Greetings from J-List 12/6/04

It's funny how a language reflects the people who speak it, and vice versa. Much of famously nuance-filled indirectness of the Japanese people has its roots in the language itself, although it's kind of a chicken-or-the-egg question of which came first. For starters, Japanese speakers often leave off the subject when speaking, since it's almost always clear from the overall sentence. If I ask Yasu if he's posted the latest manga to the website, I'd just say, Atarashii manga wo dashimashita ka? (lit. "New manga [object marker] put out [question marker]") without adding a subject ("you") since I'm obviously asking about something Yasu did. Sentences can get even shorter -- if the rest of my meaning is clear from the context, maybe because I'm holding the manga in question in my hand at the time, I might just say "Dashimashita?" and he'd know what I was asking about. Also, Japanese makes use of passive forms of verbs to express concepts without specifying who did the action, with sentences like "it has been decided" rather than "my boss decided it," which serves to soften statements and smooth the creation of consent in groups. Passive voice is usually not used that much in English, but in Japanese, making a statement while leaving the subject unspecified is quite common. Another interesting grammatical tidbit which reflects the character of the Japanese people is the verb ending "masho" which corresponds to "let's..." as in "let's eat" (tabemasho), "let's go" (ikimasho) or "let's not smoke" (tobacco wo yamemasho). In situations where verbal or written warnings would be worded in a command form in English (don't smoke, don't ride on the escalator backwards), it's common for Japanese to express the same message with this softer "let's..." verb form, making statements like "let's put our telephones into vibration mode" (manner mode ni shimasho) or "when a pregnant woman or elderly person gets on the train, let's give our seat to them" (seki wo yuzurimasho). These statements subtly create a warm and fuzzy "let's all cooperate" atmosphere that make people want to do their part for the good of everyone. Every year, the Japanese tax office sponsors commercials featuring famous TV personalities walking to their post office to mail their income tax forms -- "Let's fill out our tax forms accurately and honestly," is the verbalized message. It's quite different from the way things are usually done in the U.S. Many aspects of life in Japan can be different from America and Europe, and marriage is one of them. For centuries, Japan's entire population has been recorded in "family registers" which are kept on file at city offices throughout the country. When a woman marries a man and goes to live in his house (called yome ni iku or "go as a bride"), she is completely erased from her father's register and joins her husband's, taking his last name, and when she dies, being buried in her husband's family grave. This system works both ways: males often join their wife's families households, too, called muko ni iku or "go as a son-in-law"), legally taking their wife's last name. Males sometimes join their wife's households but keep their own last names, a rarity called "Masuo-san" (MAH-soo-oh-san), named after the husband of Sazae-san in Japan's most popular and longest-running anime -- if you ever want to floor Japanese people with your knowledge of Japan, pull this term out and watch their eyes go wide. Since I keep my own last name even though I've joined my wife's household, I am a Masuo-san as well. Japanese calendar season continues, and once again I'm amazed at the speed with which our unique 2005 calendars are selling out. A week ago we had 180+ different anime, JPOP, traditional, swimsuit idol and other great calendars, and now we're down to 130 or so. We still have lots of these excellent calendars, which are beautifully printed on large sheets of paper and sold in the Japanese market only. Check out our still-amazing selection of calendars before the ones you want disappear forever. J-List is really humming, both in Japan and our San Diego office, as we ship hundreds of packages a day to everyone. We've got 24 hour turnover on shipping EMS orders, and the San Diego office is also working very hard to get all DVD player, bishoujo game and T-shirt orders out the next day. We hope we can serve you in some way! Remember that you can see dozens of great gift ideas by clicking the "Looking for gift recommendations?" link on the right side of the site. We've gone through the entire site and selected some excellent items you might want to consider giving to others this year. And everything in the list is in stock and ready to be shipped out right away!

