How universities work in Japan, my fond memories as an ESL teacher, and battle of the sexes, Japan style

Some of the biggest differences between Japan and the U.S. can be seen in higher education. Japan has an extensive system of public and private universities which educate 44% of graduating high school students. In the U.S. the top universities are private schools like Harvard, Princeton and MIT, while State schools are lower in the rankings. In Japan this is reversed: the public universities are where everyone wants to go, in large part because they're much cheaper than their private counterparts like Waseda or Keio. Students study hard to get into top-ranked national institutions like Tokyo University at least in small part to lessen the financial burden on their parents and show oya koko (filial piety, e.g. thanks and respect to their parents for raising them). While Japan's national universities might offer a good education, they're dependent on the public purse for their operations and are generally running out of money all the time. A visit to some of these campuses with their drab brown concrete buildings built in the "Late Contemporary Chernobyl" style can make you think you've been transported to the old Soviet Union. The money problem has gotten so bad that some schools have started licensing their name -- if you want to try a Kobe University- brand steak, you can find them for sale in finer shops. One of the biggest problems with Japanese universities is that students must work so hard to pass the entrance exams that it's generally expected that they'll goof off once they get admitted. This makes me sad, considering all the ways my mind was challenged during my own time at college. Another problem: too many universities. Despite the sagging Japanese population and dearth of students, new universities continue to be built every year.

I really enjoyed my career as an ESL teacher, and during that time I came into contact with many different kinds of Japanese people, from kids who were being exposed to English for the first time to high school students who wanted to learn how to actually use the language they'd spend six years learning the grammar and vocabulary of. I always tried to show a positive, cheerful face to my students (Japanese people expect Americans to be "cheerful" at all times, I've learned), and let them know how great it is to learn English, since it allows you to make friends all over the world. I've met interested students, bored students, and housewives who thought that studying English was the most thrilling thing in their lives (clearly they needed to get out more). I'll never forget one student I had who drove a tanker truck delivering white kerosene to gas stations. Whenever he couldn't communicate something in English, he's try saying it in Japanese with an outrageous American accent. It's not considered good form for the teacher to laugh himself into a ball during class, but it was difficult keeping my amusement bottled up sometimes.

The subject of how men and women interact in Japan is a complex one, and I've come to realize how closely related it all is to language, despite the obvious "which came first, the social attitude or the linguistic term" question. For the most part, English is largely unisex, with the same words being used by both men and women, with a few exceptions (like profanity). Japan is quite different, and much of the language is "hard wired" for use by women or men only. For starters, there are different pronouns for boys and girls to use. Guys generally use the polite "boku" or the manly-sounding ore (OH-ray) to refer to themselves, but girls get the more feminine watashi or atashi (or if they're trying to be annoyingly cute, they refer to themselves in the third person, like characters sometimes do in anime). For the second person pronoun, men often use masculine omae (OH-mah-aye) or the slightly condescending kimi, both of which contain an element of talking to someone at a lower social level, like an underclassman. Women usually use the neutral anata, and both sexes will often substitute a name, e.g. Fujita-san, in place of a second-person pronoun. There are quite a few words which the Japanese use every day but which sound incredibly sexist if you analyze their actual meanings. The most common word for husband is shujin, which really means "master" if you look at its kanji. Two words for wife used by older Japanese are kanai (lit. "in the house") and okusan ("Mrs. Interior"), implicitly stating that wives never leave the home. Of course, these are just words and no one considers their meanings all that deeply, just as we don't tear English words apart for their Greek and Latin origins that much, but it's interesting what you can uncover when you dig deep into a language.

J-List loves to bring you the best PC dating-sim games from Japan, translated into English. We've got dozens of great CD-ROM and download games for all tastes, with hilarious stories, extremely dramatic love themes and all manner of cute characters. Our latest game is Doushin - Same Heart, a fascinating title in which you play from the viewpoint of the three Suruga Sisters, Ryoko, Maki and Miho. At any time in the game you can "zap" from one character to another and continue the story from their point of view, which adds an incredible element of depth to the story. A great game by Crowd, the company that brought us X-Change, X-Change 2 and Tokimeki Check in!, so we know it'll bring you many hours of enjoyment (and lots of in-jokes from the other games). It's being duplicated right now, but you can still order now and get free shipping on it!

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.

