Golden Week, and thoughts on Japan being a "vertical" society

It's time once again for Golden Week, a series of Japanese holidays that happens to fall more or less within the same week. Japanese use the long holiday period to travel, and millions of city-dwellers make a mass exodus away from their homes, visiting family or taking a vacation in other parts of the country. Unfortunately, anyplace that we'd like to take the kids during Golden Week -- the mountains, hot springs, Tokyo Disneyland -- is packed with refugees from Tokyo, making it virtually impossible to go anywhere fun.

It's said in Japan that the U.S. is a "horizontal" society (yoko no shakai) while Japan is "vertical" (tate no shakai), supposedly due to the fact that life in the U.S. is merit-based whereas progression up the social ladder in Japan is founded on age and seniority. While I don't believe that this statement is accurate anymore -- Japan has become a lot more meritorious over the past decade -- it's certainly true that relationships here are very up-down, with a clear idea that the older you are (or the longer you've been in an organization), the more erai (eh-RAI, meaning high-ranking) you are compared to others. This concept of established rank in human relationships is all around you when you're in Japan, you can't get away from it -- it's even built into the language. When a younger person speaks to an older person, even if he's just one year older, he must use keigo, or polite Japanese, which effectively organizes everyone in the room according to level in a way that is impossible to conceive of in English. To not use the "right" language for your level (say, speaking informally to your boss) is disconcerting to others, especially in business or school settings, and makes you sound cheeky. The whole system of vertical relationships may sound odd, but it actually makes interaction work more smoothly, because everyone knows what to expect from everyone else -- it's almost like TCP/IP for humans.

A lot of these "vertical" concepts are encountered by anime fans. Take the idea of a senpai (also written sempai), an upperclassman in a school or senior employee in an organization, and in anime, often the label used by a girl who has a crush on an older boy. Being senpai brings respect from kouhai (underclassmen, younger members of the organization), but it also comes with a requirement that you play the part, helping and guiding those underneath you and doing things like paying for their meals at restaurants. Virtually every kind of group in Japan follows these senpai/kouhai rules, even sumo wrestlers -- I once went to see a daily sumo practice at a stable and was surprised to see how roughly the older wrestlers handled their underlings, slapping them around as a way of reinforcing the up-down relationship. There's a third grouping, too, doukyusei, which are people who are on the same level as you, i.e. classmates at school. Doukyusei relationships are basically neutral in terms of rank or level.

Here are today's "really cool products" that I thought were especially noteworthy. Note: the J-List links below may be for adult products and should probably be considered "not safe for work." To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link.

	PSE Products #01 Skipper -- Orange ~ Range Murata. I fell in love with the art of Range Murata at first sight, and am not surprised that he's risen to his current level at the top of the Japanese artists period. Now his fabulous artistic creations are becomming figures in 3-D!
	Urecco Jan 2005. We've been selling Urecco from the very beginning, back in the old days when pubic hair couldn't be shown (they used silk scarves to cover it up). They used to have the most ridiculous dirty English phrases on the cover. This issue is a brand new format for the magazine -- we like the new photo style a lot.
	18 Years Old Female Director Erotic Photo Stickers 4. "Puri-Kura" is Japanese for "Print Club." If you're wondering what that is, they are the machines that take pictures of you, then print stickers with the pictures on them. Puri-Kura was a huge boom in the 90s in Japan, and there were video arcades with nothing but Pure-Kura in them. This is a "naughty" version of this concept by Soft on Demand -- girls flash the camera, couples get tochy with each other, while multiple camers shoot them. Comes with actual stickers.
	Boba Fett ~ 1/7 Scale Pre-Painted Soft Vinyll Model Kit. There's nothing I love more than cool Star Wars products made in Japan by meticulous, detail-orientated companies like Kotobukiya. This is a made-for-Japan only Boba Fett "model" (very easy to assemble of course).
	BB -- Yoko Matsugane. Yoko Matsugane (ma-tsu-GAH-nay) is quite possibly the most beautiful Japan today, or perhaps I'm biased. Anyway, she's a rare gem: a beautiful bikini idol who gets better and better with each photobook. Enjoy her latest.
	Fundoshi -- White ~ Traditional Men's Underwear. Peter, you ask, what really bizarre items do you have for me today? Well, I have a real Japanese fundoshi, the traditional underwear of Japan from the Edo Period, great for that esoteric cosplay you've got in mind. Also worn to festivals.
	Matsu Ken Samba II (region 2) - Ken Matsudaira. Ken Matsubaira is an actor who spent most of his life performing in jidai-geki or samurai period dramas (this is the term that George Lucas got Jedi from by the way). He's scored big here with Matsuken Samba, a special dance that he does with lots of pageantry. Features instructions on how to do the dance in English, Korean and Portuguese.
	Calpis Gummy -- Peach. Calpis is a milky white drink sold in Japan since the 1920s, that's really good despite its odd name (which does not contain cow piss). This is a line of delicious Calpis flavored gummy treats.

