majide!

One of my favorite things about living in Japan was watching TV. The dramas were great, and some of them were major cultural events - everybody was watching when whatsername died on this show. I really got into one of the 15-minute daily soaps. Music Station ruled my Friday night. One quiz show was about geography (yay!) and had entertaining panelists. There was a completely hilarious Sunday night variety show that included a segment where they interviewed falling-down-drunk salarymen on their way home from work. And Iron Chef! And sumo tournaments!

But, man, the game shows? They were the best. Completely insane. Largely incomprehensible. Lots of potential for serious injury. This is why the ABC reality show "I Survived A Japanese Game Show," although you'd think it would be the kind of thing I would hate, really makes me happy.

I mean, I couldn't care less about the drama with the American contestants - who's winning and who's unhappy and who's getting kicked off the show and whatnot. But the competition is perfect. Believe you me, nothing is invented about that show. The weird production values? The overexcited host? The ridiculous costumes? Just like they do it back in ol' Nippon. Good times.

stupidity

The other day I was reading the paper while I ate my lunch and got to the comic strip Liō, which the Washington Post picked up fairly recently. I already didn't like it much, but now I also think it's dumb. Here, read the strip in question and come back.

I'm assuming the artist wanted the samurai to be saying "Banzai!" which, well, I don't think samurai really yelled that, but it would make sense for the joke. But guess what that word actually is?

Yep, the samurai is yelling "Dwarf tree!" Not quite as threatening, is it? Newsflash: those characters aren't just pretty little stick drawings. They actually have meaning. Compare: Banzai - 万歳; Bonsai - 盆栽.

carless life

New reader (and stranger!) Sarah Moffett, who bravely uses no pseudonym in the blog world (she appears to be promoting a book, so it makes sense), asked last week how people live without cars. J.Po, Sophist, help me out here. How *does* one survive to the late 20s (and beyond) without driving? I'll kick things off with my narrative of the carless life, but there must be many ways.

In high school I didn't go out. So that was easy. When I had stuff after school, I took the "activity bus" home. In college, you could walk all the way across campus in 10 minutes, and out to the Happy Chef in about 20. And when it was -37 degrees out, well, a car probably wouldn't have started anyway.

In Norway, I took buses, although this kind of sucked. It sucked even more when the bus drivers went on strike. I walked a lot. In Japan, I was all about the awesome public transportation and, for longer outings, friends. Besides, they drive on the wrong side of the road there. No way was I going to learn to drive with *that* nonsense.

At My First Graduate Alma Mater, more buses, plus I finally learned to ride a bike. Long-suffering friends took me along when they went to grocery stores, parties, airports, and whatnot. At MSGAM, I finally bought a damn car. And here we are, five years and a few thousand miles later.

(S.Vix is carless, too, but she followed a normal carless pattern - knows how to drive a car, but gave it up because she lives in a city with high insurance rates, good public transportation, and zipcar. J.Po, Sophist, and I just never learned how to drive.)

cultural exchange

You probably already know about Engrish, where people like you and me can enjoy the haphazard usage of English words in Japan. But perhaps Hanzi Smatter, "dedicated to the misuse of chinese characters in western culture," has escaped your notice. They cover everything, but their main topic is tattoos. Like this one. Which makes no sense.

Seriously. Why would you devote time, money, pain, and eternal skin real estate to something without having an actual Chinese person proofread it first? Or, if you picked Japanese, a Japanese person? Although you can't always tell with these tattoos which language they were going for.

j-pop

The other day Spice sent me a link to this article in Slate about Japanese pop and how it's totally awesome but iTunes is run by idiots who won't let you buy from the Japanese iTunes store. However, Slate pointed out, you can hear these tunes on YouTube. This inspired me to find a couple of my favorite J-pop tunes of all time and share them here.

Best pop song ever: "Robinson" by Spitz. I'm sorry, you don't believe me? Then you'll have to see it for yourself. YouTube seems to have taken down the actual video, which is just as well, because it has some unfortunate resonances with David Brent's video for If You Don't Know Me By Now. So here's a live version for your viewing pleasure:



Liked that? Now here's the first Japanese pop song I ever fell in love with. This girl group, Speed, was huge. Huuuuge, I tell you. They broke up shortly before I left Japan, and let me tell you, it was a big deal. The song, as you may discern from the chorus, is called "All My True Love." The girls, as you may discern from the opening notes, are squeaky. It is pure J-pop genius.



Ahhhh. Makes me want to go out for some Japanese-style karaoke.

oshogatsu

Today I was thinking about New Year's happening at different times in different time zones, and it reminded me of New Year's 2000 in Japan.

Japan's just barely west of the international date line, so it's one of the first places in the world to get the new year. For the big one, I was up at Mount Aso with a friend who was housesitting (hotelsitting?) a hotel for his aunt. We watched the ridiculous New Year's Eve pop music show until midnight, said woo-hoo, fell asleep (or possibly passed out), then spent the next day recuperating at his parents' house. Which is when I discovered the true magic of New Year's in Japan. Ok, there was the shrine visit and the prayers and whatnot, whatever. No, the really cool thing was spending the entire day lying on the living room floor watching TV, as every hour a different place in the world went crazy.

We were like, whatever, latecomers. We are so over this new year.

nihonjin

I just have to share this very cute e-mail from one of the Japanese women who are coming to visit next week (although it has bad news for J.Bro - I'm sorry!):

I told your mom that we will have to leave here one day earlier, and stay at Narita or Fukuoka airport, as powerful typhoon is to hit Kyusyu and mainland japan from 17th to 18th, the day of our departure.
Because of this schedule change, I cannot go buy the jeans, I am sorry. But if we happen to come across Uniclo at the airport area, we surely will get it for you.
[KaDe] finished packing her suitcase 2 weeks ago. She is like a school girl waiting for the school trip.

Cutest thing ever, right? KaDe is a hilarious whirlwind of excitability. I can totally imagine how excited she must be.

When I lived in Japan, KaDe took me over the day I showed up at choir practice (despite her limited English and my limited Japanese). Mrs. S, who wrote the e-mail, is an interpreter who has a group of housewives who get together every week to eat lunch and practice English - they adopted my mom. They've been talking about coming to visit for years.

google maps

Holy cow - I just got on google maps and discovered that they have Japan now - down to the level of buildings. This map actually has the apartment house where I lived my second year. (From the 7-11, go north, turn right, turn left at the entrance of the school, and it's the long building on the left labelled "Shimoda Heights.")

And look! Here's the apartment building where my family lived the first year! From the train station (red) walk northeast along the white road. It's the gray apartment building on the left after the empty lot.

puffy amiyumi

I just got back from a Puffy AmiYumi concert at the 9:30 Club. I used to watch them on TV all the time in Japan, where they're just called "Puffy" - yes, guess who wouldn't let them use the name Puffy in the U.S. What pisses me off most is that the man is now, with his switch to "Diddy," on his FOURTH nickname. Is it his eventual plan to use every nickname that exists so he can sue *everyone* for some kind of infringement thing?

Anyway, Japanese Puffy rocked. And, since apparently they're most famous here for their show on the Cartoon Network and the Teen Titans theme song, there were a bunch of kids in the audience. Which meant no smoking (yay) and the concert started right smack on time at 8 p.m. (yay), which never happens. They really did rock. There was not a ballad in the show. And I decided, forget the haircut, I'm growing this hair to my waist so I'm ready when someone asks me to join their rock band.

Between the songs they read little speeches in English off folded pieces of paper. It was too cute. They're in Boston on Wednesday and Chicago on Saturday, so check them out if you can!