesterday, actually: 甘党（あまとう -- amatou). It's made like this:

甘（あま -- ama) This character just means "sweet," or "sugary." (Or, figuratively, flattering or indulgent.) Normally it's used in its adjective form, 甘い（あまい - amai), but in this compound it's just the first あま (ama) sound. Japanese characters are wacky like that.

党 (とう -- tou) This is where, in my opinion, the word gets funny. This character indicates a faction or party of some sort. So, for example, combined with 政 (せい -- sei), meaning "govern" or "government" in the compound 政党 (せいとう　-- seitou), it means political party.

So, an 甘党 (あまとう -- amatou) is someone with a sweet tooth. But, translated very literally, it's someone who belongs to the sugar party. This definitely includes me. (Hat tip here to Yuusuke, who I mentioned a couple posts back is good at explaining new words to me.)

There being said, below are pictures of a Japanese sweet that I will miss. It's a kind of 大福 (だいふく -- daifuku), which is a rice cake stuffed with bean paste. (The linked wikipedia article on daifuku is sparse, but contains links to more information on the ingredients involved, if you are interested.) The characters here are 大 (だい -- dai), meaning "big" and 福 (ふく --fuku), meaning "furtune/happiness/wealth/luck."

And the sweets are as tasty as the name is hyperbolical.

In particular, this is a 草大福 (くさだいふく -- kusadaifuku). While it is the 草 (くさ -- kusa), meaning "grass," version of this sweet, grass is obviously not literally what's in it, because it's a confection, not an emetic. Rather, the rice cake that surrounds the bean paste also contains mugwort, and thus has a green, grasslike color.

This confection also comes in a tasty strawberry version that actually has an actual strawberry stuffed inside of it in addition to the bean paste. Maybe I will make a sequel to this with the strawberry version.

Contrast Is Funny II: Reverse Polemics

2005-12-16T18:05:00.000+09:00

Why do straights hate American family values? I don't think people in relationships that unstable should be allowed to have children.

Please excuse the snark and just click on the link.

Sometimes it's just fun to throw arguments back at people, and it's never more fun than with FUNdamentalists.

All in sarcasm, folks.

Update: So, I thought this would be clear, but apparently it was not. Clearly, I don't actually believe that straight couples are all unstable. That would be just as colossally stupid as assuming that all gay couples are unstable. I just think it is amusing that, if the statistics were reversed (i.e. if gay divorce rates were 50% and straight divorce rates were 1%), that information would be used to make these very same kinds of blanket statements are gay couples. I do not in any way think there should be any provisions made to stop straight couples from having children. It's just wordplay on a common polemic from the anti-gay rights movement. I think it is just as stupid to make that sort of statement about straight people as it is to make that sort of statement about gay people. That was my point. I was using hyperbole to demonstrate how silly that kind of argument is. Clearly, that kind of statement is worthless, and if I actually believed that, it would indeed be bigotry. I do not.

Oh, internet. Your debates are hilarious. Yay audience full of opinionated strangers.

Update 2:Eh, on second thought, there's no real pleasing or arguing with this guy. I just looked at his blog and saw one post titled Good Bye, Good Riddance in which he both rails on John Lennon as a dirty, godless, commie and claims that any country which rejects Christianity is doomed to failure. Without evening getting into how 100% absolutely spot on he is about that worthless Lennon character and his terrible, godless band The Beatles that I hear the kids talk so much about these days, I just have to concede defeat again that non-Christian countries never prosper, especially Japan. This is a man who clearly knows what he is talking about and is in touch with reality.

But, yeah, in short, I think I'd rather he not like me. I'm usually all for finding common ground in issues like this. But, if you hate John Lennon, there's just no way you're gonna like me. So, in this case, let's just say that I consider it an honor to be despised alongside John Lennon.

A Note on My Pictures

2005-12-16T17:43:00.000+09:00

If I'm taking a picture indoors (or generally anywhere with low light) I actually prefer motion blur to either using a flash or poses. So, a lot of them are blurry.

And that's just how I like it.

For example, let's use one more 焼き肉屋 picture, if only because I already uploaded it and couldn't find a good way to use it in the previous post:

From a technical standpoint, this picture is terrible. It's way too blurry, and there's no real focus. To me, though, this feels a lot more like the moment that I was in than a picture that looks very clear. For the most part, I keep these kinds of pictures to myself, because I realize they're probably not so great if you weren't actually there. But, just know that blurry is how I like it, and sometimes that's all I have to accompany a story.

