Earthquakes and Japan's islands, a parable about the sexes in Japan, and an update on the Imperial Family's problems

Japan is an atoll of more than 3000 large and small islands, with the major ones being the main island of Honshu (HONE-shu, "main province"); the northernmost island of Hokkaido (ho-KAI-doh, "north sea road"); southern Kyushu (KYU-shu, "nine provinces," since there used to be nine of them in the old days); and tiny Shikoku (shi-KOH-koo, "four countries," since there were, and still are, four prefectures there). Japan was formed by volcanic activity, and as such, it's home to more than a few earthquakes -- in fact, we've managed to feel about five small quakes today while working. Although the land mass of Japan is small -- equal to the state of Nebraska -- it's spread out over a wide area, and if you lay Japan over a map of the USA, it easily stretches from sea to shining sea. Whenever there's a big quake somewhere in Japan, we know we'll get emails from family members asking if we're okay, even though the shaking is often hundreds of miles away from us.

I've written before about how Japan is a very different place from the U.S. or Europe when it comes to the relationship between men and women. On the one hand, Japan is a male-centric society in which it is joshiki (accepted common sense) that the husband be the "big, black pillar" at the center of the household, and women are more often than not happy with this arrangement. When the famous blue pill for men came along, it was approved for sale in Japan in record time by Japan's male politicians, while women had to wait 30 years to for the Pill to be legalized here. On the other hand, it's the women in Japanese families who control the household finances and make sure the various goals of the family are managed properly, and the image of a salaryman husband buttering up his wife for a little more allowance this month is not uncommon at all. My Japanese mother-in-law gave me her own Buddhist-tinged philosophy once, so I'll pass it along to you here. A woman is the ground, she told me, and a man is the seed planted in the ground. If the ground is firm and strong, the tree will grow tall and provide cover for the ground. Since everything eventually falls on the ground (the rain, the various troubles that happen to us all in life), there's a fundamental difference between men and women that can never be reconciled, only accepted. It's a little "zen" for some people, but it was an interesting way of looking at the issue, I thought.

In other news, Japan is in the middle of another debate about the sexes that will determine the future direction of the Imperial Family. The current Emperor is Akihito, known in Japan as the Heisei Emperor since this is his era according to the Japanese way of counting years. His son is Prince Naruhito, and he and his Oxford-educated wife Masako (the "Princess Di" of Japan, if you will) have a daughter, Aiko-sama, whose name happens to translate as "love child." Because Naruhito's younger brother Prince Akishino has also fathered two daughters, there are no male heirs to continue the line of the Emperors, which goes back through 125 rulers to the year 660 B.C., according to legend. Prime Minister Koizumi supports the idea of allowing Aiko to become Empress, since there is precedent for this in Japan's history. Predictably, conservative politicians are against the idea, with one argument being that if Aiko married someone from outside the Imperial Family, the male Y chromosome from the current line would be forever lost, replaced by the Y chromosome of whoever she marries. I hope they find a good solution to the problem.

RSS, if you don't know, is a very convenient way to read news and other posts on the Internet, from blogs to mainstream news sources. There are many stand-alone RSS readers for all computer platforms, or you can try an online news aggregator like Newsgator (the one I like, since I can read blogs with my phone). If you want to follow J-List's updates and new product posts with an RSS reader, we've posted links to feeds on the left side of the J-List and JBOX.com sites.

Remember that J-List carries a great for fans of JPOP, the iTunes Japan Music Cards, which are the only way to buy music from the iTMS unless you happen to have a credit card registered inside Japan. Looking for the Doraemon theme song? Want to browse the latest singles by Every Little Thing? Or browse the Japan Hip Hop scene for songs you like the sound of? It's all very easy to do from any Mac or PC running iTunes. The cards come in 2500, 5000 and 10,000 yen denominations, and are super-easy to use -- just log out of your current iTunes account, select the Japan store, click the link to enter an iTMS card number, and you can set up a new account for your Japanese music. You don't even have to muck with Japanese characters in the iTunes application, since it will work in whatever language you have it set to.

