Tae Kim's Blog

This is not the blog you're looking for...

2008-07-18T02:04:00.002+09:00

I don't know how you ended up here, but I haven't updated this blog in years.
You can visit my current blog here.

このブログはもう更新していません。
最新のブログこちらです。

Evaluate your Japanese...

2005-11-16T00:50:00.000+09:00

１．日本語はとても上手ですね。- Your Japanese sucks... really bad. I would tell you to stick with English but I don't need to because you don't speak any Japanese.

２．日本語は上手です。 - Your Japanese sucks but at least you've made an attempt at learning it instead of ignorantly blurting out "konnichiwa" like Michael Douglas.

３．日本語はうまいですね。- There are lots of things you don't understand but you can hold a regular conversation and get by.

４．日本語はうまい！ - You've exceeded the level that foreigners are normally not expected to achieve. Though your pronunciation is not perfect, you know Japanese well enough to take Japanese people by surprise. Oh my god, you mean foreigners can actually master this language???

５．日本語は普通です。 - Congratulations! You've finally reached the level where the double standard no longer applies. You are near-native level and it may take a while for Japanese people to realize that Japanese is not your native language. With all your hard work you have managed to go from "very good" to just "normal".

The thing that piss me off the most...

2005-11-09T20:28:00.000+09:00

...is spending hours for a bug fix when the fix itself only took 2 minutes and involves changing one character in the code. Arrrggghhh! Why in the world did I set "0" and not "1"?

Another thing that pisses me off is the アトピー that's taking over my body and changing my skin into lizard-skin like that villian from Spiderman. Why are only Asians burdened with this curse??

Hmm... maybe I should study English more...

2005-11-05T06:57:00.000+09:00

Everytime I think I learned another useless word for the GRE, I see another GRE vocab actually being used by actual people. For instance, while reading this, I saw the word "perspicacious". "Hey," I thought, "I just learned that yesterday!" (Well, actually I had learned and then forgotten it yesterday) What is up with that? How did I breeze through all these words without realizing that I didn't know what they meant? I noticed that with Japanese too. Well, actually not anymore since I haven't learned a new word in who knows how long. Oh yeah, I learned 「カンジタ症」 and if that word pops up in a coversation, I'm no longer in that conversation.

My GRE Poem
Profligate, pellucid, perdition, oh my!
Probity, prosody, peregrinations, I see.
Penury, putative, panegyric, proselyte, provident, oh dear,
I think my hypothalamus just exploded.

Covering the shorter causative...

2005-11-05T06:31:00.000+09:00

Lately, I've been wavering back and forth between whether I should cover the shorter causative form, namely: 聞かす、待たす、言わす、食べさす、etc..

I've been seeing it used here and there watching tv and reading comic books so I figured I should add it but how useful is it really? It's not nearly used as often as the more conventional せる／させる form. When is it ok to use? Why would you want to use it? And why don't textbooks cover it (at least the ones I've seen)?

The biggest thing I want to avoid is to create the impression that you can use the shorter form for causative anytime instead of the regular form. The せる／させる is so much more predominate, I think I should figure out exactly how the shorter form comes into play before I cover it.

何回も言わすなよ。 - Hmm... sounds ok.
タバコをやめさした。 - Uhh... ok???

Let's google for "japanese causative form", see what I can find out. Oh goody, I get my own page. That's a big help.

the precise moment of coming so much...

2005-11-01T22:23:00.000+09:00

I just submitted this to Engrish.com. It's from a catalogue of pair rings/necklaces and it reads, "THE KISS is a phenomenon that happens to lovers at the precious moment of coming so much." Amazingly, the grammar is completely correct.
Ahh... I love that precise moment.

My day...

2005-10-28T18:27:00.000+09:00

My schedule today:

9:00-9:30 Morning meeting
10:00-12:00 Spec review meeting
2:00-3:00 Meeting
3:00-4:00 定例 (meeting)
4:00-5:00 Test Case review meeting
5:00-5:30 Evening meeting

Getting no work done until after 5:00 pm... Priceless.

Where's my money??

2005-10-26T19:40:00.000+09:00

Holy Shit! My blog is worth $1,129.08!! Where's my money??

Update: Holy shit! My blog just went up over a $1,000! Where do they come up with these numbers anyway? And WHERE IS MY MONEY? You can have this blog, it's crap anyway.

GRE=やばいやばいやばい

2005-10-25T17:22:00.000+09:00

そろそろ12月が近づいているので、しょうがなく、GREの予約をネットでやっちゃいました。受験日は11月の半ば。

「やばい」という言葉を英語で説明したことありますが、改めて日本語でも説明させていただきたいと思います。日本語を日本語で勉強するのもありだと思うので、どうぞご参考までに。

やばい：（形）GREを受けるのに全然勉強していない状況。特に英語単語の記憶がバラバラで数学がまともにできない場合。

私は、まさにやばい状態であります。

Random: Why does the GRE cost $140 to take? I can buy a gameboy with that. Does writing up the GRE take as much engineering and research as making a gameboy? Huh? DOES IT?

Hard Gay, 100x better than Bobby

2005-10-18T19:00:00.000+09:00

Hard Gay has been cropping up all over TV lately. Here's a funny clip you can check out for yourself. You'll need a bit torrent client to download.