Meat Is for Winners

2005-12-16T17:07:00.000+09:00

I think I am going to start some kind of precedent here and actually follow up on a promise to follow up on a story from a previous post by writing about what a 焼き肉屋 (yakinikuya) is like.

Like usual, let's start with a breakdown of the word:

焼き（やき -- yaki) The noun form of the verb 焼く (やく -- yaku), meaning "to fry/bake/grill/burn/cook."

肉　（にく -- niku）Meat.

屋　（や -- ya）A suffix which indicates a store/restaurant of some kind. For example,　本 (ほん -- hon), meaning "book" + 屋　＝本屋（ほんや honya), meaning "bookstore."

So, a 焼き肉屋 (yakinikuya) is a restaurant specializing in grilled meat. For those of you who have been to American-style Japanese barbeque restaurants, it's something like that, but tasty and communal instead of overpriced and needlessly flamboyant. Let me explain.

Now, what Americanized Japanese restaurants are known for is cooking the meat right in front of you in a theatricalized manner. At a 焼き肉屋, the meat is cooked in front of you, but with one of these:

These miniature grills are embedded in the table itself. So, you just throw the meat you order onto the grill right in front of you. So, everyone is cooking and eating together at once. Instead of ordering individual entrees, you order large plates of various kinds of raw meat as a group and cook it together. This kind of communal dining experience is typical of Japanese cuisine.

Here's a picture of the same grill with meat added to it:

Note the chopsticks in the upper-left hand corner of this picture ready to throw more raw meat onto the grill.

Here's another picture with more meat being cooked and also a plate full of freshly delivered raw meat ready to be cooked:

In this picture, again note the chopsticks ready to throw on more raw meat and someone else rotating meat with blurry tongs. (Most of the rotation is done with chopsticks, though, not tongs.)

With this system, you keep ordering more plates of various meats, other dishes (various appetizers and rice...), and beer as a group until everyone has had their full. This style of group ordering is also very typical of Japanese-style restaurants. At restaurants like this, everyone pays the same amount regardless of what you ate or drank. It's a really fun way of going about things that, I think, creates a much more communal feeling than going to a restaurant where everyone orders their own thing. You are constantly talking as a group about what to order next and how the meal is going for you, what you might want to try later and what you've had enough of. Of course, personal entree restaurants style also do exist here, but it's much more likely to go somewhere communal like this if you're with a group.

The aftermath of all this business?

A whole bunch of dirty dishes and empty beer mugs full of chopsticks and tongs.

Contrast Is Funny

2005-12-16T14:55:00.000+09:00

Yesterday was my friend Yuusuke's birthday. He is a cool guy for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that he tends to come in one of two moods:

Stoic (seen below with cigarette)

Gleefully Evil Genius

He's also really good at explaining what words I don't know mean and listens to the hip music.

This birthday dinner was at a 焼き肉屋 (yakinikuya), which I'll probably explain in more detail later tonight. But, briefly: delicious and full of meat.

From a Convenience Store, About $3.50

2005-12-15T14:52:00.000+09:00

On my first day in Japan, I got to campus and checked into my dorm fairly late in the evening. I was completely exhausted from the trip, and I just wanted to go to bed immediately after eating something. The closest place to buy food was ローソン ("rooson," and while it is actually spelled in English on the sign as "Lawson," no one says it like that unless they speak no Japanese at all), a convenience store that is under a minute's walk from where I live. I bought one of these (and I highly recommend clicking on the picture for bigness):

I am very happy with this decision, and I still get them very frequently. In fact, I ate one today for lunch and took this very picture.

In case you can't read Japanese sideways (or just not at all), this is the ねぎとろ巻B (negitorimakiB). I was shocked to see that it only cost about $3.50, as something like this in an American restoraunt would be ungodly expensive and would not taste nearly as good.

What's in it?

ねぎ (negi) -- green onion
とろ (toro) -- Well, we don't really have a lot of this in our food in the English speaking world, so if you look up "とろ" in a Japanese-English dictionary, the English is also "toro," as it's a specialized word that English people tend to only use when describing Japanese food. Basically, it's the fattiest part of tuna. And way tasty.
巻　（まき -- maki) -- This just means "roll."

