Nuances of how you call people in Japanese, writing systems in Japanese and how they've changed, and gaijin fingerprinting

First, we apologize for an outage on the J-List and JBOX.com websites, which was caused by a bad router at our ISP. During part of the problem, the J-List site was functional but search and shopping cart functions were broken (ouch). The issue has been fixed and the site is up and ready for you right now.

One interesting aspect of Japanese relationships are the invisible rules that govern what you should call others, which can be very complex can nuance-filled. A man named Taro Yamada might be called "Yamada-san" by his co-workers (polite), "Yamada" by his boss at work or his male friends, and "Taro" by his family or his girlfriend. What you call someone is important, since it defines your perception of your relationship with the other person, and choosing the "wrong" thing to call them might lead to misunderstandings or bad feelings. In an episode of an anime I'm watching now, a girl and boy who've started dating struggle to get past calling each other by their family names, which places a distance between them that neither wants. When the girl's younger sister asks why the boyfriend calls her sister by her last name, the two turn red-faced as they struggle to get used to using each other's first names so their relationship can progress. What's interesting to me is that this is such a conscious, out-in-the-open thing that everyone is aware of, not under the surface at all. As usual, my impressions of Japan are filtered through my experiences as an American, and I often get the sense that some of the customs that seem odd to me might not feel so strange to someone from the U.K. -- in the Narnia books, for example, I've noticed dialogue between characters that seemed to follow these Japanese-style naming rules even though it was in English. It wouldn't be the first time I was confused by someone I encountered in Japan only to have it turn out to be somehow related to England instead.

You may know that there there are a total of four writing systems used in Japan: hiragana, a syllable-based script for writing basic Japanese words and grammatical particles; katakana, a mirror of hiragana that's used to express foreign loan words and names; kanji, the Chinese writing system used for more complex verbs, nouns and adjectives; and unofficially, the Roman alphabet romaji, for expressing concepts like FOR RESTROOMS, GO BACK TOWARDS YOUR BEHIND. While constantly mixing multiple writing systems sounds like a confusing mess, learning to read Japanese effectively isn't nearly as difficult as you may think -- it's a logical framework that you can approach in a methodical fashion. Reading Japanese from a different era, however, can be quite a challenge, and even Japanese written around World War II can be quite hard to read, between archaic versions of kanji and hiragana (like the always fun ゐ or ゑ）, writing that sometimes went left-to-right and other times right-to-left, and decidedly odd ways of writing kana resulting in something about as strange to my eye as Shakespere must look to Japanese readers. It turns out that after the war ended, there was a movement to standardize and modernize the Japanese language, which eliminated a lot of weird and unused characters, resulting in a much more approachable language overall. I'd like to say, on behalf of gaijin everywhere, thanks to whoever was in charge of this.

The next time you come to Japan, you will probably be fingerprinted and photographed in accordance with a new program about to be put in motion by the Japanese government. It's not that big a deal, of course -- every foreign visitor to the U.S. has been going through the same process for years, smiling for the camera and presenting their right forefinger. While part of the impetus for the move is embarrassment that a member of Al Qaeda managed to enter Japan in 2004, I know the move for what it really is: the latest example of Japan following the lead of West, in this case specifically the U.S. In many areas, Japan as a nation seems content to follow behind the United States and Europe, taking cues on everything from its laws on seku-hara (sexual harassment in the workplace) to how much money you can bring into the country in cash (US$10,000), and the fingerprinting of incoming foreigners (Japan-born Koreans are exempt) is just another way of imitating America. Another factor is probably Japan's desire to feel that it's a part of the global "war on terror" despite the fact that Japan is a pretty peaceful place that's not generally hated by most of the world -- Japan clearly wants to be nakama-iri (part of the same in-group) as the U.S. and Europe. Considering that all terrorist attacks in Japan have come from domestic elements like the Aum religious cult and the Japanese Red Army, I predict the whole finferprinting project will be a big boondoggle that does nothing but create a database of information that no one will ever look at.