Enjoy.

Anyway, yeah, he's funny. Give me HG over Bobby and Bob Sap anyday. Someday, I hope America will have a Japanese comedian where his act will consist of his horrible, horrible English. God knows, there's plenty of candidates on the NHK English learning programs.

That's why I feel good everytime I manage to gyp NHK out of their extortion money. Next time they come around, I'm just going to shout, "I'm not here, go the hell away!" Damn them and their POS channel.

[Update]
From the forum: 600megs of HG!

Reasons why I hardly study Japanese anymore...

2005-10-18T18:17:00.000+09:00

1. Too much work. I'd rather spend my free time sleeping and playing StarCraft.

2. Now that I'm "good enough" to get by, the drive to learn words like カンジタ症 and 土俵 is not very pressing.

3. Can't find any interesting books to read.

4. I ran out of manga to read and I spend too much money on those things anyway.

5. Studying for the GREs would be a good excuse but I'm not doing that either. So bascially, the real reason is that I'm just lazy as hell.

6. I've become too familiar with Japanese and it has lost the "shiny and new" appeal. I don't even remember how it used to sound as a completely foreign language.

7. After I met my girlfriend, I could no longer use "Ｉ want to learning Japanese" as an excuse to meet girls. Not that I ever did, just that the possibility no longer exists. Besides, even if I had hung out with a person (who just happened to be female) to learn Japanese, I actually learned Japanese, not like some losers who can't improve their Japanese even while having a Japanese girlfriend in Japan. So there.

Having said all that, here's a new word I learned today: 摂取. I always found kanji like 摂 and 渋 a bit awkward to write.

Super Mario Master...

2005-10-17T22:14:00.000+09:00

I bought a Gameboy Advanced and Mario 1 + Mario 3 for various reasons. While trying to find out whether it was for NES or Super NES, I ran into this crazy, crazy video. This guy really needs some help... but it's still cool.

Policemen dropping in this store..

2005-10-10T18:51:00.000+09:00

(A sign on a convenience store)
~~Apparently the only people likely to commit crime speak either Chinese, English, and what I presume to be Arabic. The Japanese-speaking majority need not know.~~
[Edit]
Please completely disregard what I wrote above as I'm an idiot. Still, it's interesting to note which languages were chosen.

I get no comment spam...

2005-10-09T11:47:00.000+09:00

Poor blogger users. It seems like comment spam is running rampant through blogspot sites. Fortunately, the spammer have yet to find my site and my comment spam has been zero so far. Obscurity has its advantages. On the one hand, it might be cool to have a popular blog but I'd rather not have the pressure to come up with interesting material all the time.

And that's a good thing because most of the time I just write useless, boring crap like this post, for example. I think I lost all my sense of humor after my salaryman lifestyle SUCKED MY VERY SOUL OUT OF MY BODY, CRUSHED IT INTO A MILLION PIECES, AND SPIT ON IT A COUPLE TIMES. I discovered that if you use a lot of caps, things sound funnier. I have no idea why.

And WHEN is Serenity coming out in Japan?? This sucks as I really wanted to watch it. The first 9 minutes look really cool.

Oh my god, this site can read your mind. Creepy!

2005-09-30T16:28:00.000+09:00

I found this website that can guess what you are thinking. I picked iPod and it guessed Mp3 player on the first try! It's downright creepy! (You'll need to know Japanese to play)

Update: English version is here (kind of) -> http://www.sithsense.com/flash.htm (flash required)

Opera is free without ads!

2005-09-21T11:11:00.000+09:00

Since it's free without ads, I decided to download opera and try it out. Here's my first impressions as compared to my default browser, which is firefox.

1. The Opera standard skin is incosistent (menus are windows native). The windows native, by the way, looks horrible.

2. Opening a new tab is Ctrl-N which is annoying because now I need two hands to open a new tab as compared to Firefox's Ctrl-T.

3. Scrolling seems faster and smoother in Opera.

4. Search is much better in Firefox. Opera popups a window and I can't do anything else but search.

5. Install doesn't import bookmarks... wow... and they charged money for this while Firefox was free?

6. Switching tabs with Shift-Tab is annoying because of the mini-menu when I want to quickly scroll through my tabs.

Conclusion: Not a bad browser but no compelling reason to switch. Especially since I need to get used to new short-cut keys.

How I know summer's over...

2005-09-09T13:08:00.000+09:00

Well, last week I bought a 月見バーガーセット from McDonald's which means fall's here and summer is over. Most people find these things out by reading little signs on their calendars along the lines of "Autumn begins" but since I manage by schedule by scribbling down notes that I can never make out on random pieces of paper, a calendar doesn't do much for me.

So when I go into McDonald's and see signs for the 月見バーガーセット, I think, "Wow, it's fall already!" I better start thinking about where I want to go for 温泉 and 紅葉.

Firefox 1.5 Beta Released!

2005-09-09T12:43:00.000+09:00

Get your downloads here!

The only difference I can see from the Alpha 2 is the menu looks a little bigger and pages seem to reload faster. If you are still using 1.0, I definitely recommend it since it has a number of great feature enchances such as tab reordering. However, most of your extensions will break.

