Questions about ice cream in Japan, on Japanese students who use their dictionaries too much, and funny corporate slogans in English

I was once asked if the Japanese eat any flavors of ice cream other than Green Tea. The answer, of course, is a resounding yes -- they're quite into various types of ice cream, from standard flavors that everyone knows to some unique varieties that may seem a little odd to you or me. Take a trip to a Japanese ice cream shop and you'll see plenty of familiar flavors, like vanilla and chocolate and sakura (cherry), as well as some flavors that might be new to you, like ume (Japanese plum), sweet potato or traditional sweet azuki beans. Often, ice cream makers base new flavors on food trends, like rose flavored ice cream to make your body smell nice from the inside out, healthy "black sesame" ice cream, or this year's big boom, mango. Every once in a while I run across articles about really rare flavors of ice cream in Japan, like crab, octopus, beer or wasabi. While these products do exist, they're not generally eaten by the average Japanese person, and usually represent some region of the country's efforts to define themselves as the "squid ink flavored ice cream capital of Japan" or something. Since the Japanese like to pretend they're culturally closer to Europe than to Asia, ice cream is often consumed in the form of gelato, although "soft cream" (what soft-serve ice cream is called here) is also popular. One of our family's favorite treats is to take standard vanilla ice cream and sprinkle matcha powder over the top, which is great when it all starts to melt together. By happy coincidence, we just happen to have gotten some matcha powder in stock today.

Yes, Virginia, there really is squid ink ice cream...

One thing that always frustrated me as an ESL teacher was my students' over-reliance on dictionaries. Language is about communication, and as a general rule conversations stop when one party puts their nose in a dictionary to look up a word. It's therefore important to learn how to get around difficult words that would otherwise create a linguistic roadblock, to be able to explain a concept in a different way. I once went hitchhiking up to Northern Japan, and during my trip I decided I wanted to buy a flashlight so I could read in dark places. Trouble was, I didn't know the word for flashlight in Japanese, so I had to describe what I meant in other ways until I want I wanted -- it was surprisingly challenging. In ESL class I'd split my students up into groups and have them describe various words to each other, to help them get used to communicating ideas indirectly. This is extremely important when, say, talking about Japan to people form other countries. Let's say a Japanese person wanted to describe a kotatsu -- a low table with a heater inside and a blanket over the top, which is used in the winter to warm your legs -- to someone from another country. No dictionary will help since the concept is totally foreign, and it's important for them to learn how to find other words for what they want to say.

"Netz. Make the style." This is the official slogan of Toyota's "Nets" showrooms in Japan, used in most of their TV commercials. I'm not quite sure why virtually every Japanese company has to have a slogan in English -- perhaps it's tied to my theory that use of English allows advertisers to access emotions in viewers that couldn't be reached any other way -- but nearly every company has one. They're designed to give you a positive image of the company in encapsulated form, such as small-car maker Daihatsu's "We Do Compact" or UCC Coffee's "Good Smile Coffee." The Meiji chocolate company's slogan is "Delicious...open!" which brings to mind opening one of their packages to find something good inside. When Mitsubishi started having problems with its vehicles, it quietly changed its official slogan from "Heart-Beat Motors" to "Changes for the Better" to show that they were working to fix their products, although I'm sure no one noticed by us gaijin. One of my favorites company slogans belongs to Hitachi, creator of many products from electronics to the bullet trains. Their slogan is "Inspire the Next," and they use it both in and outside of Japan, despite its slightly wonky sound -- good for them. It's not hard to find odd-sounding company slogans. For example, my wife shops at a drug store that declares itself the "Wellness Business for National Confidence." Pretty good for a small chain of drug stores located in one city in Japan!

New 2008 calendars are coming in stock all the time, and we've added stock of an amazing 25+ calendars to the site yesterday, ready for your immediate order. The calendars we have in stock right now include such fun and rare offerings as Remember Classic Japanese Cars, The Joy of Bento and Sushi, Ukiyoe Masterpieces, cool kanji calendars that let you appreciate the beauty of kanji all year long, and lots of glossy photo calendars capturing Japanese temples and castles in all seasons, . We've also gotten in the 2008 calendar of Haruyo Morita, the incredible contemporary artist who captures the soul of Japan in her beautiful works. Browse our selection now!

Remember that Halloween is just around the corner, and J-List has tons of great items for you to make this year extra special, from bizarre and fun costume items to delicious treats you can give out to Trick-or-Treaters. We've got cool masks featuring Hello Kitty, Lucky Cat, a traditional Daruma, a huge selection of cosplay magazines including monthly subscriptions, Japanese headbands, and much more. Why not use J-List to make October 31st more special this year?

