Japanese People Give a Shit (approx. $130,000USD)
If you read the news you may have read about a donation for disaster relief being found in a public toilet. Apparently it was in a plastic bag, hopefully sealed tight, along with a note saying it was for Tohoku relief efforts. Japanese people are peaches, and the fact that whoever discovered this chose not to pocket the money only goes to show how damn honest most people are in that country. Here's to wishing that the money gets to the right places to help people in a crappy situation. Read more [...]
Jon versus The Chikan (or why yelled at a Japanese person in English before throwing him off the train)
Last week I played the part of a confused and then horrified observer. I was on my way to work, riding the always overcrowded Saikyo line, when a nervous and (frankly) gross looking man got on the train. He seemed to be with his girlfriend, a man-ish looking woman dressed all in white with a knee-length frilly skirt. During the train ride I was sure some funny business was going on, but I wasn't sure what to make of it. At first they seemed to be together, but I had a nagging feeling they were not. Read more [...]
Things I've learned in Japan: combover
Things I’ve learned in Japan: “Barcode” is Japanese-English for “combover.
日本で習ったの物：バーコードは英語で「combover」。
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Dear Japan, Thank you for Homo Sausage
I’m a fairly juvenile person, but this is nearly to o juvenile for me. Japan has really done it this time. It almost seems too ridiculous to be an accident. Convenience stores like Seven-Eleven stock a snack called Homo Sausage. Come on!
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Travel by (local) train for cheap in Japan
There's a little known ticket in Japan called the Seishun Juhachi kippu (literally "Youth 18 ticket"). While it was originally conceived as a ticket for the young people, nowadays it's used by anyone and everyone who likes traveling on the cheap. The ticket costs ¥ 11,500 and is good for five (consecutive or non-consecutive) days of travel. That means you only pay ¥2,300 a day!
You just show the person at the ticket gates, get it stamped the first time you use it, and you're traveling for next Read more [...]
Using the JP (Japan Post) to Send Money
If you want to send money from Japan you can use the post office. The JP (Japan Post) used to be the best deal in town. Nowadays there are other ways that are just as good. Short of setting up an account with CitiBank (which is marginally better), it'll be pretty much the same no matter where you send money from.
Below you find the important pages from the JP booklet. You can send money in two ways.
One way is to send a money order to an address, this is the most annoying way because you have to Read more [...]
How American movies change when they are exported
Translation has always been interesting to me. It is interesting to me how something like a movies are translated. Even before making it to the theater the movie can be changed dramatically through translation. The name of the movie can reshape the expectation and focus of the movie for example. While not lingual, the movie poster can also be “translated” for a different audience.
Meryl Streep's It’s Complicated is an example of those two things happening at once. The result is that the Read more [...]
My Most Childish Post
The bird that makes the 14 year old boy in me giggle is the Tit. Without fail I snicker whenever I see anything about one. Do I feel a little stupid for it? Yes. Will that make me stop giggling? No.
Here are two examples of tits that make me laugh. The first is that the city of Fukushima is the tit:
The second, and my favorite, is from the rss feed on my google page. Until I saw which section the story was filed under, I was honestly confused at first when I read the title, "Great tits cope well Read more [...]
Brad Pitt Japanese Cell Phone Ad
Brad Pitt has been doing a whole bunch of Softbank ads here in Japan. Softbank is a cellphone company. To be more precise they are the cellphone company that refused to give me a 2 year contract and (nearly) free iPhone just because I wasn't going to be in Japan for two more years! How dare they see through my evil scheme!!
The question I have is which is cuter for the ladies. Brad Pitt:
Or the Softbank dog (soon to release his own DVD):
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Japanese Food Warning Label
I promise you there is no company in the US that can make such bold claims as processing egg, shrimp, eel, sea urchin, salmon, octopus, cod ovum (which apparently can be made to look tastier than it sounds), peanuts, and sesame all within the same facility. Japan, you may win this round, but the US won't go down without a fight!
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