What is Brown doing?

2005-09-07T12:28:00.000+09:00

Reading this article really made my blood boil. What kind of reports is Brown getting? How could he calmly say everything is going well when it was obviously crazy AND STILL IS in New Orleans? I wish I could read what was going on in his mind when he was saying that nonsense. Does he sleep soundly at night?

One thing I saw a couple times among various articles is the quote that the world is watching. For some reason, Americans think the rest of the world is as fascinated as we are in what is happening in America. Guess what? The world is not watching. Maybe a glance or a mention now and then but not all over the papers and news. For instance, news in Japan no longer is concerned with Katrina now that hurricane itself is old news.

電車男

2005-09-02T12:23:00.000+09:00

I watched 電車男 on TV last night and enjoyed it immensely. The original 掲示板 (BBS) is here, or at least I think that's the original. Though much of the drama seems to be fiction, here's a part that was actually in both drama and 掲示板.

272 名前：電車男 ◆SgHguKHEFY 投稿日：04/04/24 19:27

「いつまでもこんな体型だから彼氏も出来ないんでしょうか～（×_×）」
まずはこれに対してのフォローです

「エルメスさんなら痩せてても太ってても良いと思いますよ
周りの男が見る目無いとか（笑）」

これと、自分は体型、性格、服装、顔がダメなので
いつまで経っても彼女もできません（×_×）

という感じ返しました。

I guess, the next week's episode is starting with the last 奇跡の最終章. 楽しみ、楽しみ！

A typical day...

2005-08-31T21:42:00.000+09:00

7:20 Cell phone alarm buzzes.

7:30 Get up after pressing snooze twice. Brush teeth, get dressed, nap again for another five minutes.

7:50 Leave house, get on train to work. Try to position myself near the side so that I can lean and grab a couple snoozes. No luck so I review some GRE vocab on my electronic dictionary.

8:50 Check email and slashdot, print out schedule made the previous night for the new but already late project.

9:00 Morning meeting（朝礼） canceled, so much for that printout.

9:10 Worked on preparing some test data for some bug fixes, interrupted by a question about a system error occuring in one of the modules I made last year. Please, please, please, let it not be a bug.

11:20 Looks like it's probably a problem with the data transfer （データ連携）. Thank god, it's out of my hands.

11:30 Checked my message board and answered a quick question.

11:45 Ate ジャージャー麺 for lunch, tasted pretty mediocre.

12:12 Check blogs and slashdot.

12:30 Back to making boring test data, ugh.

15:53 Finally done with test data. Feel like shit.

16:05 Wrote request to upload bug fixes to the test server. Bugs never go away.

16:10 Might as well start making html files for the next project.

16:30 Forgot that I needed to revise Visa support letters being the only native English speaker around. I get to see how much more people get paid to work overseas (ironically, almost always the US). It's at least double my salary but usually triple or even quadruple.

17:00 Night meeting （夕礼）

17:45 Talked with developer from the company we contract out to about his email and the fact that nobody understood what he was talking about except the developers (me and him).

18:20 Finished revising Visa support letters and emailed them out. Nothing interesting to read on the net...

19:40 Got tired of making html files so started revising the schedule. Really hungry.

20:10 Go home

21:00 After another joyful hour in commute, shower, and eat instant 韓国冷麺.

23:00 Watch a TV program about the Lindberg kidnapping and go to sleep.

Okinawa...

2005-08-26T22:59:00.000+09:00

Yeah, more pictures!

One thing I don't get about Okinawa is why so many A&W joints? I haven't seen so many in all my years of living in America! God, why couldn't they have Fat Burger??

Oh man, goats are so cute. Though they do have creepy eyes that are slanted sideways.

I didn't know Okinawa was so gung-ho about シーサー. They are literally everywhere!

Unfortunately, I'm too spoiled by the perfect beaches in Cancun. I found the beach to be rocky. And the water isn't blue right up to your face like it is in Cancun.

My first homepage...

2005-08-25T17:35:00.000+09:00

I wish I could find my very first homepage. I made it during an era when Hotmail wasn't owned by Microsoft and AOL used to charge by the hour (Prodigy and CompuServe were also around as was BBS's). Anyway, geocities probably wiped it off the face of the Earth (also before getting bought by Yahoo).

Basically, I was trying to start a cult called the TaeKK. Don't know why, just seemed like the thing to do. All you had to do to join was answer a cute and amusing questionare. I also wrote funny articles like how "Studies find old age the leading cause of death!"

Ahh... the good old days.

Maybe I oughta stretch my old creative bones but I think all my funny ideas were squeezed out by the machine of modern society. Anyway, my everyday activities are so boring that reading about them will probably make you want to stab a pencil in your left eye. There's no funny bone left in this body, mister. They were all transported far beyond the Northern Sea.

JLPT deadline coming up...

2005-08-21T19:06:00.000+09:00

It's almost September so if you're going to take the JLPT, you'd better hurry and send in your forms (until 9/5). In Japan, you can pick up the application at most book stores for 500 yen. The actual test costs 5,500 yen and will be held at 12/4 (Sun). This site has the test information in Japanese. The application pack will have more detailed information in four languages: Japanese, English, Chinese, Korean.

