japan mode extra edition

Trend Update

2007-05-30T17:08:00.000+09:00

Guimauve

Japanese people can go crazy about touring from shops to shops, cafes to cafes exploring new kinds of luxury cakes and confectionaries, but this is probably the first time for luxury marshmallows to catch attention.

One TV show featured luxury marshmallows in Tokyo the other day. It seems like the petit boom started a couple of months ago around the White Day season (White Day = March 14th, a day for boyfriends to give their girlfriends a gift in return for the Valentine's Day gifts. For Valentine's girls usually give boys chocolate, and for White Day boys give white sweets like white chocolate and marshmallows).

Luxury marshmallows are those that are given labels of luxury hotels and restaurants, and they are available at the confectionary/ pastry shops of those places.

At first, I was only like, "how could marshmallows be so different?" but I happened to have a chance to buy these marshmallows for my aunt so I got a box for myself. The place I went to is the Park Hyatt Hotel in Tokyo and they actually call them not marshmallows but "guimauve" (French, I think?), and Park Hyatt's guimauve looks like the one in the picture (I didn't bother taking a photo until the last piece so it looks kind of odd...).

The shape is like a slightly bigger version of kiss chocolate, and the texture smooth and moderately springy. As compared to regular marshmallows sold in supermarkets this one is a lot softer and delicate, and you'll feel that even more when you take one into your mouth. It's really delicate and fine. I was surprised how it melts on the tongue. It feels more like meringue barely keeping its form... and the flavor too was very rich. This one in the picture is raspberry flavor and it tasted like I was tasting raspberry puree. Very rich.

Park Hyatt had two kinds, raspberry and passion fruit, and I bet the passion fruit tastes as rich as the raspberry. A box costs Y800 (US$6.7) so although they call it luxury, it's not like it's unaffordable. I think it's certainly worth a casual gift for someone or even for yourself.

Baseball

About 10 months ago the entire country was literally stirred by the two highschool baseball monsters Saito Yuuki and Tanaka Masahiro. The same fever has now shifted to university baseball league and professional baseball league.

Winning pitcher Saito Yuuki decided to go on to higher education and entered Waseda University this past April. Waseda is one of the Tokyo Big6 Baseball League (Tokyo's uni sports conference, sort of like the equivalent to the IVY League in US) and its baseball team is strong enough, but with Saito joining the team looks like its gotten even stronger and energetic.

The participation of Saito in the Big6 didn't only vitalize his own university but brought a huge influence on the popularity of the Big6 League itself. University baseball, back 60 years ago was the most popular amateur sport that attracted the largest number of crowds (people waited in ticket lines overnight... thought this was a modern phenomenon, nevertheless...) but the popularity kind of sank in the following decades. Eventually the center of baseball became the professional leagues (we have two, the Pacific and the Central) where the top players play every night.

However, by entering university baseball instead of professional Saito brought his fans to the Big6 games and now tickets for every game he plays sell out in seconds. More games are being shown live on TV, and the goods are selling out as well as the tickets.

This weekend is going to be a festival around the Jingu Stadium and at the campuses, for the game taking place is fought between Waseda and Keio. Known as "Sokei-sen" (So for Waseda, Kei for Keio, sen means match/battle) the match-up between these two are traditionally the most popular especially for baseball, and this weekend is even more special because if Waseda wins it automatically makes Waseda the winner of the spring tournament. The game is going to be aired live on two channels which is needless to say an irregular case.

Besides the baseball game itself, Sokeisen provides a stage for another kind of battle, which is the cheering. Called "Ouen-gassen" the cheering for both schools (and other schools of the Big6 as well) is another feature of the Sokei-sen and no doubt the most important leader of the crowd. So that's another something to look out for. As for Saito, he's doing pretty well improving his baseball skills and marking good records.

The other mammoth pitcher Tanaka joined the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, a relatively knew team having its home base in Sendai. The team despite its unwell team performance in the past couple of years is quite popular and the popularity rose higher with Tanaka joining the team. He's expected a lot from the fans. Though his debut game was not really a good one for him (as far as I recall which is not too much) he's been dedicating to the team a lot in terms of results in numbers and as a stimulator for the other players. His influence on the team can be seen in the team performance of Rakuten this season. Pretty good ;-)

Japan Travelog vol.3 - Kyoto Day 1

2007-05-29T13:02:00.000+09:00

Fushimi Inari Taisha (Shrine) is located only two stops south from Kyoto Station on JR Nara Line, and the grand gate to the shrine is located right in front of the Station exit. As you go through the gate you will find a shrine pavilion and behind that the main shrine where you make offerings and pray. Behind the main shrine there is a path that leads you to the widely known Sembon Torii (thousand torii). This Sembon Torii was what I wanted to see with my own eyes, and thus the highlight of this trip.

Torii are the gates you find at Shinto shrines or grounds that are affiliated with Shinto sanctity. They are often located at the entrances to the shrine grounds as well as within, and many times in the nature as best represented in rocks and forests/ woods. Torii are made of wood and are in the color of the wood (brown - dark brown) if not vivid vermillion red representing brightness (light, hope, life).

Since these gates are indicators (or even reminders) that are built on the boundary of the sacred and the profane, in most cases the gates stand individually. Fushimi Inari is no exception in terms of the main entrance, but the most unique feature of this shrine is this Thousand Torii where hundreds of them are placed one right next to another creating tunnels of torii. The location appears in many posters, travel brochures, TV commercials, TV dramas and films... and I simply wanted to see this almost insane collection of red.

Probably because a Japanese like myself is brought up tacitly being taught that torii as well as vermillion red for the shrines are something sacred or something apart from our daily lives, these kind of places give me a sense of chilly awe and take my breath away in a different way from standing on top of a mountain and looking across the universe. It was beautiful but at the same time a bit eerie. Would have been much eerier if there weren't any fellow tourists and students on trips.

As you come out to from the narrow vermillion tunnel you reach the Okunoin, and behind it Mt.Inari. Not only the shrine ground and the approach expands to the entire side of the mountain, like many other Shinto shrines the Shrine worships this whole mountain (... is what I learned afterwards. I didn't even know that the visit would be a good 2-hour-hike).

The approach that climbs up the mountain is marked with another set of hundreds of torii, this time larger and placed slightly (only slightly) apart. Moderately steep stairs lead most of the way with partially really steep places, and along the path stand several houses. Many of these houses have rest areas located next to them, offering food and drinks as well as great view. (The picture is of hiyashiame, literally cold candy, a very sweet drink made of malt sugar with ginger. Savior of my soar throat this day.)

Also along the circular route across the mountainside are smaller shrines, all related to the main Inari but each with different purposes. Some are for safe traveling, some others for health around your neck and head, others for health for back and legs, etc. etc.. Some are relatively bigger in terms of size and significance than others, but there were more than a dozen located on the route.

In addition to the shrines are the... heaps (I don't know how to describe them)... called tsuka. At a glance these places look like a mixture of Shintoism with Buddhism as the carved stones look like Buddhist gravestones, but the surroundings are of complete Shintoism. The stones are actually not gravestones but are each gods - households that worship Shintoism carve the sacred (gods') names on the rocks and enshrine the rocks on this mountain as part of the Inari (god of agriculture and harvest) because this is Inari's center of worship.

Overall the visit was a pleasant one, not to mention fascinating... and good exercise. Just one thing though: even though there were fairly many tourists, there weren't too many that actually climbed the route and so I wasn't always seeing people around. When encountering couples and groups I didn't really feel anything, but when I saw some people who were there alone, silent and slow, there were some times when I didn't know if I were seeing real people or not. I don't usually see ghosts and phantoms, but so-thought sacred grounds like this sometimes make me feel... unsure.

Japan Travelog vol.2 - Osaka

2007-05-25T14:39:00.000+09:00

My first night in Osaka was my first time to use the internet cafe as an accommodation. It wasn't awfully bad, but perhaps by no means comfortable. Chilly and smokey, plus the flat type rooms were all taken so we had no choice but to take the recliner seats. Well... the seats weren't bad. What bothered me more was the rustling sounds people made throughout the night whenever somebody moved around. It's an internet cafe after all. Can't complain.

We spent the first real day in Osaka in the Namba area. That's probably the busiest and noisiest area of the city, I think. This is where you can find the famous Glico neon board and the Kuidaore figure, not to mention tons of eatouts particularly of Osaka's specialties takoyaki and okonomiyaki. It was a Friday morning but the place was already bustling with mostly tourists and students on school excursions. Busy place. I went back to the area alone on a Sunday after my friends had headed back home. Well, that was quite a crowd. Not just this Dotombori area but even more crowded in the Shinsaibashi area. My impression of Shinsaibashi was Shibuya made into a single straight arcade. Lots of shops and young people. I had heard before that the fashion in Osaka (actually not just Osaka but also big cities like Nagoya and Kobe respectively) is different from Tokyo. I think I would agree. At least for the girls, it looked like Osaka girls prefer gears on the gal side more than the Tokyo girls like. Strong vivid colors and glittery accessories, too.

The following day we went to Osaka Castle and Shitennoji Temple. The temple ground was pretty big though not vast like the ones in the ancient capital Nara. Still the 1,400-year-old temple is preserved well (of course with nummerous refurbishing and restoration) and is a peaceful place to stroll around. The exterior is good enough, but the impressive features of this temple are the religious (wall) paintings and statues stored inside the halls. The paintings tell the stories of Buddha and Asoka and the art is very beautiful.

I stayed in Osaka for another day after my friends have left, and went to see a shrine called Sumiyoshi Taisha. This was another pretty shrine with unique architecture (I like architecture of shrines and temples). An amazing contrast of vermillion lacquer, deep brown of the thatched roofs and white all surrounded by early summer green. I got to see three Shinto style weddings that morning. They were certainly beautiful especially on a day with such perfect weather, but I have to say that although they were three separate weddings, the way the shrine conducted (conducted more like, than carried out) the weddings were kind of systematic. One right after another. Popular place, good day, I guess it couldn't be helped.

Then I wandered into the Shinsekai area. That's where the Tsutenkaku Tower is (every big city has its own tower). Since I already went up the Castle to get a view of the city I didn't go up this one and just walked around the area at its foot. Shinsekai looked like a block of dozens of kushikatsu (fried... pretty much any kind of food stuck through skewers) eatouts huddling together. Most of these places had statues of Billiken in all sizes placed at the entrances. First I didn't know what it was, but later on found out that this is the famous Osaka god of all-purpose luck. Actually, I just found out that Billiken was designed by an American artist based on the inspiration she got from her dream one night, and the figure went popular worldwide, that is to say back in early 1900s. Is that right? At least, not too many of the Tokyoites know of the god. Anyway.

The following day I woke up in the morning and decided to leave Osaka for my personally most exciting destination for this trip, Kyoto. I've been to Kyoto so many times but like many say, you can visit Kyoto one hundred times and not even see half of it. This trip was particularly an exciting one. Will go on to vol.3.

Japan Travelog vol.1 ?

2007-05-24T21:26:00.000+09:00

Didn't mean to have a break so long... well I am back to blogger after 6 weeks. Many things happened - or rather, I was engaged in many projects during these past weeks.
I did quite a lot of Tokyo guiding as well as interpreting, went to Australia for a week accompanying a filming crew as an interpreter (now that was one awesome trip: we traveled parts of Cairns, Brisbane and Gold Coast). Then I played in an orchestra for an operetta, and after another Tokyo city tour I traveled around Kobe, Osaka and Kyoto, all pretty big cities as well as tourist attractions in mid-west Japan.

It was my very first time to go to Kobe. Quite honestly I didn't know what to expect.
The overnight bus from Shinjuku (Tokyo) to Kobe was surprisingly comfy with considerably wide space and relaxing recliner seats. Though the price can't exactly be described as cheap, it's a whole lot more affordable than bullet trains when traveling this country for such long distance. The downside of it, however, is that the bus arrives at the destination pretty early in the morning (7:3o-ish) when not many of anything in town are open. Two more friends and I had to kill time in a cafe, but it was okay cuz this way we could plan the route for the day.

We only had one day in Kobe and that day had been pretty miserable weatherwise. It poured and poured and poured all day and I got myself soaked on the first day of my trip.
Kobe I imagined prior to this trip was a classy stylish town: the impression I actually got was that the town resembled a lot of the int'l port town of the east, Yokohama. Of course these two cities are different, and if I had more time to explore the town I probably could have gotten more different impressions, but it seemed to me that the types of attractions... or districts they have are quite similar. The former foreign (western) residential area, China town, the shopping/commercial district, the port area - I thought that the two cities shared a lot of common elements.

What interested me the most, or gave me the biggest impact, was the remains of the dock located in the port area. The dock known as Meriken Hatoba had been damaged severely (almost destroyed) just like how the entire region was by the Hanshin Awaji Earthquake back in 1995. As a remembrance of the tragic disaster of more than 40,000 casualties the dock is preserved in exactly the way the earthquake left it.

Afterwards we went to a Chinese temple (by chance, kind of) and made an interesting observation on Japanese uni students and professor. I looked like a class on religious studies or art or sociology or one of the kind was visiting this temple, one professor and about a dozen students. At first they were just looking around the small temple and its grounds, but (unfortunately, to them at least) they were caught by an elderly (yet more energetic than any of the class there) worshipper who literally started a lecture that went on for half an hour. The lecture was actually pretty good, though the attitudes of the students were by no means nice. They looked like they as well as the teacher were terribly annoyed and wanted to leave asap. No comments, no questions. My two friend coming from overseas were amused by the situation. They said they couldn't believe what they were seeing, the silent and annoyed group, because if this was the case in their country there would definitely be a shower of questions and the professor would have to stop them because otherwise they'd run out of time, not because they wanted to leave any second.

The day ended with good Indian dinner followed by a businessy conversation with the Indian owner of the restraunt, and after relaxing in a jazz bar with live performance we left the city for Osaka.
So much for today. I will write about Osaka in the next entry.

Bimyo na Nihongo - The Delicate Japanese?

2007-04-10T14:11:00.000+09:00

At the same time as writing articles and editing them for the website I automatically do some JPN-ENG translations because the base data for these articles are in Japanese, and every time I try to write something very Japanese I hit a wall of language differences. For more professional translators and interpretors this wall of language differences (and I say wall, not a barrier... I feel like they're somewhat different) is probably close to nothing, but for a person like me who understands both languages pretty well but not well enough to accomplish the task without almost no difficulty, the little things about the language differences bother so much. The differences of the languages are the differences of cultures and I can't be adding footnotes everytime I do translations. I feel this especially strongly when translating sentences that have to do with senses of beauty and comfort.

Good examples (which means I have to deal with the following rather frequently) are as follows:

- yuugen: subtle and profound, ethereal
- mugen (yumemaboroshi) : illusory, dreamy
- shimpiteki: mysterious, unearthly
- gensouteki: fantastic(al), magical, translunar(y)... (it's more... dreamy and nice)
- iki: chic, edgy, nifty, stylish
- shareta: chic, classy, fancy, stylish
- joucho yutaka: exotic, emotional... (I don't think this's right)
- fuzei no aru: taste, flavor, appearance, attractive
- joushu afureru: sentimental, spicy... (haha! "spicy")
- okuyukashii: discreet
- ryuugi: style, way, fashion, tradition
- yuusou: gallant, valiant
- hanayaka: gaudiness, pomp(ous), gorgeous
- jojou: lyric(al)
- yuruyaka(na): mild, gentle, relaxed, moderate
- miyabiyaka / jouhin / yuuga: elegant, refined, ethereal
- seijaku: quiet, tranquil(ity), composed, relaxed, silence
- wa: Japanese
- kokoro: heart and mind
- kyoushuu / natsukashii: nostalgia, nostalgic, reminiscence

The nastiest one for me personally is "kokoro" which according to the dictionary is "heart and/or mind". It's not wrong, but it's neither exactly heart nor mind, nor is it feelings, emotions or spirit. It's like a mixture of everything mentioned but is indescribable in other words. Kokoro is kokoro.

The other ones that are hard to tell are those related to other-worldliness like yuugen, mugen, shimpiteki, gensouteki, etc. There was a translation in the dictionary, "ethereal" but because I've never really used that vocablulary in my daily life when I lived in the States, I have no idea what it means exactly. Can somebody tell me if it's an appropriate word to describe other-worldy beauty, or the quiet and profound atmosphere that makes you feel a sort of sacredness???

Shimpiteki is another tricky one that I can't completely agree with the dictionary. The kanji says, "god(s) - secret" and the Jpn-Eng dictionary gives "mysterious" as the English translation, but it's a twist different from mysterious. It certainly implies mysteriousness, but it also carries the meanings of sacredness or holiness. Something sacred and holy, something that makes you feel the presence of the gods is mysterious. I think that point is more or less common in any culture or religion. Well, the traditional Japanese religion (Shinto) believes that there are gods in pretty much everything existing in this world and worships especially the nature. Therefore the term "shimpiteki" is used many times with descriptions on nature, scenery, art and atmosphere. When the term is used it does denote holiness, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's a sanctuary that the outsiders are prohibited connection. It's just the description of the atmosphere.

So. My point. How much of these translations are credible? Most of the above, I have been using every once in a while because I cannot find alternatives, but honestly I do doubt if they're actually correct. They are Japanese-unique expressions that perhaps can be translated better into Chinese and Korean more than English because we share part of the writing systems as well as having similarity in the cultures. How can I tell precisely the most delicate nuance of the difficult language in a different language?

If there's anyone out there who understands both languages perfectly, I am dying for your suggestions!

mixi

2007-04-04T18:43:00.000+09:00

After all that fussing and complaining and making excuses, I finally joined mixi not too reluctantly. "mixi" (pronounced mix-ee) is the name of an SNS which I believe is the largest in Japan? I think. My ex-boss wrote about the discussion (or maybe controversy) on how it spread so widely so fast in Japanese society and its addictiveness (see entries for May 18 & 19 here: it's kind of confusing that the blog keeper's name is me, monamie, but the author of all the articles there is my ex-boss kaduak).

Anyway, I had a bunch of friends who were making full use of mixi from a while ago, and they've always asked me to join it. Because mixi is a completely exclusive membership network, you need to receive invitations from a member in order to become a member. So I had several invitations sleeping in my e-mail inbox, but they were always there being untouched because I had no intentions to join the network and my friends did know about it. The reason for being so reluctant to join this online community was because I didn't really appreciate the idea of being connected online... how do I put this... I always like meeting people in person and making new friends in person. Put simply, I don't entirely trust online communication (don't ask why I'm in this business, keeping a blog). When I tell this to my friends, they tell me that mixi's safe because you only need to form your own network among people you already know etc. etc. and that is kind of true, but back then during those days I was still pretty suspicious about the whole idea. I was also too concerned with by these "rules" the SNS has. They're not real rules, but it can sound almost religious at times (just read my ex-boss's blog. it's all explained).

Now, the reason I decided to join it: it's simply because I have more time. I have so much time now that I'm almost bored to death. I actually did register myself on mixi but never really made use of it, and this time I decided to add some information about myself on it so now there's my profile and one entry of a journal. I doubt I'll have new entries everyday, but let's see how long I can continue this. Speaking of continuing, this very blog going on for so long is already like a miracle.

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Went to see the movie STEP UP. It's a dance movie and I think it came out in the US and other countries last summer or so? But it came out in Japan finally this spring, a couple of weeks ago. It wasn't advertised so much as compared to other imported films, but I got to know about it through my younger sister who just came back from her studies in New Zealand. She saw the film in NZ last winter (?) and loved it, so we went out to see it again for my sister and for the first time for myself. The film made me want to dance so badly - I can't dance that much, but I did use to dance classic ballet so I kind of regretted I quit it. Dance movies are cool.

On Manga & Ikemen

2007-03-30T13:59:00.000+09:00

Random Selection of News: late March, 2007

Those Japanese manga fans out there, there's a little news.
You don't have to wait months for the newest volumes of Japanese manga to come out in your langauge! Unfortunately, this doesn't apply for all the works being published internationally, but just recently publisher Gentosha announced that it will release paperback copies of the works published online on its webmanga site GENZO (Japanese / English). The very first one to be published is Gravitation EX the newest version of the popular series Gravitation, and it is scheduled to come out in seven languages including Japanese, English, German, Spanish, Taiwanese, Italian and Korean.
Again, this is only for the works on GENZO, but once one publisher starts doing this I bet others will start similar projects as the international manga market is steadily growing.

"Ikemen" connects East Asia
I think the whole fad about ikemen started several years ago just about the same time this crazy hanryu boom (Korean boom) swirled up in Japan. And I think this was when the Asia-internationalization of showbiz really started to become part of the mainstream of entertainment in Asian countries.

Ikemen is a Japanese term for "hot guys" which popped up around 2000. The term is coined from the words "iketeru" (modern casual language for "hot", "cool") and the English word "men". Right now the term is used so commonly from daily conversation to titles in magazines and variety shows, even on news sometimes despite it not being "proper" Japanese language.

When the Korean boom started with the import of a number of Korean love romance TV dramas best represented by Winter Sonata starring Bae Yong Joon, a whole lot of other young and handsome Korean actors were introduced to Japan with titles like "Shitennoh (Four Heavenly Kings)".
Chinese ikemen are introduced to Japan many times through movies rather than TV dramas, and Taiwanese as well as Korean ikemen through music activities. I notice that now there are so many musicians who sing songs in Japanese and you never know they're actually not Japanese.

I don't know so much about how Japanese pop stars have been seen in other East Asian countries in the past (I mean, before the trend of ikemen Asianization), but I have been told that Japanese actor Tsubabuki Satoshi and several members from the Johnnys Entertainment - (supposedly) the ikemen talento agency - are really popular in Taiwan right now.

Today the ikemen network (not of the ikemen themselves but of the media and fans) is wider, tightly connected and stronger than when it started. Fans for an ikemen are scattered around East Asia from Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong to Taiwan, and hearing news of Korean, Chinese, Hong Kong or Taiwanese ikemen coming to Japan has become almost regular. One day, so-many-thousands of fans gathered up for a concert in place A, and the next day several hundred fans flood over to an international airport to have a glance of another ikemen. These news were fresh news a few years ago, but now it feels like making oneself famous in the Japanese entertainment industry with his handsomeness is not too different from debuting in the eastern end of the Eurasian continent. Ikemen connects East Asia.

I wonder why handsome men tend to be more featured than beautiful women, though. Are men in these countries not as interested in beautiful women as women are in handsome men?

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Today is the last weekday of March so people are kind of busy and some maybe nervous too in this country. As some of you probably know, the school/fiscal year in Japan starts from April and goes till next March. I think by now all schools from kindergarten to universities have finished their graduation ceremonies, and freshers are getting ready for their lives starting in only three days from today. Next Monday the faces on the commuting trains would probably look a lot different, and there would be a lot of new uniforms and business suits walking around. This is also the time of year when you feel like you've grown old :p

If there any of you are regular readers of this blog and of my website, first of all I would like to thank you for sparing time to read my writings (which sometimes aren't even worth calling articles). From next week, you may notice some changes in the blog as well as website, and that is my "seasonal change". I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for reading and leaving comments on this blog (not to say that I am going to stop writing) and for sending e-mails to my website Japan Mode.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Webmanga CHARMY ROP Chapter 13 - Final Episode (to be updated around 18:00, Mar30, JST).

Japanese Aesthetics

2007-03-29T17:05:00.000+09:00

As I was writing about the "Japan Boom" in Japan today, I came across the idea of Japanese aesthetics in the old days. Things people see as "beautiful" differ from culture to culture, and I'm not sure for other cultures but at least for Japan what people consider "beautiful", or the value of certain things, have changed or forgotten over time.

There is this concept in Japan, wabi-sabi, and is an expression of simple refinement. The expression contains a rather lone, simple, quiet and decaying meaning, but for some reason the ancient people considered this aesthetic and sought refinement in things that were lone, quiet and decaying. In a similar sense, there is an adjective hinabita which means rural and rustic. This too is associated with a sad, quiet and lone image, but is a word used most times to compliment the place.

During the years when it was fairly peaceful (before and after the Sengoku civil war era), Japanese people had much affection to nature, time and space. A slow life was a luxurious life, and the most luxurious and refined practices back then were to read poems and appreciate the nature. The tradition of blossom viewing, moon viewing and autumn leaves viewing are thought to come from those days. People, especially those in high rank in the courts, spent time looking at the smallest lives on earth like grass and bugs, and let their imaginations run. Sometimes they put those imaginations and emotions into words, and a thousand years later those poems become legacies of the history.

Traveling was another leisure, though more costly and dangerous in a way. Even in the peaceful days, roads were neither smooth nor lighted at night. There were wild animals and thieves. But there were people who spent years traveling without a particular goal or a purpose, and recorded what they saw or felt on the way. I was writing about Matsuo Basho, a poet and a writer during the early Edo whose haiku poems are very famous, and he too wrote about the most silliest things with little value - that is to say, in our sense. But the words he use and the nature of haiku or tanka of compressing sentences worth of expressions and emotions into 17 or 29 syllables attach ancient aestheticism to whatever he has written about.

Slow and qualitatively rich life is grabbing attention of Japanese people these days. It's probably the counter-reaction to the time-pressed, busy and stressful lifestyles that's been here for half a century. It may be the time we look back on our culture in the older days when people were more relaxed and laid back. And that's probably why Japan is the trend right now in Japan.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Trends in Japan <> - it's basically about the details of what I wrote here.

Food in Trend

2007-03-28T15:35:00.000+09:00

I wrote a while ago about Japanese food nationalism, that some of the so-called, so-sold and so-thought Japanese food aren't really Japanese. Well, this morning it was in the news that Japanese food, particularly sushi is really really popular in Moscow (and probably other parts of Russia too). So many people dream to become a sushi chef (we calle them sushi shokunin) and have their restaurants, and so many more like to enjoy sushi even though sushi by no means is inexpensive there. The news also mentioned that there are competitions for sushi chefs, and the participants as well as their art and ideas are truly amazing.
The chef I saw in this feature makes a lot of his original menus that are, from a Japanese point of view, extremely unique and unimaginable in a positive sense. The one he showed was called "fusion sushi" and as far as I can remember it had sushi rice, almond, salmon and chocolate sauce. I don't know if this is counted as a dish or a dessert, but more than I can't distinguish which it belongs to, I can't imagine what it tastes like. It sounds impossible, but since he came up with the idea and the final menu over several trials (I assume), and because there are people who like his other creative menus I bet it tastes pretty good.
I did say that authenticity is a difficult issue to talk about once something leaves its native origin and especially if it wants to be accepted from the destination it lands. But developing and changing is always a part of adjusting and adapting, of evolution in a way so I'd say this sushi chef's fusion sushi is something good. I even feel like it's outside of the authenticity issue. One of the judges for the sushi competition, an experienced Japanese sushi chef, praised the ideas of the fusion sushi chef that they are innovative, and also commented that sushi or whatever the food is should flexibly adapt to the culture it travels to.
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Switching the subject to trendy food in Japan: doughnuts

It's not like we never had doughnuts before, but doughnuts are people's favorites these days. I mentioned Krispy Kreme Doughnuts causing a crazy fad in Tokyo, well, the fad and the crazy popularity of its glazed doughnuts kind of stimulated the other doughnut shops and now there's a doughnut battle emerging (not that it's that visible).The hottest doughnuts these days are the mochi-mochi doughnuts. It isn't the name of a particular doughnut or a brand, but is the name for doughnuts that have mochi-mochi texture. Mochi-mochi is an onomatopoeia for this texture that is sticky, glutinous, kind of opposite of crisp... how should I explain... I think the expression comes from "mochi", Japanese rice cake even though I don't think it's cakelike at all. Kind of like the texture of tapioka. Anyway, the mochi-mochi doughnuts are doughnuts that have a slightly glutinous texture when you eat them and they're good :-) Um, I can't describe any further in words... maybe you'd like a look at this website: Mister Donut (Japanese)

Today's update on Japan Mode: Cherry Blossom Festivals in northern Japan

The Y2007 and Day Trader New Graduates

2007-03-27T14:12:00.000+09:00

It is almost the end of the school and fiscal year, and next week the many of the cities and towns across Japan would surely look and feel different with a fresh and a little nervous mood. Grade school graduates will be wearing a fresh new attire of school uniforms, and middle school graduates will enter the most exciting three years of (teenage) life (at least, many of the people claim that the high school years were the best). High school graduated will scatter in different directions be it school or work, and college graduates will start working dressed in that unfamiliar touch of brand new suits and leather shoes. This all starts next Monday.