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.

	Concentration Mikan Tokonatsu. A nice new DVD on the Concentration label featuring Mikan Tokonatsu, a gorgeous kogal-style actress. Love that too-tanned skin.
	WR-V Egg Remote Control Toy. One of the old standbys in Japan adult video is the remote control egg toy, which can be used in some interesting ways. If you've got an adventurous girlfriend, maybe this is for you.
	Exciting Big Busts! ~ Kyo Nyu Baku Nyu. One thing about Japan: when a girl has big breasts, you can be sure they are real breasts, not those horrible things I saw way too much of at the AVN show in Vegas. I am not really a breast man that much myself, but some of the pictures in this book really rocked.
	Unlimited -- Yoko Kumada (with DVD 30min). Lovely photobook featuring Yoko Kumada, who is one hot lady.
	Bishoujo Lesbian Soap 8 -- Aya Koizumi. Aya Koizumi stars in the latest Bishoujo Lesbian Soap offering from SOD. Nice action here.
	SOD Employee Working Start 2006. Another "employee" offering by SOD, in which the new crop of bright-eyed employees start their training. Uh-huh.
	Genki I ~ Teacher's CD Set (6 CDs) An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese 1. The Genki series of textbooks is extremely popular at J-List. Now we've gotten in the CDs for the texts. They're a little pricey, as they're intended for classrooms, I guess (apologies).
	Soft Skin ~ Yawaraka na Hada. Here's another nice hentai manga from Japan. I liked the art and "love based" story.
	Silver Chanchanko ~ Japanese Cotton Half Coat. A nice sort of sleeveless kimono, good for keeping warm this winter.
	*Gashapon* Super Mario Soundrop -- Full Set ~ Set of 8. This, this is cool! A little keychain that shows a different Mario (Mario jumping, Mario swimming) and when you press the button, it makes the appropriate sound.
	Unazukin Netsuke -- Orange. The Unazukin series continues with new netsuke mascots for your phone/keys/camera/whatever.
	Hyper Crew Bento Box. Got a big appetite? Here's a big, big bento box for you.
	Celebration Stickers -- Rabbit & Daruma. What's cuter than daruma with little happy faces? I just couldn't tell you.
	*Purple* Tweety & Hello Kitty Pen Case. Hello Kitty and Tweety Bird, two great icons of cuteness, together on a pencil case for you.

An easy Japanese pronunciation guide, fun with the word "origami" and glottal stops and you

I clearly remember an episode back in the third grade. I had checked a book called Flying Origami by Eiji Nakamura out from the library. The book was great, filled with really cool Japanese paper airplanes to make, but there was just one problem -- I had no idea how to pronounce the word origami, which was just too difficult for my nine-year-old brain to handle. Little did I know I'd end up living in Origami Central one day, which goes to show that you never know where your life will take you. Anyway, I've decided to present a "quickie pronunciation guide" for Japanese, in case it will help anyone.

First, understand that Japanese is a syllabic language, meaning that sounds always come in consonant + vowel syllable pairs (e.g. ka, ki, ku, ke, or ko, never just a "k" sound by itself), or as a single vowel syllable. The exception is the letter "n," the only consonant that can appear by itself, without which we wouldn't have the word ramen (and that would be a travesty). Vowels are easy as pie in Japanese -- there are only five, identical to the ones in Spanish. They are:

A - "ah" rhyming with "fall"
I - "ee" rhyming with "feel"
U - "oo" rhyming with "fool"
E - "eh" rhyming with "let"
O - "oh" rhyming with "go"