俺はひょっとして有名？

2005-08-11T18:53:00.000+09:00

久しぶりに日本語で頑張る。今は英語の勉強をしているから、日本語の方はなまっているとしか思えない。英語を勉強しながら、こんな単語は本当あるのか？と思う時もある。びっくりしたのは、「niggardly」という単語はちゃんとあるらしい。しかも、「ケチ」という意味みたい。マジで？？？ちなみに、辞書で「nigger」を調べてみたら純粋に「この単語を使うな」と書いてある。確かに、殺されたくなきゃ使わない方がいいが、単語の意味と一緒にアドバイスを含めるのか？へ～～～。

そして、話が全然違うけど、彼女が俺の日本語サイトを知り合いに紹介したら、一年前からもう既に知っていて、「サイトを作ったのは彼なの？」とびっくりしたらしい。俺はひょっとして有名人？1日平均で500回アクセスされる小さなサイトではあるが、もしかして、ネットで日本語を勉強している人々にもてるかな？そんなわけねえよな。ちなみに、彼女の知り合いは男であった。（残念）

Cool down for the summer...

2005-08-05T08:47:00.000+09:00

Well, it's August already and it's really hot in this city of concrete. But before you know it will be September and summer will be officially over. Before that happens, you might want to check out the water park at としまえん.

The website is horrible but the water park itself is huge, especially for Japan. You can't tell from the entrance but once you get in, you'll be amazed. There are more water slides then you can go down (maybe about 15?). There's also a pool for diving, a real olympic-sized pool for laps, a large wave pool, and a stream pool where you get in a tube and float around. There's also various stands for food and beverages including curry+nan, crepe, ramen, kebab, and beer! Only in Japan can you buy beer, get drunk, and then go diving!

I didn't bring a camera so you're going to have to check it out yourself. Though pricey, it's definitely worth it on a hot day if you use the full day. Plus, if you get the full ticket, you can also go on a couple of pretty good rides in the regular park afterwards.

To get there, you need to get on the 池袋線 (Ikebukuro-line) and go to 豊島園 (Toshimaen) Station. It's one stop off the main line so you might need to transfer at 練馬 (Nerima).

The entrance is right outside the station and here's a tip exclusive from this blog! If you buy the ticket at the 7-11 right outside the station instead of at the gates, you can probably get a discount!

Finally, at the end of the day, you can soak in hot tubs and jacuzzis at the spa: 庭の湯 right nearby for about 2000 yen.

A blog to read...

2005-08-04T00:26:00.000+09:00

Since my moribund blog has become the apotheosis of boredom, I think I'll talk about a blog that's actually fairly interesting. It's by a 30-something who claims to drink a lot. A lot of interesting commentary about going-ons in her life. And in case you were wondering, yes, I'm still studying for my execrable GREs.

Google maps for Japan is out...

2005-07-22T14:15:00.000+09:00

Finally, no more fiddling around with yahoo maps to find my way around Tokyo. Google Maps for Japan is now out at:

maps.google.co.jp

Try searching for 東京タワー and then click the サテライト button. Pretty cool.

Bought a new dictionary...

2005-07-19T14:02:00.000+09:00

The display on my old dictionary has been dying for quite some time. Plus, it doesn't have an English to English dictionary which I never needed until I started studying for the GRE. These two reasons were enough to allow me to fool myself into rationalizing the purchase of a new dictionary.

So I went to Bic Camera, kissed 30,000 yen goodbye and bought a Casio Ex-word XD-H7600. My old dictionary was great. We probably looked at tens of thousands of words together. But this new one blows the old one out of the water. The major difference is that now I get to use it for my GRE studies and it has Korean just in case I decide to start studying it. Plus, I finally get partial search on the fly instead of having to type the whole thing out all the time. I really like the auto on/off when I open and close the thing. And being able to search multiple 部首 by name is a nice touch. Plus, it also has a vocabulary list feature where I can save words I want to study. Haven't tried it out yet though. It has other features I would never use like searching English example sentences. But cool nonetheless.

I love kanji...

2005-07-03T10:22:00.000+09:00

Some people describe kanji as being one of the hardest part of the language. But I tell ya, I actually think kanji makes Japanese easier especially for neophytes. I started studying for the GRE recently and let me tell you, trying to memorize English vocab is approximately 1.5 times harder thanks to the lack of kanji. Sure, you can assuage the difficulty by learning latin roots but it's not close to being as complete and extensive as kanji is. I soon gave up learning the words in order when I started to confuse ablution with abnegation. (Yes, I didn't even get past "ab" must less all of the "a" words)

Who the hell uses these words anyway? You can kiss my mendacious, loquacious ass. (Whatever that means)

As part of my continuing efforts to bridge the gap between Japanese and American culture, here's my Japanese translation of an American joke.

二組のカップルが散歩している。男の二人は女達の後ろに歩いている。

男1: 昨日、かなりいいレストランに行ったよ。

男2: そうなの？どれ？

男1: 名前が出てこないな･･･あの花の名前はなんだっけ？とげがついているやつ。

男2: ローズ？

男1: そうだ。ローズ、昨日食べに行ったところの名前は何だったっけ？

The new Batman is da bomb!