There is an institution in Japan that observes the characteristics of the group of people graduating from college and going on to their respective careers every spring. The "character name" this institution has given to the college graduates for this year is the "Day Trader Type". It's not that there's a general tendency of this year's college graduates are (or hoping to be engaged) in the stock market or are becoming real day traders.

They are given this name because these people do not wish to give their sole commitment to the company for years and grow up as businessmen under the given environment for years, but instead are always keen on searching for better deals - better money, better environment - and hop from one job to another. You see, the mainstream even today is to stick pretty much all your life to the company you first get to get into , be it beneficial or just labor-dedicating or stressing. Things have changed and switching jobs have become easier just a little, but still many are reluctant to do so because of the instability.
Anyway, these fresh graduates are day traders because their tendency (they haven't started working but their tendency already shows I guess) is similar to the way how internet day traders are always checking on the best conditions to buy and sell in the stock market. Companies to these new workers are like stocks for traders.

This tendency has a lot to do with a larger framework of the Japanese society. There is this problem called the "2007-nen-mondai" which translates to "Year 2007 Problem". A good chunk of workers are retiring this year (actually in a few more days), and this good chunk played some of the most significant roles in developing and sustaining the Japanese economy the past several decades after the war. It means that the hole after they leave must be replaced both in terms of quantity and quality but this is quite a task because it is a big hole, and the population itself of the younger generation is steadily decreasing.

What is means is that for those entering the business world this year, the start itself is relatively easy because a good deal of companies are eager to employ more workers (thanks to the recovering economy), and those who have the ability and skills have more chances to switch from one job to another with better deals because the companies want power ready to fight any time. The latter can also be said with those already in the business world. It may be chances for the workers but may a little tough on the companies, as this tendency would definitely hinder them from trying to raise workers that are efficient and effective at the same time as obedient and faithful to one company.

By the way, the "name" for my year was "blog type". According to this institution, people of my year tend to appear rather quiet and submissive to the company, but have strong thoughts and opinions inside and show at times bold and daring self assertiveness online. Well....... what do you say my friends...?

http://www.jpc-sed.or.jp/eng/index.html is their website in English, though frankly I haven't taken a close look on it.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Major Events in May - some really REALLY major ones are coming up in May including a couple of the wildest, most gorgeous and crowded festivals in Tokyo, the Kanda Festival and Asakusa Sanja Festival. These two are HUGE, and because the Kanda Festival only has main festivals every other year and this year is it, it's going to be a real big event. If any of you get a chance to come to Tokyo in May, I tell you , don't miss them. Events taking place in other places are equally worth seeing. May is a good month :-)

Japanese Atheletes Today (Sports cont:)

2007-03-26T14:52:00.000+09:00

So sports. Right now the country is still in the midst of the swirling excitement of the night Ando Miki and Asada Mao won gold and silver medals in women's figure skating. I actually watched all of the programs that were available on TV so the past week had been a very exciting one for me. Winning not just one but three, and not just any medal but gold and silver is an extremely remarkable feat. Many expected the medals, I think, but the actually winning them is a different matter. The whole nation is enthused over the news. One news article said that the highest viewership of the figure skating championships marked above 56%, which was the moment right after the points for Ando was announced and the whole arena got to know she won first place. Although not a Japanese, another favorite skater of mine, Yu-Na Kim won bronze medal allowing Asians to monopolize the podium.

And other sports: well, I'd mentioned baseball several times before so I think I'll skip over that.
At the same time as the figure skating championships, the World Swimming Championships was taking place and was aired on TV. The media was especially excited over syncronized swimming because Japan's pretty good at it. Swimming is one of the sports Japan is good at, and because the young swimmers are staying at the top level rather stably people do expect medals and watch the matches.
Professional golf: the way people see golf or at least the golfers especially female golfers are different from before. Young golfers led by Miyazato Ai are treated as idols of the golfing world and are in great demand among TV shows.

Idols - overall, I think I've come to reach this conclusion that the way people are drawn into sports and the difference of 10 years ago and now is all about media attention. All of the atheletes mentioned and a handful more in the sports world today are featured on TV and magazines like idols, not so different from the "talento" (TV personalities) and fashion models pampered by the media. The only difference is that the atheletes' profession are their respective sports instead of being interviwed and giving comments. I don't think that there were as many active atheletes showing up in variety shows and being used on various commercials.

I guess the attention of the media works positively in many ways (though perhaps not including enough respect for individual atheletes). Whoever wants to use the fresh and active image of the atheletes will probably get the kind of impression they want from the general public, just like how many of the brands and companies use famous TV people for as their "image characters" (poster people) and for their commercials. Many of the sports benefit from the media's attention on their young and prospective players because the way media portray the players attract more children into that world.

Well that's the end to my random thought on sports. Sorry it's pretty disorganized.

Today's update on Japan Mode: This Week's Events in Tokyo / Sakura Forecast Tohoku & Hokkaido / Night Sakura Spots

Sports

2007-03-23T17:11:00.000+09:00

Sports are pretty hot in Japan right now. Playing sports has always been part of our daily lives, and watching too, but I feel like the enthusiasm of the nation (well... mainly media) for especially national or world scale sports competitions has distinctively changed over the past several years.

One of the biggest differences is sumo. 10 years ago, the grand sumo tournaments (professional) held every other month (odd-number months) was a sports for 40s+ to watch on TV on evenings and not so much of the younger ones cared about it. But now, even though the sumo world is said to be suffering shrinking athelete population, the sport itself appears on the news much more and with excitement. I think that the exceedingly good records of Asashoryu (who is a Mongolian) the only yokozuna at the moment and the internationalization of the rather closed world makes the difference. Every time Asashoryu renew his championship records, the fans and viewers get excited with his performance the next tournament. Right now a good portion of the makuuchi (higher level) wrestlers come from overseas led by Mongolia, and having so many of them in the field is still a fresh sense so they provoke a kind of amusement (in positive terms) as well as national identity among the Japanese because sumo is a national sport. So as compared to a decade ago, the sport is gathering more attention.

Many of the young Japanese atheletes are proving that the level of the sports in Japan is dramatically improving to the stage that they can equally compete in the top level of the world scale competitions. A good example of this is figure skating: starting a few years ago especially with the women's single skating, the Japanese atheletes started to mark good records and finally reached the top a year ago at the Turin Olympics (Arakawa Shizuka winning gold medal for the first time in Japanese figure skating history). Just yesterday, Japanese skater Takahashi Daisuke won silver medal in men's single-skating at the world championships which is also another historical event in Japanese figure skating. Then today there's the women's single skating the entire nation looks forward to.

At the same time as being the top athelete country in some sports, being a Japanese was considered disadvantage for some other sports because of the body type etc. But now these young ones are positively growing in the so-thought disadvantaged sports and are reaching the world standard. This is a great excitement.

I was going to write about some more of other sports but couldn't finish it in time. Will mention them later... hopefully (so many unfinished projects on my mind!)

Today's update on Japan Mode: Charmy Rop Chapter 13 Preview... ant it's the FINAL EPISODE!

Trends in Present Tense

2007-03-22T16:53:00.000+09:00

I was thinking about what's hot in Japan - like what the social/ cultural trend is right now. It's actually a bit hard of a task because you tend not to notice a trend when you're in the midst of it but only realize it to be a "past" trend after the heat has gone. Some of the trends are pretty visible, especially fashion, but keeping your eyes open for cultural trends is kind of hard. At least for me. Also, even though you're aware that one thing is pretty hot at the moment you feel like it's settled down, kind of stablized as something "normal" rather than a transient trent. Maid cafes are one example. There are so many of them that it's not as worth giving attention to as the earlier days.

A couple of ideas came up in my mind, and they were LOHAS (life of health and sustainability) and the health related boom (food, yoga, etc.) and the other is JAPAN. They kind of intertwine, but since the former is half an imported trend (it's not particularly Japanese) so I decided to focus on the latter - which is actually a very deep observation and discussion if you start thinking about it.

The JAPAN boom is in Japanese called the WA boom (wa=adj. Japanese) and is about the revival of Japaneseness in various aspects. For example, it can be food like so many other countries are experiencing Japanese cuisine trend, tea like I talked about before (see here also), fashion (maekake mentioned a little while ago) or wearing yukata to fireworks, learning the traditional arts (calligraphy, flower arrangement, tea, etc.) or acquiring the essence of bushido (way of the samurai) etc. etc. It's visible in daily life and also on TV, like a number of traditional / cultural Japan related TV dramas and films get high viewership and the Japanese films doing well last year in terms of box office.

Part of this social trend comes from freshness and exoticness especially for the younger generation, rather than the idea of treasuring the good old things. For many people the beautiful patterns of the kimono are pieces of art that can be added to and blended with the latest fashion, the prints of the maekake aprons a stylish design to make into bags, yukata (summer kimono) a season-limited fashion specialty. The other part of the trend, especially for older people, comes from the spirit behind the Japanese designs and act. For instance, having tea in a relaxing and strain-free cafe is a time to treasure the quietness in your mind. Learning the ways of art is acquiring the spirit of art or the way, of concentrating, of emptying your mind. This is in a way related to the idea of LOHAS and having a life of good quality.

I think I will not reveal too much of it here at once. May continue some other day, but for the meantime read here for details (which also turned out to become a series to my regret).

Newest Ghibli Film

2007-03-20T16:15:00.000+09:00

One of Japan's most famous animation production Studio Ghibli announced its ongoing project of a new animation film. Its title revealed yesterday is Gake no Ue no Ponyo (Ponyo on the Cliff) (N.B. the title and translation I give here is only a pure romaji conversion and literal translation for the official English title has not been announced) and it is an original story created and directed by the master of Ghibli, Miyazaki Hayao.

Not much of the story has been revealed but we know that it is a "Japanese version of The Little Mermaid" (Producer Suzuki) and the main characters are a mermaid who wants to become a human, and a 5-year-old boy named Sosuke. I think the story takes place in Japan, maybe in an unverified town in the western seaside regions, as it is said that Miyazaki fell in love with this town facing the Seto Inner Sea (close to Osaka and Kobe, the northern shore of Shikoku Island located mid-west of Japan) when he visited the place in 2004 and rented a house for 2 months coming up with the story. But this is just my guess. As far as I know, the locales in most of his stories are untold clearly to the viewers but are based on existing towns.

The announcement also included the information about the model figure of Sosuke being Miyazaki's eldest son Goro, and mentioned the relationship between the creation of Ponyo and Miyazaki Goro's director debut film Ged Senki (Tales from Earthsea). Producer Suzuki spoke for Miyazaki Hayao that, "Miyazaki took Ged as a rebellion of Goro against his father, and believes that such situation developed because of his (Miyazaki's) lack of attention to his son (Goro) when he was a young child, coming from his work busyness. In Ponyo, Miyazaki puts in his feelings of reflection so that children like him will not increase."

The images are not yet available, but according to the news article they are softer in touch, quite differing from the previous Ghibli works. In this new film, Miyazaki hopes to return to the very basics of animation.

I'm pretty sure that this announcement has given much anticipation in the hearts of many Japanese people. Miyazaki's films always enjoy great attention, part of it because the name "Miyazaki (Hayao)" or "Ghibli" have become an established brand (sadly, kind of) but also because his works are worth the attention and are enjoyable as well as well themed. Apart from the fact that his works are marvelous pieces of art and creation, they carry messages throughout the stories that makes the audience think during or after watching the movies. Once I commented to somebody that some of his movies are difficult to understand, but he only responded, "which part of it was so hard? It was very simple: this happened, that happend so they bla bla bla...". Of course I understood the flow of the story, but that's on the surface. There's always much more to his films (that perhaps some people don't want to discuss about).

Well, I don't mean to become so enthused about the topic so I'll stop here. I really look forward to its release though. It's scheduled summer 2008.

Today's update on Japan Mode: country names in kanji
This, for a while, is the last update of country names converted in kanji. The kanji conversions are of existing ones so don't think we (Japan Mode) did it. Most of them don't make sense as a word or a name. They're converted purely phonetically. Today's update covers the Central and South American countries, Central Asia to Middle East and African countries.

"Touch and Go"

2007-03-19T15:42:00.000+09:00

...was the promo phrase for JR East's Suica came out a few years ago. Suica the name for the IC ticket card usable for JR trains in Tokyo and around and it spread quickly across the city as it is very convenient because it takes away the time and trouble to stop by at the ticket machine and deal with coins. All you have to do is to charge some money in your card and let it (and you can keep it in your wallet or pass holder not taking the card out) touch a specific part of the gate when you get to the platform and vice versa. All you have to be careful is to make sure you have enough charged money left on the card (you don't even have to bother with this with the JR IC card in Osaka, at least that's what I heard). I'm sure some of you if not all are familiar with the system. I know that some other countries use this IC card system.

Suica is very convenient indeed, but a bit inconvenient in fact because you can only use it for very limited area, meaning only JR lines and a couple of other lines in Tokyo. The train network of Tokyo is a mess - there are way too many lines literally tangling with each other (see this map for example) though I have to admit this messy network allows you to get to pretty much anywhere within a 15-min-walk from one station or another. Anyway, half or more of the lines of this network are non-JR lines which we usually refer to as "shitetsu" (meaning private railways because JR used to be state-run and the others were and are private sectors) and they had their own shitetsu-interoperating system that were non-interoperable with JR. The card for their system was (and still is) called Pasnet which is a mag card that you have to let through the gates like the other tickets. The part of contacless (Suica) or mag (Pasnet) doesn't matter so much, but having to have two when you wanted to make transfers etc. was kind of troublesome.

Yesterday this new system and card called PASMO started and this allows the smooth interuse of pretty much all if not all the lines plus bus services in Tokyo. You either buy a new PASMO card or can keep your Suica card and get on and off JR and shitetsu and buses without trouble. I was out yesterday and had to take several different kinds of trains so bought myself a brand new PASMO and used it. It's not like it was my first time to experience this "touch and go" but it was kind of fun. As far as I observed yesterday, many people preferred buying normal tickets yesterday at least at the subway ticket machines at Shibuya Station. The news last evening told though that the service seems to have had a good and fairly smooth start. I think it will settle down as part of our normal lives rather soon.

Both Suica and PASMO have optional services most of it having to do with points. You can attach the cards with or to credit cards so that you can make use of the auto-charge allowing you to be free from worrying the remaining amount on the card, and the use of the card as train fare counts as points for your credit card. Then what happens is that several credit card companies promote their services and how benefitial each are comparing themselves to their rivals and so on. The benefits are quite different - you can earn points to use at department stores, or earn mileage on a plane company - and trying to pick the one that best suits your interest becomes a headache, so I only bought a plain only-charge, no-points PASMO.

The downside of it though, if I were to point out, is that it numbs your sense of how much you're spending on your transportation fare. Suica doesn't show the details on how much you've spent on one trip and how much you have left but Pasnet did, so being kind of used to seeing your trip records, the new systems feels a bit blinded. In any case, it did become much more convenient to get around using the train and subway system (which many of the people do to commute). Now their next task is to make is usable nationwide. That'd be really helpful, though I do kind of suspect that for some local areas it's only going to become deficit projects.

Today's Update on Japan Mode:
- Tokyo Event March - April... the most exciting one for me personally is the figure skating world championships 2007. I've always liked watching figure skating (especially ice dancing) but because the younger Japanese athletes are doing pretty well the matches are very exciting these past couple of years. Generation change, finally.
Also the Tokyo International Anime Fair 2007 is coming up this weekend.

>>Resources>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

PASMO (Japanese, English, Mandarin, Taiwanese, Korean)
Suica (Japanese, English)

The Barter Journey

2007-03-16T15:42:00.000+09:00

A man from Hokkaido has just finished his "recycling journey" a few days ago. This 25-year-old man started his trip last April (2006) and walked 3,500 km across Japan from Hokkaido down south to Okinawa pullying a small two-wheeled-cart.

He works for a company that aims to resolve environmental issues, and inspired by a co-worker of his who had crossed the archipelago picking up trash he decided to set off for a similar journey though not completely the same. The principle objective for this trip was to reduce garbage by collecting and bartering unnecessary things from the people he meets on his way. He asks them to give him whatever they kept in the house but did not need, and if there was something in his cart that they wanted he would trade whatever is unneeded with the needed. In this way he bartered all kinds of things including commodities, clothes, bags and more.

He says that on his trip he had seen many issues regarding the environmental pollution and irresponsible disposal of various things. Also, he says that his encounter with so many people, their cultures, societies and problems that each of them carry have broadened his worldview. In the following years he says that he wants to concentrate on environmental activities.

Japan has this kind of custom of families bringing unnecessary things together and trading them amongst each other. I suppose there are similar customs around the world probably in the majority of the cultures so it's not particularly Japanese or anything. Anyway, sometimes these bartering gatherings are for the pure sake of the members, of getting rid of unneeded things. Some other times, like the parents do in schools, the pot-luck bazaar collects money from outsiders (e.g., visitors to the school festivals) so that they can gather fund for their children's school activities.

School bazaars are still very common today, but I don't think that the neighborhood bartering is no longer practiced, at least not in the same way the school bazaars are. Until several decades ago, sharing commodities and kitchenwear as well as food with your neighbors was normal too, but this too is almost like a fossil custom. Either the customs decayed, or the trust relationship in the neighborhood has weakened, or rather, I think, the neighborhood human relationship itself is fading not to mention the sharp decrease of young people residing in the countrysides.

Besides these customs there were many other methods of the reduce reuse and recycle in the daily lives of Japanese people in the old days, but unfortunately the overflow of materials and the busy and wary lifestyles today is diminishing the wisdoms of the past. It's such a pity that the culture of recycle has become a culture of waste.

Having said that though, I can't change the fact that I'm a resident of 21st century Tokyo. Of course I try to reduce waste as well as a bunch of other people are. I hope that even these littlest things that we can do are helping the issues.

Geez my mind is so Friday.
My readers out there, have a nice weekend :-)

Today's update on Japan Mode
- Charmy Rop Chapter 12
- Cherry Blossom Forecast 2007... revised because the Met Agency made some miscalculations and got the expected dates wrongly for some cities. Also the temperatures are unusually low these days (I feel like it's colder than February which shouldn't be the case if the weather was regular) the blossoming seems to delay a tad bit.

Festivals in Japan

2007-03-15T17:51:00.000+09:00

Since I started this little corner on Japan Mode introducing cultural and traditional festivals (in advance) I came to realize how so many of them are out there. Only a handful of them are featured on country guides and news and sometimes I think it's such a pity that the majority of them are not known, or if worse, fading as a tradition because there aren't enough attention given.

It is kind of true that a lot of the tourism-wise unknown take place in locations that aren't as easy to access, and I guess the most important part about having them - since they are after all rituals and ceremonies related to one religion or another to some extent - is to practice them not with reluctancy but with sincerity.

Well I'm running out of time so I'll keep this super short.

Today's update on Japan Mode (go figure)
A number of spring festivals are being held literally all over Japan and it was very very hard to pick out just a few to introduce on Japan Mode. Spring events are graceful and beautiful with lots of decorations in bright yet soft colors. Enjoy!

Heisei no Miyako

2007-03-14T16:24:00.001+09:00

On one hand overseas travellers coming to big cities in Japan like Tokyo and Osaka say that big cities in Japan are fairly clean considering its size and population, but on the other hand I have heard many people pointing out the lack of scenic aestheticism of the cities especially Tokyo. As I have written some time ago, Tokyo is a city of constant transformation and the buildings change at a very fast speed. Some of the buildings promoting the specialness of their designs, boasting that this one is designed by the famous architect so and so, but many of them actually don't bother considering how it would look with their neighbors so this is how this messiness of the city expands.

The messiness in Tokyo, the capital of the country and the symbol of Japanese modernism, is in a way special and even one charm of the megalopolis but the case is a little bit different as well as sophisticated in our ancient capital city Kyoto. A draft of a new landscape conservation regulation will be suggested to the city council shortly and this regulation is causing a huge controversy between the city and the residents.

Basically what the draft says is that the law is going to prohibit all buildings in the city to exceed the height of 10meters which is no more than a 4-story-building. This is not so much for safety whatsoever but is solely to make the city look nicer, to get back the wide and calm sky that probably spread above the city more than one thousand years ago. The city explains that the regulation allows the city to retain the unique and proud atmosphere of the ancient times and the tourists welcome the idea for the same reason, but for the residents the regulation is so much more than a joke. Of course.

Currently there are about 1,800 residential buildings (what we call mansions in Japanese) in the areas the draft covers (city center and 14 other locations around the world heritages) that exceed this height limit and if the regulation passes they would be torn down to the limit. People living in the disappearing floors would be forced to move out, but being unable to sell their houses because no one's going to live in that vacant space, and even if someone bought the place their loan requests will not be accepted because the places are illegal. This way the values of the real estates are dragged down to almost nothing, and no one expects that the city can afford compensation.

The regulation also claims all neon and flash/blinking advertising boards to be ripped off and that also half kills the residents and the advertising industry. At the moment there are about 4,000 sign boards that would become illegal by the definition of the suggested regulation, and if they don't obey the new law they would be punished by it. Ad agencies say that the passing of the law would only increase the number of illegal ads and would most likely kill the local agencies because advertisers would only go out of the city or prefecture to continue their ads. The city is already full of illegal ads and the situation probably won't improve.
One ad agency commented that people won't gather to a place without light (neon) - well, I don't know about that. Could be true to some extent, but I don't think all of the big cities in the world are filled with neons the way our cities are.

I don't know which side is going to win the discussion... I don't really think that the attempted law would pass because there are too many problems dangling along... but in case it passes this is going to be a huge huge news that would shake all kinds of businesses.

Today's Update on Japan Mode: Men's Fashion Spring 2007 - for the first time Japan Mode focuses on men's fashion... at least tried to. Men's fashion circumstances in Japan has changed dramatically over just the past few years. I only wish I had more photos to show. Anyway, the links give you a pretty good idea though they're only available in Japanese.

Gochiso Burger

2007-03-13T16:00:00.000+09:00

I read a news article that the Malaysian ministry of health is considering of banning advertisements on fastfood like hamburgers due to its adverse influences to health, and the article also noted that the health minister commented that hamburgers are silent killers. Well, fastfood hamburgers in Japan are also somewhat understood to have bad influences on health and yet they are pretty populat, but increasingly popular these past one or two years are what we call the "gochiso burger" which I guess can be translated to "feast burger".

Gochiso burgers, as compared to McDonald's or even Mos Burger (Mos Burger is a Japanese hamburger chain which serves pretty good hamburgers and fastfood at twice - 2.5 times more or less the price of McDonald's), are first of all large in size (much much thicker), have rich amount of meet, have lots of fresh veggies and sauce, all sandwiched by good buns. Usually they cost about anywhere b/w Y500-Y1,000, aren't wrapped with paper, can't make them to go, but are instead served with chips (fried potatoes / french fries) on a big plate. Perhaps a lot of you reading this, especially if you are an American, might think this is rather normal (maybe except for the price), but because to Japanese people the image of hamburgers are directly and immediately associated with fastfood burgers, these relatively large volume fresh burgers are considered "gochiso burgers", special "feast" burgers.

Before the gochiso burgers had become to be acknowledged as gochiso, burgers served at T.G.I.Friday's or Kua Aina were kind of like the representatives that not so many people knew. But then, someone - or rather some media apparently cast spot light on these big burgers, burgers that are not from McDonald's or Mos or Wendy's or any of those chains soon became part of slow food, luxury food and eventually gochiso burger.
Now there are many restaurants and hamburger shops that serve gochiso burgers scattering around big cities particularly in Tokyo, and going to those places for lunch on a weekend has become a kind of little relaxed luxury for some people.

In Sasebo where there's been a US camp for a long time now, there is this kind of burger called Sasebo Burger. Having said that though, Sasebo Burger isn't a specific kind of burger with specific kind of fillings, but is a generic term for Sasebo style burgers which are made by hand only after the order is made. There are many shops selling different styles of Sasebo Burgers and they are all different (although it's said that the majority use secret mayonaise). Today Sasebo Burgers are very popular and have established themselves as a local specialty of Sasebo City, but I learned recently that until it started to gain immense attention as part of a city promotion campaign of Sasebo hardly anyone cared about it. I guess its social debut is part of the gochiso burger boom.

...And now that I wrote about burgers I am dying to have one.
Oh, and completely unrelated to the topic, this song called "Fake" by J-pop musician Mr.Children has been playing over and over in my head while I write this. It's the main song for the movie Dororo which I've seen, plus their album is coming out tomorrow so I think that's why. Random songs and music play in my mind pretty much all the time while I work and it is very tempting to hum them but I dare not in office. This place needs music...

Japan Mode Update
Cherry Blossom Events in Tokyo (and other cities also)

The Blood Circumstances

2007-03-12T14:58:00.000+09:00

It looks like the medical circumstances in Japan is becoming graver not only due to the systems that I wrote about some time ago, but also because of lack of blood. The lack of blood meaning blood donation has been decreasing for some years now and it's not that the news of the shortage is new, but it's getting more serious. a news article today reported that the number of people donating blood has gone below 5 million people last year for the first time as far as the records tell.

The factors for this ongoing sharp decrease is neither few nor easy to solve as it really involves the society as a whole and the lifestyles of the people. First of all, Japan has been experiencing rapid aging of the population amid extremely low birthrates and the people who can donate blood is decreasing. The birthrate in Japan is about 1.25 and does not look like it's going to suddenly - or even gradually increase - in the near future. A lot of it is due to the rapid change in women's social status (though not completely, more equal to men than a decade ago). More and more women are willing to work rather than rear children, naturally raising the marriage age and lowering the birthrate. Then men don't participate in child rearing though much better than a decade ago, because this tacit Japanese traditional understanding of women taking care of the household while men go out to earn the money is still deeply rooted in the society and the minds of the younger people are not so liberal on that point. So, that was the first reason, lessening of the population that can donate.