Interested in learning some Japanese? Whether you'd like to just learn the basics of hiragana and katakana, learn some fun phrases that can make you the life of the party or make an organized plan to master the entire language, J-List offers a wide range of textbooks, kanji study cards, workbooks, electronic dictionaries and other useful tools that can really help you reach your goal. Why not browse our lineup of study related items 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" (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

	Yukina -- Yuuki Kinoshita. There's something about this girl that I can't put my finger on. Man she's got a lot of energy.
	Figure Maniacs vol. 22 Autumn 2006. Figure Maniacs is always one of my favorites.
	Departure for a new place. -- Nana Natsume ***8 Discs & 1000 Minutes***. Nana Natsume, the former fashion model that Soft on Demand turned into their biggest talent ever (replacing their former star Kurumi Morishita, who defected to Dogma to be with her favorite director) is retiring. But first, here's 16 hours of her best stuff.
	BOIN Best Selection. Very nice artbook, available again (possibly for a limited time, we're checking to see if we can get more than our current stock).
	How to Draw Manga -- Giant Robots Special Edition. How to Draw Manga, a great series.
	Japanese Fleece Hoodie "Cheshire Cat Bus". By customer request, a warm and fuzzy new Cat Bus hoodie.
	Evangelion Paper Figure Book. Make your own Evangelion mech out of paper. Cool!
	Escalayer Figure ~ Beat Angel Escalayer -- Alter *Preorder*. This is a great figure, with super detail and the popular "cast-offability."
	Lucky Frog Japanese Garden Display. You wouldn't think ceramic frogs in a Japanese garden would be that cool, but you'd be wrong.
	Yawaraka Tank ~ Soft Tank ~ Shitajiki. Watch out, Yawaraka Tank (Soft Tank) is here, and he's darned cute!
	Yawaraka Tank ~ Soft Tank ~ Mascot Eraser. This the eraser for fans of Soft Tank. It's soft, and it's a tank!
	Magic Ink Marker with Retro Design -- Super Thick / Black. This is the biggest, blackest, coolest magic marker I've ever ever seen. People will READ what you write with this.
	Mini BAN-GASA ~ Classic Red Parasol --- Wisteria. Cool Japanese parasol.
	Strike Witches Konami Figure Collection Full Set of 7. I am really a fan of the Mecha Musume line, which you can guess by seeing that I carry just about everything on the site. This is the Strike Witches line from the same artist (although it's based on an anime). Cute anime girls x World War II mecha = fun!
	Sion Eltnam Atlasia 1/8 Figure ~ Melty Blood. Great figure for fans of the Melty Blood games.
	IQ Shigekix. Japanese candy that can make you smarter.
	Morinaga Ramune -- Green Apple Flavor. Ramune candy is fun to eat.
	Lotte Rich Fruit Chocolate -- European Pear Flavor. I can't believe how good this tastes. It's chocolate but loaded with European Pear.

Here are some pictures, if you want them. I took a trip to Tokyo on the Shinkansen on Thursday. Snapping random shots out the window, I just happened to catch this love hotel.

Our destination was Asakusa, a popular tourist spot since they have a famous temple there, and a lot of shops. This is the famous "Unko Building" (it's an Asahi Beer creation that looks like golden poop to everyone) with one of the famous Rick-Shaws (which is 人力車 in Japanese in case you were wondering).

We were walking and happened to bump into the headquarters of Bandai.

Ultraman, Doraemon, all the cool characters were out to play.

Passed by a really old used book store that had to have been there since the Taisho Era. This old-style sign is mighty cool, I thought.

Internalizing a foreign culture through gestures, the current state of English conversation in Japan, and guess what day to day is?

Living in a foreign country means more than just learning that country's language. It also means subtly taking the local culture inside you, something that can really sneak up on a person -- one day you're shunning natto and forgetting to take your shoes off when you enter a house, and the next you're serving "coffee jelly" to foreign guests for dessert. An interesting yardstick for how much of this culture a person has internalized are the gestures that we all use every day, since unlike spoken language, gestures are something we don't consciously think about. A big part of body language in Japan involves bowing, and Japanese are known to bow out of reflex even when talking on the phone -- nothing is funnier than seeing a gaijin do this too. Another famous gesture is "tegatana," meaning hand-katana, made as you move throw a crowd while simultaneously bowing and cutting an invisible path with your hand, karate-style. You can communicate some complex concepts using a simple gesture; for example, one salaryman might pantomime throwing back a sake glass to his friend ("Do you want to stop for drinks on the way home?"), while his friend might make little demon's horns with his forefingers and shake his head ("I can't, my wife would be really angry").