When you see a word like origami, just break it into syllable-sized chunks, pronouncing all the letters and squeezing it into the "Japanese phoenetic grid": oh-ree-GAH-mee. There are no diphthongs in Japanese -- a vowel all by itself is treated as a syllable separate from what it's next to, so a name like Miura would be three syllables, mee-OO-ra. When you see a Japanese name or word, try not to let the pronunciation rules of English get in your way. We had a friend named Tomoe (toh-moh-EH), but English-speakers always called her "Tomo," thinking that the "silent e" on the end of her name should be ignored. Other things to keep in mind: a g sound like ge or "gi" is always hard (as in go), never soft (as in giraffe), hence the third sound in Evangelion is indeed a hard "g," in case you were wondering. The sound u is always oo, never "you." And the ra-ri-ru-re-ro sounds are closer to an "L" sound than "R" in English, hence the word "ramen" is about 80% of the way to "lamen," pronunciation-wise. Of course, the best way to learn to pronounce Japanese is while learning the hiragana and katakana writing systems. Remember that J-List has many cool products to help you start studying the language, if you want to give it a try.

A somewhat unique aspect of Japanese is the "small tsu" (小さい「つ」) a special kana character the indicates a brief pause between syllables, not unlike the short stop you can hear when saying words like "button" or "kitten." Linguistically it's called a glottal stop, and while many languages have them, you usually don't have a way to express them in writing. Usually expressed in the Roman alphabet with double consonants, some words that have this brief pause include gakkou (gah-[small pause]-KOH, school), nattou (nah-[small pause]-TOH, fermented soybeans) and matcha (mat-[small pause]-CHA, green tea powder).

The Japanese love onomatopoeia, and there are many odd sound words used in Japan. One of the strangest is mokkori (there's that "small tsu" again), which is the sound of something rising suddenly (e.g. the sound of a tent being pitched), a word made famous among anime fans by the classic City Hunter anime series of the 1980s. This wacky linguistic concept is embodied in here, a loveable character on our latest T-shirt. This upstanding little guy is a mushroom (what did you think he was?) who is a real straight-shooter. One of our wackiest Japanese T-shirts ever, it's guaranteed to get you lots of attention from cute Japanese coeds who see you walking across campus.

At J-List, we sell lots of DVDs, including many high-end indies JAV or anime titles from Japan, such as the excellent films of Hayao Miyazaki, which are zoned for region 2 (Japan and Europe). For customers who want to enjoy DVDs from all parts of the world including Japan, we humbly recommend the three region-free DVD players we sell, which are fully compatible with North American television systems and have full 1-year warranties. We've discovered a cool new feature in the AMW M-280, the portable 7" DVD player we sell for just $148. In addition to its many innovative features, this player will play MP3 music burned onto a DVD-R disc, allowing you to burn 4+ GB worth of tunes anywhere you want to play them (in your car, at home, etc.). Really cool!

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.

	Japanese T-shirt - Mokkori-kun. Here is our latest wacky Japanese T-shirt: Mokkori-kun, a cute little mushroom (yeah, that's what he is) who will support your "mokkori life."
	200 Essential Japanese Expressions: A Guide to Correct Usage of Key Sentence Patterns ~ Donnatoki Doutsukau Nihongo Hyougen Bunkei 200. Another handy book that teaches you Japanese expressions, various useful phrases or structures that are common in the language.
	in Thailand -- Sayuri Anzu (with DVD Region All) ~ Degi Toku Series 08. Sayuri Anzu is a truly beautiful swimsuit idol from Japan, and here is her latest photobook. Features a DVD, too.
	For the Best Onanie of you -- Luna Mikami (region 2). So, some of these companies are really, really good at taking cover pictures for DVD packages. Moodyz is one of them -- Luna-chan looks great!
	Miss SOFT ON DEMAND II. A new concept from SOD, and a very good one too. Who will be the next Miss Soft on Demand?
	Dengeki Teioh vol. 6 summer 2005. A nice new manga magazine that's quite phonebook-like in its thickness. Comes with lots of good manga to read through, and a figure too (wow).
	DX Sakura 2 Tiered Lacquer Ware Boxes Brown. A really cool bento box that's a "juubako" (stackable lunch box). This is extremely well designed, and cries out to be used at picnics.
	Golgo13 Figure -- Duke Tougou ~ Don't Stand behind Me. When you talk, Golgo 13 detects you, and moves to face you. You're dead!
	Momoiro Tamasudare! ~ Momotama!. Another sexy manga created by a female hentai artist, which is something I've always been interested in (e.g. what will female artists find sexy and interesting).
	Tomica 115 -- Mazda Roadstar *Grey*. As a Mazda Miata fan (I own one in the U.S. and one in Japan), I am a fan of the latest Roadster, although I haven't bought one yet (can't get the wife to okay it). Until then, I've got a little Tomica car to play with.
	IQ Shigelix . I've been a fan of Shigekix since I came here. They're very, very sour "hard gumi" and are fun to eat. The new breed of Shigekix include IQ-raising vitamins and more.
	Glico Pocky Decore Mont Blanc. New flavor of Pocky, the yummy new Mont Blanc, the famous French dessert.
	Star Train -- Shinkansen Special ~ Full Set. I am a fan of Japanese trains, and this is a cool series -- all the best Shinkansen, or bullet trains, ever made. It's enough to make a father wish his son were 3 again.
	Rilakkuma Mascot Holder -- Relax Bear. Relax Bear brings is relaxing face to a keychain, phone strap or zipper near you.