Regulations of the government on blood donation can be another factor that hinders people from donating blood. It is all perfectly understandable that it is for safety reasons, that it is to prevent transmitting diseases through transfusion, so it can't be blamed so much but at the same time real numbers show that the strictness of the regulation takes away potential blood that could have been donated. For instance, people who have stayed in UK during 1980-1996 for more than one day cannot give blood, or is restricted to do so, due to safety measures against CJD (mad cow disease). Some of these regulations are fairly loose, like you can't give blood for 4 weeks after coming back from overseas, but the others such as the CJD example prohibits donation semipermanently... until the safety is confirmed.

Another major reason includes the reluctance of schools to cooperate to blood drive. The Japanese law allows blood donation from 16 years of age (18+ for 400ml donation) which includes the majority of high school students, but the schools barely provides education or not even information on blood donation to their students and very rarely accept blood drive cars to come to schools.
Also, many schools are being protective about their students worrying the health state of their students. A good portion of the high school students neither get enough sleep nor nutrition due various lifestyle reasons, and can faint lacking blood him/herself before helping anyone with his/her blood. Needless to say, the lack of blood for themselves has a lot to do with their families' dietary habit as well as their social roles be it being a good student keeping good grades, going to cram school, or hanging out with friends till late at night.
If you try to see more reasons, I bet all of them intertwine in a sophisticated way and create a vicious cycle that's hard to break.

The Red Cross which is the organization responsible for blood drive in Japan is coming up with a number of solutions to somehow increase the amount of blood donation or at least to attract attention of the younger generation. Blood donation rooms (kenketsu-room) located in towns like Shibuya and Shinjuku where thousands of young people gather have all kinds of services such as all-you-can eat/drink hamburgers, doughnuts, candy, soft drinks as well as having a good wide selection of manga, magazines, video-games, films and more.

The rooms are clean, bright and warm disenabling them to look the slightest bit like a hospital (hospitals don't leave that much good impression on many people), and the seats are much comfier than seats on a bullet train or an airplane. This attempt of changing the impressions of blood donation rooms has in fact succeeded in making the donators want to stop by or come again. If all the blood donation rooms across the country can follow these models perhaps the awareness of the young people would change.
What are the circumstances like in your country?

[This Week's Events in Tokyo]
- Tokyo Tower Special Light-up (Green for St.Patrick's Day)
- Sensoji Temple Dance of the Golden Dragon
- Japan Fashion Week : Tokyo Collection
- St.Patrick's Day Parade in Omotesando
- Cherry Blossom Forecast 2007 (complete map)

The Most Expensive Cities

2007-03-09T16:02:00.000+09:00

It's kind of an established preconception that Tokyo is the most expensive city in the world, but that isn't exactly right. I've always felt that certainly prices in Tokyo are on the expensive side, but when I went to the Scandinavian countries and UK a little while ago I thought I can go broke in a month. I barely paid for accommodation and yet I couldn't keep myself from spending a great amount of money, not shopping bags full of favorites but to eat and to get around. Prices in those countries are crazy from an outsider's point of view.

Today there was a news of an annual report of the most expensive cities in the world announced by EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit). First place was defending champion Oslo (Norway), followed by Paris (France), Copenhagen (Denmark), London (UK) and finally Tokyo coming in 5th place and Osaka as well as Kobe in 6th.
The ranking to me seems very natural, or at least not surprising at all. Well, I didn't really think that things in Paris is more expensive than Tokyo.

So that you can see what the prices are like in this city, I'll list some examples for your comparison.

- a can of soda or tea (350ml)... Y100-Y120 (approximately US$1)
- a bottle of the above drinks (500ml)... Y150
- a can of beer (350ml)... Y230
- lunch set... Y600-Y1,000 (more or less. depending on how much you eat)
- when you go out for a drink and dinner with your friends... Y2,500-Y3,500 per person
- rent... Y100,000 (but this one really varies. some are like Y20,000 and some others are much higher)
- train ticket... Y130 (base fare for JR lines)
- bus... Y200 or Y210 (usually flat rate)
- taxi... Y660 for the first 2km
- a cup of coffee in a cafe Y250-Y300
- cell phone bills... a minumim of somewhat Y3,000
- a volume of novel... Y500
- CDs (Japanese artists)... single Y1,000+, album Y3,000+

What else...? These aren't too bad. I would say they (transportation especially) are affordable, friendly prices as compared to, say, the London tube tickets.
Perhaps below are the factors that are raising the "expensive" feeling of the city.

- clothes... a college student (guys and girls) for example spends something like Y20,000 - Y50,000 on fashion and beauty goods each month
- haircut... the mode hair dressers (where most if not all of the young people get their trendy hair-styling) take about Y4,000-Y6,000 for shampoo&cut, Y10,000 for normal perm, twice as much for straigtening perm and digital perm, Y12,000-Y1,5000 for coloring (dye) so on so forth.
- movies... Y1,500 for students, Y1,800 for adults, Y1,000 for ladies every Wednesday
- live music concerts (arena scale) ... around Y8,000 or more

Hanging out with friends, not just plain hanging out but hanging out looking nice can cost you a bit of money in Tokyo. Actually, a good lot of college students spend most of their income on hanging out with friends and buying daily clothing, which in case of Tokyo, is pretty fashionable. FYI an average college student earns somewhere between Y50,000-Y100,000 per month. Or rather, the average wage is about Y900 at jobs like convenience stores, cafes, etc. etc. and students work 3-4 days a week, about 4-6 hours a day.

So that's as much a college student earns and spends in a month. Of course, some have extraordinarily high income through different ways and means, and some with passion in a certain field spend a whole lot more.
Now that I've written them out visually, I kind of doubt if it's really affordable being a Tokyoite like I thought it to be. But then, I'm not really claiming that it is a savings-friendly city. All I meant to say was that it's not that extremely bad at least not the way it is imagined in the minds of those who have never spend time here, and it's not. What do you make out of these numbers?

Today's update on Japan Mode: two contents, actually. One is the preview for webmanga CharmyRop chapter 12. The illustration looks a little different from the previous ones, I mean, the colors and atmosphere it has. Then I also posted new stuff for the cherry blossom forecast this season. The Met Office announced specific dates for the blossoming forecast, quite detailed in fact. So that's there too.

DEATH NOTE laptop on sale

2007-03-08T14:31:00.000+09:00

The DEATH NOTE craze seems to increase momentum.

DEATH NOTE, a psycho suspense manga that came out three years ago sold more than 25 million copies (vol.1-12 all together), released a pair of live-action movies last year with a box office sales of over 8 billion yen in Japan alone, followed up with a spin-off with "L" as the protagonist coming out in 2008, currently airs a TV anime series, and most recently came out with a game soft on Nintendo DS. All of them are selling extremely well, and I bet there is hardly anyone between the age of five to fifty (at least in Tokyo) who has never even heard of the name somewhere.

The latest news on DEATH NOTE tells that not the paper-version notebook but a laptop computer version of the "death note" is going on sale. It is a plain-looking laptop except that it has a special cover on the top side with the mark and scribbling that says "DEATH NOTE", and comes with an apple-designed USB memory. Only 30 of them - strictly thirty and no more no less of course with serial numbers - in the world are going to be sold, probably around 200,000 yen ($2,000 more or less). You can see pictures here (Japanese). Supposedly the machine carries the state-of-the-art specs including FeliCa Port (contactless IC card reader) and Windows Vista meaning its a windows machine. It looks like its an NEC.

So what do you think? Many of the comments posted to this article are rather on the cold side and those comments are I guess kind of true. They say it rather looks cheap, and also that if they were going to come out with a computer anyway they should have made it with Mac instead of Windows for one) "L"'s computers used in the original manga were all Mac, and two (a minor reason)) if they were going to associate Ryuk's love for apples they might as well made a more artistic version of the laptop DEATH NOTE with Mac's symbol apple instead of attaching an apple-shaped USB. These people've got a point, I think.

Even then, the very-limited laptop DEATH NOTE are sure to be a target of fierce competition when it comes out. I see this particular characteristic of Japanese people being so obsessively attracted to "numbers" so on top of the fact that only "30" of them are going on sale, the (extremely effective) advertisement of the limited computers having "serial numbers" makes this news really a killer.
Um... if anyone who happens to have his/her name included in the data of this computer suddenly dies in a mysterious way, than that would become a real news.

So much for today.
Today's update on Japan Mode: Country Names in Kanji vol.2 - I have added a few to the previous page (vol.1) and about 15 or so more countries on today's page. So far there are several European countries, USA and some Asian countries listed.

Uniquely Japanese? Cont:

2007-03-07T16:20:00.000+09:00

Maid Cafe

So the other one: the other one is about part-time jobs the girls in Shibuya are interested in trying at least once. This was not from a news article or a program but a TV show that does all kinds of rankings.
I don't remember all jobs of the top 10 on the chart, but I remember the following were included:

-working at a "combini" (convenience stores)... because it's fairly easy work, fun, and relatively young
-cafe staff... because it's kinda stylish (cafes in general are considered stylish here)
-staff at a gasoline stand... apparently some people like that particular smell of gas (which makes me feel sick)
-staff at a movie theater... you get some chances to see the latest movies for free or with discount

Uh... obviously my memory's pretty bad.
Well, the most popular or intereseted job among the girls (18-25 yrs old more or less?) in Shibuya was a

MAID AT A MAID CAFE.

This was quite surprising as I knew there are people who are interested in going there as regular customers but not so much who wants to work as a maid. I mean, not so much anyway among those who don't have the slightest appearance of being an Akihabara kind of person, and also among those who already have one or more jobs. It seems like the maid cafe trend is still present in Japan. I thought it already kind of stabilized as a regular part of the subculture. Maybe it's still simmering as a trendy trend.
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Pen

It's near the end of a school year and that means that a variety of companies related to school stuff like stationary and study goods as well as children (grade school to up to high school) like clothing, shoes, bags, are busy getting ready for the new school year.

Pens in various colors - not coloring pens but colored pens - is a must-have for young Japanese students especially girls. If you get a glance at their notebooks you'll find them very neat and colorful. As a matter of fact, I was one of them up until about 8th grade. Then one day I realized that three colors (black of pencil, red and blue pens) looked more smart.

The Japanese stationary companies announced the release of a new series of colored pens just recently. The business is so big, big enough to make the developers come up with new pens at least every year if not every season, with colors, scent, lame, erasable, extra fine, etc. etc. and for the media to pick it up as a small pleasant news topic for the beginning of the new school year.
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Cherry Blossoms

This isn't really part of the "Uniquely Japanese?" topic but since it's a fairly big news I think I'll jot it down over here for the sake of those who are expecting to enjoy some hanami (cherry blossom viewing) in Japan this season. The Met Office announced the blossoming forecast for this season and said that the sakura blossoming is very early this year due to warm winter coming from global warming. How early - two weeks.
The blossoming forecast is announced for the blossoming of this kind called Someiyoshino which is by far the most numerous kind that is most widely spread in terms of area also, so its a good tree to set as a blossoming guide.

Usually sakura starts blossoming from the southern and warmer regions including Kyushu & Okinawa, Shikoku Island and Shizuoka Prefecture being the head starters. According to the Met Office, the Someiyoshino in Shizuoka is expected to blossom by the end of next week which is 15 days earlier than average. And because Someiyoshino is not the earliest kinds to blossom, there are several earlier kinds that are at the peak of its beauty right now already so the hanami season from now is really going to fly by quickly.
If you have plans for coming to Japan in April for the blossoms, you might want to head to the northern regions.

Uniquely Japanese?

2007-03-06T15:43:00.000+09:00

I have two things I want to write about today, of which I suppose are kind of characteristic to Japan though not necessarily unique.... well, let's see.

One is about karaoke. In Tokyo alone there are more than one thousand shops that we call "karaoke box" which is a place you go in to sing songs (I'm pretty sure you know what karaoke is). These came out during the 1980s and quickly became part of our culture that simply cannot be cut apart from our daily lives (wow, unimaginable).

For those who don't have a clear vision or imagination of what it's like, it's a place that has several separate rooms (not exactly "boxes" like phone booths) each with karaoke machines and you can go in to sing your favorite songs from all time favorites, latest hit singles, from J-pop, enka to imported songs. One room hosts about 4-10 people in larger rooms and the rooms, although most times they don't have such good acoustics, lets you sing (or shout) in full volume with music. The average money you spend is about 500 yen per hour, plus drinks and food which is usually required. Rates vary widely depending on day and time. Anyway.

Karaoke boxes are extremely popular among Japanese mostly from middle school students up to working men in their 50s. Students hang out in karaoke boxes in a group of two to five more or less after school. It is part of the routine dating spots for couples too. The most popular and common use of the boxes are for after-parties or after-after-parties among college students and working people. People get together for dinner and then after a couple of drinks and food they go into karaoke boxes for another drink or two. This is a very typical scene you see if not engaged on Friday and Saturday nights.

Well there was a report on the news the other night that an increasing number of people are suffering polyp in their throats from overuse of throat by karaoke. Unlike singing out loud at home or in your car or just humming along the music, karaoke (naturally) puts you in an atmosphere and feeling that you want to shout out and sing in the loudest and best voice you have. For those who are good at singing and know how to control the voice there is nothing more soothing than singing, but for those who aren't good or unused to it the singing parties are throat killers. As a result from over-singing people get polyps in their throat, and a Japanese doctor recently named this "karaoke polyp".

One is likely to happen when singing songs that have high notes, which is steadily increasing these days. The report noted that high note songs are increasing because many of the music today are composed digitally, and it is easy to make high note songs with digital technology which wasn't a conspicuous tendency for composing with acoustic skills. When high note sounds are made the vibration of the vocal cords increase by five times, and that sudden and high impact activity literally bullies the vocal cords. In addition, the jumping and the dancing that oftentimes accompany the singing escalates the creation of the polyp.

Karaoke polyp can be a minor threat as it doesn't always happen but is yet a threat because it can happen to anyone anytime. There are ways to prevent it though. A professional voice trainer suggested that relaxing your body with simple exercise (especially around your neck and shoulders) before singing lightens the strain on your throat, and also warned that facing upwards at high keys which happens a lot would only kill your throat. The namer doctor of karaoke polyp suggested to be quiet for three minutes after singing three songs. That's not too hard, I guess.

This has become long. I think I'll save the other one for tomorrow.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Live Action Manga (manga-drama review and requests) - it is a rather personal, subjective review on the live action TV drama of Nodame Cantabile (it was the best one that I could comment on in terms of original - drama comparison). I think you'll find the other page more interesting though, which is a list of manga titles that Japanese people wish to see live action made in Japan and in Hollywood. You can see quite a bit of a difference here.

Visit Japan for...

2007-03-05T14:21:00.000+09:00

Visit Japan for traditional beauties? The awe-inspiring nature and history? Fashion trends? Manga and anime?

There is this long running campaign called the "Visit Japan Campaign" aka "YOKOSO JAPAN" which I bet many of you reading this have seen once or more on other websites. In a word it's a campaign that encourages increase of inbound tourist traffic (details here ). When it started there were about 16 million Japanese travelling overseas but the number of tourists coming into Japan is (actually "was") less than one third of that and the govt wants to narrow the gap for --- well, good reasons.

The Japanese government (according to my personal observation) is rather on the conservative side - serious and conservative (plus unclear)... a typically Japanese quality one may say - and would have included only the traditional, historical and natural beauties to the Japan's beauty list, maybe joined by a glimpse introduction to the manga and anime industry... that is to say if it were a decade ago. It wouldn't have approved the manga+anime+game industry as something the country can be proud of and in that sense, never the herd of the so-called "otaku".

But the latest situation is different. Actually, a lot of thing have changed about the character of the govt during the five years under the Koizumi administration. Now that we have a new prime minister, I come to realize the changes in the country that I have never noticed during Koizumi's politics. Things have become more... how should I describe... modern? The clinging to the old systems and styles seem to have loosened a bit.

One of the "modern" elements that I think is the acknowledgment of many things that the country didn't want to turn their eyes on, including the existence of the otaku. Otaku, as you may already know, in a word are geeks particularly those who are deeply into the fictious world of manga (comics), anime or video-/computer games. It is still to some extent, but until a while ago these people were looked at with disapproving eyes from the society because the general impressions of otaku, as the non-otaku claim, are weird, obsessive, unsociable, immature, etc. and a good adult deeply amused by 2D characters or young idol girls was kind of a shame to have or to be one.

In truth, there are many that are over-obsessive and extraordinarily passionate about particular things, but then the Japanese society is full of otaku from school to office because anyone can have a passionate hobby or two. In fact, being just a tad bit otaku (referred to as "choi-ota") is even considered as being cool. Let me get back to this sometime later.

Going back to deep otaku, it has been found out a couple of years ago that these otaku have the power to really heavily influence the Japanese economy towards a positive vector. A little while ago one research & consulting company said that the market has not just escaped being a niche but also have become of the very largest in the country, and so it seems because the govt can't keep turning their eyes off of it.

The govt certainly cannot and I doubt they ever will encourage people to become an otaku of a kind, but have started to make use of this millions-population of otaku and their activities as well as entertainment spots (chiefly Akihabara) as attractions to invite international tourists. Now they have a free "Akihabara tour", a tour going around major otaku attractions scattered across Akihabara districts with an English speaking guide, and not only do they came up with such tour, the tour is actually one of their top features for the campaign. It's not clearly written as part of the tour but otaku themselves are clearly attractions. So there are otaku tourists coming for goods and just to breathe the air of the otaku capital, and there are the non-otaku tourists coming in curiosity to have a glance at the Japanese authentic otaku. In just five years or so, the govt has turned from neglecting the otaku to making them one of the highlights of Japan. This is quite amazing.

So this is how the govt is reacting to the expansion of the otaku market - but I wonder how much non-Japanese are actually interested in the Japanese otaku culture. I mean, the sense has numbed quite a bit amongst us Japanese at least in Tokyo. Seeing people crowding over Akihabara doesn't amaze us nor do the existence of the maid & butler cafes that have become a huge fad and quickly stablized - stabilized but not gone. Is the otaku culture still something Japan can boast as a uniquely Japanese specialty? And if so, how long is this whole otaku craze is going to last?

So much for now... ended up with no point again :p

Today's update on Japan Mode: This Week's Events in Tokyo - March 2nd Week

The Sapporo Scramble

2007-03-02T15:58:00.000+09:00

There are several beer brands in Japan many of the pretty known around the world. Sapporo is one of them, actually one of the very earliest beer brewery company in Japan founded back in 1876. This major Japanese beer brand is heating up the news this past two weeks particularly yesterday.

In a nutshell, an American hedge fund which is already the largest shareholder of Sapporo Holdings Ltd. is wanting a TOB demanding to raise its stake to 66.6% from the current 18.6%, and the Sapporo side is solely resisting this suggestion. They do admit the fall of their share in the beer market having to have to compete with other major powers like Asahi, Kirin and Yebisu, but they still question the necessity of the buyout offer.

Business-wise, that is to say, if speaking purely for the benefit of the company's business value, a buyout may be an inescapable choice if the situation remains. It is not like the company has no experiences going through and more importanly overcoming similar difficulties - in fact it has gone through quite a bit. The controversy is not so much about the TOB but its potential hostility and for the general Japanese people, the fact that the offerer of this TOB being a foreign investment is quite a big and unwelcoming deal.

Certainly it is an age of constant and fierce competition in any kind of field and the world of business is always a survival. Yet there are so many - SO MANY - business in Japan from little shops, restaurants, hotels, companies, etcetra etcetra that have been going on for generations some with histories over a thousand years, that cling and keep pride in the authenticity of their business. We - including myself - really take pride in tradition which is a very precious legacyof history that cannot be replaced by anything else, and as much as we take pride in tradition and history we treasure the authenticity - or purity (but not to confuse it with radical nationalism) in a different term - of whatever we preserve being Japan originated and grown.

Nationalisim alone may be a controversial term to discuss about and I don't really intend to open up the half-taboo discussion on Japanese nationalism here. But this beer talk has a bit to do with our pride and how much it matters can be seen unusually clearly in the behaviors of the general public. In the past two weeks since the first news of the TOB the sales of Sapporo products (beer) have increased by thirty-something per cent at some of the liquor shops. The news last night showed some quick interviews to the customers who bought Sapporo but usually does not, some admitting that it was more due to sympathy that they were buying Sapporo beer, and some other clearly telling that they didn't welcome the TOB.

The protest of the public in this manner this clearly is not usual, and is probably so clear because the issue is about beer which is so very closely linked with the lives of many people. Then the reason for so many people to display protest is probably mostly sympathy deriving from the pride that I have briefly explained.
At the moment Sapporo is clearly not welcoming being taken over as could be seen in last night's news of presenting Steel Partners with a request containing 30 questions regarding the necessity of the TOB. If Sapporo agrees with the bid then I would feel like we have lost something that has been a big part of our culture so would probably a thousand other people. Then if it rejects the offer, Steel Partners is saying that they'll officially launch a hostile takeover bid and Sapporo would have to deal with undoubted difficulties.
Personally I hope that the former won't happen, and hope that other businesses with tradition wouldn't have to go through similar troubles.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Charmy Rop Chapter 11 - the story enters the climax... I think.

Doctor Crisis

2007-03-01T22:00:00.000+09:00

There was a very striking article in the news today. It said, "All five ICUdoctors of the National Cardiovascular Center (NCVC) resign at the end ofMarch." Even for a person like me who at least for now have no business withthe center nor cardiovascular related matters, this news appears to be agreat shock moreover a very grave situation.

The NCVC is known as and is the country's foremost institution forcardiovascular treatment, undertaking more than 1,100 heart transplantoperations operated in Japan (that's more than half of the total) includingthose of children and those that are the severest. They have at least thebest systems and facilities in the country of taking care the patients withsuch of health issues, completely separating the operation team and thepost-operation treatment team (ICU) so that they can support the patients24/7. For the moment there are five doctors in the ICU of whom all areexperts in the field, and all five of them including two of the bestcardiovascular doctors in Japan. These two doctors explain that they aretotally worn out mentally and physically from their jobs at the hospital,and the 3 others are resigning because the resignation of the two disenablesthem from further tutorship.

From April at least for a while NCVC will have to refill the vacant posts ofthe ICU with doctors from other departments, but the surgical team wouldhave to take care of serious situations after the operation if there occurany. Though the center admits that complete separation of the surgical andtreatment teams would become impossible and also that the replacement of thetwo greatest authorities of the field is even more impossible, they will notdecrease the number of operations nor would affect the patients in any way.

Well, all the knowledge I have on Japanese medical circumstances are thoseobtained from (comic) books and TV dramas which in most cases areexaggerated to some extent I believe, and I know nothing by experience aboutthe reality of the world. But then, the reasons these two doctors gave leftme with a serious and heavy impression that it really must be very hard tobe doctors, perhaps even more so in this country where things behind thescenes are still very feudalistic and factions have greater power thanabilities or skills. While I learn about the half-fiction situations ofJapenese hospitals and doctors from manga and from TV I always liked tobelieve they're really half-fictious but perhaps they are more true than Iwant to think.

We don't have enough doctors, we don't have enough nurses, the systems arerather unclear, the people are aging and less children are being born partof it because of the downside of the medical systems of the country. This isonly creating a vicious cycle. What is our future to become of?

Today's update on Japan Mode: Ladies Fashion Spring 2007 - it's pretty muchthe repetition of the entry I had a few weeks ago, maybe just a bit moredetailed. Will have men's fashion up sometime soon too.

Kabuki at Opera National de Paris

2007-02-28T15:36:00.000+09:00

I didn't know this till last night, but Japan's traditional national specialty kabuki is going to be performed at France's traditional historical art theatre Opera National de Paris next month.
After I heard about it on the TV news I looked up for articles on the internet and found out that they had already made official announcements last spring. Oops, missed that.

Anyway, the kabuki programs with strong, distinctive colors and costumes are going to be shown under the ceiling softly yet marvelously decorated by the paitings of Chagall, for five times starting March 23rd, 2007. The actors starred are genuine successors of the traditional Edo Kabuki family line Ichikawa Danjuro and his son Ebizo, and the programs they're performing are their specialties Kanjincho and Momijigari.

This all started a little more than two years ago when Ebizo made a statement with other actors in French of his succession to the name at Theatre National de Chaillot. Brigette Lefevre, the art director of Paris Opera House was there at Ebizo's name-succession ceremony, and was so deeply moved by the performance that she decided to invite the troup to perform at Paris Opera House. The news article noted that Lefevre commented for the name-succession ceremony, (something like),"the moments of modernity beautifully blended with tradition, and felt some similarities between kabuki and ballet." The troup is going to give the opening statement in French. For the other parts of the program... I'm pretty sure there's going to be translation headsets provided.

The news has been popping up in several Japanese blogs, and a lot of them like myself are trying to imagine kabuki being played at the dazzling gorgeous Paris Opera House. The colors are different, the movements are different, everything is different except for the fact that it does have centuries-long authenticity just the way classic ballet does. Very interesting indeed.

It seems like the tickets are already on sale. See here: http://www.operadeparis.fr/Saison0607/Spectacle.asp?Id=988 (Francais) for details.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Sakura (yeah I know I've been doing lots of "guides") varieties. As I was building the pages for cherry blossom viewing spot guides, I realized that a whole lot of them require more basic background knowledge about cherry blossoms especially their kinds. Just found out there there are roughly 300 kinds of cherry blossoms in Japan... increasing.

A Thousand Winds

2007-02-27T15:10:00.000+09:00

On New Year's Eve every year there is this show aired on NHK (a broadcasting station that stands in the middle of public and private sectors) called the "Kohaku Uta-Gassen". It's a music (song) show that goes on for nearly 5 hours featuring the prominent singers of the Japanese music scene and the attention-getting or top-CD-selling singers of the year regardless the genre i.e., covering J-pop, enka (traditional ballad) and classic for the show is geared toward all generations. The singers are separated into two groups, red and white (=ko(u)haku), and they compete which group gets higher scores. The judgment nowadays are given by the selected judges (the leading figures of the year from actors/actresses, atheletes, etc.), the audience present at the auditorium, and the viewers via internet.

Well, it's the end of February and I am certainly not intending to give an introductory to the Kohaku part of Japanese culture. Today I want to write about this particular song sung two months ago on Kohaku which literally grasped the hearts of many Japanese who have watched the show.

The song's title (literal translation) is "A Thousand Winds" and as some of you may know it is not an originally Japanese song. It is probably known quite widely as an English song of the same (or similar) name, or more importantly a poem which the original title is "Do not stand at my grave and weep". The poem has been read at many sad occassions from fairly small to large ones, but here in Japan it wasn't as known until two months ago.

Last year's Kohaku by all means was hardly a success. It was, on the other hand, one of the worst - as far as I recall and judge - with lots of mess. But in the midst of this mess (well the messy controversy arose after the show) there was a moment that the viewers' eyes and ears were glued to the TV, when the tenor singer Akikawa Masafumi sang the song "A Thousand Winds" (Sen no kaze ni natte).

The lyrics of the song is very sad, deep and moving, singing - as you can probably tell from the title - about the death of a dear one. The topics of the song started to appear in the media and in people's talks and blogs shortly after it was sung at the Kohaku, and the song spread widely across Japan very fast especially among the older generations. And finally, though only two months from the air, the song ranked first place on the Japanese music chart, creating a record of the best-selling classic CD in Japan with a sales of more than half million copies which beats the previous record-holder Princess Mononoke (Mera Yoshikazu). Classic music doing this well in Japanese society is quite something.