So, they're seaweed and rice rolls with green onion and fatty tuna. And I love them. I will miss these a lot.

Update: So, in responce to a comment saying that these can be found in American grocery stories for about $6.95, I would like to point out that is nearly double the price for a product that I know frome experience is not nearly as good. Also, please note that, here, this sort of thing is as easy to find in a convenience store as, say, a Snickers bar would be in America.

Fear the Colonel

2005-12-14T23:30:00.000+09:00

Because he's freaking scary, people.

Hide your children.

A Little Thing Called Heresy

2005-12-14T23:12:00.000+09:00

So, a lot of Catholics I know will readily admit things like, "I don't actually believe the Pope is infallible." On they other hand, they won't accept it when I tell them that holding that belief actually means they are not, as a matter of fact, Catholic. As someone who went to Catholic school for a good nine years, I am absolutely sure that I am right as far as this goes.

And, as it turns out, the Catholic Church actually does agree with me on this issue. And they agree rather vehemently. In fact, not believing the Pope is infallible and advocating reformist policies is a little thing the Catholic church likes to call heresy. And they are perfectly happy to kick you out for it.

There are a lot of fantastic Christian churches out there. Sadly, the modern Catholic church is far too often mired in outmoded ways of thinking that make it impossible for women to become priests or for priests to marry. Even worse, at the same time that they take the time to try someone for heresy because he wants reform, their response to their molestation scandal has been woefully inadequate. There is something clearly wrong with a church whose policy is to punish people who simply advocating honest reform but to constantly try to shift blame in a situation where they are clearly at fault. People who advocate for women's rights are punished, but people who hide documented molestation still have their jobs. I respect that some people would like to reform the Catholic church, but it does not change the fact shown in the article that, as a simple matter of policy, the Catholic church itself would prefer that those people would just leave.

Update: Was looking for this article for myself and saw the link had died. Found a different version of the story that was better than the first one anyway and updated it. Also, toned down my rhetoric a bit, as I was clearly over the top. It happens. I replaced shrillness with examples. It's much more critical now, but less crazy sounding.

Well, Obviously

2005-12-14T22:28:00.000+09:00

While I don't really have the time to play video games like I used to (which is really rather a shame, considering I'm in Japan), I am a nerd at heart and am still very familiar with video game related news. So, recently, I just had to shake my head when stupid American economists and stupid American video game and business journalists speculated that, because the Xbox 360 did well in America, it would probably do well in Japan.

To the surprise of no one with foresight, it did not do well, as this BusinessWeek article indicates:

XBox 360 Gets Cool Reception in Japan

To anyone who set foot inside of Japanese electronics store in the months preceding its release, this article is not news. Japanese people are simply not interested in the Xbox right now. Beyond that, to anyone who has seen even a picture of an Xbox system and has any notion of Japanese taste in design, this is not news. Japanese people buy video game systems that are either cute or, if cute is not available, sleek. Hence, they like Nintendo (cute) and Sony (sleek). They tend to like it if a game system is designed by someone with at least a modicum of aesthetic sensibility.

Microsoft, however, is pandering to the stupidest branch of American video gamers: People that want an enormous game system. They are also the people who want a game system that is "X-TREME!!!" From the garish system design to its very name, the Xbox is a disgusting example of pandering to people that want products that are xtreme . . . TO THE MAX!!! That style does not go over well in this country.

Note to Microsoft: If you are interested in selling video game systems in Japan, stop marketing to idiots in America. The XhardXcoreX! shtick does not work here. And, hopefully, it will end relatively soon in America as well.

Note to journalists: Until they stop doing this, stop speculating they maybe Japanese people will start to buy Xbox systems. They won't. If you don't believe me, look around any Japanese electronics store for 5 to 10 minutes. They don't like big, clunky stupid looking things. If it doesn't look so futuristic it seems like a prop from a science fiction movie, they probably just aren't interested.

Update: I should probably mention that the Xbox 360 does have design that is comparatively better than the original Xbox. This does not change the fact that it looks like a clunky, old PC tower rather than anything you would want prominently displayed in your living room. When I said it should look like something out of a science fiction movie, I was referring particularly to a good science fiction movie, rather than a terrible one, which seems to be the main mistake Microsoft made with its new Xbox design.