2005-06-22T09:19:00.000+09:00

I watched "Batman Begins" last weekend and it was awesome. I give it a 5/5 on the awesome scale. Forbes, being the elite and sophisticated magazine that it is, has an article on how much it would cost to become a crappy real-world version of Batman.

The thing that caught my eye was on the salary of butlers.

Inexperienced butlers just out of school earn annual salaries of around $50,000 to $60,000, says McPherson. But experienced help can easily pull in $125,000 to $150,000 a year, and a gentleman's gentleman like Alfred might earn $200,000 or more.

Maybe I should enroll into butler school. Sounds like a decent gig and you get to live in a mansion...

I'm an engineer, dammit!

2005-06-15T09:00:00.000+09:00

I was picked up to interpret on Monday this week when an American came to visit from Hitachi Global Storage (formerly of IBM). Unfortunately, we went to a 割烹 restaurant which means expensive, fancy (and in opinion, not so tasty) food. I had no idea what all those dishes were supposed to be called in English. I look up 鮎, and my electronic dictionary says "Ayu". Thanks, Canon. I also screwed up 「祈念」, thinking he said 「記念」. That's what you get when you push this kind of work on an engineer. You'd think a company with over 300,000 employees would have an interpreter around somewhere. But I guess, I'm just naive. Anyway, I got to leave work early (5:30) but had to drink til 10:00. Next time, I'd rather pass...

Oh crap, I'm drunk...

2005-06-11T00:55:00.000+09:00

Damn, that was a lot of alchohol I just drank. Hmm... 1:00 am. I almost feel like I'm back in college. I think I'm gonna work on the next section of my grammar guide now! Muhahahah!

ところで、俺は酔っ払っている時に日本語能力が急に１０倍以上アップするよ！マジで！（そんなわけないよな）まぁ、信じられなかったら、俺とお酒を飲んでみな。きっとビックリするよ。とにかく、俺の日本語はうまいよ。

By the way, I got my bonus today!!! Yeah!!! Kyoko, if you come visit me in Tokyo, I'll buy you a おにぎり or maybe even two!

今日の投稿はあまり面白くない・・・

2005-06-10T21:46:00.000+09:00

タイトル通り、今日の投稿はあまり面白くないので、ご了承ください。（いつもそうかもしれないけど･･･）

今日は「ソニータイマー」という言葉を習いました。ちゃんと説明してくれるサイトまでありました。

こういう言葉は英語で、よく「jargon」と呼びます。専門的なスラングみたいなものです。特にコンピューター系に関しては、色んな「jargon」が存在しています。

例えば、よく使われているのは、BSOD (Blue screen of death)という言葉です。直訳すると、「死の青画面」になるんですが、Windowsがクラッシュする時の事を表しています。そいう言えば、クラッシュの言葉も「jargon」に当てはまるかもしれません。

さて、皆さんも「jargon」（ジャーゴン）の言葉を覚えましょう！（あんまり役には立たないと思うけど･･･）

My alter-ego...

2005-06-09T20:09:00.000+09:00

Thanks to the magic of google, I stumbled unto my alter-ego's blog. He's already got a baby though while I still have a $10,000 college loan.

Here's my picture:

Here's his:
www.flickr.com/photos/taekim/16020681/in/photostream/

What do you think?

Cool Business...

2005-06-09T12:00:00.001+09:00

I decided to take part in this summer's "Cool Business" campaign to save energy by not wearing my tie and jacket to work. Hey, I'm all over any excuse to chuck that tie into the corner of closet. A couple of people on the trains also seem to be going along but most people look like they're sticking with their tie. Of course, the tough question is whether it's better to have less air conditioning without a tie or more with a tie. All I know is I'm definitely not enduring less air conditioning with a tie. Of course, it's not really that hot yet so I suppose it doesn't matter just yet.

Bleach 17...

2005-06-09T00:13:00.000+09:00

I got the new Bleach (#17 - Rosa Rubicundior Lilio Candidior, where does he come up with these names?) a couple of days ago and man, that Kubo guy really knows how to build up a climax. Book 17 is just more and more suspense being added on as ルキア's execution nears. I won't give the story away but you're just not going to be satisfied with this issue. Now I have to wait another three months to find out what happens?!!! Arrgghhh!

Oh god, otaku becoming mainstream?

2005-06-08T00:19:00.000+09:00

There's an article on Washington post about Akiba and the otaku culture. I actually feel kind of sad for otaku's because I remember when I was alone with no friends at one middle school. I was discriminated against for being Asian (I think I was the only one) and I mostly stayed home and played games and watched TV by myself. That, in turn, made me bitter and cynical which made me very unpleasant company. It was a vicious cycle and not much fun at all. I only started really enjoying myself from high school after I managed to relax and make some friends.

But despite feeling sorry for them, but I also can't help feeling weirded out. Especially when I read this.

...pop idols such as Morning Daughter, a music group marketed to kids that has become so popular among otaku that men sometimes attend its concerts wearing kimonos covered in glossy pictures of young band members.

What's wrong with you??? Some are as young as 13-years old! I wonder if they ever stop to think and wonder, "Holy crap, why the hell am I doing this?!"