	Lilac Time Harajuku -- Aya Seto. I like this approach a lot -- a magazine devoted to one girl, organized in a "virtual date" format in which you go on a date with her in Tokyo. It's got its wabi and sabi thing going.
	Dolly Dolly vol. 9. I am not into dolls at all, and yet, and yet...this book is so cool to thumb through. Filled with tons of pictures of Japan's most avante garde doll culture.
	Kera vol. 90 Feb 2006. A new issue of Kera is always welcome on J-List. This issue is filled with gothic & lolita shots, accessories, hair pictures, you name it.
	ism vol. 005. For yaoi fans, we bring you a new issue of Ism, a popular anthology manga series.
	Goukakudekiru Nihongo Nouryoku Shiken 3, 4 Kyu ~ You Can Pass the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, Levels 3 & 4. For students studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, this is the actual test for levels 4 & 3 (the two easiest levels).
	Shima Katase Extra Story Image Figure -- Stellvia. I am so taken with way this figure looks, it's just incredible. We only have three in stock though, so hurry if you like it as much as I do.
	Neko Bus Finger Puppet. A cute new finger puppet featuring Neko Bus, aka Cat Bus.
	Lovers Soul. A very nicely stylized "H" manga about love and sex in contemprary, urban Tokyo. Very clean art and beautiful characters.
	Asakusa T-shirt ~ "Bu" (Fighting). A beautiful T-shirt that's made right here in Japan, this is a very rare shirt that shows Japan's various martial arts on the back, along with the kanji for "fight" ("bu") on the front.
	Manga Bible 1 ~ Light and Shading. A nice book about manga, art and character design. In Japanese, but featuring lots of images and information that would be of use to any budding artist.
	Rilakkuma Chara SP -- Relax Bear Audio Speaker. It's cute "Relax Bear" that plays music from your iPod!
	Hello Kitty Oyatsu Box -- Snack Case. A cute Hello Kitty Otaku (snack) box, which you can take on picnics, to school, anywhere.
	Snoopy Gamaguchi Purse -- Light Blue ~ Japanese Style.
	Welcome To Pia Carrot One - 3 Disc Box Set.
	Full Set of Tea Dog "Uchciwa (Fan)" Strap w/Ramune. Here's a cute set of Tea Dog Mascots, which you can hang from your window, use as phone straps, or do anything. Full sets or random individuals both in stock.
	Lotte Fusen no Mi Gum -- Tropical Fruits. Famous bubblegum from Lotte. You never know what flavor you'll get. Yum!
	Morinaga Uji Green Tea Cookie. You can't have enough green tea, and these new green tea cookies, made with Uji Cha (green tea from the town of Uji, near Nara) are just delicious.
	Japanese Sake Serving Bottle & Cups -- Mum. Japan wouldn't be Japan without sake. Here's a fun sake bottle with matching sake cups.

The Japanese eat a lot of noodles, and we are no exception. This is a meal from our favorite udon/soba restaurant. Today I got the udon with the mini-bowl of curry that was delicious.

My daughter got Curry Udon, a delicacy of Nagoya, and we kept raiding her bowl because it was so good. It's basically a giant bowl of curry soup with udon boiled in, mmmmm!

It's nice to have a beer after a hard day's work (especially on update days). This is Asahi's invention, a one-serving "Steiny Bottle" with a pull top, a way to sell more beer to consumers.

These are a local famous food called sansai, a kind of edible wild plant found up in the mountains, and since we've got mountains coming out of our ears here, there are a lot of sansai. They are frankly delicious, although it took me a while to come to terms with them. If you've ever played the classic bishoujo game Season of the Sakura, Mio was going to the mountains to pick sansai, but since I didn' thave space to explain what the heck this was, I changed it to mushrooms.

Experiments with Japanese literature, my impressions on positives and negatives education in Japan, and squid ink pizza

Coming to Japan brought many surprises for me, and not just the usual things like beer vending machines and ikasumi (squid ink) pizza. One revelation I had was that Japan's education system, which back in 1991 seemed the envy of the entire world, was in fact far from perfect. Japan introduced compulsory education as part of the sweeping reforms of the Meiji Period, when the country abandoned its feudal system and became a Constitutional Monarchy trying to immitate the powers of the West. Currently, Japanese children are required to attend 6 years of elementary school and three years of junior high. High school is optional, although nearly all students go, and there is competition between the various city-run and private high schools in any given area, e.g. Maebashi Commercial High School is best for students who want to learn a business-related trade, but Takasaki Boy's High School has the best academic reputation, etc. Unlike schools back in the States in which each student had his own schedule of lessons for each hour, Japanese classes are always together for the duration of a school year -- the same students in the same classrooms, all day long -- while teachers come and go each hour to teach lessons. This difference alone is representative of the "individualism" of the U.S. (each student going to his own class on his own schedule) compared to the "group identity" of Japan (all students together as one defined group).