Overcompensating for Overcompensating

2005-12-14T08:49:00.000+09:00

Today's strip is fantastic. I know I linked to another Overcompensating strip a couple days ago, but, seriously, not enough people read this. I know a lot of you out there are fans of Diesel Sweeties, and, if you like that, you should also like this.

Beckettian Society

2005-12-13T17:54:00.000+09:00

A very, very frequently used phrase in Japanese is: "仕方がない”(shikata ga nai), often abbreviated into the more conversational "しょうがない”(syouganai).

It's used whenever something is beyond your control, and you're resigned to accept whatever comes next. So, for example, "I think the assignment is stupid, but I'll fail the class if I don't do it. 仕方がない."

Let's break it down:

仕方　（しかた shikata）　-- from the verb "する," (suru) meaning "to do"　---> 仕方, meaning way of doing

が (ga) -- subject marker (there is no real grammatical equivalent to this in English, so just accept that explanation and move on...)

ない (nai) -- the negative form of the verb "ある" (aru), meaning "to be" ----> ない, meaning "to not be"

My class is full of people who speak a whole bunch of different Asian languages (and then there's me), and when we got off on a tangent talking about 仕方がない the teacher said something like, "Every language has a phrase for this. What is it in your language?"

I may be wrong, but I don't believe English really has a phrase like this. So, I was fairly surprised when every other language had an equivalent. In this situation, young Americans are likely to say something like, "Whatever," but it's not really considered an acceptable response, unlike 仕方がない, which is used by Japanese people all the time and is not considered particularly rude. Rather, it's just an acknowlegement of the inevitable.

However, while I was thinking of what I was going to say, I realized that the closest English equivalent to this phrase that I knew came from Waiting for Godot: "There's nothing to be done."

And, randomly, this situation happens in class all the time. The teacher will ask everyone how something is like in your culture, your country, or your language, and all the Chinese, Korean, Laotian, and Taiwanese have always had a direct answer. So far, every time, my response has always had to be, "Well... American doesn't really have a tradition like that," or, "That law varies from state to state," or, "English doesn't really have a word with that exact meaning. It would depend on the situation." I don't think they can quite wrap their heads around that, as those answers seem to surprise them every time.

Comics That Are Funny

2005-12-11T14:03:00.000+09:00

Penny Arcade

Normal Life

Diesel Sweeties

Overcompensating

These comics make my life better. Penny Arcade may be a bit too nerdy for many of you, but if you know enough about videogames to get it, it's quite funny. The one I linked to in this post should be accessible to anyone, however.

星の王子様

2005-12-11T10:49:00.000+09:00

So, reason number whatever that Japan is great: They love The Little Prince. Or, at least, are more familiar with it than Americans tend to be.

I was in a bookstore this weekend and saw an entire display full of The Little Prince merchandise. Dolls of all shapes and sizes, pens, pencils, washcloths, calendars, stationary, and much, much more. (Not to even mention all the different versions of the book itself that were available to purchase.)

Now, I realize that crass commercialism is not exactly the message of The Little Prince. However, I had been seeing this kind of thing every once in a while since I came here, and this particular display was so overwhelmingly full of things I wanted that it was basically inevitable for me to finally give in. In fact, considering that The Little Prince is probably the closest thing I have to any sort of religious belief, I would say I demonstrated amazing resistance by limiting my purchases to the following items:

The item on the right of the bottom of the two pictures is a cell phone accessory. I have no intention of attaching it to my cell phone while I am here and my phone actually works, but I bought it so I can show people in America how ridiculous cell phone accessories are once I get back. It is not uncommon to see people with so many adorable things dangling from their phone that it surely must impede their movement. I actually sort of hate it, but I figured that since I was planning to buy one as an example anyway that I may as well get one with a character that I liked.

The pin and the book, however, I am quite proud of. The pin, in particular, is quite amusing for the following two reasons. 1) A shocking number of people recognized it, and 2) a an even more hilarious amount of people say things like, "You look a lot like him." I guess I should have expected this, because me and The Little Prince are inevitably the only 2 blonde people in any given room.

Another fun thing about the Japanese reception of the book is a translation of its title that conforms to pretty much all American stereotypes about silly Japanese translations. So, the Japanese version of the book is called: 星の王子様 (hoshi no oujisama). Let's break that down.