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" (a yes/no verification screen will be displayed to filter products from our mature site). To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link. We also recommend watching our "new products" RSS feed

	Sabra Magazine 015 Sep 2007. New issue of Sabra, filled with beautiful pictures.
	NaNairo Beach ~ Nana Colored Beach -- Nana Konishi. Gorgeous photobook featuring Nana's first ever photographs.
	Hikaru Koto Remastering 8 Hours & 2 Discs. Here's an amazing thing -- a staggering 8 hours of Hikaru Koto's newly remastered works, with much more detail than ever before.
	Street Smart Trivia ~ Machi Ju no Gimon. Here's a spiffy bilingual book with both English and Japanese in it.
	Swimsuit Girl ~ Mizugi Kanojo. For all those who love girls in swimsuits.
	Evangelion Head Interface ~ Asuka Langley ver.. Transform yourself into Asuka or Rei from Evangelion. Totally cool!
	Behind Moon CG Collection vol. 1 & 2 SET (Download Edition). Thanks to our special relationship with the doujinshi circle Behind Moon, J-List is able to bring you a special *uncensored* collection of their best CG ever. Great for futanari fans. If you don't know what futanari is, you might not want to know, depending on your personal preferences.
	My Neighbor Totoro -- Totoro No Sanpo ~ White Sho Totoro . Cute Totoro plush toy with a string you pull which makes it vibrate. Pretty cool.
	Kiki's Delivery Service -- Jiji No Sanpo ~ White Sho Totoro. This is the Jiji the Cat plush version.
	AGARI ~ High Grade Green Tea Powder (Restaurant Style). Yummy matcha (green tea) powder -- make your own tea ceremony!
	Zebra Sarasa Ball Point Pen 0.5 Set of 5 Pastel Colors . Stylish colored pens for your writing lifestyle.
	GACHAPIN x MUKKU Hand Mirror --- GACHAPIN . A super cute mirror featuring Gachapin, Japan's cutest character. He's a 5 year old dinosaur, and his red friend is a Yette.
	GACHAPIN x MUKKU Gel Bubble Pencil Case . This is the bubble-filled Gachapin pencil case. Really cool.
	GACHAPIN Hanging Tissue Cover with Tissue Box. Talk about cool -- this little guy will hang around your door knob (or wherever) holding tissue for you.
	Choco Black Kitty version ~ Chokotto Sister. A cute figure for fans of Chokotto Sister.
	Angela 1/7 Figure Princess Waltz Figure Wafudo Enterbrain New. Princess Waltz is the soon-to-be-released bishoujo game from Peach Princess, and it's so popular in Japan that there are figures released for it -- this is the 2nd figure, and it sure it amazing!
	Noren ~ AKEHOSHI / Morning Star . This is a stylish "noren" (Japanese door curtain) for your home.

Linguistic foibles in Japanese, "made-in-Japan" English words for people who like mayonnaise, and questions about inflation

The other day my wife asked me what a "window-breaker" was. I assumed she was asking about a type of jacket designed to protect you from the wind, but she just might have been talking about a person whose occupation it was to break windows. The problem is that Japanese is a syllable-based language, and generally not blessed in terms of the range of sounds you can produce with it. Foreign words like "wind" are written with the katakana writing system, but because you can only produce the sounds da, di, du, de or do but never "d" all by itself, the word "wind" always comes out a bit like "window," something that takes getting used to. There are other phonetic rough spots built into the language, too. When Lord of the Rings (ロード・オブ・ザ・リング) was released here, a lot of fans thought it was Road of the Rings, due to the lack of differentiated L and R (ロード could also be "load"). Another problem area is that the sound "si" is pronounced as "shi" in Japanese, which means that a simple word like "sit" can be extremely embarrassing -- and don't even consider trying to use the English word "pushy" here, it will not mean what you think it will mean. Some other words that can't be accurately rendered in Japanese are "love" and "rub," which effectively become the same word; "curb" and "curve," which also get reduced to a single concept; "cone" and "corn," prompting millions to assume that the thing that ice cream sits on is made of corn; and the extremely hard-to-pronounce trio of "clash" "crash" and "crush."