"Most people think we're weird," said Yamagata, the college student. "That's why we come here."

Oh really? Having any kind of obsession is weird, mate. It's not good for you. You should go find some real friends, even other otakus, I don't care, just real people and not fantasy characters. Why don't you organize anime showings or something? Or have a LAN party. That's one thing I really wish Japan had: LAN parties... with real American pizza.

I must admit thought that I'm curious to check out these cosplay cafes sometime. Maybe they'll let me take some pictures that I can post here. I pass Akiba on my way to work everyday so it shouldn't be too hard. It's pretty crazy but I've only been to Akiba a total of about 5 times even though I have a 定期 (commuter's pass) that goes there.

I have no pagerank...

2005-06-07T20:43:00.000+09:00

It's painful but after finally getting a pagerank of 5 for my old site, I decided to move and now I'm back to pagerank of zero, nada, zilch. Ouch. I can't even put up a 302 redirect because c'mon, it's geocities. I'm surprised they even have ftp. So as a request, can people please, please update their links to www.guidetojapanese.org? Having a pagerank of 0 is kind of embarrassing.

But at least, since now I own the domain, the new location is permanent no matter where I go. Now all I need to do is find a new address for this blog so that I can stop paying yahoo/geocities my monthly 500 yen. (Yes, I'm cheap)

Finding a significant other...

2005-06-06T21:55:00.000+09:00

Reading things like the ladder theory really cracks me up because well, it's funny.

But really, tips for finding a date or getting laid is like all those cures for baldness or losing weight. If there was one right answer, we'd all be lining up in droves and emptying our pockets for the secret. In reality, the answer to how to get a mate all depends on the person: both you and the target. For instance, one person might desire constant attention while another would find that suffocating. Or some people prefer to talk rather than listen or vice-versa.

But hey, what do I know? I'm the type of guy who hates meeting new people and can hardly stand about 80% of the general population.

Incidently, I haven't done this in a while but I found noticed some interesting words so I decided to share them with all of you. Notice the reading?

Today's Vocabulary
問屋（とんや）- wholesale store
会釈（えしゃく）- nod; greeting

The Gaijin Smash...

2005-06-06T00:29:00.000+09:00

A large number of Japanese people are terrified that they'll have to speak English when a foreign-looking person comes up to them. You can even try speaking to them in Japanese but they're so busy trying to figure out how to speak in English that they won't even notice. I think this stems from their secret guilt of not knowing any English after studying it from middle school all the way up to college. If schools didn't require English, maybe Japanese people would relax instead of thinking, "Oh crap, what was I supposed to say now?"

I've heard of this phenomenon several times from different people but never managed to see it for myself. For some reason, maybe having an Asian around calms them down like I'm some kind of backup in case all goes to hell.

Anyway, "Gaijin Smash" is an amusing name for exploiting this inexplicable fear of foreigner (or at least those who look like foreign). Unfortunately, I look too Japanese to pull it off but maybe others can learn to harness its power?

Anybody who's interested in teaching English in middle school would be wise to check out Jeff's other amusing accounts. Because boys and girls trying to stick their fingers up your butt and grab your dick is not a hoax.

ここに行って見たい！

2005-06-02T12:44:00.000+09:00

私は猫が大好きなタイプなので、この店に本当に行って見たいです。「猫の時間」という喫茶店なんですが、かわいい猫と一緒に遊んで楽しめるのが特徴です。その店は、残念ながら大阪にあって簡単に行けないんですが、東京にも似たような店がないですかね？東京にあったら、絶対に行くのに･･･（値段が滅茶苦茶高くなければ）。

Getting paid to blog...

2005-06-01T19:18:00.000+09:00

Wow, I'd love to get paid between $40,000-$70,000 to blog. Is anybody interested in hiring me to write about computers, Japan, or Korea? That's pretty much all I know about. That, and how to make my girlfriend angry.

Hmm..., I haven't written anything in Japanese lately. Ah well, I'm too lazy.

Where do these bloggers find the time??

2005-05-31T17:37:00.000+09:00

I think I know the secret to having a popular blog: lots and lots of free time. I was looking at this blog. It has a post that has 25 comments. Wow. It's easy to see why. Posts dates: May 30, May 29, May 28, May 27, May 26..., this guy is practically posting an essay everyday! I seriously have no idea how that's humanly possible. Me, I write in my blog mostly during my breaks at work (ok, I admit it). When I get home, usually around 8 or 9, I eat dinner, do my email, and sleep. Plus, even if I had the time, I have no idea what I would write about everyday anyway. Is this stuff even interesting?? I have no idea. What's in it for me anyway? It's just a lot of work and no pay. These people really amaze me.

I'll be gone for a while

2005-05-25T21:57:00.000+09:00

For those of you who are kind enough to check this blog, don't bother for the next two weeks. It's nearing release time for my project which means I'll be working from 9 to 11. (At work now actually) I'm not cut off for this type of work...

This blog looks interesting...

2005-05-19T12:17:00.000+09:00

I ran into what looks to be an interesting blog at:
blog.livedoor.jp/warata2ki/

I only read the latest post but it's a funny blond joke in Japanese!
Check it out at:
blog.livedoor.jp/warata2ki/archives/22421891.html

It seems some people didn't get it but someone explains in the comments. (Which are funny too, by the way)

This might be good for those of you looking for interesting reading material in Japanese.