The word eikaiwa means "English Conversation," and this is probably one of the first Japanese words a person interested in teaching ESL in Japan encounters. The market for helping Japanese people learn English quite large, and is mainly dominated by the four chain schools ECC, AEON, GEOS, and the largest school, Nova. Unfortunately for the 5000+ native English speakers who work in Nova's "study abroad in front of your local train station" schools, the company is currently going through a rough period that might result in its total meltdown. When most foreigners have experience with Nova it's usually as a teacher -- there are plenty who will give you an earful of the various abuses of the company -- but in my own case I actually considered having my daughter study English there, a considerably rare thing for an American living in Japan to do. It soon became apparent that the company was really interested in signing us up for a 5 year contract in which we were required to pay, even if our situation changed or teachers that we liked at our local school left, with no refunds, either. Turns out, the Japanese Supreme Court ruled this practice illegal, and Nova was ordered to suspend part of its business for six months as penalty. Now it seems that the company is having trouble paying its foreign staff as it tries to keep out of bankruptcy. Incidentally, I generally advise anyone interested in coming to Japan to teach English to steer clear of these large chain schools if you can, since based on my own experience you'll be happier at a smaller school that will provide a more personal approach to teaching English.

I've written before about how the Japanese like to commemorate interesting days. June 4th is Mushi no Hi (Bug Day), when we should all appreciate the things that the insect world does for us, while March 11 is Panda Day, the date when the first panda bears were discovered by a French missionary in China in 1869, and who could forget Fried Chicken Day on November 21st, the date the first KFC opened in Japan back in 1970. October 10 is is Moé no Hi, the day to celebrate the Japanese concept of moé (pronounced mo-EH), which is a slang term that essentially describes the warm, fuzzy feeling you get when looking at your favorite anime or dating-sim game character, although the character itself just means "bud" or "sprout." The reason today is Moé Day is rather silly -- it's the 10th day of the 10th month, and when you line up the kanji for 'ten' above the characters for 'day' and 'month' you get a large version of the moé kanji. If you like the look of this kanji character, we've got a really cool moé calligraphy T-shirt, available on the site now.

There's been lots of news for fans of Japan's PC dating-sim games recently, including the recent announcement that the upcoming game Bazooka Cafe had gone "golden master" and would be shipping in a couple of weeks -- can't wait for that. We've also got a new game coming from the creator of Bible Black, called Discipline, which features an amazing game story and huge lineup of memorable characters that will quite blow your mind. Preorder this great game now!

J-List sells many T-shirts that use kanji, hiragana and katakana to creat fun and wacky designs that are fun to wear. This month's "Wacky Japanese T-Shirt of the Month" is our famous "It Is Forbidden To Urinate Here" design, which is -- incredibly -- a sign you can see quite often in Japan. It seems that Japanese males aren't shy about taking a leak in rice fields, by the side of the road, or sometimes near people's houses, and so you can see these signs forbidding tachishon, that is, outdoor urinating. Our T-shirt features a great symbol of a torii, a traditional Japanese arch, since one place these signs are common are near Shinto shrines (don't want to offend the gods by peeing near them). This shirt is available at a special price this month only!