Greetings from J-List 12/5/04

Hello to everyone in J-List land. It's time for another installment of the J-List Infrequent Updates, for people who receive too much email and who only want to hear from J-List every once in a while. The site has been updated regularly over the past two weeks, and we've got hundreds of new items for your to check out, from every possible category you would wish for. We hope you'll visit us at http://www.jlist.com Every rule has an exception, and the Japanese writing system is riddled with so many exceptions, it's almost as complex as English grammar. Japan adopted China's kanji writing system back in the 6th century; before this time the Japanese had no writing at all. As a general rule, each kanji is supposed to have two pronunciations: the original Chinese one (suitably shoehorned into the Japanese phonetic system), and a native Japanese one. Thus, the character the Japanese use for car, which originally meant wheel, is read kuruma (Japanese reading) when used by itself, or sha (Chinese reading) when combined with other characters to form a more complex word, such as jidosha, automobile, or jinrikisha, a "rick-shaw"). The two-ways-to-read-a-kanji rule is more of a guideline, though -- many characters have only one reading, while a few have a dozen or more. Underlying the kanji system are the two kana syllabaries, hiragana for writing Japanese words and grammatical particles, and katakana for writing foreign-loan words and the names of foreign people and places. But katakana is sometimes used in place of hiragana for emphasis (kind of like writing in italics in English), and a few English words like tobacco, coffee and club have had kanji assigned to them, since they've been in use for so long. Incidentally, if you've ever wondered why the Japanese don't do away with kanji and write using the two kana syllabaries, the reason is that without kanji, the brain can't easily take in the chunks of meaning on the page -- for me, there's nothing harder than reading a children's book because there are no kanji to break up the sea of hiragana. Here's an example of some of these writing systems in case you're curious what they look like: http://www.jlist.com/writing Christmas in Japan is very different from in the U.S.. First of all, it's a normal day like any other -- people fight traffic jams to get to work, and if they're Christian, they attend mass in the evening. Gifts are given, but mostly between couples, or from parents to children -- Toys R Us Japan has made sure that no child will go without toys each year. More important than Christmas Day is Christmas Eve, when most families have a special dinner, and eat the Christmas Cake that they reserved a month in advance. It's easily Kentucky Fried Chicken's busiest night, but sushi shops also do very brisk business. Christmas Eve is also a night for lovers: if you want to reserve a room in a popular love hotel on Christmas Eve, you have to do it at least a year in advance. The largest group of foreigners in Japan aren't American or Australians or Brits. They're Koreans, an interesting group because many of them were born and raised right here, and often don't even speak Korean unless they attended one of the Korean-only schools that pepper the country. To an American like me, it's odd that these people would not be considered Japanese, as all children born in the U.S. get to be American citizens automatically. But the relationship of Korea and Japan is a very complex one, somewhat akin to that of Britain and Ireland, and more or less by mutual agreement of both sides Koreans often live for generations inside Japan, never allowing themselves to become culturally assimilated. Or is it the Japanese who keep the Korean population from truly becoming part of their society? I couldn't possibly say for sure. On the one hand, it's not difficult for anyone (even white-boy gaijin me) to get Japanese citizenship as long as he meets certain reasonable requirements. Japan is always very sensitive to possible accusations of racism, so there are no groups that aren't "allowed" to become Japanese citizens. Many Koreans object to the Japanese requirement that all persons wanting to become naturalized must take a Japanese name, e.g. Taro Yamada, as well as requiring that many jobs, including teaching at public schools, be done only by persons with full Japanese citizenship. Koreans living in Japan make sure they only hang out with other similar-minded Koreans (e.g., South with South, North with North), lest questions arise about their loyalties. There is, unfortunately, a lot of organized crime related to North Koreans, everything from making North Koreans born in Japan pay protection money to "support" relatives back home to mass-production of high-grade cocaine. Gunma, the prefecture we live in, has many companies that make pachinko machines, and for some reason, pachinko, North Korea and crime always seem to go hand-in-hand around here. Well, that's all for now. Remember that the J-List site has ben updated several times since you visited last. Please stop by J-List and see all the great items we have for you!