There are probably many reasons for this big hit, but the biggest are maybe one) because its theme "death" can be very close to anyone and the lyrics can be resembled easily, and two) the social backgroud of today full of sad news. So the rapid spread and increasing attention of this song are somewhat different from the hits of other songs. Even though the number in sales can be smaller as compared to some of the top-selling J-pop songs this single, individual song and the impression it leaves on people would probably remain longer in the hearts with great meanings and significance than the momentarily gone pop songs.

Several versions of the song is available, but my mother said that the song in English sung by some boys soprano in UK was the best, equally beautiful and moving as Akikawa's single tenor if not more. Hope the message of the song won't decay in today's world of constant and rapid change of creation and disruption.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Tokyo Maniac Event - Several events on anime coming up, not to forget the Tokyo International Anime Fair 2007.

Handkerchief Generation and MBL Samurais

2007-02-26T12:23:00.001+09:00

The baseball season soon begins - had the opening of a new baseball season been this attention-getting before?
I've never shown much interest in the professional baseball league here nor in the States. Well, I mean, not regularly. And I'm pretty sure that there are quite a number of people like me here in Japan especially women. But, the situation for this year's baseball - at least the beginning - seems to be a bit different from the past years.

It's all because of the handkerchief generation. Saito Yuuki, whether he likes it or not, is the leading figure of this so-called "handkerchief generation" (of course, his handkerchief is where this "handkerchief this" and "handkerchief that" all started from) along with Tanaka Masahiro, but like the name "generation" suggests the players from his same year are generally quite talented in baseball and a number of them have been given media attention even though they may be hidden by that of Saito's and Tanaka's.

Yesterday was the day for the pro teams to have what we call the "open games" which are pre-season games, and I bet it was a super busy day for sports reporters cuz they must have had to struggle the media swarm at several fields to get the best spot for photos/movies/interviews of the baseball freshmen and the team/coach that welcomed them. Last night the sports news reported on many of them who have got themselves into pro teams, of what it was like to actually play with their dream sempai players and how they are feeling towards the real opening of the league.
It was also the day for Saito to make his first official appearance as a Waseda Univ player which was by no means a brilliant one for him. I noticed that in the interviews, many of these players who haven't even exactly graduated high school yet, have grown surprisingly mature (or maybe just got used to the media, more like) over the months.

Speaking of baseball, media and unusual excitement, I also heard on the same news that the new Red Sox monster (already before the league!) Matsuzaka threw forty-something balls yesterday against the minor and showed the media a pretty good performance. I hear that the US media call his pitches "mysterious gyroball". Hmm, as far as I can remember, he's getting more media focus and compliments right now than the past few years all together.

The news said that at the moment there are 13 Japanese players playing in the MBL, some for several years now and some for the first time leaving and expecting to leave good records. Then, it also mentioned that Japanese language is becoming a petit boom among some of the players??? I think that's pretty something, you know. They're giving enough influence to make the other players want to learn the language even if it's for mere fun.

So goes the new baseball season. I can tell that the viewership - not to mention how much the media is going to focus on the games and interviews - is going to go higher more or less this year.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Tokyo Event March 1st Week - there are five events all together all differing in their genres. The Tokyo Girls Collection 2007 S/S is my top feature. I also changed the seasonal descriptions from winter to spring though the colors not yet.

Blue Wolf

2007-02-23T15:35:00.000+09:00

It seems like Japanese films are making their way around the world more than ever these days. Just yesterday I wrote about Dororo which is doing pretty well right now in Japan and is going to be shown sometime soon in more than 20 countries. It is going to become a grand-scale triology spending roughly 8 billion yen all together. It's going to take some years but I'll be looking forward to the upcoming series.

Then I also mentioned Mushishi (Bug Master?) based on a recent manga which is going to be shown in Japan soon. Sounded like it caught the hearts of several distributors overseas and though I haven't heard further news I'm pretty sure it's going to be shown sooner or later in at least a few places outside of Japan.
Another manga-based film lately made and shown is Bokkou, a collaboration piece of four (more or less) Asian countries and regions. Haven't seen the film yet but I really want to.

Then there's Sakuran that I've been mentioning as many times as I am for Dororo (NOT promoting though). It made its way to Berlin a couple of weeks ago to the International Film Festival. This one is going to hit the theaters tomorrow February 24th.

Speaking of the Berlin int'l film festival, another Japanese film seemed to have really grasped the hearts of distributors from almost 60 countries and regions. The original Japanese title is <Aoki Ookami - Chi Hate Umi Tsukiru Made> which can be translated literally . Well, I at least had no clue this film is about just judging from the title, but it's actually a Japan-Mongolia collaboration film celebrating the 800th anniversary of the foundation of Mongolia. The film features Mongolia's historical hero Genghis Khan who achieved the so-thought impossible unification of Mongolia.

The news says that as soon as the Japanese production board and distrobutor put it on sale and the film market at the Berlin International Film Market dozens of distributors flooded to get a contract. All together 60 countries - 49 European and Middle/Near East countries and 11 Asian countries including Japan and Mongolia (both releasing the film on March 3rd 2007) - are going to release the film.

I don't have further information about the film, but one thing that disappoints me a little is the fact that most of the casts (at least the main figures) are Japanese. Because it "boasts" being an international collabarative project I thought there'd be a whole lot of Mongolian actors and actresses in it. Well... at least the entire film was shot in Mongolia...

Today's update on Japan Mode: CHARMY ROP Chapter 11 preview. If you've just noticed... the title of the webmanga changed today. The whole group agreed that it sounds better and links better with the story.

Oh, and the above is the newest wallpaper available at JChannel (in about two hours from now).

Hinamatsuri, the girl's festival, is coming up not tomorrow but the following Saturday (March 3rd) so this time Mimi's dressed in kimono.

More Dororo

2007-02-22T15:13:00.000+09:00

It's been almost a month since the Japan release of Dororo, a Tezuka Osamu's manga based film, and it looks like the film is doing pretty well at least here in Japan. I don't know when it's going to be released in the other 23 countries but anyway I did have a chance to see the film a little while ago.

As for my personal review goes... not extremely excellent but entertaining enough. I actually haven't read the original story but I could tell that there'd been a lot of cutting (and probably changing) in the storyline. I guess it can't be helped as the original must be a very long piece with a very profound philosophy or theme, but I must say I expected a little more. I liked it overall though. Afterall I think I liked it. Yep.

The story ended like it was going to have a series - and so it is going to with the same Tsubabuki and Shibasaki playing the main two characters. The production committee announced not only that they're going to have a number 2 but also number 3, disclosing that 2 would focus a little more on Dororo's (Shibasaki) story with more entertainment elements and 3 being about Hyakkimaru (Tsumabuki's) determination of his life.

Sure it did end like it's going to have more, but I didn't actually think that there would be since the production cost for this film far exceeds the common sense of Japanese film making, and it was also shot mostly overseas which is not so common for Japanese films. In order to not disappoing the audience of the first one (in theaters now) they're going to spend 6 billion yen all together for 2 and 3, and are of course going to shoot the film somewhere outside of Japan although where and when is not yet decided. They did say that 2 has a lot to do with the ocean and said they'll probably choose a location somewhere in the South Pacific. Series 2 is scheduled to appear in the theaters in 2009 at the earliest. As we say in Japanese, "let's keep our neck stretched long" ;-)

I won't give away the details of the film here, but I will mention there were quite a bit of surprises that probably very very few if not none of the audiences expected. I also heard that to make the film better, the production board had a mid-process preview gathering common people and asked the audience to evaluate, criticize, comment on the still editing film. After they collected the comments they made a few changes and so came out the final piece.

A little note: the film is rated PG12 here in Japan but I don't know how it would be rated in other countries. Like you can probably tell from the preview it is quite violent with lots of battle and use of weapons. There were many parts that I thought little kids can cry from scariness. In any case, do go have a look when it becomes available in your neighborhood.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Sakura Guide 2007 - the cherry blossom season is coming close and the sakura season here in Japan is traditionally the party season by all means. Aside from the hanami groups and parties spreading their picnic sheet under the night cherry trees with beer and food, there are lots and lots of sakura related events taking place starting from the southern warmer regions. Today's the first edition of sakura event guide 2007!

Dororo Official Website: www.dororo.jp/ (Japanese)
Dororo English Info on Japan Mode: http://www.jmode.com/madeinjapan/madein11_3.html

The "Abusement" Lunch

2007-02-21T15:43:00.000+09:00

Today I think I'll introduce you to a blog kept by a Japanese housewife. Well, rather than calling it her web journal it's more like her web record of the lunchboxes she makes for her husband and son(s) pretty much everyday. Before going any further, just do have a look (it's in Japanese but what matters are the pix anyway):

http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/kasumin_yorosiku

These pieces of art are food, and not like any artistic food made by the best chefs around the world but LUNCH made every morning for the blog keepers mere and pure amusement to "abuse" her husband and son. It's not too common anymore for wives to make lunches for husbands to take to work, but a good portion of the mothers still make lunch for their kids to take to school in Japan if the school doesn't provide "kyuushoku" (school lunch).

In her title she writes (lit. translation) "Abusement Lunch for the Rebellious 2nd Son, Weary Lunch for Husband - Mommy's Gyakugire Lunch Series". "Gyakugire" means something like a counter-anger... say person A was angry with person B but as B listens to A's point's B becomes even more angry against A. That's "gyakugire". It also implies a meaning of anger suddenly bursting out.

Well she says in her blog description that she was getting frustrated with making lunch for her husband and four kids cuz it was all about "early hours, plain work, troublesome" not even being appreciated by any of them for the work she does. So one day her frustration bursted out and since then she started making these "abusement lunches" to tease and in a way, abuse her family through the lunch she makes. Imagine, one day you open you lunch box in school or office sitting together with your friends/colleagues, and what you see is a marvelous, artistically beautiful lunch designed into a manga character's face... that would surely be a kind of abuse for the one who eats it, and an amusement for the mom.

Over the years her skills improved a lot and now she's got a good comical gallery on her blog. Some of them are just plain artistic non-abusing lunches and some of them you just can't help laughing at when you see them. Her blog has been placing high ranks for a while on Yahoo! Japan't blog chart and is now pretty popular, needless to say, especially among housewives who get up early in the morning to prepare her family food.

The selection of designs vary from traditional art pieces, manga, anime, game, TV personalities, animals to embarrassing messages, and like I said she makes them really well. Then the text on her blog is another thing. She doesn't write like a typical Japanese middle-aged housewife who barely knows how to use computers and cell phones, but writes her blog very youngly. She uses a lot of the youth language, lots of jokes, emoticons and shapes like stars.

So that's for today.
All right, today's update on Japan Mode: Onsen Guide - hot springs in Tochigi and Shizuoka prefectures added.
Tochigi is the pref. that has world heritage Nikko and at onsen in Shizuoka You can have a grand view while relaxing in the soothing bath.

PANIC! At The Fields

2007-02-20T15:18:00.000+09:00

There is this baseball field called Koushien in western Japan, and there is this inter-high school baseball tournament (koukou yakyuu) taking place at Koushien twice a year during spring break and summer break. Baseball is probably still the most popular sport in Japan perhaps being caught up by soccer, but anyway, the Koushien tournament of the summer holding is socially a huge deal for the Japanese people in general not to mention almost all the teenage baseball players who dream to become a professional baseball players in the near future.

Well, the reason for me to talk about this topic even though it's not exactly summer is that the players who have become suddenly famous at last summer's holding are starting to begin new baseball careers in new environments.

A lot of the most eye-catching, talented players entered the world of professional baseball league in Japan aka Pro Yakyu, including Tanaka Masahiro the ace pitcher of Komadai Tomakomai High School who lost against Saito Yuuki the ace pitcher of Waseda Jitsugyo High School at the Finals. Finals, in this case, because they played twice as a result for the game didn't end at the first final match. Tanaka chose to play for a new, actually weak but extremely popular team called the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles (good for him ;-). Although the league hasn't opened for the new season yet but the camps and trainings have and so far he has thrown two intrasquad games for a few innings each. So far it seems like the difference between high school baseball and professional is pretty big for him as he has given out several homeruns. But I hope he'll become a really good player because I think he has the talent and potential for becoming a real monster.

The point I wanted to get to is not about Tanaka's results but more about the panicky fever that's been surrounding the other ace. The winning ace for last summer's holding, Saito, has got not only the victory he desired but thousands of fans across the country and a social phenomenon he probably didn't intend to arouse. He unlike Tanaka and other players decided to go on to Waseda University (parent school of thehigh school he went to) and play as a varsity player before pro. Even as I see it now after half year since the victory, the attention of the media and the society is beyond the boundaries of sane. It is so big and crazy that Saito's surroundings like the Tokyo six universities baseball association (don't know the proper English name... a baseball inter-varisity. kind of like a baseball limited Ivy League) which usually don't like to favor one player over others have to get together for a conferences to discuss full measures against Saito fans flooding over to his first game.

According to their announcement yesterday, it looks as though a lot of the most normal things are going to be different with Saito being on the team. There will be longer practices, longer practice hour intervals, shorter press conferences after games, wider space for the press, buses taking the team right to the entrance with the short passage entirely covered with sheets, and ten times as much guards as the other "regular" games to shut the players from the panic wave. His debut is going to be such a mess - meaning outiside of the field.

Going back to Tanaka, his first game after the pro league opens is also probably going to be a panic. After all, even though he did lose against Saito he is a good player who has a better high school strikeout record than the so-called "monster" Matsuzaka making his debut soon as a Red Sox player, and also winning the Summer Koushien twice before (2004 & 2005).

And speaking of fan panic, the debut game for Matsuzaka I just mentioned will probably become a panic more or less close to that of Saito's at least here in Japan. Like I wrote some time ago, an extraordinary number of media and fans flew across the ocean just for his press conference. Imagine how many are going to fight over the seats for his first game.

So baseball. Seems like it's getting revitalized with good fresh and young (and I stress "young" for good reasons. Guess why) players these days.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Kanji Names - got five names published today. Come see if the same name as your's are listed on our kanji name section.

(FYI I borrowed the title name from the American band PANIC! AT THE DISCO just because their album's been playing in my head for hours now.)

The Imperial and The Lay

2007-02-19T16:03:00.000+09:00

As I was reading through the news on the Internet I found an article titled like "Princess Aiko Becomes Ill with Tonsillitis". I clicked the title and the news was as plain as the title with only three lines. Moreover, the content of those three lines were to me, not so significant but rather personal. It said that Princess Aiko came down with a fever of 38dg and was diagnosed acute tonsillitis, but the fever became better with prescribed medication and even though her fever cooled down she was absent from kindergarten today just to be on the safe side.

I'm not really trying to criticize the writer or the paper about publishing news as little as this, but am just wondering if they need to or not. Well, sure, a tonsillitis can be more serious than a cold but isn't always life threatening but is it really necessary for the entire nation to know the details of the health status of the Imperial family?

Judging only from my childish knowledge gained from TV shows and news the royal and imperial families overseas especially in the West seem to be more open than that of Japan. Um, I don't know if the term "open" can best describe the situation, but at least the barriers between the royal and the lay seem to be lower and closer in a friendly way.

As compared to such barriers in some of the countries, Japan's is extremely high, thick, hard and unclear completely secluding the former away from the others. We don't know what their daily routined are like. We don't know what they're like behinf those walls and the treed and gardens. But we need to know their health conditions because they are the symbol of our country and of its people i.e., us.

Having written this far I don't want to go any further with this topic because it's way to controversial and is a huge huge topic for me to discuss here. There was about a week ago a news about the publication of this book called "Princess Masako" which perhaps the controversy regarding a few passages from this book has reached overseas. I would say that yes, some of those expressions seemed to be inappropriate, but at the same time agree with the author of having to want to used those words to describe the structure of this country. The Imperial Household Agency is pretty angry with the book and we can't get them inside Japan at least not the Japanese editions.

So that's about it. Sorry it ended up messy and sort of unfinished.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Tokyo Event February 4th Week - since there weren't as many events to pick up I decided to give you a couple of ideas of where you can try FRESH strawberries picked from the fields with your own hands in and around Tokyo.

Socks Fashion

2007-02-16T11:45:00.000+09:00

There was a talk today about socks fashion in Japan. It's hard to notice trends while you're right inside it, but having been pointed out today, there are fashion trends in socks here especially among girls.

So the trendy socks right now are black knee socks which we call high socks, that aren't thick like school socks but are kind of sheer just like a cut version of pantyhose. A lot of them are in black but also in beige with many patterns and prints. The representative designs include diagonal stripes, fishnet (completely "net" and fishnet patterns printed on black stockings) and check, some with silver or gold lame.

I am one of those who wear these socks daily and I like to collect different patterns. The ones I'm wearing today are fishnet with silver lame.
The good thing about these high socks stockings is that they're knee length and don't come all the way to your hip. I wear pants mostly so there is no need for pantyhose to be in full length and I simply hate it when I accidently scratch and make holes in them with my fingers... which I do quite often.
The best part about these is that they have patterns and prints that make them fashionable. Even though I wear pants and so naturally most of the socks would be covered and unseen, the little visible part being fashionable is pretty important. Um, I don't claim myself to be so fashionable, but the really stylish fashionistas in this city pay attention to the littlest parts from head to toe.

I first started wearing these when I started wearing boots. My legs aren't so skinny to leave room for the normal thick school knee socks and like I just said I don't like wearing full-length pantyhose so these half ones came in really really handy because they're half and thin. I don't really wear them with sneakers because they're too thin for sneakers.
Anyway, my colleague who wears one pattern or another of these socks everyday also agreed with my reasonings.

By the way trendy socks in the past were first of all, the so-called "loose socks" which came out about a decade ago when I was still a middle school student. These are believed to have derived from boot socks for hiking boots and became extremely loose over the years together with the super-short skirt boom.

Then among the high school students came the navy blue knee socks which continues today. Loose socks have gone very close to extinct, though some say that they're reviving in a way among the "gals" today.

In my memory of the past ten years, ever since the loose socks spread the normal short, half-shin length socks died out almost completely save schools that are very strict about clothing and middle-aged women. The socks that continue to dominate the sneakers fashion are the super short sneaker socks that are shorter than your ankles. I know these socks are pretty common in other places of the world today.

Then there are the five-finger-socks which didn't exactly become big enough as a fad but still widely known and popular during the winter because they're surprisingly warm.
Other socks being seen around are only-toes-socks for summer pumps (you want to wear as if wearing them barefeet), leg warmers and perhaps another couple of types.

So much for sock talk. I might put up some pictures in the future... but I don't know if I want to show my feet :p

Today's update on Japan Mode: webmanga CharmyNurseM Chapter 10

Boots for Summer

2007-02-15T15:36:00.000+09:00

I do belive that Japanese people are quite keen about catching up with the trend of the moment, and are pretty good at presenting themselves as fashionable. Boots have always been part of the fashion trend and as far as I can remember for about the past decade, the trend varied from super-thick soles and high heels, round toes, squared toes, pointy toes, baggy boots, tight boots, boots with accessories, flat/low heels and so on. But all of that was only for winter.

Beginning last year or perhaps a nother year ago, boots became a fashion item for spring and even summer. Until it became a social stream to wear boots in those seasons, boots were kind of tacitly understood to put away by the end of March. I think that there are chiefly two reasons for this: one is simply because of the climatical reasons because April is warm enough to walk outside without wearing layers of sweaters and coats, and the other is the change of school/fiscal year because March is the end and April is the beginning. Even if you're not directly involved in the change of the year it is highly likely that your surroundings are, and dragging a fashion item from the "past" is not exactly a cool thing to do if you want to make yourself a social person.

Anyway, going back to the boots talk: last winter boots that resemble Western (cowboy/cowgirl) boots became extremely popular especially among women, often coordinated with tiered skirts, short skirts or pants, and blue jeans tucking them inside the boots. Unlike the skinny leg-hugging elegant boots that come up to your knees with pointy toes and pin heels, these Western boots are more casual and easier to wear together with a wider varietion of clothes. They also come in a variety of designs and materials, don't look as season-picky as the other shapes, and go along well with girly clothing so the trend extended into spring (also with the fashion industry's intentions and promotion, needless to say)... and even summer... though I don't exactly remember that many people actually wearing summer boots. For your background knowledge, summer in Japan can be pretty hot and humid and boots can make it worse.

It seems like, however, the fashion industry is trying to establish a firm summer boots fashion this summer be it temporarily or continuous to the following summers. By the way they claim the mainstream for this year are strong colors, and huge (futuristic) prints. Seeing that an increasing number of young people are wearing boots in the season of high temperature and humidity, the brands are coming up with designs that show your toes and heels bare, as well as transparent (plastic) heels. And of course, the parts that wrap your legs are kept short and fresh.

Let's see how much of a real trend this'll become...

Today's update on Japan Mode: budo - "naginata"... the "budo" (Japanese martial arts) section hasn't had an update for a looong time now, and because I introduced a naginata event for this weekend's event I thought I'd give an explanation for what it actually is.

V'Day and Harajuku and Zenryaku Prof

2007-02-14T16:13:00.000+09:00

Happy Valentine's Day! I don't know how it's celebrated in other places, but in Japan Valentine's day is a day 80% for couples either dating or married. The mainstream tradition here ever since Valentine's day have become recognized as a special day, is for girls to give guys chocolate. Why chocolate, the reason is simply commercial - it's only because some chocolate company one day promoted to give chocolate as Valentine gifts and that manner became the mainstream.
Though today the gift-giving is becoming more two-way especially when it comes to more expensive gifts like jewelry and accessories, the custom of giving chocolate - and giving "returns" on "White Day" a month later - remains strictly one-way.

I said 80% for couples... well, 17% of the remaining 20 is for singles, singles who are committed to "confess" their affection i.e., ask someone to date her(/him) - (I wonder how many new couples are emerging today) - maybe 2% for non-serious, "social" chocolates called "giri-choco" and the last 1% families. Um, the numbers are completely random so don't take it seriously. Anyway, Valentine's Day is a HUGE deal for many girls and boys. Girls being so nervous worrying whether her favorite boy accepts or refuse a new relationship, and boys nervous and excited about how many chocolates they'll get and whether any of them are serious "hommei-choco" (which means that the girl is asking for a date).

Completely unrelated to the above topic, I read yesterday in the paper that the worldy famous fashion and punk and goth town of Harajuku is starting a guide tour for foreign tourists. The guide tour is available as far as I know in English, Chinese and Korean and will go around a dozen or so fashion shops and tourist spots in the so-called "Urahara" (backside Harajuku) district. The group is going to be consisted of 10 tourists more or less depending on the day's requests.

Harajuku is mostly known for the street Takeshita-Dori which is a cool, interesting and exciting spot to be walking around even alone, but the inner and backside areas are as intersting and perhaps more fashionable. I don't see too many tourists exploring the Urahara so I think this is a good chance to let the name spread and a good opportunity for the Urahara designers to dispatch their talents worldside.

The third term in the title for today is a HUGE fad among high school girls right now. I didn't know about it at all but my younger sister who is an 11th grader told me about it one day and later on I searched for articles for research.

Basically it's about having your own profile site on the mobile internet, but the astonishingly unbelievable fact about it is that all the information about you is published on the mobile web (within the Zenryaku Profile) and and basically none of the information you update on your page is protected. There are about 40-100 questions about you, from your real name, address, phone number, blood type, birthday, to favorite talento (showbiz ppl) and so on, and most of the users who are high school students answer pretty much all of these items. It's practically a well-built dating site and in reality, high school couples are being produced through this service. But so far there hasn't been any social issues arising such as fraud, prostitution, blackmailing and so on.

Analysts say that although the service is like revealing on purpose your personal information, the service is actually closed and are used only among teenage students. I can't really understand what this's supposed to mean. It's a service on the internet and no one checks if you're really a teenager or actually a weirdy. I only think it's a matter of time for crimes to happen. The problem for the moment lies in another place, but I will save that for some other time.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Sakidori Events March VOL.2
There're also webmanga wallpapers and one-day-limited Valentine Cards :-)

A Tokyo Weekend

2007-02-13T13:54:00.000+09:00

This past weekend was a three-day-weekend and since it's February which is supposedly the midst of winter sports season I thought that the population in this overcroweded city would fan out more or less. Well, perhaps not.

Yesterday I went out first to Shinjuku which is a huge commercial/business district (mostly, added by a pretty big RLD) spreading around Shinjuku station with the largest number of lines coming in and out in the country (...I think) to do some shopping. With Valentine's Day coming up in just a couple of days the town was overwhelmed with girls searching for chocolate and ingredients for sweets (for those who have no idea why Valentine's Day and cholocates are related here, I will write about it tomorrow), couples peering into glass cases at jewelry and name brand shops, and others running for the final winter bargain. The temperature even walking outside was hot rather than warm with so many people.

Then I moved to Harajuku and Omotesando area. Harajuku is a trend spot for fashion, one side for teenagers and the other side for those who are older and are able to afford a little more. Omotesando is an avenue that has luxury brand shops all along the way and is sort of a casually luxurious area (... in my words). The two areas are located back to back and the people walking around is thus a mixture of young to older, casual to rich. Setting my foot in these areas on a weekend required a bit more feeling of preparation than going to Shinjuku because I know these places are never uncrowded on any weekend and as I thought the sidewalks were jammed with people as always.

Omotesando is a straight avenue but forms a very mild slope up and down, so as you walk among the crowd you can see ahead of you how the sidewalks are literally filled with people from side to side. Really. I was amazed even though it's not my first or second time to see such sight. I generally don't like crowd like that, but at the same time, growing up most of my life in Tokyo I do feel like this very crowd is what makes me feel like I'm part of Tokyo and even secure. Friends who come from the countrysides often tell me that they get "peoplesick" or "crowdsick" being in Tokyo. So far I don't know how that feels like.

Oh, speaking about Omotesando, there is this street stall selling Japanesy stuff at very reasonable prices at the crossing along Omotesando. There were kimono-looking clothes, traditional Japanese apron (maekake) and other clothings that were made of a mixture of traditional and modern textiles/designs. Since they're so cheap though, I kind of doubt the quality but the line-ups were quite interesting.

Later on I went to Roppongi - that's at the moment the richest (if not one of the richest) district in Tokyo with lots of billionaire companies and foreign investment - to see a movie. The movie theater located within Roppogi Hills was packed with people and the smell of caramel popcorn. I come here every now and then, but I think I hadn't seen the theater lobby that full of people for a while.

The information displays on the wall told that tickets for the documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth" were sold out for the next two showings already even though it was well into a Monday evening. "Even though a Monday", I say, because for this particular film the theater offered tickets for 500 yen (where normally 1,800 yen) on Sundays to invite more people to see. If the tickets were sold out for few showings on Sundays, I would still be surprised since documentary films especially on very serious issues like this have a tendency of not being able to gather as much audience as fiction stories. I felt like the number of people wanting to watch it reflects how much people are interested in this issue and feel at least danger if not also responsibility to the problem of global warming. If it hadn't been for this film not as many people would've really seriously thought to face the "inconvenient truth".