The problem with the American food industry

2005-05-18T12:06:00.000+09:00

There is a terrible cycle that is likely never to be broken in the American food industry. The American food industry seeks to provide the most value at the least cost because that's what the general American public wants. The general American public seek the best food at the lowest prices because they're disillusioned with what is available on the market.

The problem is that food is not an industry, it's an art; a huge part of our lives that should be enjoyable. Unfortunately, in America, only the social elite can afford to be connesseurs in selecting the most delicious foods.

Things are very different in Japan and Korea. Japanese and Korean people are obbessed about finding the most delcious foods. There are programs on TV constantly for introducing various types of restaurants and their fare. People want to line up around the block for that one restuarant with the superb noodles or that other restaurant with that heavenly crisp and light tonkatsu. This is why speciality restaurants are so popular in Japan and Korea. Everywhere you go you see 専門 this (meaning specialty in Japanese) or 전문 that (meaning specialty in Korean). They're trying to convince customers that they're really good at that one dish. (Sometimes they are, sometimes it's hype.)

American is built on money. So it's easy to see why an American upon seeing a long line will weigh the lost opportunity cost in time and move on to another restaurant that can provide a lower cost/value proposition. (I have no idea what that means.) The problem with this approach is that we eventually approach a sweet spot of relatively cheap food at a relatively good quality. That's why I always lost weight when I go to America. Eating just isn't exciting, it's just something to get done so that I can go on living. What we need to do, all of us, in order to get better food in America is to start focusing on food as an art and not as a business plan.

The Japanese Grammar Guide is moving!

2005-05-12T23:55:00.000+09:00

The Japanese grammar guide is moving onto it's very own site at: www.guidetojapanese.org!

I'll keep the old one around for a while at least but I'll mostly be focused on improving the new site.

ibiblio has kindly agreed to host the site as part of their collection. Free hosting with unlimited space. What a great deal! (I had to pay for the domain though)

I've been looking around and it's pretty crazy but my stuff at guidetojapanese.com is a sub-directory away to the famous www.groklaw.net and the Gutenberg Project. Talk about neat!

But finally, I'll have telnet, php, and mysql! I am thinking of how best to take advantage of this. The first thing I want is a better system than email for feedback and suggestions one where others can see what's going on. I'll probably just start a forum.

Wonder if there's anything else I can do? Or maybe I should just concentrate more on actually finishing the guide, eh?

I'll miss the web upload though. I won't say why.

Thoughts on the Grammar Guide

2005-05-11T00:46:00.000+09:00

I really appreciate all the great feedback and suggestions I get in my inbox regarding the Japanese Grammar Guide. Ha ha, I especially like the ones that don't require a reply! But seriously, catching up on my email is getting to be a harder and harder task.

I was also floored by the tremendous response I've gotten for language translations. I currently have offers to translate into ten different languages! Thank you very much for all the hard work so far. It's truly amazing what happens when you give something away for free and invite others to play with it. I even received an offer for free hosting!

By the way, I hate geocities. I have no idea why I put up with them. They tinker with my files before serving them which is why I have to write the last-modified date by hand. I'm thinking about buying my own domain name and moving out. Any suggestions for domain names?

If I buy my own domain name, I'm thinking I'll get a host that supports cgi and start up a forum. Don't know what I'll put in it yet though.

GWは実家！

2005-05-09T05:59:00.000+09:00

今年のGWはカンクンにある実家に帰りました！早速、写真を公開します！
ビーチの眺めがとてもいい。

この超美人は誰でしょう？

めっちゃでかいトカゲと会話中。

USA = golden parachutes, Japan = resignation

2005-05-07T19:20:00.000+09:00

Here's something an American will never expect. The president of JR West is resigning in order to take responsibility for the train that derailed and ran into some buildings; killing a bunch of people. Now's that the kind of stuff I like to see, people in charge of companies, actually acting like leaders and being responsible for the company's employees. None of this bailing out with golden parachutes with stock options vesting while the whole company goes down in flames around you and scores of people are losing their jobs. I really hope those Enron execs went to jail.

Starcraft - A work of genius

2005-04-26T12:51:00.001+09:00

Since I have nothing better to talk about, I figured I would talk about my favorite game: Starcraft. This is the only game I still play regularly since I first started playing in College in the year 2000. How good is it? Just read the reviews at Amazon: 217 reviews, almost all of them with 5 stars. Here is my favorite.