It's hard to come up with an exact list of the issues I have with education here, since nothing is as simple as it looks at first glance. On the one hand, the near-absolute stress on "uniformity" of education, of treating every child as if they were exactly the same, rubs me the wrong way as an American. Japan's top-down education structure, in which almost all cirriculum is decided in Tokyo and followed to the letter from Hokkaido to Okinawa, is somewhat necessary if for no other reason than because of kanji, which has to be learned in a standard order for people to become literate. But what about "special" kids, like my daughter, who is fluent in English? When she enters junior high she'll have to take English along with all the other kids, starting with the phrase "this is a pen," despite the fact that she'll probably know more than the teacher. On the other hand, having students stay together as a cohesive unit for the entire school year teaches students the importance of wa (harmony) and gaman (putting up with things they might not necessarily like), important skills to have in any society. This group- based learning tends to foster lifelong friendships among classmates, too, and my mother-in-law still gets together with the people she went to high school with 50 years ago. (For a good look at how class relationships work, I recommend the excellent Ghibli film Ocean Waves, one of my favorites.) While I've come to see the many standardized tests for subjects like kanji, abacus and even penmanship as a positive force on kids -- my son really wants to pass the next level of the Step test, and this motivates him to study his English -- I am fearful of the effect of the dreaded entrance exams on my kids. Also, Japan's education system relies too much on facts and too little on overall understanding. My wife can tell you what date the Kamakura Shogunate was founded (1192, which the Japanese memorize using the phrase ii kuni o tsukuro or "let's make a good country"), but generally can't explain how it was important to Japan's history as a whole.

I've undertaken many areas of study in my quest to understand Japan from as many angles as possible. I've hitchhiked from one end of the country to the other, meeting various people along the way. I've toured hundreds of kilometers on my bicycle, explored Japan's culture of onsen bathing in a dozen prefectures, and learned (or tried to learn) traditional calligraphy. I've delved into Japan's manga culture, from true works of literature by Osamu Tezuka to the lighter offerings of more contemporary mangaka (manga artists). I even went through a phase when I wanted to study Japanese literature, exploring the classics of the Meiji and Taisho eras using a book intended for junior high school students (much more approachable for me). I enjoyed reading through some excellent books, like Kokoro by Souseki Natsume (the tragic story of a love triangle between two friends and a landlady's daughter, told from several points in the story) and the short stories of Dazai and Akutagawa. One day I got it in my head to read my favorite novel, Flowers for Algernon, in Japanese, which was a bizarre experience -- in places where Charlie makes spelling mistakes in the English edition, he makes kanji errors in the Japanese version. Hemmingway also translates very nicely into Japanese.

Do you want to help J-List evangelize its unique brand of Japanese pop culture? Got a website? If so, we hope you'll consider joining the Friends of J-List, our affiliate program set up to help give back to people who link to us. The program is excellent, with many ways to link to either the J-List or JBOX.com websites using graphics (hosted by us, so there's not even a bandwidth cost to you), text links, category links, and more. Go here for more information!

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.

	Sabra 008 11th May 2006. New issue of Sabra, which comes out every other week, in case you're wondering why it shows up so often.
	Wind Of Ebenbourg - 2 Disk Box Set. Nice "H" anime with good art and beautiful maid themes. Ah, maid themes...
	Hip! Step! Jump! -- Nozomi Araki. Super cute photobook featuring Nozomi Araki's beautiful photos.
	Ace -- Misaki. Sexy new debut release from Soft on Demand. I am quite taken with the eyes on this girl.
	Dreaming Maid Mansion (region 2). More fun with maids in this release from Moodyz.
	The 47 Ronin Story. We do like to bring works of literature, since there's so much good stuff available. Here's a great read from Japan's past.
	Laquerd "Housenka" Sandals w/Purple Flower Hanao. New variety of "geta" sandals for our female readers. Love the look of these.
	Chu Totoro *Blue* Finger Puppet. More cute Totoro finger puppet plush action.
	Doraemon Kubrick -- Medicom Toy. A nice toy from Kubrick, the famous Japanese toy company. Cute Doraemon, Nobita and Doraemon's time machine (the stource of many adventures in this show).
	Blush 1. Gorgeous artwork in this new release from Maya Miyazaki, one of our favorite artists.
	Slip "S" Manga Collection. Manga is a part of the Japanese, that's for sure. Here's a breathtakingly beautiful color manga for you.
	Manmo Soft Vynil Figure -- Gyatles ~ Hiru no Sougen no Manmo. Gyatles is, like, this 1970s anime that I vaguely remember. It's really cool, and this Manmo (Mammoth) large figure is one of the most amazing things that's crossed my desk in a while.
	Geisha "Kasane" Purse -- Red. A really nice looking bag that's made from chirimen, the fabric kimonos are made from. And the price is very attractive,
	Ninja Wrist Band ~ Navy Blue. These are cool, although I can't say what good they are. It looks like we'll sell out quickly so we'll get more in stock as fast as we can.
	Ninja Shinobi Choker -- Shuriken. More fun for secret ninjas, this is a new choker with a ninja weapon on it.
	Kitty Lunch Belt w/ Puppy *Poodle*. Lock down your bento with this bento belt.
	Thomas Bento Box -- Thomas & Friends. Thomas the Tank Engins is very popular in Japan, and this is a great and very rare item for collectors.