The Japanese are well known for using the grammatical rules of English to create new words, which are called wasei eigo or "Made in Japan English." One of the most famous examples of these is "nighter," which is what a night game of baseball is called here. Adding this "-er" suffix to words is a popular way to create new words, and there's an extensive body of slang that makes use of this mechanism. For example, the word for "part time job" in Japanese is arubaito, borrowed from the German word arbeit, so naturally a person working such a job is an arubaitaa (arubeiter), also known as a freeter (for "free-lance albeiter"). Often these new words are invented to define a sub-group of society, for example people who love mayonnaise are widely referred to as mayoraa (mayo-ers), while people who love to collect Hello Kitty products are defined as Kitty-raa (Kittylers). There seems to be a connection to general otaku culture, too. It's possible to extend the ending vowel of the word Akihabara to produce something like Akihaballer (egads, that's hard to transliterate), which means otaku who spend lots of time in Tokyo's electronics and anime hub. Of course, these silly words come and go all the time, so don't expect to find them in a dictionary.

I saw a news report the other day that a major producer of instant noodles in Japan will be raising prices by 10-20 yen soon in response to the rising costs of raw materials to make their products. It seemed interesting to me that this was even news, since in the U.S. at least, most people take the slow creeping of inflation for granted, assuming that most things will be more expensive next year than they were a year ago. But for some odd reason, this rule doesn't generally apply to Japan, where the inflation rate always seems to be low. Except for one hike in train fares a few years ago, I'd be hard pressed to name many prices that have gone up appreciably over the past decade -- and in fact, some of prices have fallen, like when Yoshinoya lowered the price of their trademark Beef Bowl. Recently, however, the rising cost of oil has started to put real inflationary pressure on the country, with a liter of gasoline going for around $1.25, which works out to $4.50 a gallon. My wife is also mad because these useful plastic drawers we use to organize our house have shot way up in price.

Remember that the first 2008 Japanese calendars have come in, and it's a great time for you to to browse our lineup of anime. JPOP, idol and actress, Japanese photo and other amazing calendars. These large-format glossy calendars are a really fun and unique way to make 2008 an extra special year, bringing a little slice of Japan to you every day.

We have good news for fans of the English-translated PC dating-sim games here, an announcement that the upcoming Bazooka Cafe has gone "Golden Master" and will be shipping soon. A super "maid cafe" game by G-Collections, Trabulance and artist Kohaku Sumeragi, it puts you in the role of a young man surrounded by some of the most beautiful females ever seen. When your aging father collapsed, you dutifully quit your office job to take over running his cafe. Even though exotic Cocoa agreed to come back to her old waitress job, it's still a challenge to run a busy cafe. One day, your former coworker Mizuki comes in an announces that she's going to work at your cafe, then before you know it, two other gorgeous beauties -- childhood friend Narumi and former boss Yayoi also join the staff. It's like a dream come true: you're surrounded by beautiful women, and you're in heaven! This game includes the Bazooka Cafe Valentine Special, a bonus game featuring all-new game art, too. Preorder this great game now before it ships!

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" (a yes/no verification screen will be displayed to filter products from our mature site). To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link. We also recommend watching our "new products" RSS feed

	JUKEBOX -- Azusa Ito (region 2). A popular new series of 4 hour DVDs released at a great price. These are the best works of Azusa Ito compiled onto one handy DVD.
	SOD Female Employee Athletic Meet. Innovative idea from Soft on Demand. This is Female Employee Athletic Meet.
	Otome wa Onesama wo Okashiteru - A Girl is . Popular "futanari" doujinshi circle Behind Moon busts out a bold new comic.
	School Days ~ Visual Guide book. I am so into School Days, and want to watch the anime soon. This is the official Visual Guide Book for the popular game.
	Nintendo Wii Remote Controller Light Projector Full Set of 8. Upcoming Nintendo WiiMote item, really cool.
	2008 Calendar -- Seizo Watase . Beautiful 2008 calendar by Seizo Watase, whose work is very popular in Japan.
	ANIME PARA PARA MAX US MIX. I just love these Anime Para Para CDs, and owned the whole set from Japan. I am thrilled to have a U.S. release, and I recommend these fun dance-able anime theme songs. I often work late at night at J-List blasting these cool tunes.
	Autumn Moon Rabbit Display ~ Mochi-Tuki Version . Absolutely amazing diorama from Japan.
	2008 Calendar -- Ai *Preorder*. We've posted more calendars, incredibly. This is the popular bikini idol "Ai."
	SLICCI ~ Pentel New Stylish Gel Ink Pen 0.3mm ---10 Colors Set. Cool set of colored pens from Japan.
	Re-ment Bento Contest ~ Full Set (Set of 10). This is a simply amazing item -- a collection of detailed bento toys from Re-Ment that are so delicious you will want to eat them!
	Kit Sack Condoms -- Kit Kat Parody. These are the most amazing parody condoms I've seen from Japan in a long time.
	Uncho Kanu 1/7 Cast-off Figure ~ Dragon Destiny. Fabulous figure for Ikki Tousen fans.
	Mugen Puchi Puchi -- Endless Pop Pop - Blue. It's here! Endless popping plastic bubbles that provide great fun.
	Lotte Whiteen Gum -- La France Mint. Delicious sugarless gum. "La France" means pear by the way, in case you were wondering.
	Noritama Furikake -- Egg & Seaweed. This is the best furikak for starting out, as it's just nori and scrambled egg (every kid in Japan can eat this).
	Spirited Away Playing Cards -- Sen To Chihiro No Kamikakushi. Cool playing cards from Japan. Excellent printing and they feel great in the hand!
	Bazooka Cafe *Preorder*. This outstanding game, a cool "maid cafe" dating-sim, is finally Golden Master and will be duplicated soon. Have you preordered your copy?