More pics from Japan. Going furniture shopping, I found a sofa that I really hate.

This is the table and chairs we finally ended up buying.

This is a kotatsu, a (usually square, in this case round) table with a heater under it. Stick your legs inside and you'll be warm without wasting energy on central heating. However, this shape would be terrible -- it's much too small for two people to use it at once.

Lots of kids' school backpacks.

American brands in Japan.

Chinese New Year and Japan, what Japanese drivers' put on their cars, and our faithful dog

Chinese New Year is going on right now, and throughout Asia people are celebrating the cultural holiday. Although Japan switched from the Lunar Celendar to the Gregorian system as part of its modernization during the Meiji Era, many cultural elements from the old calendar live on. The Japanese follow the Chinese Zodiac, and some people believe what animal sign you were born under will determine part of what you will go on to become. My wife and I were both born in the Year of the Monkey (1968), so we get along, but monkeys and dogs like to fight, so someone born in the Year of the Monkey might not want to marry a Dog Year person -- or something like that. I've noticed that some superstitions remain rooted in the Lunar Calendar. For example, there are "unlucky years" for people, called yaku-doshi (Wiki article), during which you should take extra care to avoid accidents or sickness and avoid starting new projects like building a house -- the ages of 19 and 33 are two unlucky years for women, and 24 and 42 for men. I've observed that these unlucky years seem to follow the Chinese calendar, i.e., they don't kick in until the Lunar New Year has arrived. Chinese New Year is not officially marked in Japan at all, but one old custom from the old days survives: Setsubun, on February 3rd, a day when fathers put on a scary mask and pretend to be a devil trying to bring bad luck into the house. Children throw dried soybeans at the devil and yell oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi! ("out with devils, in with hapiness"). On this day, you're supposed to eat your age in soybeans to bring you good luck.

This year is the Year of the Dog, and our New Year's Card this year featured our kids with our old faithful dog, Chibi, who's been guarding our rural liquor shop for the past 18 years (126 in dog years, wow!). We're glad we took the pictures because this morning we found that good old Chibi had passed away in the night. He was a good dog, always happy to go for a walk on his little snub legs, and while he was a bit of a sukebe (more than most male dogs or humans, anyway), he was always faithful to us. He will be missed -- my daughter was so boro-naki (bawling he eyes out) she couldn't go to school.

Getting a drivers' license in Japan is a little different from how it was for me back in Califorina. First, the driving age is 18, but only students who have already graduated from high school can start studying for their license, which causes a huge rush during the summer. Students must go to an intense driving school, usually for a month but longer if they have trouble passing the test quickly. The cost is a cool $3000, quite a bit more than the $200 I paid for two days of driver's training back in 1984. Drivers who have had been driving with less than a year need to have a special sticker on their car, called a Beginner's Mark, to let others on the road know that they're inexperienced drivers. By customer request, we've got these cool Beginner's Mark magnetic stickers in stock on the site now. They're a great way to stand out on the road and bring shock to any Japanese who might see your car. Plus they're highly reflective and make your vehicle more visible on the road.