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

	Empress Road -- Kaede Matsushima. There's something about Kaede Matsushima that I just love -- she's got a girl-next-door face, and tries really hard for her fans. This is her newest release.
	The Cow Girl Special -- Mihiro (region 2). I am, of course, a big Mihiro fan, and I'm interested to see what new things she'll be doing for her fans now that she's an "indies" star. Hmmm...
	Discipline: The Record of the Crusade *Preorder*. This game has the most characters of any in recent memory. Great title from the creator of Bible Black!
	Zenra Sexporting -- Sayaka Takemoto. Another item for fans of "zenra" themes.
	Megami Magazine Sep 2007 vol. 88. New issue of Megami, loaded with posters and lots of other stuff. How do these guys do it every month?
	Hatsukoi Lesson ~ First Love Lesson. First Love Lessons, a great collection of different interesting stories.
	Haruhi Suzumiya Classroom Diorama Figure. Great figure for Haruhi fans, You can set up her whole club room!
	Rei Ayanami　x Shunya Yamashita Figure *Preorder*. I love Shunya Yamashita, and seeing his take on Rei from Evangelion is just too much for me. Great preorder figure.
	CUP NUDE. Ahem, this is another one of those wacky items I just had to pose here. Cup Noodle, Cup Nude, I'm sure you see the similarity.
	ONIGIRI / Rice Ball Maker ~ Triangle . Make your own perfectly shaped onigiri with this handy item, great for bento fans.
	Colorful Flavor ONIGIRI Mix ~ Seaweed & Salmon . And this is the flavorful onigiri mix that will make your rice balls taste even better.
	Easy Green Tea Powder Stick --- 5pcs . Make green tea anywhere.
	Zebra Sarasa Ball Point Pen 0.5 Set of 3 Colors. Great set of pens -- all the J-List staff swears by these.
	GACHAPIN x MUKKU Gel Bubble Magnet . New items for Gachapin x Mukku, the cutest charactrs in Japan today.
	Batik Flower Cloth and Bamboo Fan w/Pouch -- Blue . Gorgeous bamboo fan with cloth carrying case.
	Oreo Chocolate Pie ~ Made in Japan! Yum, only-available-in-Japan Oreo Chocolate Pies!
	Pictorial Pocket Book 5 Sailor Uniform Version -- Girl's High School Uniform 5 ~ Zenkoku Joshikou Seifuku Zukan. Popular book featuring all the high school uniforms of various famous schools.
	Using Manga to Improve Your Japanese Conversational Skills ~ Manga de Manabu Nihongo Kaiwajutsu. Use manga to speak better Japanese!

Learning about Japan through first- and second-person pronouns, the relationship of Japan and Hawaii, and more fun with Japanese superstitions

Strangely enough, you can learn a lot about Japan through its first and second person pronouns: there are several of each for use by different individuals depending on the "TPO," or time, place, and occasion. For the pronoun "I" you could choose from watashi (私, formal, used more often by women, also read わたくし), boku (僕, semi-polite, usually used by younger males), and ore (俺、OH-reh, mainly used by "manly" men); and words for "you" include anata (あなた、formal, used by women more often than men); kimi (君、familiar, used by guys to their girlfriends or by anyone talking to a younger person, and just because the character also means "Emperor" don't think it's okay to use this word with him); and omae (お前, oh-MAH-eh, again, a "macho" sounding word generally used by guys). This last word is especially interesting since it basically asserts the superiority of the speaker over the person he's speaking to, a concept that doesn't exist in English, at least openly. When a man uses the word omae to a female he's got a relationship with, the implication is that the girl "belongs to" him in a romantic sense. This generally will make some girls swoon with affection, while others -- those who speak more English and have lived outside of Japan -- may be offended by being thought of as an object to be possessed. I once got in quite a bit of trouble when I accidentally used this word with a friend's girlfriend soon after arriving in Japan. Who would have thought that words like "I" or "you" could be so complex?

J-List's manga and photobook meister Yasu just got back from a trip to Hawaii, where he spent a week with his wife and two daughters. Hawaii is, of course, a major destination for Japanese travellers, and the monthly number of tourists from Japan is tracked as if it were an economic indicator like the Consumer Price Index. In a way, Hawaii is perfect for Japanese tourists because it's a part of the U.S. without being all the way across the Pacific, so it's a lot more accessible. Also, the high amount of Japanese fluency at hotels and other places frequented by tourists makes the place a lot less threatening for travelers who might otherwise be overwhelmed. The most popular island with Japanese tourists is Oahu, which has plenty of beaches for fun seaside activities, and during peak times of year the place is fairly brimming with J-tourists. The history of Japan and Hawaii have been intertwined for a long time, starting with waves of immigration of Japanese workers at sugar plantations in the 19th and 20th centuries. Now, there are more than a few actors and singers active in Japan who grew up in the Japanese communities that comprise 16% of the local population of the state. I guess being a Japanese raised in Hawaii adds an "exotic" flavor, and being fluent in English can't hurt a person's career, either.