Took the kids to McDonald's, which I dislike a lot less now that you can order a "shaker salad" instead of french fries. McD, which has been having to reinvent itself in Japan as well as elsewhere, has started making ebi, er, shrimp products, like a new Shrimp McSomething (some kind of chicken fillet with shrimp substituted, I forgot the name) and the new Shrimp McNuggets, pictured here.

One of the sad things about the Japanese is, they're not that charitable. It's hard to see, but this Donald McDonald Foundation (yes, Ronald's name is Donald here, deal) is filled with 1 yen coins.

They have these cool video games kids get to play for free (with purchase), which spit out trivia cards. One of the questions was, what is maneki neko called in English? "Lucky Cat" sounds so funny to the Japanese.

So, we're driving in our MPV, enjoying out navi system, as they're called here. Somehow, the computer seems to know when traffic is slowing, and it colored our road red for us. How does it know to do that?

Technology is sure amazing.

Being fixated on Japanese, bittersweet themes in anime, and my recent culture shock

When you spend many hours focusing on something, whether it's building a model train set or learning a foreign language, it's natural to get a little obsessive over it. I've known many gaijin students of Japanese who had favorite kanji characters that they especially liked to write, a slogan or poem or proverb they were fond of, and so on. One Japanese word I myself like is setsunai (set-tsoo-NAI), translatable as painful, lonely, wistful, or heartrending. It describes the deliciously bittersweet blending of sorrow and happiness that's quite common in many Japanese stories. Enka, the traditional music of Japan that's similar to American Country music in some ways, often deals with such tear-jerking themes as crossing the Tsugaru Straits between Honshu to Hokkaido in the ferry to search for your lost love, longing to return to one's furusato (hometown), etc. Artistically beautiful stories of sorrow can be found in anime, too, like the melodramatic tales of Leiji Matsumoto (Space Cruiser Yamato or Galaxy Express 999), and of course the classic A Dog of Flanders. Another anime that uses setsunai emotions to tell a great tale is Maison Ikkoku, the story of university ronin Godai's long battle to win the love of Kyoko Otonashi, whose husband Soichiro died leaving a hole in her heart. When Godai finally finishes college and finds a job, he's finally able to propose to Kyoko...

Godai: "Please marry me. I'll never do anything to make you cry. Give the remainder of your life...to me."
Kyoko (after an agonizingly long pause): "Make me one promise. Please...even if it's just for one day...live longer than me. I could never be alone like that again."

(Peter reminds himself to write that "Everything I needed to know about Japan I learned from watching Maison Ikkoku" post...)

You'd think after living in Japan for fifteen years, I'd be pretty immune to culture shock. But when I went with my daughters Girl Scout troop on their annual barbecue yesterday, I had more than my share of surprises. Besides the usual types of meat or sausages, a "barbecue" in Japan can include bean sprouts, eggplant, cabbage, yakisoba noodles and even seafood like scallops. While we were doing the cooking, I was mortified to see the other mothers pull out a bag of squid and plunk the contents down on the grill next to the beef we were grilling, so that the juices ran together -- as an added bonus, there was a sardine that had apparently been in the squid's stomach, that they also grilled that too. Not exactly your average American BBQ experience. Then it was time for S'Mores, or as they call them in Japan, Some Mores, for reasons of simplicity. These were S'Mores with a cultural twist: since there are no graham crackers to be found in Japan, we made them with Saltines. In addition to the standard white marshmallows, one of the mothers had brought along...coffee flavored marshmallows! It all went very well with the dark chocolate they had prepared.