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.

	eOnna Oct 2005 ~ e onna with DVD Region All. I think the eOnna peoplare really on to something. Girls who keep their clothes on...who are very pretty and look great but who aren't getting nekkid all the time. Kind of makes you use your imagination.
	Mini Skirt Super ~ Mini-Suka Super . A specal issue of Mini Skirt Illustrated. Very nice pictures in here.
	Love -- Zhao Shan Shan. If you're not at work and aren't offended by beautiful nudity, click over to see this photobook - it's truly one of the most amazing things I've seen in many years. Ballerina Zhao Shan Shan is a fantastic beauty!
	Black Tights Beautiful Leg OL. Of all the fetishes out there in Japan Land, I have to say that stockings, high heels, and a touch of "panchira" are some of the ones I can get behind.
	TS I Love You 3 ~ Tranny Girls Haeteru Onna. Amano Jack (aka Amanoja 9) is busy these days, thinking up great manga for "futanari" fans. This might be his best work yet.
	Jiji Moko Moko Plush -- M ~ Kiki's Delivery Service. A new plush toy for Ghibli fans, this is a "really big" stuffed Jiji, from Kiki's Delivery Service, one of the wabi-and-sabi-est anime movies ever made.
	Keroro Plush Keychain -- Sergeant Keroro. Sgt. Frog is getting bigger in Japan. This is a new plush toy that's very cool.
	The Complete Illustrated Guide to Japanese Systems ~ Nihon no Shikumi -- Politics, Economics, Law and Order. Another book explaining the details of Japan's inner workings, in English and Japanese. I love these things, always very interesting.
	Unazukin Netsuke -- Pink. More Unazukin toys for you. These don't nod of course, since they're too small, but they are darned cute things to attach to your phone, camera, PDA, etc.
	Ero Tifa 7. We have more doujinshi, like this excellent Final Fantasy 7 offering (which will likely be gone by the time you click over, sorry -- this is the curse of doujinshi since they're so hard to buy in quantity).
	Sake (Shouchuu) Chocolate. Everyone knows those delicious liquers with bourbon, etc. in them. Here's a delightful choclate from Lotte with a touch of Shochu- a sake-like alcohol from Japan.
	Compact Mirror -- Hana Komachi. A really cool compact mirror made with kimono fabric.
	Dog, the Japanese Zodiac, Tenugui w/Calendar -- A. Happy New Year! This is a cool tenugui (traditional hand towel) featuring the Dog, which is this year's animal.
	Driving Beginner's Mark. Show everyone you're into Japan with this cool Beginner's Mark, a magnetic sticker you stick to your car's metal surface. Not only will you surprise any Japanese who see you, you'll increase how car's visibility.

Various pic I've got in my collection. DId I mention they sell iTunes and iPods at Seven Eleven Seven & i Holdings?

Another item I can't remember if I posted. This is a "Star Wars Episode III Cereal Bowl" set from Kellogg's, sold only in Japan. Comes with bowls, coffee cups and little plates featuring Darth Vader. It's right up there with my R2-D2 cereal holder that's also very cool (remind me to post pics of that sometime).

Found a picture of the plate. While the grown-up, slightly cynical Star Wars fan in me says, why show Darth Vader with the red light saber in the Mustafa flames, I can overlook it becauase of my son, who allows me to enjoy childhood again vicariouosly through him.

Ad for a Proctologist inside a train. It might have been less bizarre if the train hadn't been decommissioned and turned into an udon and soba restaurant, forcing us to look at this while eating.

A sign in a toy shop that says, "We regret that we are forced to decline all persons asking us questions like, 'Where is the Maid Cosplay Coffee Shop'' and so on."