$70 for a Captain Santa T-shirt, and parent's day at my son's new English school

You've been in Japan too long when you pay over $70 for a Captain Santa T-shirt and realize a few days later how much you really spent. It's true: despite the "deflation" you might have heard about -- which was mainly companies increasing their efficiency during the recession years and passing the savings on to consumers -- Japan can be an expensive place. Virtually everything, from construction materials to gasoline (which is the equivalent of $4.50 a gallon now), is priceier here then in other parts of the world, and food costs consume a quarter of the average household budget. One problem is that the ways goods are sold in Japan is still too structured, with products coming into the hands of consumers through established routes and multiple levels of distribution, which adds to the prices. But there's something about living in Japan that compels a person to want to own things he wouldn't otherwise bother with, like the above-mentioned T-shirt I bought in 1992 featuring Captain Santa, a line of high-end clothing featuring images of Santa at the beach. It was the best T-shirt I've ever owned in my life, but at $70, I probably should have had my head examined. From toilet seats that wash your butt to the 20+ varieties of massage chairs they sell here, there sure are a lot of ways to spend your money in Japan.

Part of raising kids in Japan means attending sankanbi, or parent's day, a day when mothers and fathers can come see their kids in class. Today was the first parent's day at my son's new school, so I took half a day off to go see what his classes were like. The experimental school, which is taught 70% in English and 30% in Japanese, is a completely new concept in Japan, and there's been a lot of anxiety over whether the city could pull it off. My biggest concern was, how can you make a roomful of Japanese kids learning from an American teacher who understands Japanese actually use English? The answer was the "Japanese mat." If a child wants to say something in his native language, he has to ask "May I speak Japanese?" then after getting permission, go stand on the Japanese mat and say what they need to say. I was very impressed. Like all such school events, most parents were armed with the latest video camera for recording their child for all eternity. Most Japanese parents really go overboard when it comes to their kids -- which is called oya-baka or "parent-fool" if you want to know -- but I am exactly the same way myself.

We've got some happy news: we're finally ready to announce the Friends of J-List Affiliate Program! We receive many requests from J-List fans who want to help evangelize our brand of wacky Japanese pop culture, and after many months, we're finally able to launch the program officially. If you've got an established website and want to help people find J-List, you can receive cash commissions or store credit for every order. We've taken an extra-long time to launch the program because we wanted to make sure everything was done right, and we're very happy with the robust affiliate system we've got in place now. To read more about the Friends of J-List Program or sign up, see this page.

Here are today's "really cool products" that I thought were especially noteworthy. Note: the J-List links below may be for adult products and should probably be considered "not safe for work." To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link.

	Relakuma Daradara Plush Keychain -- Relax Bear. Relax Bear (Relakkuma) is a hugely cute bear that's meant to make you relax more -- hey, I'm seeing a trend here. This is a cute little plush keychain.
	100 Recipes from Japanese Cooking. Want to learn how to cook Japanese meals? Want to do it with a book that has the recipes in both English and Japanese? Then this is your book. A very nice cookbook that also helps you master Japanese (or English, if you are already Japanese).
	NAKED -- Hitomi Ito. We love the photobooks that are published in Japan -- they are hardcover and printed on beautiful paper with glossy finish. This is a giri giri nude photobook, meaning she's nekkid in many of the photos but everything is tastefully hidden for a really elegant experience.
	Aroma to Issho -- Pink *Sweet Floral* ~ Hidamari no Tami Series. Another "relaxing" item (see? a trend!) from Japan, this is the latest version of the popular Hidamari no Tami character toys from Tomy. The big guy rocks his head from side to side through the magic of solar power., while the air in your room is freshened.
	Shunga Ukiyoe Guinomi -- Set of 5. This looks like an average set of five sake cups, but it's special: the images on the cups are shunga, or "spring pictures," which means ukiyoe pictures from the Edo Period detailing couples making love. For the Japanophile who has everything.
	SOD Group Twister Game. SOD is the #1 indies studio in Japan because they are bold, and come up with interesting ideas for their customers. This is a naughty concept in which four teams of women in mini-skirts and stockings play "Twister Game" on a plexiglass sheet, while cameras film them from various angles.
	Fujiya Kyoto Green Tea Truffle Chocolate. Remember, chocolate season is coming to an end in Japan, since chocolate melts in Japan's hot summer humidity. Before we get rid of our chocolate items, we wanted to bring out something we thought was amazing: a chocolate triffle with matcha (green tea) "choco" inside. Mmmm...