So so that was my weekend (though I only wrote about the last day) which is not particularly different from the other weekends.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Tokyo Event - this week's events in Tokyo... no huge cultural events take place in the middle of February, but the Tokyo Marathon is coming up this Sunday and some related events.

Female Creators

2007-02-09T15:23:00.000+09:00

I've mentioned a few days ago that the new Japanese film Sakuran (a movie on high-class courtesans during Edo Period based on Anno Moyoco's manga Sakuran) is going to be shown at the opening(?) of Berlin International Film Festival starting this weekend in Berlin, Germany... well... perhaps not. I can't remember. Anyway, I have another related news which is the special holding of Sakuran's director Ninagawa Mika's photo gallery at [ Arndt & Partner Berlin ] during the film festival. Oh, and a fragment of the film where the courtesans parade is said to be re-enacted on the red carpet the first day.

Since the film is going to Berlin and even if it wasn't, it's going to be released in Tokyo&periphery in just a couple of weeks, I have been seeing quite a bit of commercials and ads on TV and in mags this past week. And I tell you - the world created in this film is so dominated by vivid, brilliant and astonishingly beautiful colors and patterns, which look like a mixture of traditional Japanese beauty and modern graphic art. The colors in the world of Sakuran that director Ninagawa Mika creates are truly dazzling. In an interview for the film the actresses and actors said that the colors are so powerful that they have to fight with the colors when acting.
To their cries, Ninagawa answered that for a professional photographer who lives in the world of colors, the use of colors in this film was natural and nothing particularly special that she kept in her mind all the time.

Considering the fact that the film is about the world of women, and not just any women but the high-rank courtesans in the Yoshiwara district of Edo where the clever beautiful and the rich ruled, the use of so many vivid colors may not be that surprising. Yet, I do agree that her sense of colors and beauty is something beyond ordinary, and also think that if this film was directed by a male director - no matter how good a director he is - it could've been so much different with different sorts and combinations of colors being used.

Colors in films also remind me of the costume designer Wada Emi. I've seen several films with costumes designed by her, and I love how she uses the colors. They are simple, but very powerful, and they play significant roles in the story as well as establishing respective characters.

Going back to Sakuran, the music director is also a woman, Shiina Ringo, who is a pretty big and distinct figure in Japanese pop music industry. Her music is strong and powerful... or thick, more like, which can be described to belong to the rather odd type. Haven't seen the film, but I have a feeling that her music matches the Sakuran world.

A TV personality was commenting to this topic of female creators, that women have a special kind of artistic sense that is different from that of men's. His example was film director Sofia Coppola and her latest film released Marie-Antoinette, of how she chose pop/modern music mixing it with classic for an 18th century themed film.

I do agree with the observation that men and women have different artistic senses, and I think that that's what make art fun and inspiring, isn't it? In any case, I am pretty excited to see more of this film Sakuran a lot of it because of the color artistic quality.

Today's update on Japan Mode: webmanga CharmyNurseM chapter 10 preview
I've also got some wallpapers just for fun :-)

Sakuran Official Website: www.sakuran-themovie.com

Data Fabrication and the Power of Media

2007-02-08T16:29:00.000+09:00

For the past three weeks, the news of this popular health-related TV show faking the numbers for several data has been everywhere from TV to papers pretty much everyday.

The central focus is on this topic about "natto" (fermented soybeans) having great effects for losing weight, and while other sources prove that natto does have some diet benefits, this show was over-exaggerating the numbers for data on experiments and also had false Japanese subtitles for the words of an American professor spoken in English so that his explanations would sound more convincing for the show.
Later on it has been found out that the same show have aired false information several times on different topics.

Airing false information nationwide itself is a big problem, but what made the issue bigger is the fact that this TV show is very popular among the country's people because it talks about health issues. Ever since the show was first aired in 2005 it has maintained high viewership and its influence is big enough to make dramatic changes in certain markets (especially food). For instance, say the show scieｎtifically explained that grapefruit helps losing weight (note: this is just an example, not necessarily the truth) than the following week grapefruit will sell flying off the wagons and supermarkets and fruitshops. This was actually the case for natto, too.

I suppose that this show could have so much influence to the public because it focuses on daily problems that a good lot of people are concerned more or less, and because it provides solutions using cheap and available stuff for the general public. It also recruits examinees for the tests from common people that can be your nextdoor neighbor or even yourself - of which now, I am unsure how much is true.

The Power of Media ---
Well the other media and people accuse the data fabrication as if it was a vicious mistake only this program had made, but I'd say that most if not all of the shows of the same sort are doing the same. They're just probably not busted yet. I hear people say "don't believe everything on the Internet" but I think that the same thing can be said for every kind of media. People believe too much of what's said in the media and are influenced too much, I think. I have a feeling that we're losing ability to observe matters objectively.

Um... that's about it. There wasn't really a central point to discuss nor to make. I just wanted to let out my thoughts regarding this news.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Country Names in Kanji - since we had non-Japanese names in kanji and Japanese popular names published, I thought I'd add some country names written in kanji. Unlike the kanji name conversion requests these kanji combination aren't something I nor my staffs came up with, and are put together 99% pheonetically so they look kind of messy. In any case, come have a look!

Children's Fashion

2007-02-07T16:21:00.000+09:00

I didn't really intend to write about fashion two days straight, but since I found a news article on the web that caught my attention I think I'll write about it.

I've seen Japanese fashion coming up as topics in blogs and websites quite often, but come to think of it, I've never encountered a place that discusses Japanese children's fashion. This article I found today was about Japanese boy's fashion, about the disappearance of short pants.

Here, by "short" I mean super short. I remember when I was a grade school kid the majority of the boys in school were wearing these super short pants that only covered their bottoms and made hardly any difference from boxer pants, and these pants which I bet those who read my explanation would think... unbelievable (I think I'll keep my words modest since this blog isn't exactly personal)... were the mainstream back in those days which in today's common fashion sense seems impossible.

I can't remember though, of how much boys of my age cared about their fashion when we were single-digit-year-olds. I guess they were more interested in running and playing around. My generation is already described by older people as weak because half the kids were playing video games or had to go to cram school, but still I would like to claim that when I was a kid more boys and girls were playing outside until sunset than today. There are good social reasons responsible for the decrease of kids playing outside... but let's not talk about that right now.

I am not sure how much the children (I'm talking about 6-12 year olds) today care about their daily clothing especially the younger ones. Girls may be a bit more conscious about what they wear, their hairstyle and hair accessoried and the color of their school bags and how many colored pens they have so on so forth, but I don't know about boys. It is clear, however, that their mothers are super conscious about their kids' fashion.

The mothers of the grade school kids right now belong to the generation that are accustomed to reading fashion magazines since they were young. Though their generation itself experienced the mainstream of super short pants, it seems like they don't want their kids to wear them at all because they're sort of tacky and embarrassing. They want their boys to dress cool, and pants with longer lengths tend to be easier to show fashionability than short ones.
A person in the kids apparel business also explain that the spread of hip hop music, and sport manga among young boys play a part in spreading longer length pants. Another person says that the shift of boys underwear has a lot to do with the disappearance of super short pants. I think all of these reasons are true.

Today, almost all of the boys I see around in my neighborhood wear knee-length pants if not blue jeans down to their feet. It is sad in a way (not to say I'm a perv!) because short pants were like a symbol of tomboy kind of energy and seeing less of them around feels like the society is weakening. At the same time though, I also have a feeling that if there was a kid wearing those super short pants he's be bullied in school for not being the same with others or for being unfashionable - of course I don't mean it for every kid, but these days you can be bullied for the smallest reason (see my ex-bosses blog http://jmode.blogspot.com/ Oct.20 entry for "bullies and suicide").
When super-short pants were the mainstream, those with long pants looked like a weak and sick kid...

Today's update on Japan Mode: Japanese Green Tea Vol.4 - the last article on Japanese green tea introducing how it's drank outside of Japan. I discovered that the general tendency of drinking it is adding a lot of sugar and fruit flavor. Where is the taste and fragrance of "green tea" left??? There were a few that I want to try especially this green tea martini called Zentini, it was pretty interesting.

2007 Spring Fashion

2007-02-06T14:05:00.000+09:00

From my netsurfing yesterday to gather some information about Japanese fashion trend for spring 2007, I found out that the ladies fashion trend for this season is going to be pretty seriously girly.
Oh, but before I go on, let me ask you one simple question that's been bothering me for a while.
When you describe fashion in English, which one of the following is correct or rather, most commonly used?

A) Men's / Ladies'
B) Men's / Lady's
C) Mens / Ladies
D) Men's / Women's

This has been confusing me: the gramatically correct ones would probably be (B) and (D) but I have a feeling that (C) is used most commonly in Japan. Like many of the imported words and English coined in Japan, people don't really care too much about grammar. But I need to know just to get rid of this blurry smoky thing out of my mind.

So, the women's fashion trend. I'm going to put up the details some time during February on Japan Mode so I won't go in too much (not to mention I don't have enough information to come up with a complete article).

The general trend is somewhat a continuation of winter 2006, which is the revival of 60s-sort-of style. I don't know about fashion trends outside of Japan so I'm not sure if the fashion trend here is something unique to Japan or is kind of a part of the larger int'l/global trend but anyway, the winter 2006 trend in a word can be described "classic, feminine and gorgeous" (at least, that's what people were aiming) as represented in the use of frill, laces, large ribbons, (faux) fur, skinny and rather high-positioned waist line, A-line silhouette so on so forth.

Those elements remain, or rather, they become even more conspicuous especially frills, lace and bowtie ribbons. New designs coming out already have those accessories attached (most time detachable) but the trend seems to be so mainstream and popular that people add ribbons and bowties to the jackets they already have.

Over the winter (right now too) I've seen quite a number of people wearing mini skirts and short pants together with all kinds of leggings, but the trend for spring looks like more fluffy (fluffy?) and relaxed shapes. Balloon skirts and single-piece dresses (onepiece) continue to receive high popularity, and on top of the boom of springlike pretty colors, girly prints like flower and fruit seem to gain attention even for grown adults. If not skirts, baggy pants.

Shoes: there are spring boots coming out, but the mainstream seems to be flat and flexible shoes. Ballet-type shoes were pretty big last spring, so I guess those kinds, or similar types would be the trend this year (b/c the Japanese fashion industry doesn't like to have same trends in a decade, they have to change it somehow).

I also heard a small rumor that long hairstyle rather than short will be popular but am not sure.

I have a feeling that I am giving away too much here that I won't have anything left to write on the website, so I will stop here.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Sakidori Events there will be a few snow-related festivals left, a lot of plum viewing as well as girl's festival (hinamatsuri), and the March Tournament of Grand Sumo is also coming up. If you have travel plans, check it out. Even if you don't, come have a look :-)

Things that interest me now...

2007-02-05T13:09:00.000+09:00

Since I have no particular topic that I want to write about but have many things on my mind, I thought I'd list them. This is mostly going to be movies and manga and things of which my interests basically derive from either of them.

<STOMP THE YARD>
I saw the trailer for this American movie "Stomp the Yard" last night on TV and thought it's pretty cool. I always like to see dancing especially when it comes to dances with fast beat and rhythm, and I also admire all the time the flexibility of muscles and joints of those dancers plus their sense of rhythm. I myself have never learned hip hop or stepping or any of the stuff on that side - all I've ever had is a few years experience of classic ballet and a bit of clubbing - but I wish I could dance like that. Cool.

< Dororo and Bokkou >
Speaking of films, there are a few that I want to go see in theaters. One is Dororo, a film that I have been mentioning several times now in the past entries and also on my website. I hear it's good, and also feel that I should experience the scale in a theater with large screen and good sound system.
Bokkou was released this past weekend in Japan, and this too, I'm very much interested in seeing because I like that unique worldview Chinese fims or films on China have.

<IRYU - Team Medical Dragon>
... is a name of a manga that I am hooked right now. I borrowed it from a friend from high school who is currently a nursing student. The manga is mostly a criticism to Japanese medical treatment, of the feudalistic systems and structure, corrupted doctors, downlooked nurses and disrespected patients. It's an indignant and sad reality we carry. In terms of being a criticism I guess it's not too different from other medical manga like Say Hello to Black Jack (Jpn: Black Jack ni yoroshiku).

Anyway, it reminded me of this conversation several days ago between my boss, my colleague and me, that the more difficult and technical the theme is, the more they should make it into a manga. You see, manga is easier to understand difficult stuff than sentences because it's visual and more importantly because it takes a conversational style. A whole bunch of questions arise within and are answered within. And to my littlest surprise, this one has been made into a TV drama last year.

Reading about difficult themes in manga is good, but sometimes I feel like the criticisms go too far. It's so much easier to make the readers believe what's written. For instance, this manga gives me a feeling that it's trying to grow distrust among the general public against Japanese hospitals and doctors. The work is directed by an experienced doctor and is not a collection of random and irresponsible things somewhere between fiction and non-fiction, so of course a lot of it has to be true, but still I think I shouldn't believe in everything written...... or should I???

I know that a good selection of Japanese manga and anime are being exported, but how about TV dramas? The foreign TV dramas we have are mostly American and Korean. 24 has been popular for quite a while now as well as Desperate Housewives and LOST. The Korean drama Winter Sonata starring Bae Yong Joon made a huge success in Japan and established the Hanryu-boom (Korean boom) which still hasn't quite died out today. Myself... I was quite into Dae Jang Geum...

I mentioned some time ago this manga called Kami no Shizuku (Les Goutte de Dieu: the drops of god) which is about wine. I liked wine, especially red, from before I read this but reading this comic really makes you thirsty... it makes you want to drink different kinds of the same drink that's not necessarily wine. It makes you want to do some tasting (wannabe) of all kinds of alcohol from wine, Japanese rice wine ("sake"), beer, etc. etc. and even tea. Going back to wine, my recent favorite is a Californian red. Can't remember the name though. And the other favorite is an Italian red. Can't remember the name of this either, except that it had a drawing of a cat on the label. That one was good. My favorite liquor is "umeshu" which is plum wine. Sooo good.

All right. I kind of have more to write about, but I'm stopping here since it's getting long.
Today's update on Japan Mode: This Week's Events in Tokyo ... mostly about plum blossom viewing. It's a sign of spring in Japan, but no parties like cherry blossom viewing.

Nihongo Becomes More Difficult

2007-02-02T15:53:00.000+09:00

Japanese language is said to belong to the rather difficult category.

If you speak about the sound I think it's not too hard because I feel a lot of similarities in sounds with other languages especially Spanish and Italian, and to me the sounds of languages like Chinese and the European countries with strong Russian influence seem impossible to pronounce correctly.

But if you start thinking about the correct conjugation and the hierarchy that hides within Nihongo... it gives you a nasty headache. Just for a little background information, so far there are at least three hierarchical levels in Nihongo: 1) respective, 2) humble, and 3) polite. When you are speaking to a person higher in status or older than you or you have to speak in a very formal situation, your proper speech is to mix the first two which means you address the being you're talking to in respective form at the same time as positioning yourself low by using the humble form. Um... very hard to explain, indeed.

The language is so difficult and strict even for a native Japanese if you try to speak it properly that many times the language is simplified and turned more casual. And this casualization of proper language has been a bit of a problem in Japanese society nowadays, for lesser people can use the language correctly. Our language is falling apart.

For some reason, a kind of an educational committee decided to divide the three levels into five, and turned in a proposal to the Minister of Education and Culture today. Well, actually their aim is to make the levels more easier to understand, to make the levels of language more comprehensible to those who don't really understand it.

For example, the humble form is separated into two: the first group "kenjogo" include words that positions the other being (that you're talking to) higher, and the second group is a collection of words that make polite the action you are making. This is "kenjogo II".
Then, there is this this new category "bikago" that divides from polite term. I couldn't find any examples of this in the article I was reading.

When a complex language that only a minority can use properly becomes even more confusing, I wonder what's the point of preserving the language in the older style. We might as well create a new-generation language out from the casual version of language most of us use in daily conversation.... actually... I remembered that this is going on sometimes. Some of the casual speech, because they're being used so much that no one can stop it, are being officially acknowledged by the specialists in Japanese and education, I think.

But then, I soon come to think that preserving the correctness is significant in maintaining national identity. Afterall, language is something that mirrors national character, the history, the customs, the tradition, the culture, the way our mind works, the way our society operates - all of these are condensed into our daily tongue. Allowing it to fall apart means that bits of these qualities are fading away.

In a way, I'm glad that I was born a native to this language simply because I won't have to go through studying such complex stuff for years...!

Today's update on Japan Mode: webmanga CharmyNurseM Chapter 9 release! (in about three hours from now)

Would You Like Some Bilk?

2007-02-01T14:34:00.000+09:00

Milk seems to be losing popularity in Japanese society recently.

This year it was the winter vegetables that were overproduced and went to waste cuz the amount harvested was just impossible to consume by ourselves, but this was because of the irregular weather. As for the situation for milk, it's not because the irregular weather grew the cows better and so the cows gave more milk. A huge amount of milk is going to waste simply because we don't drink them so much anymore.

This was the situation last year. And the situation continues if not grows worse this year.
A dairy farmer in the northern island of Hokkaido grieving the situation of the milk demand dropping extremely low, tried to come up with an idea so that the area's only industry (and therefore the chief source of income) won't completely die. Making more dairy products wouldn't improve the situation, so he had to come up with a different brillant idea.

Well, Hokkaido, besides being the top producing prefecture for a variety of vegetables, fruits and milk, happened to be Japan's prominent beer producer. This dairy farmer consulted a beer maker whether it would be possible to make beer from cow milk - and they did.

It was way off common sense and was thought to be close to impossible to make beer from milk due to the unique characteristics of milk (basically it's hard to ferment it for liquor) but wow, they did it in a year (perhaps it took longer, I'm not sure). They say the taste is rather fruity and the drink looks like filtered beer. One third of the drink is milk, so if this "bilk" catches on it would contribute largely to local economy and milk consumption. At the moment, though, it is only available at only six stores in Nakashibetsu Town in Hokkaido. I wonder what it really tastes like - I can't imagine.

That's about it for today :-)

Anybody who's a big fan of any of the following, who is living in Tokyo periphery or are planning to visit Tokyo during February check out today's update on Japan Mode <Tokyo Maniac Event February Ed>

>> Sgt.Keroro (Keroro Gunso) / CLAMP / Japanese swords (katana) / Sakuran (...more like Edo courtesans and dazzling kimono)

Japanese Clothing

2007-01-31T17:55:00.000+09:00

I've been wondering how Japanese fashion and clothing are viewed from outside of Japan. Sometimes I hear people say Japanese people are one of the most fashionable people in the world - I don't know if the fashion level is "high" in the world standard, but I do think that people here pay a lot of attention to what they wear and what other people wear. So many of the people in this country especially the generation from teens through 30s are so conscious about fashion, always keen on checking up witht the latest trends.

I don't mean to make any jusgements today on Japanese fashion sense cuz I'm rather pretty proud of our artistic sense (even though it wasn't until recently that I finally realized how fashionable Japanese people are), but am curious to know how non-Japanese people think about our fashion - of the designs that are out there and the way we wear them. Do they appear fashionable to you, or silly?

The biggest question in my mind at the moment is, do the thoughts/ideas of coordination come up in daily fashion in your countries? Coordinating dozens of items considering the balance of colors and volume is almost like common sense here even for daily clothing. We have layers and "today's one-point fashion" and all those sort coordinated together not only with clothes but also with shoes and hairstyle and nail fashion.

I also wonder how many people are actually interested in dressing themselves up with clothes from Japanese brands. Most of the clothes we have in fact have a lot of Western origin and influences, but are modified with little details and are added lots of little values which I suppose, build up to stylishness. Many people are good at finding the balance of their total coordinate but what's been in my mind lately is that does our fashion style have any chances of spreading overseas?

I noticed that a lot of the punky gothy clothes are pretty popular in the name of Harajuku fashion, but I feel a lot of British punk rock elements in them and also that style, although pretty famous and popular in Harajuku (which is a 10-min-bike ride from where I live) it is by no means a representative of the whole customer population there.

Shibuya is also famous for young generation's fashion as many times represented in the term "109 fashion" or in Japanese (marukyu-fashion). How many of you would actually be interested in buying loads of clothes in Shibuya and wearing them daily back in your home country? And how available are Japan-originated clothes outside of Japan?

Once a pretty big figure in the Italian fashion industry said that the men's fashion culture in Japan is well-established and is something the whole world can learn lots from. Come to think of it, I guess that's kind of true. Men here are pretty keen on fashion even just wearing T-shirts with blue jeans. Graphic printed T-shirts are extremely popular among them. Have a look at this brand, graniph, they're one of the prominent brands in the T-shirts industry in Japan (kind of like a Japanese version of Stussy). See here also for more popular fashion brands in Japan. Too sorry a lot of them only have Japanese website.

Okay I think I must stop here as I am not exactly ready to update today's feature on my website. Today I have an article on manga that I've talked a little about on this blog a couple of weeks ago. It's about how common and popular it is to make live action films and TV dramas in the past few years. Come see Japan Mode for more :-)

The Debut of the Monster

2007-01-30T16:23:00.000+09:00

The news of Japanese baseball pitcher Matsuzaka Daisuke playing in the States has stirred up the Japanese and American (baseball) societies at the end of 2006 (see here for more observations on him). It's been a little quiet this past month, but today the latest update on him popped up in the news.

It was about the specific date of his debut match. Since his move across the ocean involving 6 billion yen made such a big news it was quite natural for many of us to think that he'll make his debut at the very first match of the new season at Fenway (Boston Red Sox Home), but it turned out that the opponent for the first match is the Mariners, which is precisely the team another monster Ichiro has been playing with since 2001.

If it were only a match-up of two Japanese players in the US than it wouldn't have become much of a news, but it's Ichiro versus Matsuzaka, and above anything else, Matsuzaka happened to reply at his press conference to the question "which player do you wish the most to play against in MLB?" - "Ichiro." Okay, it's good maybe to acknowledge Ichiro as an MLB player, but personally I don't really think it was the smartest answer to give at his US debut press conference. You know, he could've given a name or two or three of a non-Japanese player.

Anyway, if Matsuzaka pitched against Mariners from the very beginning, it would mean that his dream is highly likely to become true in a day. I believe that that would surely make a big mess around Fenway. It's said that more than a hundred press-related people from Japan and several times more of fans would flood over to Boston that night. I'd say this fever is uncontrollable.

The monster reveals his "power" on April 5th, so it seems. Hope his monsterlike-ness doesn't only end up in the monsterous contract money and the monsterous news topics.

Today's update on Japan Mode: kanji name conversion samples - I don't know it I mentioned before but I've restarted kanji name conversions. Give me an e-mail through the website if you want to see your name in kanji. I appreciate the requests, but please don't flood me with a dozen names at a time just cuz the service is free! It'll take a little time to get back.

For Children Who'll Become Adults

2007-01-29T15:13:00.000+09:00

So I've been doing bits and pieces of research on manga lately, from its history to what kind of works are popular these days and what kind of general tendency can be observed. I'll post these kinds of things on the website shortly, but today I would like to write a little about how manga was viewed socially when it first came out, since I happened to see a program on it a couple of nights ago.

It was a short documentary program on not a manga artist (mangaka, as we call in Japanese) but an editor of one of the earliest manga magazine. Until then, I tended to think that the manga culture we have today was created by the early masters like Tezuka Osamu and so it is, in terms of the style and form and content of the manga itself. But it wasn't just the quality of the works these masters have produced that built up the Japanese manga culture into an established subculture a large part of the society enjoys. A good portion of the credit of the spread and social acceptance of manga belongs to an editor named Kato Kenichi.

It's only too bad that I didn't know about this program and couldn't watch the entire story, but anyway, I'll introduce what I learned from the show.
Kato was a very talented editor who loved manga himself and spotted the positive potentials of manga in the earlier stages of the culture. He knew what kinds of stories kids loved and he also knew which mangaka created excellent works. If it were not for him, Tezuka might have not become a manga artist.

But back then in the early 20th century, manga was not socially accepted in Japan like the way it is today. It was rather viewed as a ridiculous children's stuff - ridiculous though, dangerous as the government viewed. They feared the potentials and influence of manga on children of letting all kinds of imaginations grow including those that were considerably against the government's policies and their education of good and healthy citizens.

For this reason Kato was once caught by the government for spreading out bad influences on children's education and was forced to leave Kodansha which is still one of the biggest publishers today.
To the icy looks and disapproval against manga being children's stuff, Kato confronted the situation claiming,

"sure manga is for children, for children who will grow up into adults who create and support the society one day. manga can teach children the joy and happiness of life, morals and virtue, of what's right and wrong. manga has the power to guide children to the right direction so that they won't cause a horrible war like we have."

At that time he had already known Tezuka, but Tezuka then was standing on the crossroads of his life of becoming a mangaka or not. He wasn't confident. Kato who strongly believed in Tezuka's talents gave a kick in his back and told him to open up the future of manga with this message, and like this, the culture was established and spread at once.

And so half a century has passed since then. The children then are adults now, who have greatly contributed to the massive and rapid economic growth of the country. Whether Kato's belief turned out positively or negatively is a big question - for we have not exactly caused nor have seriously suffered from war for over six decades now, but the society seems to have become a bit feeble in a different sense even though the spread of manga may not have anything to do with it. Anyway, this is how manga became one established subculture of this country.

Like I mentioned in the beginning, I would like to write about the general tendencies of manga related business soon. I'll let you know when I'm ready.

BTW a manga-based movie called Sakuran is going to be shown at Berlin International Film Festival as the only Japanese film under Official Selection. So far it's only scheduled to be shown in Japan (in theaters Feb 24) but the participance opens up a great possibilityof distributing the film internationally.

Train People

2007-01-26T14:59:00.000+09:00

Japanese mobile phones or "keitai" as we call them, are said to be one of the most high-tech and highly designed phones in the world carrying an unbelievable number of functions from calling ('course, it's a phone), SMS, chat, text-mailing (e-mails with colored and moving icons we call emoji: most common next to calling), surfing the internet (mobile sites and PC sites), downloading all kinds of things like music and games, music player, infrared communication, e-money, etc. etc. and the Japanese population's owning/usage rate of mobile phones is pretty high.

Despite the high rate and the convenience of the device being "mobile" and carriable, however, the rate of mobile game users reach the highest during the hours from after dinner to bedtime. From this mildly surprising report, some groups decided to conduct a survey on what people do on the train/subway while they commute every morning and evening.

The gender ratio of the survey subject of 300 individuals is 50%-50%, and the age bracket ratio is 20% for each of the generations: A-teens (age 18-19), B-20s, C-30s, D-40s, E-50s.

The report told that to the question, "What do you do on the train?" 67% (201people) out of the whole regardless the gender and generation answered "sleep". Considering not all people can get the seats on a full rush-hour train, I guess this means that most of those who win the seats sleep. I thought that the answer resulting in a high percentage proves how tired and pressed by time and work these people (who probably represent the most typical kind of people in Japanese cities) are, at the same time as how safe and vulnerable this country is. It's not that there are no pick-pockets nor groping (actually groping is pretty bad), but I've heard from people who come from outside of Japan that sleeping on the trains is basically unthinkable if you don't want to lose your belongings.