星 - （ほし - hoshi) star/asteroid

の (no) indicates possession

王子様　（おうじさま - oujisama) prince

So, to translate that into English, the title could be any of the following: "The Star Prince," "The Asteroid Prince," "The Prince from the Stars," etc... In any case, a totally different feeling than the original title when rendered in English. The translator, however, does include a note that explains his reasoning quite satisfactorily. Basically, he says that a direct translation of the world "petit" into "小さな" (the Japanese word for "little/small") would not have contained the feeling of affection in the French word "petit." So, he instead choose a title that followed with the Japanese literary tradition of titles that indicate where a person is from. So, while the title is a little goofy to English speaking ears, to native Japanese speakers the title gives it the timeless feeling of an old fable.

If anything, thinking about this makes the English title much worse by comparison, as "little" in English also does not really contain the same connotation as "petit." Unlike the Japanese version, however, the English translators just ignored this rather than finding a creative solution to the problem.

News Update

2005-12-02T22:11:00.000+09:00

So, they repeated that story about the man who said the demon took over his body on the news, and I figured out what the story was about. Clearly, I shouldn't have been joking about it earlier, but my nerd-instincts just get excited when I hear a story about demonic possession. Blame me reading way too much manga since coming here. As it turns out, (and as should have been obvious) the whole story is actually quite horrible.

You can read about it in English here, if you're interested. It is rather gruesome, so you may or may not want to read the details. I have no idea why I didn't assume this story would be really messed up, considering that the one bit that I heard was about demonic possession, but it definitely is. In brief, a Peruvian immigrant murdered a 7 year old girl. The English version of the story that I found and linked above does omit the whole demon part of the story, which I find to be rather strange. Also, that omission makes the story even more weird, actually, as that was the man's only explanation for why he did what he did. So, it's rather strange to report that he's really sorry for what he did while omitting his explanation of how the murder ended up happening.

To give some greater perspective on the story, I should note that this will now probably inevitably lead to Japanese politicians making wacky laws restricting immigration (already rather strict) and strengthening punishments against foreign criminals (already frighteningly strict). Americans are really good at freaking out and hatin' on foreign folk, but the Japanese are just about as bad. It should also be pointed out that immigrants a responsible for a tiny tiny tiny amount of Japanese crime, but crimes committed by them get considerably more press attention.

Those Wacky Earthquakes

2005-12-02T22:01:00.000+09:00

The tiny ones are just adorable.

News Fun and Frustration

2005-12-01T22:04:00.000+09:00

So, while I do homework and such, I almost always have NHK news on in the background. I'm not really focusing on it, I just have it on because it's good for my ears to constantly hear Japanese people talking. Every once in a while though, I hear something totally bizarre and out of context that I really want to hear, but the lack of earlier context makes it rather hard to pick up enough information to at the very least figure out how I can best investigate to find more information on the story.

Example from 5 minutes ago:

I finish a piece of homework and sit back in my chair to hear someone's lawyer reading a statement claiming that a demon took control of their body and forced them to do whatever it is that they were accused of. After that statement, there were a couple quick concluding sentences from the reporter that didn't help me figure out what was going on at all, and then they moved on. Very frustrating. I must try to look this up later. Hopefully they report on this again later.

My Favorite Time of the Month

2005-11-30T22:37:00.000+09:00

So, one of the more hilarious aspects of my scholarship is definitely that my "dining stipend" comes in envelopes full of large, unmarked bills.

Draw your own conclusions.

p.s. that is a lot of money.

Update: So, an important fact left out of this post is that this is actually a picture of my money for two months. The end of December will be during Winter break, so they gave us money for December and January this month. I didn't expect anyone to take the time to count the money in the picture, and I also didn't figure anyone would take the time to do currency conversion. I had included that fact earlier, but it killed the joke and seemed like a boring, clerical detail. However, as someone in the comments section pointed out, that would be a ridiculously large amount of money for one month. As it is, it's actually a rather meager amount of money to eat on in Japan on a daily basis, as food here is quite expensive. However, I am still constantly amused at the end of every month to get a big fat envelope full of bills. (Not a lot day but day, but a whole lot when you're holding it all in your hands.) And this time the envelope was much fatter than usual. So, I took a picture of it for comic effect.

