How Many Peopple have Loved You?
Oops, forgot to post this pic after all that. The girl was like 15 years old, so it added a layer of bizarreness to the whole experience. The caption below says "We are the world" (naturally).
This reminded me of my past trip to the U.S. and a girl was getting on the plane with a shirt that had the F-word on it as large as could be. Going to the U.S. I couldn't resist taking her aside and giving her some clothing advice...
posted by Peter in Japan at 1:30 AM
4 Comments:
I was in Japan this summer and the weirdest tshirt I saw was a girl wearing a shirt that said "Tea chocolate hyper kiss". I was kind of confused.
On a maybe completely unrelated note, did you and your family visit Nara this summer?
2:34 AM
The first reason I never hit on Japanese women when I lived there is that I was married.
The second was that unless they were wearing a school uniform I simply couldn't tell how old the women were.
The exception being the exquisitely dressed women one found in the shopping districts like Ginza.
6:43 AM
Peter-san, an off-the-wall question / request I brainstormed - out of a combination of love and sheer frustration:
Do you think there'd be a feasible market for licensed J-Doramas (TV dramas) with high-quality subtitles (the frustration part,) for Gaijin who love them (the love part,) but who are only scratching the surface of Nihongo?
In the mid-'90s I stumbled onto the dorama "With Love," (kind of a "You've Got Mail" thing,) on the International Channel and was instantly hooked - then FCI abruptly stopped subtitling dramas in English! I sat helpless for years until...
Other channels since picked some up - like KSCI in LA. Currently they're showing "Joshi-Deka" on Sundays, a very cool, funny/serious thing about two mismatched lady detectives hunting a serial killer.
...But they remain incredibly scarce for purchase, except for a huge market of them from China - presumably of questionable legitimacy copyright-wise - with subs of wildly-varying quality, even from episode to episode within the same series.
There is also a huge 'Net fanbase of amateur subtitlers, but with shows only available via web torrent broadcasts, which are 'way too technically complex - and also of questionable legality.
I'm totally ignorant of economic feasibility, but it would be a godsend to have a trustworthy place to get J-doramas with professional subtitles and legit sources.
They're all shameless tear-jerkers of course, but priceless glimpses into Japanese culture, excellent study aids, and...sappy sentimentalist that I am, I typically end up loving the major characters like family by the last episodes.
Outstanding examples: "Fufudo," about a family of tea farmers; "Life," an intense thing about bullying at school that has a phenomenal message(also drop-dead gorgeous female leads); "Hana Yori Dango Returns," w/ a similar plot and similarly-hot principle characters; "Asakusa Fukumaru Ryokan," about a meddling but endearing manager of a traditional inn; "First Kiss," about a tempermental girl with a life-threatening heart condition who goes to live with - and terrorize - her older brother; "Hanazakari no Kimitachi e," about a girl who disquises herself as a boy to attend an all-boy's school to fulfill an obligation, etc.
'Love them all - But so-o-o-o hard to find with professionally-done English subs.
Is this a total no-go for J-List, or something feasible?
Thanks for being there, and for J-List!
(Sorry for the book - delete at will, but... I didn't know how else to ask.)
5:49 PM
yes, Peter, I've often wondered how many nihonjin can read the English t-shirts they buy. I sure wouldn't buy a shirt with kanji, w/o knowing the meaning of it.
6:10 PM
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