Following the answer "sleep" was "read", which covers books, newspapers, comics, magazines, novels and that sort of hard copy reading materials. Majority of the people responded that they read paperback books followed by novels, telling that compact and carriable materials are most popular means to kill time on the train. Moreover, hard copy materials prove to gain more support than things on the internet, probably because for reason one) people just aren't too familiar with using the mobile internet, two) reception isn't always smooth especially on the subway, three) the text is too small (that's only what my parents complain).

One of the honest but funny replies that were collected in this survey was how so many people peek into other people's stuff. According to the same survey, nearly 80% of the people whether they carry a piece of reading or not, peek into their neighbors papers, books or magazines. By the way I'm pretty sure that the temptation grows stronger if the material is some kind of gossip or paparazzi.

Exactly 50% of the subject answered that they use the mobile on the train, which I consider a pretty low. In any case, 90% of them answered that they read e-mails, 83% send e-mails, and when it comes to viewing mobile sites the rate dropped down to 38%.

Overall, I suppose I can conclude that mobile phones have spread so widely and have rooted in our daily lives so much in just less than a decade, that it is impossible for us to maintain an un-chaotic life if we lose them right this instant. It's quite interesting though that non electric stuff still occupy a good portion of our busy lives. Like this refrence article rounded up, what would grasp the attentions of these commuters if there weren't mobile phones?

The City of Change

2007-01-25T17:10:00.000+09:00

Within a quarter mile radius from my house there are three major constructions going on building a house and there are four square vacant lots for sale. It has been like this more or less for the past decade, as far as I can remember, with housing constructions going on constantly at one place or another in turns.
My way to work is very similar as well.

Tokyo, is a city of constant transformation.

I did not notice this until I had a chance to see an exhibition held at a museum in Stockholm, Sweden a few years ago. I was only traveling using my holidays from school and I only happened to be in Stockholm and stop by in the museum while the special exhibition was held - but anyway, this special exhibition was a comparison of the capital cities of Sweden and Japan, i.e., Stockholm and Tokyo.

There were all kinds of comparisons made in various forms. For example, there was a comparison of transportation fares: I don't remember the exact numbers or ratios but I do remember that public transportation such as buses and subways were three-four times more expensive in Stockholm whereas taxi fares only showed a modest difference.

There was also a comparison in the crime rates, which to my slight surprise, said that the crime rate in Stockholm was higher than Tokyo although not dramatically different. I mean, determining only from my several-day-stay in Stockholm by that time the city gave me an impression of an extremely peaceful place. Come to think of it, though, considering the huge difference in the population (S-less than or more or less a million: T-twelve million) the gap between the actual numbers of those committing crimes widen largely.

Anyway, there was this display of a very well-made model of a certain area of Stockholm and Tokyo, three decades ago and today. Whereas the model of Stockholm thirty years ago and today showed only a mild difference, the models for Tokyo now and then looked almost entirely different that it was harder to spot the same buildings. Next to the model there was a brief analysis of the models and the cities, telling how things in Tokyo are literally constantly changing.

Viewing Tokyo as a city of busy transformation doesn't give me a strange feeling or the thought that "geez why are people so busy?" at all probably because I grew up most of my life in it. But I did feel a funny sense of contradiction cuz we often times boast our country's millenniums-long history and tradition. Perhaps the intangible things and artwork continue to be handed down, but look at the land, there's hardly anything left.

My father who is an architect once asked me to translate a presentation document explaining a project to completely renew an apartment building that was thirty years old. He needed an English translated version because he and his project team was going to ask for an opinion from a British architect.
One of the reasons for renovating the whole building was because it was getting old. Old.
My father, who (naturally) is an architechture freak who knows and has seen hundreds of buildings around the world laughed, "what a joke it would sound like to him (the British architect) to renovate a 30-year-old building because it's old." ...My understanding is that in Europe there are hundreds of buildings that are centuries old that it would sound ridiculous to address a 30-year-old flat to be old.

Well then, what about Japan...? That remains hidden for now, although I kind of have an idea for the answer.

Overall, together with the observations I make on other elements of Japan, I analyze that Japanese people have an aspect of not fearing changes at the very same time as being extremely conservative.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Sakidori Events vol3 - I think this'll be the last for February and will go on to March and April fairly soon.

The Academy Awards, but...

2007-01-24T17:01:00.000+09:00

Well... though I wrote The Academy Awards for today's title, I don't think I'm going to go in so much. It's just that the Japanese entertainment industry is getting a bit excited about the nomination of Japanese actress Kikuchi Rinko for best supporting actress. She played the role of a deaf and mute high school student in the film Babel and is nominated for the role. IF she receives the award, then she would be the second Japanese actress to get an Award for the first time in 49 years since the first winner Nancy Umeki in the film Sayonara.
Since the film isn't released yet in Japan I haven't seen the work yet and can't comment on it, but I do hope that she wins it. We need happy news.

Then, I hear that the film Letters from Iwo Jima is also nominated under four (?) categories as an American film. Well, since it is an American-made film it is not a surprise, but the fact that most of the film being made in Japanese language and still being recognized not as a foreign film but an American film is quite something. In any case, we are proud.

Speaking of films, a number of Japanese films seem to be striking the world's film market recently. Today I am going to update information about the film DORORO which is based on the manga (comic) by Tezuka Osamu. I've seen the trailer in theater and it was very exciting that I am thinking of go seeing it right away. It's a grand piece of work for a Japanese film for it was shot not in Japan but almost entirely in New Zealand, featuring good actors and welcoming one of the best action directors in the world. The last time I picked up a Japanese film it was Sakuran and it's only going to be released in Japan, but this one is going to hit the screens in 20 countries around the world. See here for more information.

As I was skimming through the news topics just now, I also found out that MUSHISHI, a film based on the manga by Urushibara Yuki is also receiving passionate distribution offers from more than ten countries around the world including US and Australia. Since it's most likely going to be shown in other countries, maybe I should try to see if I can officially feature MUSHISHI as part of Japanese film entertainment on my website.

All right, that's all for today.

Would Fish Disappear?

2007-01-23T17:27:00.000+09:00

Japanese food culture seems to be getting increasingly popular around the world, is what I understand from different articles and TV shows lately. Most of what makes it popular comes from the healthiness which I guess we can be proud of, but personally am not too sure of. Certainly, our diet takes in a huge variation of vegetables and fish, and it is commonly known that fish fat is easier on your body than fat from other meat like beef and pork. But has anyone picking up Japanese cuisine gave attention to how salty the food on the whole can be?

Anyway, the amount of sodium is not what I wanted to write about today. Today I want to cast an eye on the fishing industry in relation to the global expansion of diet based on fish.
A couple of nights ago I saw a portion of this TV program called Spaceship Earth (Suteki na Uchusen Chikyu-go). Its topic for the night was "See the world from the kitchen : sea-bream, blowfish and flatfish are mountain delicacies!?". Well of course, these fish definitely come from the ocean.

The show started with an introduction telling us how Japanese food culture is becoming more and more popular around the world, of how the global diet tendency is turning their eyes on healthiness, and how the stomachs of the world are wanting fish. A prominent example of this is the sudden increase of the demand of tuna, save tuna-eating cultures such as Japan (I know we overfish), and the variation of fish being eaten globally seems to be expanding more and more. If the current situation continues, experts calculate that all the natural (=noncultured) fish would go extinct by 2048.

It is of course important to prevent overfishing, yet it is as important to find some kind of alternative ideas to prevent fish from completely dying out from this world. One of those alternatives a Japanese professor came up with is the invention and development of this mysterious water.

What is so mysterious about the water, you'll know immediately once you see the scene of a goldfish and snapper swimming in the same watertank. It is a water that enables saltwater fish and freshwater fish to swim together. If you see it from the conclusion the fish grown in such environment would be cultured fish, but this mysterious water has characteristics that can save culture fishery from various problems they have today.
First of all, the water composed of minimum amount of kalium, sodium and other minerals prevent fish from being affected by various diseases. Then these elements encourage fast growth of the fish, and cuts down dramatically the culturing cost. In addition, it doesn't limit the location of culture fishing to the ocean meaning in the future, there may appear saltwater fish which its production area is in the depth of mountains.

At the same time of anticipating such future, I fear the destruction of the eco-system. The best way is not to make the future into something that requires these kinds of alternatives, but the question is, is it already too late or not? There's a lot we need to think about: for us, reflect upon the amount we fish because we're definitely fishing more than we can consume - which means waste - and for the others, find out the right amount of supply that meets the demand before they fall into a situation like us.

Speaking of healthy food and Japanese food culture, the daily update on Japan Mode is Japanese Tea Culture vol.3 - which talks about the three most popular green tea refreshment drinks (canned and bottled drinks) and the Green Tea War in 21st Century Japan.

The Empty Winter

2007-01-22T14:17:00.000+09:00

Late January would normally be the very depth of winter in Japan, but the waves of global warming is becoming stronger and stronger year after another. This winter is a severe one - not in the sense of coldness but rather the opposite, warmness.

Winter is supposed to be cold and brings snow to more than half the area of the country but this year we've hardly had any snow on national average. Snow causes trouble in the metropolis (especially Tokyo because even if it snows every year, the city structure and systems are not used to dealing with the thinnest bit of snow) and in the rural areas too if it gets too deep, but no snow causes bigger trouble for these rural - suburban villages, for these places snow means money.

I'm pretty sure this can be said for snow/wintersports resorts in other parts of the world, but having no or little snow means having no or little business in the ski mountains and hot spring resorts all over Japan. Whereas normally the ski mountains would be packed with thousands of skiers and snowboarders, the slopes are emptier in terms of visitors and in terms of whiteness. The slopes are close to bare than covered with thick snow, and some of the mountains barely keep their business by adding manmade snow.

There is an increasingly famous and popular tour in the northern part of the country called the snow drift experience tour, but they're not going to have it apparantly because there is no snow drift this winter.
It was only last night that the old houses of World Heritage village Shirakawago were lit up for winter illumination (though having said illumination, it's nothing like the ones we have in Tokyo. It's more aesthetic and fantastical). Usually at this time of year, at least a foot of heavy snow pile on top of the thatched roofs but this year you can see the thatch which makes the sight very... incomplete.

The first snow in Tokyo was more than a month later as compared to last winter, though like I just mentioned, snow isn't really welcome in the city. Warm is good, at least for my fingertips and toes, but a warm winter is somewhat sad and empty.

There's a famous Japanses classic literature called Makuranoshoshi by Seishonagon, and there's a part she writes about the four seasons. The first line for each season describes the most valuable element of the season, of what makes that particular season distinct and special. (note: below is a quick translation of my own and is not cited from a properly translated and published article/document)

Haru wa akebono - Spring, sunrise. The whitening rims of the mountains and the slightly purple, thin clouds.
Natsu wa yoru - Summer, night. The moon of course, yet dark nights with fireflies or drizzle have as much flavor.
Aki wa yuugure - Autumn, sunset. The birds flying back to their nests and the crickets singing after sunset.
Fuyu wa tsutomete - Winter, early morning. Burning fire in the brazier in the cold of the snow and frost.

When I first studied about this literature in secondary school I didn't really understand why a cold morning could be so good, but after I've grown a little more mature I've come to appreciate the changes in the seasons and their specialties. So in this sense coldness of the winter too, is something that should be there as a season. Losing it feels like losing something very important that our predecessors kept for thousands of years.

Today's update on Japan Mode: This Week's Events in Tokyo - well... there wasn't much to introduce this week so I chose some month-long events. One's about winter peony, another's on media arts (includes digital arts, animation, manga, graphic design, etc. in Japan - sounds pretty interesting) and the last one is on stars and ukiyoe prints created by Hokusai.

The Make-up Culture

2007-01-19T12:51:00.000+09:00

As I travel every now and then to various destinations, I realize that not so many women wear make-up the same way we do here in Japan. The same way, means most if not all of the following:

- foundation (liquid and powder)
- concealer
- face powder
- eye shadow (usually using several colors)
- eyeline
- mascara
- eyebrow
- cheek
- lipstick or lip gloss

and when it comes to ladies with more perfect make-up, layers of them. Whether you think this is less, normal or too much depends on, I guess, the society you live in and the culture you grew up in. For many Japanese females belonging to the age range of 18-27,28 or so, I think I can say this is normal.

I notice that here in Japan we have a unique culture of wearing make-up, and like in clothing and hairstyle there is a trend in make-up as well that shifts every season and gradually changes year after another.
For example, a couple of decades ago the trend was the so-called "surfer-make" which was generally represented in sky blue eye shadow and rather bright pink lipstick. Eyebrow trimming which is a common sense today was not so common back then, so thick brows were the mainstream.

A decade ago was about the time when "natural-make" started to spread (save the whole gal phenomenon). This is a kind of make-up in which you put on some make-up, but only within the extent of making your face look as if you don't have so much make-up on. Colors were close to the natural color of your skin and lips.

Right now since about a year ago, the idea of "chocolate make-up" came up using colors close to gold, bronze and brown. These colors mostly deal with eye make-up and lipstick (in the case of lipstick, a bit more redder than brown) but also are used for cheeks.

The reason for wearing full make-up, not point make-up like just mascara and lipstick, mostly comes from wanting to make your face look more distinctive, I think. I wouldn't go into the topic of inferiority complex that a lot of Japanese people have with their features and figures, but for women especially, there is definitely a tendency of wanting to make the eyes look bigger and rounder and lips sexier.

In addition to the above reason, there is also this kind of tacit understanding that wearing make-up is part of the social etiquette. If you're going out for grocery shopping it doesn't really matter so much, but if you are meeting someone like at work or are going to be present in a group of people (whether you know them or not) you might want to put some on. Of course, this isn't a rule and there are many people who don't wear make-up at all times so it's completely up to the individual and no one has the right to criticize anyone for not wearing it. I'm not sure if this has something to do with it or not, but there's been an understanding in Japanese tradition and culture since hundreds of years ago to completely separate private and public faces, to draw a clear line between the this-world and the other-world in many senses.

Thus, wearing make-up is part of the every-morning preparations for many college students and working women in Japan. But mornings are super busy unless you get up hours before you set out, and wearing this much make-up takes a surprising long time if you do it neatly. When I was in univ some of my friends were telling me they get up two hours before they leave home - an hour and a half for shower, make-up and hair styling, and half an hour for the rest of the preparations.

So I was thinking that this is the case for many females who look so perfect on trains and schools and office, but I was surprised to read an article based on a quick poll of how much time working females afford for everyday make-up. Nearly 80% of the twenties through fourties only required less than 20 minutes, covering most or all of the items mentioned earlier. I was like, wow, and this morning I observed how much time I needed to wear make-up, and wow, it only took me 15 minutes - which was less than I thought I needed every morning.

To many people who don't have the habit of wearing make-up, 15-20 minutes may seem like a long time just to wear make-up (like men who always wonder and complain why women take too much time to get ready), but if you want to look good and as perfect as you can, it's pretty short. I guess it's not like it only takes that little time, but women train themselves and obtain the ability to make preparations more efficient and shorter.

So that was my thought for the day. Not much point really.

Today's update on Japan Mode (will be up around 17:00 JST): webmanga CharmyNurseM chapter 8

The Big National Event

2007-01-18T16:15:00.000+09:00

A HUGE national event is coming up this weekend. It's not so important culturally or traditionally or religiously, but it could be the crossroad of life for many youths in Japan - it's called the "center-shiken", the "center examination".

The center-exam is kind of like an equivalent to SAT in the States and though I'm not sure of the name I think there's a similar one in South Korea too (sorry, I don't know the educational systems in other countries). It's a big exam most people who want to go on to college are required to take, and the scores for this exam become the guideline and indicator of whether you have chances to go to the school of your choice.

If a Japanese person wants to go to college/university, the most common way is to take a written entrance exam (juken) and simply get high scores. But since this style of exams only pushes students to remember facts and hinders them from obtaining real learning skills in their teenage years, an increasing number of colleges/univs are getting started with interview-style and other exams based on self-presentation and self assessment. The center-exams are used for both methods though not for all schools.

You can read more about Japanese education system and issues in the educational policies here at my ex-bosses blog. It's a pretty good and detailed series and it's up to date, too.

Anyway, this center-exam is the starter of the whole college entrance exam battle, or "juken-sensou" as we call it in Japanese. It's been around for decades, and sadly it seems like even with the gradual change in education tendencies and the decline of birthrates (= scramble of students) this so-called battle won't disappear for a while.

As mentioned a bit in the past entries (fortune telling / blood type characters ) Japanese people are pretty superstitious. And together with the millennium-long tradition and natural character of playing with words, there is this funny custom of wishing best luck with objects, animals and food. For example, there is this little ornament of a frog at the entrance of my house and this is for safe return because frog is "kaeru" and "kaeru" is also the verb for "to return (home)".

Similar beliefs (though by no means serious worship) exist with good luck on passing exams. The most historical one, at least among the ones I know, is tonkatsu. Tonkatsu is a Japanese dish of pork cutlet, and I don't knot about the "ton" part but "katsu" means to win. So what people do is to eat tonkatsu before an important test.

The custom spread rapidly in the food business especially in the snack industry. A famous one - and a product even originally non-Japanese - is KitKat. KitKat pronounced in Japanese "kitto-katto" is somewhat close to the sound of a short sentence "kitto katsu" which means " (I'll/you'll probably win). "Probably" here is a pretty strong possibility. A corn puff snack Carl (kaaru) turns into the verb "to pass" if you add an "u" sound on the top so that too is an exam-lucky snack. If you switch the order of the sounds of the name of the famous chocolate stick snack Pocky, it (the sound) becomes "kippo" which is good news.

Ones that can't really related the names to good luck for the exams related the goods with cherry blossoms. Cherry blossoms is the symbol in Japan for the season spring, and spring is the season when the new school year starts. The term "sakura saku" = cherry blossoms bloom is used to describe happy situations, in which somebody's long effort finally achieves a goal. Cherry blossom isn't really a food but the petals and leaves are sometimes used for dishes and sweets, and it has a unique aroma too, so snacks add hints of cherry blossom fragrance or extracts or just color the food slightly pinkish to ride on the juken wave.

Like this, a good load of snacks are trying to increase their sales by relating these snack products to the national event. The tendency is escalating every year and this year I see more than the last. Not that many people take it seriously, but I find it pretty funny looking at the line-ups on the shelves of super markets and convenience stores. It sounds stupid, but I like this aspect of Japanese character of making everything into something else and doing stupid things seriously.
We're supposed to be stern, rock-hard serious people, right?

Today's update on Japan Mode: Yojijukugo - is a four-kanji-idiom which most derive from ancient Chinese sayings but are used commonly in Japanese language. I haven't had new posts for this section for nearly two months, so it's the first update in a pretty long time. For the first edition of the new year I chose ones that have ambitious meanings.

Fancy Phones

2007-01-17T18:20:00.000+09:00

Ten new models of cell phones were announced yesterday from au (KDDI) and NTT DoCoMo respectively like they do every 3 months. Softbank didn't make its announcement the same day but I'm pretty sure they're going to do so in a short while. au and DoCoMo are going to have four more models each so for spring there will be 14 kinds of new designs coming out from each carrier.

Because spring is the beginning of the new school year or office year, it is the most busiest time for cell phone companies. A good load of students entering a new school is likely to get new phones as well as freshmen in office because they're going to be using their phones for business on top of private.
Therefore the energy the phone companies give to the spring models is more than extraordinary. They've got to get new customers, and especially after the distinctive victory and defeat among the three companies in the battle of the introduction of the number portability system, they're all going almost mad.

The models for DoCoMo focused on the appearance, of making it thinner and lighter than the previous models. Most of the new ones have the function of wallet-mobile in which your phone carries e-money meaning you can make payments with your phone by just touching a panel with it. This function was only included in the higher and more expensive models, but because the function and system spread wider they made the function more handy for all people.

au, the winner of the number portability battle strengthened the quality of displays and media contents. Not that the displays weren't as good as others, it just made them clearer and more smoother. But more than anything, I think the difference between au and the other two is the passion in designing. au has this project called "design project" which releases models that focuses on artistic designs on top of the spec of the phone, and the ones in this project are designed by the designers of the day or next-generation designers. It was only a couple of days ago that I heard in the news that four models from this design project are going to be kept and displayed in MoMa for its artisticness. The newest one, by the way, looks simple but is covered by this special kind of smooth material that feels soft and comfortable on your skin. They even say it's a new kind of skin. I'd like to feel what it's like, though I'm not sure if I want to have it as my own...

You can read the mobile article on Japan Mode if you want to know more about Japanese cell phones and what kinds of elements have higher priority in making, selling and buying cell phones in Japan.

Okie, I have to make this short cuz I'm really super running out of time.

Today's update: Sakidori Events - Major cultural events in February vol.2: there're five all together but I'll add more in the upcoming week. They're all big events and are very Japanese so even if you can't come you might want to have a look of what kinds of events are being held over the winter. I also got lots of help from city offices so there's a good lot of pictures too.

Comics in Education

2007-01-16T15:26:00.000+09:00

Continuing from yesterday's entry I will go on with manga (Japanese comics). Today I would like to write just briefly how manga can become a great tool for education on creativity and logical, critical thinking.

Comic books tend to be looked down as just something for children to read and is rather cut apart from ideal education, but as can be seen rather clearly, it is a work of art. Of course, the level of art varies from top quality "beautiful" kinds to pretty rough or "unique" ones, but comic as a form of creative artwork does not just stop there. In my opinion, it is one of the ultimate means of presentation of the finest expressions and elements of human beings that can be created by a single person.

Creating a good comic requires good drawing skills but what exactly does this drawing skills mean? It may mean good skills in drawing characters and backgrounds in the "right" proportion and making them look to some extent unrealistically, but a really good artist makes visible the inner expressions i.e., thoughts and emotions, and a really good comic artist can draw thousands of different expressions. Expressions can be seen in the character's face, action, reaction, words and are often times exaggerated a lot. The differences and the exaggeration allows the reader to see the motion and flow of the story.
Imagine a comic strip with excellent artwork, but with poor expressions. I bet it would look plain and boring, or more like a piece of illustration rather than a sequential story.

That brings me to the point of the storyline. When I start reading a new series, I choose mostly by recommendations from my friends but other times I look at the art. But the ones that I feel like I want to keep on reading have good storylines like a good book, and many of my friends say the same. It's probably not too much to say that the quality of a comic book is more determined by the storyline than the artwork. Ones with the combination of the two, plus a fixed theme makes a masterpiece, I think. A good storyline requires a great deal of plotting, logical and critical thinking, and careful revising.

Ones with a good, fixed theme becomes a masterpiece that doesn't fall even after decades since its first publish. It's mostly because it carries a philosphy or throws a universal question that we need to think about at some point. For instance, the works of Tezuka Osamu constantly questions and even challenges the reader with themes like life, death, development, environment and so on. His works may be very exciting stories for small children, but as you grow up you realize that there's a whole lot to think about in his works.

Especially for the very last reason that I just mentioned, comic books of a certain kind or with certain themes are often kept in school libraries for students to read freely. Aside from the pop comics, there are also comic books made on history to make it easier and more entertaining for students to study history. Like this, manga has been in Japanese school education for a while by now.

As for the first two, the art and plot, it is not so much used as education means in school but I think it can become an effective educational tool to solve the problem of the modern lack of imagination and logical thinking among children, and even as a tool for cultivating communication skills. It is quite true that children who read a fair amount of manga have rich imagination and self-presentation abilities than those who don't, and are good at making people laugh and being cooperative with others... only if the kid's interest in manga doesn't go as far as obsession or delusion.

All the above is what I had been discussing with my boss a few days ago, my boss who is a father in the midst of educating his grade-school son using manga.
Well... for two days I've written about manga and I'm afraid that all I wanted to tell is that manga isn't merely a children's crap. But really, some of them is just more than entertainment.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Hot Spring Guide Chubu Region ed. - got started with this hot spring series a couple of months ago (when I wasn't yet a webmistress) and am kind of regretting it cuz it never seems to end... Anybody got any ideas on some features on the website?

The Manga Talk

2007-01-15T14:56:00.000+09:00

I am a working female in her twenties but recently I've been reading a pretty good amount of manga. Manga, for those who don't know, is a Japanaese word for Japanese comics. It certainly is sort of like a very tacit understanding that manga is for children, or teenagers at the oldest, but even then so many of the adult population - from twenties to fifties or even sixties are regular readers of manga, and I guess it's socially acceptable.

Since I have a younger brother and a sister the manga selection in my house is pretty random. A good portion of the bookshelf is dominated by shonen manga (that's comics geared towards teenage boys but girls too read them anyway) mostly coming from the weekly manga magazine JUMP. Shonen manga's got a lot of action, adventure and bits and pieces of erotic essences.

And then, my high school sister's got a collection on shojo manga (for girls) like Fruits Basket - which I recently learned that it's pretty popular outside of Japan as well - and "Bokura ga Ita" (tranlates to "we were there"), a monster hit. Shojo manga mostly if not completely focuses on love romance issues and is extremely popular among teenage girls.

It has always been and still is part of teenager life to lend and borrow manga with your friends in school (just have to do it secretly cuz they're not allowed in school) and expand your manga reading selection. My sister brings loads of manga and she swapped with friends from school. In fact, I myself still do it sometimes in office with my colleague :p

The strong tendency these days is the making of live-action versions of the best selling manga. A good number of manga are made into movies and TV dramas, but there are also stages and musicals. Since I haven't seen any of the musicals I can't really say anything about them but I've been watching a few TV dramas based on manga. It wasn't until very recently that nearly half or even more than hald of the TV dramas we have in the past five years are "based on the manga by ...", not "based on the novel by ...".

Some of them do the justice of the original but in most cases the dramas have their own storyline that don't go as far as a different work or a filler. Two of my favorite works have made into a film and a TV drama: "Honey and clover" into a movie, and "Nodame Cantabile" into a TV drama. Both are... love-romance comedies with a somewhat serious theme... and the latter one was pretty good on TV. I even think it was more comical than the original and easier to follow because it had sounds, which is an essential element in Nodame Cantabile since the comic is on classic music. Right now, my generation's all time favorite "Hana yori Dango" 's 2nd ed. is shown on TV and this one has been made into a TV in Taiwan as "Meteor Garden" way before Japan.

My most recent favorites are PLUTO, a manga based on the manga by "The God of Manga" Tezuka Osamu (the artist of Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atom), Black Jack and SO MANY MORE with deep philosophy) created by Urasawa Naoki, a genious on SF thriller suspense best represented by his works Twentieth Century Boys (film coming out next year) and MONSTER. The only thing about this is that it comes out veeery slowly. Twice a year at the best. So I have to wait a lot.

The other is "Kami no Shizuku" (subtitle: Les Gouttes de Dieu = The Drops of God) a manga on wine. It gives a long but entertaining talk on all kinds of wine (so far mostly French and Italian) and reading this, I tell you, really really makes you want to drink wine :-) I don't know so much about wine - I only appreciate it with cheese as an evening drink - but it's fun to read and gives you knowledge as well as curiosity about the world of wine. The art is pretty good too.

Both these works are personal recommendations, though I'm not quite positive that there're foreign language versions published yet.

As I started writing I came up with another topic on manga so I think I'll write about that tomorrow or some time soon.