Maybe She Was Being Ironic?

2005-11-29T20:03:00.000+09:00

So, apparently, after asking for "more time" to respond to allegations that the United States has secret, illegal torture prisons in Europe, this is the best excuse they could come up with:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will seek to deflect growing European pressure over allegations that the CIA has been running secret prisons in the region on a trip to the continent next week.

Faced with European demands that the United States explain a newspaper report that secret detention centers to interrogate terrorism suspects were located in two unnamed east European countries, Rice intends to remind the Europeans that they are in a joint fight against an enemy that she says obeys no laws. . . .

"This is a struggle that all free countries, including the countries of Europe, share with us: how to deal with groups of people, individuals, that respect no law, that wear no uniform, that follow no regulations."

Let's make some brief comparisons using the criteria that Rice has established to defend the use of secret, illegal torture prisons:

Do they respect no law?
Terrorists--Check
Americans--Check (i.e. secret, illegal torture prisons)

Do they follow no regulations?
Terrorists--Check
Americans--Check (i.e. secret, illegal torture prisons)

Do they wear a uniform?
Terrorists-No
Americans--Check

Right, so, as we can logically deduce, if the terrorists began to wear uniforms, then they, too could break the law. And do stuff, like, for example, set up secret, illegal torture prisons. On the other hand, people from the U.S. do wear uniforms, so it's just peachy if they respect no law and follow no regulations. Thanks for clearing that up. I've been confused about the motive behind this whole war on terror thing. I thought it was about the terrorists' reprehensible behavior, rather than their lack of coordinated outfits. Stupid, stupid me.

Christianity or Prostitution?

2005-11-29T19:38:00.000+09:00

You Be the Judge

Be sure to read the caption below the image.

And yes, I do realize it probably seems strange to post about this and nuns on the same night. But that's just the kind of guy I am.

In short:

Asceticism = Good
Moralizing = Bad

You sort it out.

Nuns Are Cool

2005-11-29T19:13:00.000+09:00

So, despite being agnostic and generally not believing in anything, I am absolutely fascinated by and have utter respect for ascetics. I don't understand why, but I do.

In any case, f you have a similar interest, go read this article about nuns.

estragon

Unexpected

Bonus!

Oh Yes It Does

By the Way . . .

桜吹雪

You Bet I Will

In Line for Food

Pithy Observation

Hot Diggity

America is Big

Hilarious.

JLPT Listening

合格！！！

Kurt Vonnegut

Extra Crunchy!

Two Things that Happened

Tokyo Flashback: Part 2

Silly Phrase of the Day

Tokyo Part 1: Butoh Flashback

Hard to Argue With

On Prolixity . . .

What. A. Douche.

文化祭

Finals and the Lonely Ninja

Bovine Splendor

やっと詠んだ

NO ESCAPE

Aloe Yogurt

蟲師

He's Everywhere

oh wow

Cactrot, Moogle, Tonberry

Guilty Pleasures

It's Just a Fact

I Control the Weather (sortof)

O'Reilly v. Letterman

Infants and Eyeballs

Too Good to Make Up

クリちゃん

Communist Ape Soldiers!

Mister Donut

Warren Ellis and Why I Like Japanese

One More Thing About Nagano . . .

Other Things to Read, Blogs and Otherwise...

Pictures, Public Intoxication, Bus, Sleep

On Snowboarding/I'm Not Dead

. . . and I'm Back

Trip to Nagano . . .

Japanese TV

Akira Rocks.

First Meal of the Year . . . and Towels!

Houses Are Small

On Names . . .

大晦日

"Slaves for fashion dislike bulges."

What Exactly Is He Smoking?

Armor

On Pretension . . .

I Finally Did It

Contrast Is Funny

I Can't Clean Anything

Return of the Panda

「超メリークリスマス！」 (Part 2)

東京国立博物館

Do You Like Music? (Part 2)

Do You Like Music?

「超メリークリスマス！」

Japan Is the Best

A Request

Peanuts of Good Quality

I Wish I Was that Funny

Demon Cat

Yay Freedom!

Kill Bill O'Reilly

On an Ice Bucket

Answers: Lost in Translation

Answers: Chopstick Manners

Requests? Questions?

Yay America!