Greetings from J-List 12/3/04

Every rule has an exception, and the Japanese writing system is riddled with so many exceptions, it's almost as complex as English grammar. Japan adopted China's kanji writing system back in the 6th century; before this time the Japanese had no writing at all. As a general rule, each kanji is supposed to have two pronunciations: the original Chinese one (suitably shoehorned into the Japanese phonetic system), and a native Japanese one. Thus, the character the Japanese use for car, which originally meant wheel, is read kuruma (Japanese reading) when used by itself, or sha (Chinese reading) when combined with other characters to form a more complex word, such as jidosha, automobile, or jinrikisha, a "rick-shaw"). The two-ways-to-read-a-kanji rule is more of a guideline, though -- many characters have only one reading, while a few have a dozen or more. Underlying the kanji system are the two kana syllabaries, hiragana for writing Japanese words and grammatical particles, and katakana for writing foreign-loan words and the names of foreign people and places. But katakana is sometimes used in place of hiragana for emphasis (kind of like writing in italics in English), and a few English words like tobacco, coffee and club have had kanji assigned to them, since they've been in use for so long. Incidentally, if you've ever wondered why the Japanese don't do away with kanji and write using the two kana syllabaries, the reason is that without kanji, the brain can't easily take in the chunks of meaning on the page -- for me, there's nothing harder than reading a children's book because there are no kanji to break up the sea of hiragana. Here's an example of some of these writing systems in case you're curious what they look like: http://www.jlist.com/writing Christmas in Japan is very different from in the U.S.. First of all, it's a normal day like any other -- people fight traffic jams to get to work, and if they're Christian, they attend mass in the evening. Gifts are given, but mostly between couples, or from parents to children -- Toys R Us Japan has made sure that no child will go without toys each year. More important than Christmas Day is Christmas Eve, when most families have a special dinner, and eat the Christmas Cake that they reserved a month in advance. It's easily Kentucky Fried Chicken's busiest night, but sushi shops also do very brisk business. Christmas Eve is also a night for lovers: if you want to reserve a room in a popular love hotel on Christmas Eve, you have to do it at least a year in advance. Today is Friday, and that means I'll be taking the kids to our favorite public bath. Bathing in hot springs ("onsen") and public baths ("sento") is a popular pasttime in Japan, and despite the hard economic times of the past few years, Japan's public bathing sector has been going strong. Our favorite bath is called Yura no Sato, and offers over a dozen different baths to enjoy, from traditional Japanese "kama" baths which are basically giant metal pots to baths with rocks on the bottom which massage your feet. For fans of the incredible 2005 Japanese calendars, we've gotten in some cool new items, including the deluxe calendars of Naruto, Prince of Tennis, Magi Magister Negima, and more. These are really nice large-sized calendars that are shipped flat, and every year we're amazed at the quality of the printing and art. We also have a treat for fans of the lovely Russian Goddess Yulia Nova: extremely limited stock of her 2005 calendar, which is very hard to obtain even in Japan, let alone around the world. Get your copy before we run out. J-List has tons of great items for the special people on your Christmas list. In order to help you pick something good, we've gone through the site and selected some items that we know we'd like to receive, if it were us. To see the items we've selected, click this link: http://www.jlist.com/SEARCH/gift_idea Remember that J-List makes dozens of magazines available through our "reserve subscription" system. Basically, we'll reserve the current issue of each month's magazine for you and have it in the mail to you by the time it's in bookstores here in Japan -- a few days earlier, actually, since we get our stock earlier than most bookstores. We've got many different anime, toy, JPOP/JROCK, street fashion, idol and other magazines available, we just know there's something you'd love to get each month. See the magazine subscription pages on our site for more information. Baffled by Bishoujo? Troubled over Tekoki? Confused about Kogals? Because the products J-List sells are very unique and special, many of the terms that go with them can be confusing and alien to people not familiar with the concepts. J-List maintains a complete glossary of terms where you can get answers to all your questions about Japanese words. The link is on the left side of the J-List main page.

