Shrinking the Earth and watching Football, all about the word "sumimasen" and the four islands of Japan

That old planet Earth, she just keeps on getting smaller and smaller, and it's a lot of fun to sit back and watch the process unfold from the other side of the world. When I came here back in 1991, Japan was a lot farther away from the U.S. than it is now -- there was no Internet as we know it back when, of course, and calling home required biting the bullet and paying the $4-5 per minute to KDDI, definitely not a fun prospect. But since that time technology has really blossomed, pushing the "convenience quotient" for living in a strange place like Japan to dizzying new heights. The revolution in communication in the past decade and a half has been nothing short of incredible -- cheap international calling with "callback" services, the arrival of email, speedier communication with instant messaging and Internet video conferencing, and Skype -- I can even keep my cultural knowledge fresh thanks to Youtube. When I got here, there was exactly one source of news in English, the Far East Network radio station for the U.S. military, but now our cup runneth over with choices including podcasts from the BBC, NPR, NBC and more. Just as the maturity of the web has made it easy for people from all corners of the globe to order ninja boots or Black Black Caffeine Gum or Hello Kitty Mayonnaise Cups for your bento lunch from J-List, sites like Amazon.com are a huge boon to poor gaijin like me. I've finally attained the Holy Grail of Convenience for an expat in Japan, though, the absolute highest plane of Techno Nerdvanna -- being able to watch the Superbowl live, as it happens, courtesy of a Slingbox. It sure beats seeing the game with announcers giving the play-by-play in Japanese, something I just can't get used to.

You may know the Japanese word sumimasen, which generally corresponds to "excuse me" and is one of the more useful phrases to learn, but like most aspects of this place there's a little more to it than appears on the surface. First and foremost, sumimasen (soo-mee-mah-SEN) is used in any situation where you need to apologize for something small, such as causing someone inconvenience by bumping into them in the street, calling the wrong number, or ordering curry with fried beef intestines accidentally because you couldn't read the kanji in the menu, then asking for something else instead. Many situations which would call for a "thank you" in English work better with sumimasen in Japanese, something I learned at a public bath a few weeks after first arriving here. We'd stayed a few minutes after closing time, causing minor inconvenience to the staff who no doubt wanted to get home, and as we left my Japanese coworker said sumimasen to them ("we're sorry for taking too long in the bath") rather than the phrase I would have used, arigato ("thank you for letting us stay a few minutes past closing time"). When I asked about this, I was told that "'Thank you' sounds cheap. 'Excuse me' is a better word for Japanese people." The sumimasen phrase is also used when asking for service in a restaurant, and one difference between Japan and the U.S. is that here, it's okay to loudly use the phrase to indicate that you're ready to order, whereas in the States you usually close your menu and sit quietly to be noticed most of the time. Like many Japanese phrases, you can use the all-purpose word domo (which loosely means "very") to add a layer of politeness -- domo sumimasen! ("I'm really sorry!"). There are four main islands that make up the volcanic chain that is Japan. Honshu ("main prefecture") is the largest, about the size of Kansas or Idaho in terms of area, and most Japanese cities are located on this island. Honshu is divided up into five regions, which are Tohoku, the northern tip, where it snows all the time and people talk more or less with a New Jersey accent; Kanto, the large plain where Tokyo is located; Chubu, central Japan, where Nagoya is; Kinki, where you can find Osaka and Kyoto, and apparently where all the kinky girls live; and Chugoku in the west, whose primary characteristic is that it has no special characteristics. Kyushu is the large island to the south, where foreign influence historically enters Japan first, be it Buddhism from China and Korea, Christianity during the pre-Edo Period or the AMC movie theatre chain today. Kyushu's name means "nine prefectures" but this is a misnomer since there are only six now, however Shikoku ("four lands"), the fourth largest island in Japan, does sport four prefectures, including Ehime, famous for pearls and mikan oranges. Last but not least is Hokkaido (ho-KAI-doh), the large island in the north, very much the "breadbasket" of Japan, and products from butter to milk to ice cream are sold with the image of Hokkaido on the package. 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.

	Mecha Ii -- Ann Nanba. Always a pleasure to go on a virtual date with Ann Namba...
	Sisters Donburi (region 2). Oyako-don is a delicious dish that is chicken and scrambled egg (parent and child, or Oyako) on a donburi bowl of rice (don). This is "sisters" version of this, er, concept.
	emerge -- Maki Miyamoto. Lovely new photobook featuring Maki Miyamoto's beautiful body.
	CFNM ~ Beautiful OL's Foot Jobs. An offering for fans of CFNM, which is clothed female, nude name.
	Nozarashi Kiko - Enpitsu no Tabi ~ Basho Matsuo. Learn good Japanese penmanship and poety at the same time.
	Junichi Nakahara's Beautiful Nuri-e 1 ~ Utsukushiki Nurie 1. More fun 'nuri-e' coloring books for grown-ups.
	Oreo White Crunch. Yum, a new variety of Oreo Cookie Crunch bars from Nestle!
	1/6 Scale Black Bunny Girl Pre-Painted Haruhi Suzumiya Figure. A fabulous figure of Haruhi from the #1 anime series in a long time. Such detail! Kawaii!
	Sesame Street *Hanafuda* Clear Holder. Japan-motif Sesame Street stuff? Way cool!
	DX Chopsticks for Celebration. Lovely chopsticks worthy of a wedding or more.
	Chirimen Hello Kitty Wishing Board -- Yellow. Maybe your wish will come true if you use this cool Hello Kitty wishing board from Japan -- several colors available!
	Japanese T-shirt "Dirty American Devil" - Camouflage Limited Edition. A classic shirt, this is the Japanese word -- kichiku beihei meaning literally "American soldier beast" that you'd never expect to have on a T-shirt.
	Bontan Ame -- Japanese Traditional Soft Candy. This is the traditional Japanese candy you can eat, wrapper and all, since it's made of rice.
	Peach Princess's "X-Change 3". A classic game that brings the original X-Change trilogy to an end. Play it now, if you haven't already!

Yes, it was nice being able to watch the game. Although now it made my update late by two hours...

Isn't this car cute? It was in my Flickr window so I thought I'd show you. I think there are lots of things we can do to use less fuel, if we'd all just learn to love slightly smaller cars. This is made by Subaru.

We bought a new TV, an Aquos. Of course the first thing I had to do was hook up my Atari 8 bit emulator to it and play me some M.U.L.E.

It's also good for a virtual fishtank.

Looks pretty real, doesn't it!