You've been in Japan too long when you 'teach' someone your phone number, all about the history of Panasonic, and fun with English phrases in Japan

"You've been in Japan too long when you 'teach' someone your phone number." Of course, we all use different words for different functions, and even within dialects of a single language words are "mapped" quite differently -- for example, if you're in North America, do you consider a carbonated beverage to be 'soda,' 'pop,' 'coke' or a 'soft drink'? It varies linguistically by region. In Japanese, certain words are used in situations that seem odd to English speakers at first. For example, when you ask someone to tell you their phone number, you'd use the word oshiete, which means "please teach me," which takes some getting used to. Similarly, in my dialect of English I "buy" (kau) gas for my car, but in Japan you always use the verb "put in" (ireru) instead, and my Japanese friends kept correcting me when I'd use the wrong word. The strange word mapping goes the other way, too. In Japanese the concept of "good" taste (oishii) and "good" quality (ii, pronounced like "ee") are completely separate, so there's a tendency for Japanese to not like using the word "good" about how food tastes -- their brain rebels against the violation of its internal rules, which is why you may notice that Japanese people sometimes over-use the word 'delicious' when they speak English, such as "Don't eat that, it's not delicious."

Like most people, the Japanese have a lot of respect for the business leaders who have created enduring organizations, with Thomas Edison very near to the top of the list. Another man who is well respected in Japan is Konosuke Matsushita. Very poor as a child, he was forced to leave school in the 4th grade and start working to help support the family. Trained as an electrician's assistant, he soon got an idea for a new kind of electric socket, and in 1918 he founded a company to manufacture it with his wife and brother-in-law. This was the beginning of the Matsushita Electronics Company, more famous under its other name of Panasonic, which managed to grow from a tiny shop in Osaka into the largest electronics maker in Japan. That's not bad for a guy with no education or capital doing business in a country that lacks an American-style "two guys named Steve in a garage" type of entrepreneurial tradition. Like all Japanese companies, Matsushita is into a few businesses that might surprise you, including racing bicycles, home construction (as "Panahome"), and elevators. After he retired, Konosuke went on to write books on his approach to business, and founded a Dale Carnagie type management school. He's said that the man he respects the most is Hideyoshi Toyotomi, one of the three "unifiers" of Japan who started out as a peasant but managed to work his way up to the position of de facto shogun of Japan. Like Hideyoshi, Konosuke said he never shied away from any job that was assigned to him, no matter how menial or dirty it was, which was one secret of his success.

For one reason or another, there are certain phrases in English have burned themselves on the collective consciousness of the Japanese, and are quite famous here. When an American named Dr. Clark (universally known as "Clark-hakase") went to Sapporo to help establish what would become Hokkaido University, he left the following advice to his Japanese hosts: "Boys, be ambitious!" (i.e., strive to dream large in all that you do). These three words managed to become extremely famous, and there isn't a Japanese person who doesn't know them. Song lyrics and famous movie lines also provide a bridge to the English language, and speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln ("Government for the people, by the people, and of the people") are studied in school the same way we studied Shakespeare in the U.S., too.

Great news for fans of our 2008 Japanese calendars: the first batch of calendars have come in, and are being posted to the site right now. We've currently got lots of stock of such great calendars as My Neighbor Totoro and the oh-so-nice Studio Ghibli calendar, with all new art from the Hayao Miyazaki films; other popular TV anime (Naruto, Bleach, Katekyo Hitman Reborn); beautiful Japanese idols like Yoko Kumada, Misako Yasuda and Yuko Ogura; JPOP stars like Kumi Koda and Morning Musume; and much more. These calendars are in stock and ready for your immediate order, so check them out!