Greetings from J-List 12/1/04

You've been in Japan too long when you pronounce the word "warehouse" as "wah-rey house." Japanese pronunciation is extremely easy, once you get the hang of it and break it down into simple rules. First of all, Japanese is written with the two kana syllabaries (hiragana for Japanese words, katakana for foreign loan words), not an alphabet like English. There are just five vowels, the exact sounds found in languages like Spanish and Italian: A (ah), I (ee), U (oo), E (eh) and O (oh). Japanese words are expressed in consonant + vowel syllables (ka, ki, ku, ke, ko/sa, shi, su, se, so); vowels and the consonant 'n' can also be expressed alone. English grammar rules like silent e (or "magic e" as the Japanese call it) don't exist: hence a name like Tomoe is pronounced TOH-MOH-eh and the family name Inoue is just EE + NO + OO + EH. There are long and short vowels, so that the short "o" in a word like "okane" (o-kah-nay, meaning money) sounds different from the longer "oh" sound in Osaka. Since there's only one way to verbalize any syllable, there's no need to debate how a word should be pronounced (as with, say, British and American pronunciations of the word "tomato"). Happily, Japanese uses almost no inflection when speaking, which makes it much easier for English speakers than some other Asian languages. I've lived in Japan since 1991, and every time I return home, I feel a little like Rip Van Winkle, the man who went to sleep as a British colonist and woke up twenty years later, after the American Revolution had taken place. Back in the old days of the 80s, anime was something you watched once a month at an anime club on a university campus. You watched everything in Japanese, with a xeroxed sheet of paper that explained what was happening in the episodes, if you were lucky -- almost nothing was available in English. The idea of going to a store and buying anime goods was also laughable, since no stores sold anime, except for a few comic shops that were ahead of the curve. Now, the level of acceptance of Japanese anime and manga is incredible, as people all over the world have come to embrace this fascinating alternative world culture. The wacky trivia show Fountain of Trivia that we watch every week is even being brought out in English, as Hey! Spring of Trivia, on Spike TV, so you can follow the adventures of cute model Megumi, Chairman Tamori and everyone else. Here's some info on the show, including broadcast times: http://www.spiketv.com/shows/series/hey/ Well, our little Thanksgiving was a big success. Using a combination of American and Japanese methods, we managed to bake our turkey and prepare all the other fixings, although we had some confusion from our Japanese oven, which had various "fuzzy" settings intended to make food preparation easier for us but which only got in our way. We had fun blending tried-and-true American traditions with Japanese ones -- our Japanese friends brought along sushi, and my kids asked for soy sauce while they ate their turkey with chopsticks. One thing about being an expat in Japan: it will make you appreciate your mother like nothing else. Thanks for everything you do, Mom. Is there anything we can do for you for the holidays this year? J-List has a mind-boggling number of cool things from Japan, with something for everyone. Looking for a really unique gift? Browse our anime, snack and "wacky things from Japan" pages for a huge number of ideas. Want to keep it simple? Why not give our wacky Japanese T-shirts or hoodies, which stocked in San Diego for your shipping convenience. Don't forget are incredible selection of 2005 anime, JPOP, swimsuit idol and other calendars, which are only available from Japan and are already starting to sell out Remember that J-List sells hundreds of cool things from Japan, including the popular "Mononofu" detailed miniature weapons that are made of real die-cast metal and exactly replicate the armor, shields and weapons used in Japan and Europe in centuries past. They're amazing miniature weapons that are great for displaying -- each piece comes with a stand and information on the weapon or armor. We go out of our way to make full sets of these great toys available for you, so there's no need to buy duplicates and throw them away.