Oh, and speaking of manga, we have a small web manga going on our website too. Come have a look, it's free. lol.

Today's update: This Week's Events in Tokyo - January Third Week... there's one on snow, one on video-games and one on fire. Check it out ;-)

Blood Type Characters

2007-01-12T16:47:00.000+09:00

Since there was a question for yesterday's entry, I think I'd write about blood type characters today. It seems like for some reason the comment tool didn't work the question's invisible - it was "what are blood type characters all about (in Japan)?"

Well... to some people, it's about everything. I have a colleague in office who tends to believe in blood type characters and I tease her sometimes calling her a "blood type believer" . The general understanding, regardless the degree you believe in it, is that each blood type out of the four (A/B/AB/O: just ignore the rh+- for now) each represents a certain kinf of character.

(A) For example, people with A-blood are said to be serious, thorough, very punctitilious, careful, not so outgoing, high self-esteem, stick-to-the-rule kind of strict and perfectionist people. For their seriousness, responsible, sensitive and considerate characters, though, they can be relied upon as trusted and calm leaders.

(B) Than B-blood people are sort of accused from other people of being too self-pace. In good and bad ways do not care about what other people are doing. On the brighter side, B-blood people are said to be cheerful and are good at swtiching feelings so can become good leaders, but because s/he can be over-excited by even small compliments s/he can be isolated at times. Perhaps a bit emotional and moody.

(AB) AB people are many times referred to as geniouses and weirdos at the same time. It is commonly understood that people with AB blood type are gifted with many talents especially in the artistic field and are efficient in carrying matters. On the other hand, however, the means and ways of expressing feelings and things may appear awkward at times to other people, therefore the geniousness can turn into weirdness. Not too fit for a leader.

(O) Last but not least, O-blood people are interpreted to be easygoing and outgoing, which the other side can be lazy and disorganized. As opposite to A-type people, O-type people tend to be careless in both good and bad terms. Generally positive about things: have a tendency of believing things'll be somehow all right. Sensitive, bright, and mentally strong. Makes a good leader with upward mobility.

This is all superstituion to I suppose most of the people, but still, a lot of people like to believe it when they want to. Some people are heaviliy influenced though, which I believe isn't a good measure to get to know new people and get along with them. I also think that sometimes it works the other way - meaning, people behave and present themselves (to others and to oneself) accordingly to how each blood type is being portrayed and believed.

To me it's nothing more than other kinds of fortune telling, or less. It's just some entertainment and guideline. The only time I like to classify myself as a member of one blood-type is when I watch the daily blood-type based fortune telling... and only when the results are good :p

I wonder why and how blood type characters became so commonly understood. I bet it's only Japan or if not, very few cultures that distinguish characters by blood type. I know that in some places you don't even check your blood type unless you need to know for medical reasons.

Today's update: webmanga CharmyNurseM Chapter 8 Preview

Fortune Telling

2007-01-11T16:42:00.000+09:00

How many of you believe in fortune telling of any kind? I'm not over-reactive to it, but when I get good results I like to take it positively and believe it just to have a good feeling.

There are so many kinds of fortune telling and I find it even more so in Japan. First of all the variation widens from daily luck reading to year-long or several-year-span future telling, and then the kinds vary from palm reading, paper fortune telling from shrines and temples (what we call omikuji), names, birthdates&birthyears, blood type (like some of you know, Japanese people tend to be strong believers of blood type characters), zodiac, stars, cards... I don't think I can list all the variations of fortune telling in Japan.

Well, today I'd like to write a bit about the omikuji circumstance in Japan. Omikuji is a kind of paper fortune telling, and are available mostly at shrines and temples. When you pay a visit to a shrine or temple you can draw a random piece from a box for about a hundred yen, and it tells you about your luck of the year in several ranks from luckiest to unluckiest (see here for more) and then goes on into the details on the luck of work, studies, marriage, love, traveling, gambling, accomodation, birth giving, money, family, business, lost-and-found, illness, lucky color&direction and so on.

Omikuji is available all year round and there are even shrines/temples that have omikuji in several languages, but it's especially a big thing on New Year's Day since it's the first day of the year and you want to know how your year is going to be like.
This year the popularity seems to be extraordinarily... popular...? Anyway, shrines and temples prepare all kinds of humour omikuji and they say the omikuji are "sold out". I kind of understand it because humour omikuji are kind of special I guess... I mean, they're kind of limited in numbers, but they claim that even the normal went empty in the first 3-4 days. Wow, I bet there're more than usual number of people who're wanting to bet their lives on fortune telling.

It's usually understood that "daikichi" is the luckiest and "kyo" the unluckiest, but when you read the details it isn't necessarily so. Daikichi can have warnings written on it that you can hardly believe you've got a daikichi, and vice versa also happens. Priests of shrines/temples also say that if your mind goes light by drawing a daikichi then the year may prevail out of lack of upward mobility, and on the other hand if you draw a kyo and feel like you have to behave that year the year can turn out nicely.

Personally, I got a "daikichi" this year and am quite happy about it. There was one time I drew a "kyo" at the very end of the year and suffered a terrible time from that same night.

Anyway, today's update on Japan Mode: "Sakidori Events" (couldn't come up with a better name) - well... for those thinking of traveling around Japan in February through March, I've picked out some major long-lasting cultural events being held in Japan. I wanted to cover a wide area, but today I have just a few to start with. Will be adding more in a short while though.

Get the Smoke Out!

2007-01-10T15:47:00.000+09:00

This is my silent scream. I know that second-hand smoking is quite a killer but I've been wondering the past 24 hours if the smell of cigarette is any harm.

Since several years ago, one by one the 23 wards of Tokyo have started banning cigarette smoking in public (=on the streets) but it seems like the policies have barely any effect for I see and suffer from smoke coming from those illegal smokers smoking on the streets. I remember that when the policy started there were staffs from the ward office walking around to check on people's smoking manners and I've seen several times when some of the unlucky ones getting fined Y2,000 but hey, where are all those checkers!? I need them cuz I'm so super sensitive about cigarette smoke and even the smell. I get so upset when people passing by on the street have cigarette in their hands.

As I travel and observe every once in a while, I notice that the public policies on smoking on the streets vary widely across the world. In some countries smoking is no big deal since more than half of the population smokes, and on the other hand some places are extremely strict about public smoking and have serious punishments. As being one of the people who're extremely sensitive on smoke and the smell of cigarettes, I wish that at least this city if not the whole country would become totally smoke-free. Tokyo to me right now, is sometimes a very resident-unfriendly place.

Speaking of resident-unfriendliness, I almost got my bike towed while I was stopping by to grab some lunch at a local convenience store. Can't I even get around my local neighborhood with my bike!? Crazy. Driving too has become hard. Well... as for driving, I don't know which stance to take. It's not the driving regulations but the parking regulations that have become strict. You're basically not allowed to park on the street unless its officially a parking space. That part is understandable. The regulation aims to reduce severe traffic jam. That too is understandable. But the watchers look into the narrowest streets in residential neighborhoods and point out "illegal" parking in front of your house, or a 2-min-parking of delivery services (inc. mail deliverers).

Why have our society become such a place where its people have to live in mental and physical suffering whereas the policies should be improving it?

..Well, so that was my scream that I can't really let it out loud in office. Guess why...

Today's Update on Japan Mode: Kanji Names - "5 Most Popular Names for Babies born in Japan in 2006"
We've had non-Japanese names converted and displayed on our website for a while, and I've talked about Japanese baby names in the past entries for this blog, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time to feature Japanese names on the website. See what Japanese names are like!

Fly Out

2007-01-09T15:46:00.000+09:00

Most of the offices in the country were closed until Wednesday because of New Year's Holidays last week, and because this past weekend was a three-day-weekend, a whole lot of people took off Thursday and Friday so that they can have a 10-day-holiday. If this was only a 5-day-holiday or so, then the number of people flying out of the country probably wouldn't have gone up so much, but when people have ten days off from work and have just recieved their yearend bonus salary, they'd surely be tempted to go on a vacation abroad.

People who fully enjoyed their holidays till the last minute flew back into Japan yesterday (and a lot of them go to work today) and the TV news said that the number of travelers flying outside of Japan this yearend and New Year's holidays was the largest ever since some organization (perhaps the airport?) started counting and keeping records.

The popular destinations were beach resorts such as Hawaii, Guam, Saipan, that direction as always, but according to some travel agencies and airports destinations in China seems to be picking up as well as the Southeast Asian places which suffered a huge damage the last couple of winters, by many means. It seems like so many people wanted to escape the cold here :p
I am so super jealous. I love traveling.

Anyway, the news also said that the number of three-day-weekends this year in Japan increases a little bit so a whole lot of people in the tourism industry are quietly excited about their prospects.
So if there're anybody in the tourism industry in and outside of Japan, this year would be a huge chance to attract Japanese tourists to your places!!

In relation to this, I'm thinking of setting a section on Japan Mode to promote towns and cities. You know, like "town of the month" or sth like that. If there's anyone out there who wants to write an article of a couple of pages and have it published on Japan Mode (most likely under Japan Guide) give me a holler here or send an e-mail to the address written on Japan Mode. It could be any town or city, within or outside of Japan, as long as you are wanting to "link" Japan and your town/city/country. The idea's still tentative, but I'm sure we can work out something brilliant *sparkles*

Today's update on Japan Mode: This Week's Events in Tokyo ... gathered some info on events you can only see at the beginning of the year.

The "First xxx"...

2007-01-05T12:36:00.000+09:00

Happy New Year!! I wish you all a happy and exciting year 2007 :-)

I'd been thinking about what to write for today's entry for a while - there are a couple of personal things I have in mind but since they aren't exactly cheerful news I think I'd be a typical writer today writing about New Year's Holidays in Japan, of what it's like.

New Year's Day and the holidays before and after January 1st is I think the most significant event/holidays in Japan culturally and religiously. There are dozens of traditions that are practiced during these holidays but I'm not going to go about explaining all of them here.
Just to give an idea of a typical way of spending New Year's holidays...
Many families travel back to the parents' hometowns to greet grandpas grandmas and relatives, clean up the house in the last couple of days of December, eat year-crossing soba noodles, go see the first sunrise of the year, go out to pay their first visits of the year to the shrine or temple, eat osechi (New Year's dishes) together, greet their neighbors, maybe go out for some shopping... but basically just relax at home.

What I want to write about is the "first xxx" (I mean, not kisses but ex-ex-ex ye know) like I have in the title. Since January 1st is the beginning of the brand new year, whatever you do on January 1st counts as the "first xxx" of the year and I'm not sure why but there is a tendency in Japanese culture and society of making a big deal out of this "first xxx" ("hatsu xxx").

Hatsuhinode is the first sunrise of the year and is important I assume from religious reasons. Shinto(ism) the Japanese religion praises the nature and because the most significant of gods of nature is the sun, seeing the first sunrise of the year is said to bring happiness. A lot of people go out to the coast or climb up the winter mountains to see the first sunrise.

The first dream you see is hatsuyume and is believed to sort of tell one's fortune of the year. Just fyi the luckiest dreams are said to be #1-Mt.Fuji (tallest mt in Japan) #2-hawk (taka<takai=high) and #3-eggplant (nasubi<nasu=to achieve) and it goes on.

Hatsumoude, another "hatsu" thing that many people are involved in is the first visit of the year to the shrine and/or temple and this too kinds of plays a role in determining the fortune of the year. The number of total visitors to shrines/temples this year went up to almost 100million (out of the national population 126mil) in the first 3 days.
I got a daikichi (luckiest luck) for my hatsumikuji, the first fortune-telling (sheet of paper) so that brings me great hope for my new year... and I'm also a toshionna (zodiac of the year) so that's even better ;-)

What else... hatsuuri is the first bargain... this is a festival and a battle at the same time.
I can't think of more right now, but basically you can put "hatsu" in front of anything you do for the first time that year. I guess Japanese are a kind of people who want to make the littlest events festivals and celebrate them, lol.

Okie, today's update on Japan Mode: CharmyNurseM Chapter 7

P.S. Question to all the readers out there: does anybody want to talk about their experiences in Japan or just about their towns/cities/countries on Japan Mode?

Prefectural Characters

2006-12-29T16:14:00.000+09:00

I notice that topics on national characters come up in our daily conversations a lot at least here in Japan like Japanese people are very serious and all that, but what about characters within the country?

I was watching this end-of-the-year special show on TV and it was on what's called in Japanese "kenminsei" (prefectural characters) and it was very interesting and extremely funny.
When I switched the channel nearly half of the show was already over but it happened to be talking about people's general character in Miyazaki Prefecture, a place that I have never been to nor have any friends that are from. It's located in southern Japan and is a very sunny and easy-going prefecture... is what I learned from the show.

The prefecture ranks first place among all 47 prefectures in Japan in the total amount of money spent on pachinko and also shochu (a kind of Japanese liquor) as well. It depends on how you interpret this - on one hand it's a relaxed and easy-going character which isn't over-serious about work and knows how to take things easy, but on the other hand it could be described unserious and lazy. I decided to take it in the former stance though. Results of a survey the show conducted how challenging (not in a hostile sense) Miyazaki People are or positive about sink or swim situations. Whereas people from some other prefectures are very conservative or reluctant to do anything risky, these Miyazaki-born Miyazaki-grown people looked very positive about taking a chance.

Hokkaido Prefecture was given the title of the most sound and conservative prefecture in Japan. Apparantly most people born, grown up and live in Hokkaido all their lives don't consider themselves to have such rock-solid minds, but it was funny because what they were telling the interviewers were definitely rock-solid. Residents of Hokkaido who're originally from other prefectures describe Hokkaido people to be very serious and conservative e.g., they don't smile more than necessary whilst there are prefectures which its residents are always smiling.
Analysts claim that the seriousness of Hokkaido people comes from the pioneer spirit. Being descendants of the pioneers who broke ground and built their lives on the north island of rich but harsh nature conditions, they aren't so easy-going and are earnest. The admirable point of their character is that they love their prefecture. The prefecture ranks last in the chart of residents who want to move out from the prefecture.

The other prefecture that left a huge impression was Aichi. It was the biggest eater prefecture of the country. Here "big eater" doesn't mean big in amount (actually it does) but the custom of eating is quite different. Breakfast is like dinner in Tokyo in respect of amount, and mixing is a conspicuous characteristic that too many of the residents show to call it individual character. I was writing about oyster and ice cream the other day, but the mixing here goes way above. Very challenging.

It's becoming too long so I'll stop soon, but the idea of prefectural characters even apart from this show is pretty wide spread among Japanese people. By the way, I've grown up most of my life in Tokyo so I guess I can claim to be from Tokyo, but because Tokyo has more people from other prefectures than those purely from Tokyo there isn't really a symbolic prefectural character as conspicuous as others. My parents from Shizuoka - the tea and tangerine pref - agreed with the show that they're somewhat relaxed (prolly due to the warm sunny climate) but are generally serious and conservative about work.

I bet there're are state/district/county/etc. characters in other countries too, just like people having nationalism for countries. I'd be curious to know what they're like.

Today's updates on Japan Mode - and this is the last update for year 2006: webmanga CharmyNurseM Chapter 7 preview.

Okay my readers, hope you all had a wonderful year 2006 and wish you a happy year 2007!!

Fashion and Tradition

2006-12-28T17:14:00.000+09:00

Take off your apron and wear a "maekake" - maekake (pronounced: ma - eh - ka - keh), a Japanese style traditional apron which has been around in Japan for quite a few centuries now is becoming a silent boomlet these days.

Even with the long history though, maekake is not too common for it is a king of a working outfit or perhaps part of the uniform for those workers (mostly men) who work at liquor shops, Japanese sake factories, soy sauce factories, miso factories, those kinds of places. It is a large apron worn around the waist and down to the middle of your shins, made of thick strong cotton or cotton linen, usually dyed with indigo and has prints in white in the middle of the cloth. It's sort of like a sommelier's apron only in terms of shape. The prints are of the names of the factory/shop/cellar and its emblem mark. Maekake developed as an apron for these occupations for the fabric is strong enough to endure heavy load work and protect the workers' legs from being hurt.

The main reason for maekake to become popular especially among the younger generation is the design. As I just wrote, a common maekake is in two Japanese traditional colors - deep indigo and white - and also with the writings the entire design gives this sense of "iki" (Edo stylishness) and is pretty hot among the young workers (who wear aprons for work) who are keen on dressing themselves modern-fashionable and traditional at the same time. Since maekake is originally made to be customized with respective names and marks, non-originally-Japanese places such as Western style cafes and Chinese restaurants are also ordering maekake to wear for work.

As seen in this example, traditional Japanese-ness in fashion is slowly gaining attention lately. Sometimes I wonder if it's one of those subconcious warnings your mind gives yourself, to not completely lose your identity of being a citizen of the culture you're born in. Or maybe it's just individual preference in fashion.
The maekake designs are taken into casual fashion like T-shirts and blue jeans too. They're actually pretty cool.

Well so, when you get a chance to come to Japan and don't know what to buy for souvenirs for family and friends try heading to one of those shops (not only clothing shops but sake cellers sell maekake now) and get one.

Today's update on Japan Mode: kanji name conversion - I haven't had conversion examples updated for a while but here it comes again. We're still not ready for new orders though, sorry.

Oyster and Ice Cream

2006-12-27T18:22:00.000+09:00

I'm not kidding and this isn't a title of a song or a book or anything like that.

It's the oyster season here and oyster is generally popular in Japan, but the business is about to collapse this winter. The Norovirus spreading so surprisingly rapid across the nation is been said to be a kind of a food poisoning coming from clams and shellfish and naturally when those kind of warnings go around the business faces a really hard time.

One of the ports in Japan's leading oyster fishing (fishing?) prefecture Okayama decided to sell this menu "Ice Cream with Fried Oyster" and it is selling off so well. I saw a picture of it, and it was a vanilla ice cream (actually what we call "softcream" and not really ice cream) with two pieces of fried oyster stuck into the top part of the cream, with a bit of sashimi soy sauce poured on top.

UMMMMM....... not for me, no thanks.

It's sold at Y250 per cone (that's about slightly more than a couple of bucks) and the inventors say that more than 100 cones sell on weekends. I bet a lot of those 100 were bought out from pure curiosity, but anyway, how did they come up with the idea of combining ice cream and fried oyster???

Speaking of ice cream (btw I love ice cream) Japan has a whole selection of weird ice creams like shrimp, green onion, gyutan (ox tongue), miso, chicken wing...... My favorites of course are regular flavors and I don't even feel like adventuring around these - but wow, I'm impressed by the creative brains of all these inventors.

What kind of abnormal ice cream do you have in your country?

SLAM DUNK Scholarship

2006-12-26T18:06:00.000+09:00

I hear that the Japanese manga artist Inoue Takehiko best known for his works "SLAM DUNK" "REAL" and "Vagabond" has set up a basketball scholarship "SLUM DUNK Scholarship" together with the publisher Shueisha, for teenage basketball players in Japan. Scholars are chosen from Juniors in Japanese high schools who are eager to brush up their basketball skills after graduation, and aim to play in NBA in the future. The fund will help the scholars go to basketball prep schools and support them financially.

Basketball in Japan is by no means a minor sport, but comparing to baseball and soccer the playing population is small and the level is pretty low - "pretty low" as long as we consider us to be weak.
That is the Inoue's message.
"Japan is weak" "Japanese people aren't really suited for basketball as a competing sport"
This is what Inoue wished to eliminate from our minds. Sure, the chances for the Japanese team to win over teams from other countries are small, but that's not only because we aren't trained as well in the sport. Part of it is because we perceive ourselves to be unsuited for the sport and as long as we continue doing so we will never achieve higher levels.

Inoue wants to give hope to children and teenagers who purely enjoy playing basketball and dreams to become a pro player and tell them that there is no wall of "impossibility". The program is also his way of showing gratitude to all the basketball lovers.

Perhaps the idea of establishing a scholarship fund isn't so new and innovating, but I liked his message of not only wanting to support those who dream to become a pro player but also to encourage them that it's not impossible and that there's always a chance. I bet so many kids' hearts brightened up with the news. I'm excited to know how the program turns out even though I probably won't know the results for another few years.

A short and easy one for today.
See the Slam Dunk Scholarship official website for more. It's only available in Japanese though...

Today's update on Japan Mode: Hot Spring Guide "Kanagawa Prefecture" - it's so hard to try to pick out a few hot spring resorts out of sth like 3,000 all together in this country. I don't think I'll ever be able to completely finish this section.

An Hour for Doughnuts

2006-12-25T16:26:00.000+09:00

One of my co-workers told me a few days ago that there's a new kind of doughnut not that just went on sale not too far from the office and that he was going to stop by that night for dinner ("Doughnuts for dinner!? - "Why not?"). At that time I wasn't really informed in details what kind of a shop it was so I didn't know that it was a brand new shop, but anyway a couple of days later I decided to go have a look on the way back home.

I found the doughnut shop and it turned out to be the American Krispy Kreme Doughnuts and as I tried to find the entrance.... I realized that there was a loooooong line stretching out from the entrance. The line went in zig-zags in front of the shop and the people who couldn't fit in the open space in front of the shop formed a line on the other side of the shop.
I asked the person holding the "end of line" board and asked him if it was always like that and he told me that it's been worse in that past week ever since its grand opening on Dec.15th as the first KKD in Japan. I was also told that even though the shop's business hours are 7:00-23:00 they close earlier b/c of the lack of supplies.

I wanted a doughnut but I wasn't in the mood of getting in a line of an hour so I gave up that night. I still want to try these KKD doughnuts though. Guess I'll have to wait for another month if I want it w/out the trouble.

Well so, that's one example of another something from across the ocean becoming hot in Japan. Anything new here has a great chance of huge success, especially if its targeted towards young women. Most of the people in line were women in their 20s to 30s and their boyfriends (who apparantly wore tired looks on their faces) and they do not mind the cold or the wind or the hunger at 20:00 if they could get the doughnut in the news. A good deal of people are easily influenced by the phrase "the hottest (product/service) in (country name)!" even if it really isn't THAT hot... so... if any of you are seeking a business chance in Japan, there's one tip. Whatever you want to sell has to have good quality, but with a little exaggeration people would jump at it.

BTW I had a chance to go see the papabubble candy shop (see this entry) in Tokyo... and the tiny shop was full of people and barely had any candies left!

Today's update on Japan Mode: This Week's Events in Tokyo (and it's the last week of 2006)

TV Commercials

2006-12-22T12:25:00.000+09:00

The December ranking chart for the most popular TV commercials in Japan have been annouced today and the winner for December was this series "gas-pa-cho" which is a kind of a new gas heating system. The survey is conducted monthly and generation-separately and in fact this CM series won first place among the high school students in the past but this is the first time to rank top among older generations.

In Japanese culture TV commercials are kind of like a part of entertainment: of course their primary focus is to fulfill the purpose of advertising the product, but taking that for granted they have to be fun.

So to make the commercials entertaining, many of them feature famous figures especially showbiz celebrities. I once heard that in the States, celebrities like Hollywood actors/actresses appearing in TV commercials kind of denotes the decline of the person in that career. I don't know how true that is, but it's exaclty the opposite in Japan. The more popular you are the more commercial offers you get.
In my analysis, Japanese people tend to charismatize and idolize pop stars and dream of wanting to become like them so that's what makes using pop stars in commercials effective ways to promote the product.

The other way to attract TV viewers to the commercial besides using famous figures and maitaining high level of visual artistic quality is to make it like a short short ongoing drama of just a few seconds.

The most successful commercials lately using this method was KDDI's CM on "au" (mobile carrier). Not only it featured the popular actress Nakama Yukie, each commercial for "au" for this certain period was like fragments of a story. The "au" original song that Nakama sang as a singer in the commercial too became so popular that they released it as a single CD.

Credit card company Life's CM is another long-run hit. This one feature's another pop actor Odagiri Jo and the way the commercials end is just like how a soap opera ends each air. At the very end it says "see website for more" and this proves to be extremely effective. Like the song in "au" this item "lifecard" Odagiri uses in the CM is now made into a product for sale.

Going back to "gas-pa-cho" - this is actually my favorite commercial at the moment. There are several versions, and each of them pick up famous historical figures like Galileo Galilei, Flemming, Beethoven, Oda Nobunaga, Onono Imoko, Newton, the Chushingura samurais, Shakespeare (and is interpretor) so on so forth with the actor Tsumabuki Satoshi playing the protagonist. This commercial so marvelously turns these "difficult figures" of the history textbook in to a 10-second-comedy that makes you chuckle if not burst our laughing.

The first one of this series that I saw was Galileo Galilei ver. and this really caught me. My favorite now is Onono Imoko ver. I think many of them are available on YouTube so if you're curious to see what they're like, go to YouTube and search "gas-pa-cho" ;-)

Today's update on Japan Mode:
Holiday Giveaway 1. "CharmyNurseM" Special Christmas E-cards... send out exclusive CharmyNurseM Christmas Cards to your friends!
Holiday Giveaway 2. "CharmyNurseM" Christmas Desktop Wallpaper... available in two sizes 1024x768 and 800x600

Popular Names

2006-12-21T17:20:00.000+09:00

The top popular names for newborn babies in Japan this year have been announced today. I don't know about other cultures, but in Japan names are definitely a kind of mirror that reflects the society, what kinds of events happened and who the heroes were during the year.

For example, the most popular name for newborn boys this year is "Riku" which means "land" in Japanese. It ranked 14th place last year but made it all the way to the top in one year. It's not that there was a national hero like an athelete who achieved incredible results, but there are analyses that in this age of social instability like the widening disparities and so forth, name like Riku that are associated to grandness or stability became popular. It's interesting that the popular kanjis for boy's name last year was "ocean".

Other popular boy's names include those using the first kanji for the newborn prince's name Hisahito. The kanjo for the part Hisa can also be read Yuu, and the character itself means "far and away" "relaxed" "at ease".
Because the winning pitcher for the national high school baseball tournament Saito Yuuki's name - though not the same "Yuu" as the Prince - includes a different kanji for "Yuu", names like Yuuto, Yuuki, Yuuta came into higher ranks (7 of them in the Top 100).

The other name that jumped to a higher rank is "Daisuke" undoubtedly coming from the professional baseball player Matsuzaka Daisuke who successfully made his way to the MLB. The kanji for this name means "big, grand" and "to help".

As for girl's names, "Hina" came in first place for the second consecutive year. The kanji for Hina is "sun" and the flower "field mustard". They both provoke the images of warmness and girly prettiness. There are 13 names that end with this particular "na" ranked in the top 100, and quite a few with the kanji "love" and a range of flowers.

Quite a number of baby girls got their names from figure skater Asada Mao who placed second place in the Grand Prix Final which closed just a couple of days ago. In addition to being a really good skater, she has a bright and charming character so I guess that's what boosted up the popularity of that name.

To sum up - names associated to future hope for boys, and good character for girls. I mean, both hopes are included in most of the names regardless the gender but as a general tendency I think I can conclude it this way. Generally speaking, in an age when the future looks foggy names associated to hope and stability increase and on the other hand, at times of prosperity names related to strength come in higher positions. For girls... maybe the tendency isn't as clear as boys.

