Comparing cars in Japan and America, culture shock I get in my home country, and Americans don't like to say "goodbye"

Japan and the U.S. are very different places, and the cars that people choose to drive are different, too. In the U.S. the top-selling cars tend to be sedans like Civic (#1) or Camry (#3) or larger vehicles like Toyota's RAV4 (#9) or the Chevrolet Tahoe (#10). The top selling cars in Japan are usually small and stylish, often of the type known as "one box" (basically, boxy hatchbox cars), like the Suzuki WagonR (#1), the Daihatsu Move (#2) or the Honda Fit (#4), all very stylish cars that are marketed to hip young people who want to buy an inexpensive car but still have something fun to drive or pimp out. These cars tend to be "K" class vehicles, meaning that they have engines of 1000 cc or smaller, making them very fuel efficient -- the standard-gasoline WagonR gets 47 mpg/21 kpl, not bad at all. Besides the obvious fuel savings, another reason people are buying more efficient cars is that Japan's road taxes are set up to encourage them. Drivers of vehicles with large engines would pay a "road tax" of almost $1000 every year, but drivers of "K" cars pay around $60. Not all cars on the roads in Japan are small and efficient, of course, and you can see a huge range, from BMWs to the really big Land Cruisers, and even a surprising number of Cadillacs and Jeep Cherokees on the roads. But it's nice to have a choice.

Because I live outside the U.S. and only come back to visit a few times a year, it's interesting to see what changes I notice. During the 15 years I've lived in Japan, I've often been on the receiving end of culture shock in my own home country, feeling like Rip Van Winkle, or perhaps his Japanese counterpart, Urashima Taro. When I went to Japan, it was not that common for manufacturers to print Spanish or French on their products, but then one year I came back home and bam, every package was shouting New! Nuevo! Nouveau! at me. Back in 1991, you completed a credit card transaction by signing a piece of paper, but overnight (from my point of view, anyway), everyone went and got those computer terminals you sign on directly. Today we ate dinner at a favorite restaurant of ours, Gaetano's Pizza in Tierrasanta, one of the few businesses to change very little over the past 30 years (despite Walmart, etc.), and I noticed that the sign had been replaced since the last time I'd been there, something I probably wouldn't have spotted if I'd been seeing it on a daily basis.

Something about living in another country makes a person think introspectively about themselves. The features that make Americans Americans and French French are collectively called kokiminsei" in Japan, translatable as national personality." Basically, this word refers to the list of traits that people from a certain groups tend to share, some of which are certainly stereotypical but which may nevertheless be largely accurate. When I started J-List back in 1996, I started tapering off my ESL teaching, saying goodbye to my students as J-List grew to devour all my waking hours of free time. One school I taught at held a party for me, with karaoke and all the trimmings. Afterwards, I got a ride home with one of my students, an interesting lady in her 40s who was studying English because she wanted to live abroad for a few years. "Well," I said as we neared my house, "I'll see you later." "No, you won't," she replied. "A person has the same number of 'sayonaras' in their lives as first meetings, and we won't see each other again. But please be 'genki' in your future life." For some reason, being told "goodbye" in such absolute terms was more honesty than I was used to, and I was somewhat unsettled by her words. It seemed to me that Americans (or at least, this particular American) tended to substitute light-hearted parting words ("see you later") even when this clearly wasn't the case. Maybe we as a people don't like to say goodbye?

Remember that X-Change 3, the excellent dating-sim game by Crowd, is in stock and shipping now. One of the most popular interactive "H" game series ever, the X-Change trilogy follows the life and times of poor Takuya, who has a habit of changing from male to female at various points in his life. If you haven't ordered the third chapter in the series, we hope you will, as it's one of the best games Crowd has done in a long time. Of course, all our PC dating-sims are fully translated into English and mosaic-free, so you can enjoy everything about the story. Why not browse our game selection now?

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.

	Gokuh vol. 175 Feb. 2006 Ah, always love Gokuh, which is one of the best classy nude magazines in Japan.
	Twenty Years Old Eyes -- Hitomi Kitamura Hitomi Kitamura is a lovely thing to behold, and her body is just amazing (and of course, all natural).
	Continuing Whale Shower --- Mana Youki Whale Shower is a popular fetish in Japan, and with a lovely girl like this, I can see why.
	REGGAE Dance Style vol. 02 This is rather interesting -- stylish, hot dancing girls getting down on the floor. Very sexy dancing with nudity.
	Flare and Pleated Mini - Jun Seto Hehe, Shinkosha is back with another elegant leg fetish work, and this time they ups the ante with pleated skirts that flare out so prettily. Man, they know how to push our buttons.
	Innocent -- Shizuka Kondo Shizuka Kondo is a lovely creature from Japan, and you can enjoy her new glossy photobook, on the site now.
	Infernal Boys I am playtesting the 2nd Yaoi game we'll be releasing, so I've got quite a lot of yaoi on the brain. Anyway, here's our latest yaoi manga.
	Tokyo no Kocchigawa This is quite cool, a collection of "a day in the life of Tokyo" style pictures, from festivals to normal people doing normal things.
	Sushi Candle *A* -- Toro, Uni & Ika Sushi candle -- a bunch of sushi that you can light as a candle! Wow!
	Neko Bus Planter --Tonari no Totoro More Totoro planters, great for anyone with a garden who wants a very special addition to it. This is the Cat Bus.
	Secret Love Secret Love is a charming H manga about an H manga artist, who seems to be writing himself into his own stories.
	1086 Kodama Figure -- White *Standing* Nice, nice Kodama figure, a popular character from Princess Mononoke. We love to sell these special Hayao Miyazaki products.
	Folding Fan for Display -- Hanaguruma This is a really nice fan for displaying anywhere. Gold leaf, very pretty.
	Hello Kitty High School Bag -- Dark Blue Hello Kitty school bag. Take Kitty-chan to school with you.
	Morinaga Bake -- Chocolate I wish I were in Japan right now so I could eat this. A tasty chocolate snack for you.
	Umino Kuma Plush Keychain -- Orange ~ Honey & Clover This is...cute? You will have to be the judge, of course. Kind of too cute to be called cute.
	Tatami Pillow for Nap -- Red Dragonfly Another tatami pillow, great for taking a nap on a lazy afternoon.

Pictures of the Miata run. It was a lot of fun, although no matter how I cranked the Initial D soundtracks, it didn't transport me back to Mt. Akagi.

A gaggle of Miatas.

Went to a newphew's birthday party. He was ten. If he were Japanese I'd make a job about him being tensai which means "ten years old" but also "genius" (therefore, everyone who is ten years old is very smart).

My newest nephew Nick wasn't the birthday boy, but he was the star of the show.

"So, why does this guy keep speaking Japanese to me?"

That was quite a good picture. Nick has five brothers and sisters so he will never be alone, even when I'm back in Japan.

Heh, we asked Joey, the birthday boy in question, if he had any profound wisdom to pass on to little Nick. He said: "All I know is, that in ten years of life, I've never learned what the word 'profound' means."