I've talked before about how the Japanese can be quite superstitious at times. Don't cut your fingernails at night, or you won't be able to be with your parents when they die. If you see a hearse, you should hide your thumbs inside your fists, or the same thing will happen (this is due to the fact that the word for thumb in Japanese means "parent finger"). Don't whistle at night, or snakes will come an get you. When you sneeze twice, it means someone is gossiping about you, a joke that pops up in anime quite a lot. If you see a spider in the morning, it's good luck, so don't kill it. Don't sleep with your head facing north, as only dead people do this, and never pass food from chopsticks to chopsticks. If you want to check the weather tomorrow, throw your shoe as far as you can; if it lands sole down, it will be sunny, but if it's on its side, it will rain. Here's another superstition for you: supposedly, it's good luck for a man to carry a hair from his girlfriend's, er, nether region in his wallet when playing sports or gambling. We're not so sure about that one, but anything is possible with the Japanese.

J-List sells many fun and unique T-shirts that make use of Japanese kanji, hiragana and katakana in their designs. We've always been fascinated by how the Japanese adapt their 3000+ writing system to a standard computer keyboard. We love the way Japanese keyboards look, with the kana characters printed on each key, and decided to make a T-shirt featuring this cool design. Shirts for guys and girls are both posted on the site right 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" (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 -- Asahi Miura (region 2). "392" minutes of Asahi Miura's best works on this DVD.
	B's Log Aug 2007. Great magazine of general yaoi and BL gaming.
	Dengeki G's Magazine Sep 2007. Dengeki G's focuses on all the really pretty characters in anime, video games and so on. Man, they really know how to create "kawaii" characters.
	Intron Depot 4 ~ Bullets. Intron Depot 4 is back in print, and available again. Love this great art from Shirow Masamune.
	The Diary of Purimu ~ Dashichatta de Sho ~ Purimu no Nikki. Extremely well done "H" manga.
	Uncho Kanu 1/5 Figure Bondage ver. Dynamite Project ~ Dragon Destiny *Preorder*. The last Uncho Kanu figure sold out in record time, so we'll be ordering a lot more this time. But you should preorder one of these if you want one.
	Japanese T-shirt "Japanese Keyboard". I like this new T-shirt, which features an enigmatic Japanese keyboard on it with a cool katakana layout.
	Japanese T-shirt "Japanese Keyboard". This is the sexy girl's fitted vesion.
	Vegetable Sunshine Buddies (Nohohon Zoku) -- Raddish. New solar powered Hidamari no Tami for you.
	Bento Mini Sauce Dispensers 2pcs ~ Fruit Pattern . This is great -- a bento sauce bottle set that looks like a miniature version of full sizes soy sauce bottles.
	Super Mini Hariko Daruma -- White . A little daruma for you. Fill in one eye when you make a wish, then do the other one if that wish comes true.
	GACHAPIN x MUKKU Gel Magnet -- Face type . Kawaii characters from Japan. These are the gel-filled magnets, but we've got plenty of other items on the site. Gachapin is a baby dinosaur and Mukku is his yette friend.
	Dr. ion Semi-Hard Carrying Case with Carabiner for Nintendo DS. Dr. Ion has been hard at work, making the coolest Nintendo DS cases we've ever seen.
	Ryoko Kaminagi 1/8 Figure ~ Zegapain. Cute character from a popular anime series called Zegapain.
	R2-D2 Wastebasket. Basically, my dream trash can. I am hoping they make other droids, like R4-D4. That would be cool.
	Noren ~OHGI NAGASHI / Flowing Fans. Beautiful door curtain for adding a touch of Japan to your room.
	Glico Pocky Dessert -- Double Chocolate. Yum, this looks like the most fabulous Pocky ever made. Must resist the urge to eat the sample box I've got on my desk...oops, too late.
	Handy Accessory Pouch -- Gray. Cool Edo Style accessory pouch.