You often hear about Japan being a place divided into in-groups (uchi) and out-groups (soto), and foreigners here generally have the image of not really being accepted into society -- the term gaijin literally means "outsider" after all. I often wonder if this is really true, though. My own theory is that language determines about 70% of how we interact with others, and if the average person could converse in his own language naturally with someone from another culture, he'd generally treat the person as he would want to be treated. I certainly didn't feel like an outsider as I talked with the other mothers in Girl Scouts about our kids, and a friend of my son's spent several years in the States and speaks English perfectly, making him just like any other American boy even though he's Japanese. Our city is quite an international one, with 3% of the registered population being foreigners from Brazil and Peru, working in factories or in construction and providing many valuable services in the community, since they're willing to do the so-called "three K" jobs that are kitsui, kitanai, and kiken, meaning hard, dirty and dangerous. There are so many children from South America here that our city has a special elementary school for them where they can learn in Portuguese and Spanish. I'm sure that it seemed like a good idea to teach the children of foreigners working here in their native languages, but to my mind it's a very bad thing: it erects barriers between the local Japanese and the kids from other countries and keeps them from getting to know each other. A much better approach would be to teach all kids in Japanese (this being Japan and all), including kanji, with special classes available to kids that need the extra help in their native languages.

J-List carries dozens of great original T-shirts and hoodies, which feature wacky or aesthetically beautiful Japanese messages, and cute original anime designs, too, like Totoro and Cat Bus. We've received word that the Carolina Blue hoodies we print the Cheshire Totoro designs has been discontinued by the manufacturer. This is just a heads up -- if you like the look of this warm, soft hooded sweatshirt, you might want to pick one up before your size is gone.

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.

	Sweet Goddess -- Mika Kano. Mika Kano is on TV all the time, and she really looks good in this new photobook, her first ever nude.
	Pure Mail - 2 Disc Box Set. A nice erotic anime based on a bishoujo game, this is Pure Mail. I like the love-based H anime myself.
	New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary. If you're a serious student of Japanese, here's a kanji dictionary tha we can recommend.
	Origami Activities. I distinctly remember seeing the book Flying Origami when I was in the third grade, and wondering how the heck anyone could pronounce such a hard word. Origami (ori = fold, gami = paper) is a great hobby to get into, and this book can help.
	Hyper Magic Mirror Box Car ~ Lesbian Version 3. The Magic Mirror videos from SOD and Deep's are always fascinating. In this series they entice women inside and get them to agree to let other women (or their friends) kiss and touch them. Fascinating to see their reactions.
	Hello Kitty CD Case. Why not store your CDs or DVDs in style, with this cool Hello Kitty CD case?
	Japan at a Glance ~ Nihon Marugoto Jiten. Another excellent bilingual book that gives you information on Japan's culture, society and much more, in both languages.
	Totoro *Kazaguruma* Towelket -- 85 x 115cm ~ Pinwheel. New Towelket, a great soft blanket that can be used as a giant towel, or else as a light blanket in the summer.
	Makie Sasaki Figure -- Magister Negi Magi ~ Maho Teacher Negima. Super cute anime figure from Magister Negi Magi, which probably has an official English name, but I'm not sure what it is.
	Tamagotchi ~ Chara-Pucchi. If you like the design of the Tamagotchi characters, we've got a new series of cute soft vinyl toys on the site.
	Laquerd "Housenka" Sandals w/Blue Flower Hanao. New traditional Japanese sandals, made from a single piece of wood and kimono fabric on top.
	Full Box of Candy Sushi (36 Sticks) w/Decoration Box. Sushi lollipops, dude! This is a great idea.
	Ninja Shinobi Choker -- Ying Yang Sword. Release your inner ninja with this cool Shinobi (which literally means "to sneak" and is the nin in ninja) item.
	Keroppi Bento Box w/ Lunch Belt -- Kero Kero Keroppi. Enjoy super cute bento with this Kero Kero Keroppi bento box from Sanrio.

Our barbecue was a lot of fun, except for the squid. I guess most people don't associate barbecues with chopsticks?

After eating, we worked off some calories playing dodgeball.

Then it was time to add the calories back. Here are the fixins for the S'Mores, which (in case you're not from the States and are reading this) are a magical treat from America consisting of graham crackers, a toasted marshmallow and melted milk chocolate. About 800 calories per serving...

Coffee marshmallow.

The toasting commences.

This one came out the best. Really, the chocolate and marshmallow are so sweet, there's no great loss from the lack of graham cracker. But still, it's a bit like not having spaghetti sauce and substituting ketchup.