And there's always the other major way of naming babies which is to borrow a character or two from the parents' names. In my case, I don't inherit a kanji from neither of my parents and my name doesn't even mean anything in Japanese, but I inherited the meaning of "friend" from my mother's name.

Those of you interested in names and/or kanji can come see the kanji section on Japan Mode. Some time soon I may update the page with year 2006's top 5 baby names. But for today, I have an article on the film "Sakuran" published. The film's only going to be released in Japan next February but is another one on geisha (actually "oiran") so if you're interested come have a look!

The Miyazaki Clock

2006-12-20T16:58:00.000+09:00

The huge carillon clock built on the outer walls of Nippon Televison Broadcasting Center in Shiodome is about to move. This clock known as Nittere-Ohdokei (NTV Grand Clock) is designed by the world famous Ghibli animator and film director Miyazaki Hayao and resembles a bit the castle in "Howl's Moving Castle".

It's got lots of hidden tricks in it, and those tricks are going to be revealed after 5 years of careful planning, designing and building. The great clock will move from 11:00 - 19:00 from tomorrow through Christmas day, and regularly from next Tuesday the 26th.

I haven't seen the actual thing since I don't have a chance to pass by Shiodome, but I am quite curious to see it move. Being a fan of Miyazaki's rich imagination, deepness of the story and the artwork that marvelously puts those into shape that can move people's hearts, I want to see his works in this world.

Here's the link to the clock's official website: http://www.ntv.co.jp/tokei/ It's in Japanese but do have a look if you're a Miyazaki fan.

Today's update on Japan Mode: Photo Gallery "Asakusa Hagoita-Ichi" - it's a small collection of the Japanese battledore fair which was held at Sensoji Temple in Asakusa from last Sunday untill yesterday. I went to take the pictures on the first day and it was pretty exciting. Thousands of battledore with fabulous artwork and crafts skills were sold, and thousands of poeple were there.

Swelling

2006-12-19T17:56:00.000+09:00

It's getting colder and colder, and it's finally starting to feel like winter. I don't really mind the low temperature but what bothers me so much this season is the swelling of my legs. I know it's not just the cold that makes my legs swell so badly because I spend my entire day sitting in front of the computer in an office so steaming hot (hey, where's the env-friendly eco policy?) and most of it's probably due to lack of sufficient excercise but anyway I am almost depressed by how swollen and dull my legs become by the end of the day everyday.

Last night I was sitting in the bathtub and rubbing my legs for some massage and they felt like huge chunks of meat. It wasn't muscle nor fat, it was the texture of heavy rubbery meat. I continued the massage after I was out of bath but no matter how much I worked on it my legs felt so... gross. I wasn't like, "these aren't my legs!"

Anyway, I was wondering how people deal with this around the world. I don't really think the preventions and solutions are universal, so I'm looking for a better way to get rid of this problem. Does anybody here know a good way of preventing and/or eliminating it?

Today's update on Japan Mode: Special Report "omotesando akarium collection" ... finished it, and got lots of photos (I worked all day on this)

Fish Sausage

2006-12-18T18:02:00.000+09:00

It was in the news today that fish sausage is gradually regaining social acknowledgment these days. Before, fish sausage was only something like a replacement for proper meat sausage and it was by no means a menu that was regarded as really a dish.

But in 21st century Japan, fish sausage is gaining attraction as a health food. It contains a rich amount of DHA and other nutritious components that reduces or solves various health issues. There even appeared a kind that became the country's first (government) specified health food product (no sure if that's the correct translation... sth like that) and it's selling sooo well among middle aged women especially.

Well, sounds like a healthy social tendancy. It sounds right that healthy food is being given more attention than before. But come to think of it, it wasn't just public unpopularity that made the fish sausage market shrink. A large part of it was due to the decrease of marine resources. I thought that the decrease hasn't stopped. Well then, how can the market grow bigger?

Anyway, fish sausage. Frankly I haven't had so many chances to taste it, but it's not so bad. It's just not the same as meat meat. Health conscious people, try some fish sausage.

Oooh, today's update: This week's events in Tokyo - December 4th Week AND Winter Illumination (finally finished it a week before Christmas.phew)

New Year's Cards

2006-12-15T13:16:00.000+09:00

New Year's day is culturally the most important day in Japan and there is this tradition to send out New Year's postcards to people connected to you thanking them for their goodness and kindness in the past year and wishing them a happy new year. This postcard doesn't have to be of a particular kind and the designs truly vary from ready-to-send printed ones to cards that are individually hand-drawn. Either way, many people prefer to use the cards issued by the post office (they're plain white cards so that you can design it freely) because there's some fun to them.

Each of the post office issued new year's cards have several digit numbers written down at the corner, and if you received those you have a chance of winning some great New Year's Prizes. The prizes for the drawing range from post stamps at the lowest (the last two digits, I think) to a trip to some hot spring resort or a foreign summer resort (all numbers need to match). I've never won anything more than post stamps (but they're special kinds limited in design) but every year, myself as well as everybody in my family anticipate and compete in how many New Year's postcards each receive and who wins what... or none. It's just a small new year's happiness.

Having explained about New Year's cards, though, I do think that the total number of cards being sent snail mail are decreasing due to the rapid increase of the use of cell phones. Ever since I got my first cell phone I've been receiving more New Year's messagaes through text mail so much more than those cards. It's a whole lot handier and saves LOTS of time, yes, but it's a bit sad not because I have less chances of winning something, but because it feels like the feelings of warmth and appreciation is being lost.

The post office issued postcards have gone on sale just today (forgot to say, this kind is sold only for a limited time) and it's about time we start sorting out the addresses and come up with some ideas for the designs.
Don't mean to say that e-stuff are iron cold, but some things I prefer the troublesome manual ways.

Today's update on Japan Mode: webmanga CharmyNurseM Chapter 6

Green Tea and Wa

2006-12-14T17:32:00.000+09:00

I am a tea-person and though I enjoy all kinds of tea, my favorite of all is Japanese green tea. Part of it may be the fact that all my grandparents live in Japan's top green tea producing prefecture, but put aside that, I like the fragrance and taste. Most times the bottled drinks I buy at supermarkets and convenience stores are green tea of one kind or another, and I like to pour some hot green tea after dinner.

It was in the news a couple of days ago that lately green tea's pretty big in many countries around the world. The day people appreciate it varies depending on the country but as far as I know most of the "drinking methods" involve a whole lot of sugar and flavor addition. Um...

Like I wrote in the "Authenticity" article I don't want to be to nationalist on the ways food and drinks from Japan are being enjoyed outside of Japan, but personally, I don't appreciate green tea to be sweet or fruity. I have experiences trying what was called green tea in the States and also in Singapore and I was shocked by the taste. They were nothing like what I expected to be. I mean, the taste was good as a beverage but it wasn't any kind of green tea that I've known of.
I hear that the reason for green tea to be so popular is because of its rich health effects, but how healthy is it if you add so much sugar...?

Anyway, green tea has been around in Japan for more than a millennium and it is so naturally a part of our daily diet, but it has been re-gathering attention and re-picking up popularity in the past couple of years. In another words, green tea is huge in Japan too like other parts of the world. The reason for its popularity is more or less the same as elsewhere, its rich health benefits. I won't go into it right now because I want to write an article about it not on this blog but on Japan Mode.

I also suppose that the whole movement of reflecting back on "Japanese-ness" or the "Wa" boom lately plays a role, too. Not so much about the fact of drinking green tea but the prints and patterns on the bottles and packages as well as the tiny free gifts or campaigns the manufacturers hold are deeply related to "Wa". "Wa" is like nationalism - NOT in the sense of politics, but culture and tradition. Since a large part of Japanese culture and tradition has to do with living in harmony with the nature, looking back at "wa" arouses a sense of comfort (which in Japanese English is called "healing") and relaxation in this society of chaotic busyness and overabundance of materials.

So, that's the 21st century green tea situation in Japan.
And today's update: Green Tea (go figure) - it's actually going to be a series cuz there's a lot I want to write about, and "Green Tea" is supposedly going to be the first series for this section called "Japanese Tea Culture" in which I plan to add the situations in Japan for Chinese tea and English tea.

The Last? Business Resource

2006-12-13T16:47:00.000+09:00

"Early bird catches the worm"...

With the air cooling down more and more each day, getting up early in the morning could be one big trouble... well, at least it is for me. I was assuming that it is the case for many people in this hectic business city, but maybe it's not.

I read a news article today telling that "early morning activities" are picking up popularity among the working generations at an amazingly fast speed. An event called "Morning Expo" held in Marunouchi, one of Tokyo's core business districts that carries 240,000 workers, attracted nearly 1,100 participants quickly filling up the capacity of the nine-day-long event. The activities included various class from hula dancing to how to make excellent morning coffee to even lectures on science held by astronauts.

Many of the participants commented that they were glad they took this opportunity to get up early and do something before work. The organizer of the Morning Expo analyzes that just doing something you like with a tiny bit of extra time pleases your ming and body, and getting up early which is something you're usually relunctant to do gives you a sense of achievement. Plus, the trains are less crowded so overall, the morning project takes away a lot of stress from your weekday life. It gives you more room mentally, too.

Morning activities might be potential business chances for the participants as much as they are for the organizers. These activities are a great chance to get to know someone completely outside of your daily job routine and expands the human network. Even cutting apart the business chance part, it still is a healthy way (I guess) to get to know new people face to face in this age of "invisible" human relationships.

This attempt, if it continues and establishes as a common practice, will bring larger social latent effects. It is well known that late nights, late mornings, mal-nutritious breakfasts (not to mention skipping breakfast) hugely affect healthy growth of children, and these factors are most times deeply associated with the living rhythm of the parents. The early morning projects have a great potential of improving the health of the larger society.

So everybody, get up an hour earlier! Early birds are cool!

Having giving so many good points about early mornings, I still don't think I want to (nor can ever) reduce my sleep in the morning. C'mon, it's one of the things you just can give up.

This Year's Kanji

2006-12-12T17:46:00.000+09:00

Every year we choose a kanji that well reflects or concludes the year, and this year's has been chosen today. It's "inochi" which means "life". It does look like a good kanji, but considering the events and incidents happening this year it is pretty heavy.

Of course, there were happy occasions such as the birth of a new prince (I'm not going to argue whether his birth as a "prince" is happy or not) but uncountable number of sad and cruel events related to life have happened that my feeling for this choice is more associated with death like murder of very young children and suicides committed by teenagers.

The year's kanji has been chosen since 1995 by public poll, and the kanji that came in second place was "yuu" or the first kanji for the newborn prince's name. Third place was "to live".

We've only got less than three weeks of year 2006. I hope next year would become a bit more cheerier.

Today's update: Report - Omotesando akarium Collection

description: it's a report on a fashion show I went to see last week held in Omotesando, the center of Japan's arts & designs & mode. It was on winter fashion this year and was pretty fun. Couldn't finish writing up the whole thing so today's update is only the first half but I've got lots of photos.

Authenticity

2006-12-11T17:49:00.000+09:00

There has been a minor but major dispute arising lately on Japanese cuisine outside of Japan. I'm sure some of you are quite aware of the issue for (at least what we hear on the news in Japan) the topic seems to be pretty hot on papers and news these days especially in the West.

To very briefly explain the situation to those reader who don't know about this problem: (I don't know who decided to pick on this question and how, but anyways) in a word, the Japanese government is complaining that very few of the so-called "Japanese" restaurants serve authentic Japanese food and is trying to start with the restaurants ratings system of how "Japanese" the place is, or to explain it a little clearer (but harsher) whether the restaurant is actually "Japanese" at all. Some media is criticizing this act as nationalism.

True, traveling around US, Europe and even in Southern East Asia I have had experiences encountering some... odd... "Japanese" food. Describing the food "odd" doesn't necessarily mean the taste is bad because in fact the tastes of food could be amazingly good, but there are some cases in which the ingredients or the recipes don't look Japanese at all. Tempura can be fries of many kinds of food, but hey, bananas barely grow in our country.

What happens a lot is the mixing of Far-East Asian cuisines. Something Japanese and Korean and Chinese can all be mixed and called authentic dish fromo either one of the cultures, and if you're not someone from those cultures or not a gourmet, it might be that those differences don't really matter as long as you enjoy the food.

The news tells us that only 10% of the Japanese restaurants in the US are actually owned by Japanese people, and there are many that don't even have a single Japanese cook. I wouldn't directly conclude that not having a Japanese cook or a staff would lose authenticity in the food they offer, but I am pretty sure the authenticity level would drop.

The largest part of the controversy is probably the ratings for the menus that evolved in the foreign culture but from original Japanese recipe such as California Roll Sushi. Sure, it's sushi but it was invented in California. But then, it's true that may Japanese residents outside of Japan enjoy the menu and we even reimported it into Japan.

Personally... I can't decide on which side to take without hesitation. Being a Japanese, I do have pride in our culture and food so I don't want people to misunderstand what's truly authentic and what's been created based on the original. At the same time, however, I do think that once a culture travels outside of its origin it's quite natural to adapt to where it lands. We too in Japan have all kinds of imported food cultures and many of us mix one with another at some point.

What I see a lot, and increasingly these days, are restaurants calling themselves "creative Japanese" "creative French" "creative Italian" "creative...". In many cases the cooks go through trainings in authentic cuisine of one culture or another, and then opens his/her own restaurant that serves "inspring" creative cuisine.

Sounds like the best solution, but then I assume that in the end, attaching the "creative" part or not requires some kind of rating system.

Today's update: This Week's Events in Tokyo - December 3rd Week

Too Much Food

2006-12-08T16:38:00.000+09:00

Do you know the self-sufficiency ratio of food supplies for your country? Our number is extremely low, somewhere between 20-40% depending on how you calculate it. That means that we are dependent on more than half or actually most of the food we feed ourselves with, including the main crucial products such as soy beans.

What I want to write about today, though, isn't about the ratio but how some of the food we can grow by ourselves is being wasted. Here I'm not talking about left-overs but raw vegetables in perfect condition waiting to be harvested.

Due to the perfect weather conditions for growing agricultural products this past autumn, we have more than enough winter vegetables in the fields. Chinese cabbage, Japanese radish, cabbage, onions and so on are being dumped in huge volumes like thousands of tons. It's so sad to see them being dumped or run over by agriculture tractors. They're not soggy at all, are in perfect shape and I bet the taste is excellent too.

The national government decided on this action to protect the farmers from vegetable inflation. Indeed, the prices for these vegetables have already dropped to less than half the average price. This policy adjustment of food demand and supply was adopted 26 years ago (I think, 26) and there has only been one year that our country didn't need to do this.

By just watching the news I bet a lot of people wonder whether those vegetables really have to be destroyed. There must be some alternative way - the TV commentators also say. Some people suggest on making them into pickles like we do with many kinds of food. Others say that because we are totally dependent on imports for ingredients for frozen food we can use part of it for that. Some others wonder if we can export them abroad or grant them to countries in need of food. But then in the end, the first two aren't so efficient in terms of volume because it will only use a small portion and a great volume will still be wasted, and the last one brings up other issues like hygiene problems and cost.

I guess crushing and dumping is the easiest and cheapest way to "adjust" demand and supply.
It's reasonable, but it's really "mottainai". I remember that not too long ago we were extremely short of green vegetables and the prices were 4 times expensive than average. Every year some part of the country suffers typhoon attacks that destroy the fields with fruit and vegetables waiting to be harvested in just two more days.

How does your government act to these kinds of situations?

Today's update: webmanga Charmy Nurse M Chapter 6 Preview

Culture and Entertainment

2006-12-07T18:31:00.000+09:00

Ever since - or even before I took over this post as a webmistress for Japan Mode, I've been trying to think everyday what kind of things I should post.

Okay, I've been involved in this project for a year and I do know what kind of contents we have added and how my ex-boss and us staffs have worked hard on it, but since it just celebrated it's 1st anniversary a couple of months ago and because I want the site to focus on "something" rather than making it too general, I thought I'd point to the site in some direction and I guess... that would be cultural entertainment.

Not just "culture" because there already are a lot of websites that introduces Japanese culture and culture shock experiences. I actually think it's about time to go beyond mere descriptions and explanations on culture... but how...?

I also want to make it a website that people living outside of Japan can enjoy. Right now I feel like it's more targeted towards residents in Japan, more specifically Tokyo, because a lot of the information is on destination & event guides.

So what I need....... suggestions from you viewers out there!! Tell me what kind of information is needed and more importantly fun. I want to make the website "fun" just as much as it is informative.

Not that I meant to play with it, but I did include some hidden (internal) links on the top page of "Tokyo Event" for some people to explore - just for fun.

Okie, todays update: winter illumination 2006 Yokohama and Kobe ver.

New Year's Bargain

2006-12-06T18:09:00.002+09:00

This morning I was watching the news on TV and it featured year 2007's New Year's Bargain. New Year's Bargain in Japanese is usually called "hatsuuri" or "fukubukuro" and each year the department stores and malls turn into chaotic battlefields.

Races for fukubukuro - which literally translates to "luck bag" or "happiness bag" - is especially fierce because the contents of the bags are worth many times of the bag's price. For example, the fashion fukubukuro the news showed this morning was 8,400 yen (tax included; about US$75 more or less) but contained items worth 6 times. Fukubukuro for clothing is probably the most famous, but the variations range from clothing to food, jewelry, games, food to travel plans and the price also range from a couple thousand yen to millions. But naturally the number of bags prepared are limited so men and women of all generations go pretty wild to win the one they want.

The fun part of fukubukuro apart from dashing for your target is that you don't know what's inside it. It's a tiny gamble in a sense because you can pay Y2,000 for a bag and get Y10,000 worth of clothes that you like, or get something worth the same price but not your taste. But this is only the traditional fukubukuro. Sadly or fortunately, many many places started to disclose the contents of the bags in the past several years. Even though they don't show everything in the bag they still do say "this bag contains something similar to these" showing samples. Business-wise I guess that's more effective, but hey, where's the thrill?

Having complained a bit though, I can't wait to get at least one bag for myself.

BTW speaking about clothes, today's update for Japan Mode is Ladies Fashion Winter 2006. Those interested in girl's fashion in Japan do come have a look! (I couldn't fetch pix today but will post some in the following days... hopefully)

National "HIT" Products 2006

2006-12-05T17:32:00.000+09:00

The megahit products for this year in Japan have been announced yesterday and it's quite fun to view the chart because it reflects the political, economic and sociocultural news and current of the year. The way they list the products too is pretty interesting and very Japanese. Products (not necessarily tangible, however) are listed like the sumo ranking chart using sumo rank names like yokozuna and so on, and the chart also compares East and West (so there is the East yokozuna and West yokozuna and on and on).

Anyway, so let's have a look at what sold well in Japan this year.

[East (from high to low rank)]
yokozuna: Nintendo DS Lite and softs
ozeki: --- (=none)
sekiwake: "The Da Vinci Code"
komusubi: TSUBAKI (shampoo targeting Japanese women for beautiful Japanese hair)
maegashira 1: flat-screen TV
maegashira 2: "one seg" (one segment devices implanted in mobiles etc. whereas the usual T-DMB takes 13 segs)
maegashira 3: "Oh Japan" and "Handkerchief Prince" (national baseball team led by field manager Oh / winner pitcher of the summer national high school baseball tournament Saito Yuuki got this "nickname" since he used this particular handkerchief instead of his arm or sleeve to wipe his sweat. "prince" because he's handsome)

[West (likewise)]
yokozuna: --- (=none)
ozeki: mixi (SNS)
sekiwake: Wagon R (car)
komusubi: Labre drink
maegashira 1: "Oshare Majo Love & Berry" (fashion game&anime for grade school girls)
maegashira 2: "Kokka no Hinkaku" (literal translation: Dignity of Nation... a book discussing,,, the dignity of nation,,, which could be understood as nationalism)
maegashira 3: Arakawa Shizuka (gold medal winner of Turin Olympics women's figure skating)

The list goes on a little bit more but I'll cut it here. I was quite surprised to see no same products or names in the ranking lists for East and West, and both of them don't look like they have a certain... rule? I don't know if I can call it a "rule" but they appear to me as pretty random.
All of them can be described "domestic" too. Could this be a portrayal of our homey love for the country and culture, or a realistic reflection of our indifference to int'l events etc.?

Year 2006 has only 26 days left now. Maybe it's a good time to look back at what happened to myself and around me.

What does your country's "hit" ranking look like?

Nihongo Around the World

2006-12-04T17:25:00.000+09:00

I read in a couple of web news today that a good number of people around the world are quite enthused about learning Japanese.

One article said that the examinees for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) have increased by nearly 50% in China, and the surprising part is not just that - it also said that the applicants reached the capacity of 100,000 people in less than an hour from the moment they started accepting applications. Wow. The reason behind this is economic, for it is understood that the increase has to do with the expansion of Japanese corporates into China along with the country's (China's) rapid economic growth. It seems like those with Japanese language skills have more advantages in winning the fierce job hunting.

The other one was about the situation in the US and I guess similar situations can be seen in other cultures. It was about some kids in high school who are crazy about Japanese manga (comic)/ anime stuff. They aren't just fans, they get themselves involved in lots of activities which stretch out to language studies and culture learning, even founding companies. I grew up with these manga and anime stuff around me so they were never really something special. But then, I recently realized how much potential manga/anime (actually movies and TV shows too) can have as means to tie multiple entities across borders which takes decades for politics to cross. Now I think it's actually a very strong tool that can be used in both ways.

On our website Japan Mode we offer this tiny service "Kanji Name Convertor" and the numbers of requests are rising rising rising. I have to confess that we aren't being able to catch up with the list that just grows longer each day. Some people tell us that they want to have the names tattooed, some made into name cards, just for fun etc etc. FYI if you make a request now it will take a good month to get back to you... just so you know.

Wow. I never knew Japanese stuff was so widespread not just in terms of materials but also culturally. I would have to spend years to observe how Japan is being seen from the other side of the world, but I wonder, is it similar to the way Japanese people see Western cultures?

Japan Mode Renewal !?

2006-12-01T17:35:00.000+09:00

It's been a little more than a year since Japan Mode started off as a website introducing Japanese culture and entertainment, and today it is being renewed. Well, there isn't really anything different in its appearance but our previous webmaster kaduak has left the management board and I am taking over the post so the people working on it are renewed... a bit.

I don't know how good a successor I can be but I do give a lot of love and empathy to our website so to those frequent viewers, thank you for visiting our site and please keep on revisiting, and for those newcomers, welcome to Japan Mode. Hope everybody enjoys it, and I will work really hard with my staffs to keep it a useful and entertaining website. Any comments and suggestions on the content are welcome so feel free to post them here or e-mail us.

For the moment that's all I can think of... Oh, the newest chapter for our webmanga CharmyNurseM is up so check that out. Other than that, updates for December will cover a lot of illumination information + reports as well as cultural introduction to Japanese year-end holidays so on so forth (hopefully).

Okay, that's it for today. See you on Monday!

Culture in Songs

2006-11-29T17:23:00.000+09:00

I like to listen to music and I listen to one kind of music or another all the time when I'm out of office. This habit started a couple of years ago right after I got back to Tokyo from a late summer trip around the northern European countries. The trigger was when one of the travelers whom my friend and I shared a compartment with on the sleeper lent me his MD player while we were waiting for a train in Duisburg. When I wore the headphones the normal station scene in early morning suddenly turned dramatic. It felt like I was thrown into a music video, and this is how I became unable to cut myself apart from carrying music.

Well, so much for that. What I wanted to write today was how I subconsicously identify my home culture to be Japanese through Japanese music.
Half of the music I listen to is from outside of Japan, mostly sung in English language, and I do catch and understand the lyrics but I feel like it's still on the surface level. I feel like I have to do some "read-b/w-the-lines" when I try to truly understand the lyrics.

Whereas for Japanese music especially songs, I sympathize with them really comfortably. It is largely for the lyrics aside from memories that I like J-pop music. The lyrics are pretty straightforward in terms of words, yet a lot of the songs (I like) sing about little things/emotions that anyone can experience. For me it's easy to either tie them with personal experience or to imagine a "rich" scene with emotion, not just the picture.

Masterpiece music have masterpiece lyrics in any language, so I think the difference comes from not the depth of language knowledge but how much time I've spent with the languages in question. I am quite comfortable reading, writing and speaking in English and being an enthusiastic traveler as well as a daughter of an ex-expat I am also comfortable in becoming acquainted with other cultures, but at the same time, though, I was raised in a Japanese family in this language.

The music-lyric thought is just one of the moments when I reassure the feeling that my identity is more closely tied to Japan than any other one.

Japan outside of Japan

2006-11-28T17:58:00.000+09:00

I was watching a TV show the other night. It's a weekly show in which an actor/actress or somebody in the show/entertinment business in Japan goes abroad for a week and experiences homestay as well as helping the job of the family member. The desitination could be anywhere outside of Japan from major cities to tribal villages and for almost every time the experience ends up as a moving Drama.

Anyway, the destination for the last show was Barcelona, Spain, and a young Japanese actress was experiencing candy-making for the first time in her life. What I found interesting about it was that it wasn't traditional Spanish candy-making that she was challenging but traditional Japanese candy-making! We call it "kintarou-ame" (Kintaro is a character in a Japanese folk tale and "ame" means hard candy) and I don't know what it's called in English, but it's a candy-craft that has designs inside so when you cut the candy you always see the same design on the sections.

At first I thought, "oh, I thought it's something Japanese but maybe I was wrong and it's originally from Spain" but then the show said that when the owner of the store came to study in Japan he fell in love with this candy and studied and brought the skills back home. He and his staffs make really pretty and artistic candies and it was amusing even just looking at how they make them and the finished candies on the TV screen... I could easily see why the shop is so popular there because I wish I could try some of those... and guess what! I just found out that there's a branch in Tokyo!

Going back to the point (not that there's really a point, but): Japan in Spain and Spain in Japan - I know that in a world so globalized like today it's not so rare to see Japan-related restaurants & shops outside of Japan and vice versa, but seeing a culture originating in Japan developing in its own way abroad blending into the culture makes me kind of happy.

Link: the shop's name is papabubble and those who live in Barcelona, Amsterdam or Tokyo have higher chances to appreciate their sweet delicacy ;-)

Self-Introduction

2006-11-27T13:48:00.000+09:00

Hello to everybody, to those who came from Japan Mode, through blogspot and those who just coincidentally stumbled upon my page. Like the brief description says, this is a blog on my random thoughts and observations on the city and country I live in - that's Tokyo, Japan - and I also hope to cast a spotlight on little daily-life trends in Japan as well as feature some "Made in Japan"s in other cultures.

I think I'll start with a self-introduction for today.
My name is monamie and I am one of the writers for Japan Mode, a website on Japanese culture and entertainment. I am a Japanese in my early twenties, a travelholic and a photography-lover. I have been working with Japan Mode for almost a year.
Ummm, what else...? I have been living in the heart of Tokyo for most of my life but have some experiences abroad.

What I like about Tokyo... it's a mess as many times describes by non-Tokyoites, but it's reeeally convenient, from my point of view. The city's overwhelmed with people and material, but I guess that's what I like about the city - the mess.
As for what I see and feel and observe about this city and country, I'm going to post them randomly in the following entries which I hope to update everyday so be sure to check back if your eyes and ears can't miss the name TOKYO or JAPAN ;-)