Remember that J-List stocks thousands of "Wacky Things from Japan" for you. Because J-List is actually located in Japan, we've always got a huge selection of rare items that would be very hard to find anywhere else, from T-shirts with weird Japanese ASCII emoticons on them to cool Nintendo toys to Japanese hachimaki headbands with phrases like "Certain Victory" on them. Or check out our wacky Hello Kitty vibrating shoulder massagers, which come in different colors and can relieve all kinds of stress. You can find all our wacky Japanese items on our website!

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" (a yes/no verification screen will be displayed to filter products from our mature site). To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link. We also recommend watching our "new products" RSS feed

	Urecco Gal May 2003. A rare treat, an issue of Urecco Gal from a few years ago. A photographic drink of water to a thirsty man!
	Alice Pink File -- Mihiro. 4 hour collection of Mihiro's best works, dynamite! I am such a fan of her stuff.
	Sweet Goddess -- Mika Kano. Great photobook featuring Mike Kano, one of the most flamorous women in Japan.
	Love Gome! -- Yume Kimino. An erotic video that gets its story from a manga, that's an interesting crossover there.
	Even Monkeys Fall from Trees. Great book that teaches you Japanese proverbs.
	Myojo Sep. 2007. Myojo, the leading magazine of Johnny Jr type boys -- a great new issue. By the way, I was surprised to see that this mag has been around for 55 years???
	Figure Maniacs vol. 21 Summer 2006. Figure Maniacs is a great magazine that presents hundreds of high quality anime figures in each issue. This is the new issue.
	Fate Fantasm Box 2 ~ From The Dark Side. Dynamite item for Fate/Stay Night fans. I am actually watching this show now. so I'm thrilled to get this in.
	Etona 1/7 Figure ~ Disgaea -- Glliffon Enterprise *Preorder*. This is the preorder figure for today. Love the design.
	My Neighbor Totoro -- Totoro No Sanpo ~ Totoro . Great Totoro plush toy -- pull its string and it vibrates cutely.
	Unazukin Strap -- Full Set of 5. Unazukin fans, here's a set of phone straps featuring these cute little guys.
	Hello Kitty Wooden Disposable Chopsticks --- 8 pairs . Hello Kitty chopsticks, is there anything that says "J-List" more than this?
	KIYA Katana Sword Steel Nail Clippers ~ Large. A new pair of fingernail clippers made with samurai sword quality steel.
	Revoltech Yotsuba ~ Yotsubato. For Yotsuba fans, a great toy from the Revoltech line.
	Transformers iPod Speaker Set -- Transformer Music Label. Got an iPod? This is your speaker set! How cool!
	Mikuru Asahina 1/4 Figure Red Bunny ver. ~ Freeing. I am so glad to have this amazing figure in stock now. 1/4 scale, one of the largest figures we've ever carried.
	Delicious Shigekix -- Ume -boshi Flavor. Ume-boshi flavored Shigekix! This stuff is tart enough already, so this should be something special!
	Shuwa Puccho -- Melon Soda Flavor. I'm sure you're not too familiar with Melon Soda, but I hope you'll give this item a try. It's really good.
	2008 Calendar -- My Neighbor Totoro . This is the 2008 Totoro calendar, a great new offering from Ghibli.
	2008 Calendar -- Studio Ghibli . The Studio Ghibli calendar is, of course, a legend every year. I can't wait to see this year's.
	2008 Calendar -- NARUTO (A) . Naruto fans, your 2008 calendar is in stock now.
	2008 Calendar -- Yuko Ogura . Yuko Ogura is another longtime favorite of mine, and of J-List customers in general. And her 2008 calendar is in stock now. Yay!

Some pictures of my daughter's sports day of a week ago. Here are some kids running a race.

As usual, I had great fun scoping out funny English on people's T-shirts. This woman apparently has many amorous stories for us.

This guy had on an anime T-shirt, of all things. That's rare has heck in Japan.

Decision shaking, appear & existence."

Criminal?

Nice to know there's a difference.

This is the marching band, playing the Yamato theme song like they do every year (it's a local tradition). It was so hot I was happy to stand out in the middle of the ground with my mother-in-law's frilly lace parasol, just to keep out of the direct sun.

There's some strange connection between the Japanese and Cream Soda, because I had a friend who lived in an apartment called Apartment Cream Soda.