The lack of pregnant women in Japan, more about how kanji works, and my karaoke pictures

My Japanese mother-in-law remarked the other day that, "You don't see women with big stomachs very often these days." At first I thought that women were getting thinner, but my wife said no, her mother had been referring to the dearth of pregnant women in Japan. It's true -- the birthrate here is the lowest in the industrialized world, just 1.38 children per couple, and it's getting more and more common to see companies offering products and services to those over 65 over baby-related items. Many products for the elderly that might be taboo to advertise openly in some other countries, such as incontinence products or baldness treatments for women, are advertised on TV regularly here. Part of the reason for the falling birthrate is the high cost and extra stress of raising a child in Japan, especially for Tokyoites living in their usagi-goya (rabbit hutch) apartments. However, not all couples have only one or two children: it's quite common to see variety TV shows documenting the daily lives of families with 12 or 15 children, showing what they do to help each other get through their day. Our favorite Japanese TV show, Hey! Spring of Trivia, had an interesting bit of information: according to current projections, the number of Japanese in the world in the year 3000 will be...7 people.

Japan's writing system can be the most complex aspect of the language, since it combines three separate systems: hiragana and katakana, two syllable-based systems used for expressing Japanese and foreign words, respectively, and around 2000 kanji from China. While the two kana are not hard to master (although they look difficult when you first start), the real neck in studying Japanese is usually kanji, at least for "white boy" gaijin like me. But while kanji can be a challenge, it's not nearly as hard as it looks. First of all, there's a structure to kanji that's quite logical -- for example most characters that have to do with water or liquid have the same left half, called a "radical," that refers to water. Kanji can usually be memorized by cutting them into four quadrants and writing them repeatedly, although be sure to pay attention to learning the correct stroke order. I knew that I would never be able to master something as difficult as kanji unless I really enjoyed studying it, so I came up with ways to reinforce my studies, for example reading manga or going to karaoke bars and reading the kanji on the screen. I had a Chinese friend who was taking level 1 of the Japanese Language Ability Test at the same time I was, and I made it my personal goal to get a higher score than her, despite her natural advantage in already reading kanji. I was lucky -- I managed to beat her score by ten points.

It's not very politically correct to say that all Japanese look the same, but when I first came to live in Japan, it took some time for my brain to get used to seeing so many faces with Japanese characteristics, which in some cases did look very similar to me at the time. After I'd taught English for a month, I took a train to Yokohama to see the sights of the city, and while there I kept thinking I was seeing my new students on the street, despite the fact that I was quite far from home. In reality, there's a lot of variation in the faces of Japanese people, with Mongolian, Korean, Ainu, Portuguese and other blood coursing through the country, but it took me time to get used to my new environment. For the record, gaijin can look the same to Japanese, too, and I've been mistaken for other foreigners on several occasions, usually by older Japanese who haven't had much experience with us. I usually smile and avoid correcting their mistake since it would embarrass them.

Here are today's "really cool products" that I thought were especially noteworthy. Note: the J-List links below may be for adult products and should probably be considered "not safe for work." To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link.

	My Neighbor Totoro All-Purpose Container We sell many Totoro items at J-List, and the best are always the products by Sun Arrow, a great toy company that was established in something like 1902. This is the Totoro Toilet Paper Holder, which holds one stanard roll of toilet paper (shown with a roll of Hello Kitty toilet paper for extra bizarreness). This was a hit product from a few years ago and I'm glad to see it'll be available again.
	The Debutant ~ Mami Hayasaki. This is one of the popular magazine with DVD combos that have taken over a goodly portion of the adult magazine market in Japan. This is a debut DVD, featuring the first-ever works of this model, Mami Hayasaki. For some reason we've seen that debuts are always quite popular with our customers.
	TOKYO 360 ~ Day and Night. Like it or not, Tokyo is the concrete, steel and asphalt soul of Japan. Here's a spiffy book that shows the thoroughly modern city shows in 360 degrees, with many interesting scenes presented, in both day and night.
	Could you take a hot spring with only a towel? There are two sides of the adult video world in Japan, pro (larger, established companies) and indies studios. The latter are a lot smaller and must come up with interesting concepts for videos, sometimes with low budgets. Here's a fun one: girls walk into the men's bathing area unannounced, which causes plenty of confusion.
	AG Super Erotic Anthology Comic vol. 12. AG magazine came out only a few times last year, and they're trying to make up for lost time by publishing a much accellerated schedule. This is the premier magazine for H manga in English, and the quality is made very high thanks to the tireless dedication of the publisher.
	Occhan Neck Strap *Green Tea*-- Occhan Series. Another cool Occhan product, which is fast becomming a favorite with the J-List staff. This is a neck strap, which, if you're not in the know, is usually used so you can keep your cell phone (or your keys, or your camera) around your neck.
	Kitty Japan Doll w/ Case (S) -- Sensu *Traditional Fan*. When I saw the new Hello Kitty ceramic kimono dolls, I was jazzed by how great they looked. Not only are these beautiful renditions of Kitty-chan (her Japanese name) wearing a kimono, but this new series comes with display cases, too.
	Shuriken -- Juuji - Cross Type ~ Ninja Weapon. The shuriken is the weapon of the ninja, and now we've got cool shuriken in stock for you, in several shapes and styles. These are very cool just to hold in your hand.