I bought this game in 1997. In 1998, I bought broodwar expansion. At that time, I've played at least 6 hours everyday no matter what happens.... I was highly addicted and this was ruining my life. In 1999, I broke starcraft CD swearing that I would never play this again. After final examination, however, i was so high that I loosened and bought this game again... After that incident, I played for 2 years...In 2001, I broke CD again because I had to prepare for very important examination. You know what happend? Only after 2 weeks, I couldn't help but buy this game again... This time, i made a pact to myself. I would play just for 2 hours a day. Ever since, I was able to keep up with my promise. I passed exam also!
I heard that Blizzard is working on Starcraft 2. You know what? After what I've gone through, I'm willing to pay up to $ 500 to purchase Starcraft 2. I would even consider spending a grand. This game is simply the best game ever produced in the world. FYI, I've played thousands of games throughout my life. I've played FFX, MGS2, pokemon games of Nintendo, etc. Nothing may dare to compare to this game even in the single player capacity.
If you go online, you would meet hundreds of thousands of opponents that will surprise you with tons of strategies developed for over past 6 years. I bet you would need at least 3 months long 5 hours a day practice to compete in the battle.net. If you do not dare to have that amount of commitment, you may better go for other games.

The amazing thing about Starcraft is that after years and years of play, I still see strategies I've never seen before. A neat trick was to take two science vessels and irradiate each other. You can use the full time span of the irradiate since it won't harm the science vessels. Very clever way to take out drones or overlords.

My buddy Matt's ultimate finisher was to take 2 or 3 arbiters, hallucinate them a bunch and do an arbiter drop with 12-15 arbiters on the main base. Of course, air defense is never adequate to stop 15 arbiters. The beauty of this I hear is that with max energy, you still have energy to do one psionic storm after the hallucination. With energy upgrade, arbiters can also do one statis field after a recall. Matt warps in his troops, statis fields any resistance, storms the rest, and totally destroys the base. If done correctly, there is no way to win (unless you have EMP). You have 12 battlecruisers? Opps, now they're just going to sit there for 40 seconds while they watch your base get annihilated.

Of course, I'm an expert at this game. I'm Korean, it's in my blood. And Terran is the most powerful race. It's the most difficult to master but also definitely the most powerful.

I've killed over 12 zealots with only 4 marines because two opponents were foolish enough to rush when I had a repairing bunker. And what's the only way to destroy a really fast tank + marine w/ stimpack and range + medic attack force? More tanks, marines, and medics of course.

Zerg has pitiful air and Protoss can't do much against hundreds of speed upgraded zerglings. But Terran has an answer for everything. Too many that the beginner can be easily frozen by indecision.

Koizumi apologizes to China

2005-04-22T15:18:00.000+09:00

This is rich. According to this article, Koizumi is preparing to apologize (again) to China for the war crimes committed by Japan in the past.

Japan's prime minister planned to express "deep remorse" over Japan's past aggression against Asian neighbors in a speech Friday at the Asia-Africa summit in Jakarta a move apparently aimed at defusing growing tensions with China.

The part that's really funny is that there's no mention of doing anything about the history textbooks that caused the problem in the first place. Like they say, talk is cheap and politicians love to talk.

Now, I'm not saying I agree with China. After all, the Chinese government isn't exactly the most honest group on the block either. And I'd like to know what country writes history textbooks detailing their own war crimes. Ummm... none? But c'mon, it's kind of strange to admit you were wrong, apologize, and then not do anything about it.

Gmailへ招待します

2005-04-18T10:50:00.000+09:00

gmailのinviteは山ほどありますので、誰でもコメントを書いていただければ、送付します。いよいよ日本語版がリリースされましたので、遠慮する理由はひとつもないです。yahooやhotmailに送る場合の文字化けも直りました。

gmailを知らない方はこちらを参考にしてください。2Gigもただで利用できるフリーメールサービスですよ！しかも、ユーザインターフェースは他よりも速くて優れています。

テーマなし

2005-04-15T21:04:00.000+09:00

暫く日本語で何も書いてないので、また少しだけ挑戦してみます。といっても特に書く内容がないんです。天気が温かくなったら、何もかもめんどくさくなって、やる気がすっかりなくなりました。今まで面白いと思っていたものも全て飽きてきた気がします。ただ単に部屋の真中に寝転んで天井を眺めながらぼ～としたい気分です。これが春のだるさというやつ？

ちなみに、最近「ぶっちゃけ」ってよく耳にするんですが、なんか流行っているんですか？ぶっちゃけ、変な言葉をあんまり使って欲しくないんですけど･･･。あ～、日本語を覚えるのも飽きてきた。

また関係ないんですけど、私の母校は今年また大学ランキングを這い上がって、いよいよ5位に達しました。その代わりに学費がとんでもない額に上がりました。誰が一年に300万円を払うのかよ？寮と生活費を含めたら400万円に近いぜ？！

Pictures from 井の頭公園

2005-04-10T10:19:00.000+09:00

In the end, I decided to head out to 井の頭公園 about a five minute walk from the 公園出口 at 吉祥寺.

井の頭公園 is basically a park ringed around a river with trees on both sides of the river.

I guess it's supposed to be romantic to go out on a boat with your date but the crowds really took out all sense of romanticism.

It was practically impossible to get a picture without people as it was insanely crowded. Here are the people enjoying their 花見. 花より団子 indeed. I think basically any tradition is really an excuse to eat and drink but I suppose that doesn't apply only to Japan.

There's still time to go out for 花見. Despite a forecast of cloudy weather, it looks great outside today. And there still might be something to see next weekend.

Where to go for Hanami?

2005-04-08T00:04:00.001+09:00

Well, spring has finally arrived and the cherry blossoms are blossoming. Just about everybody here in Tokyo is probably going to go out this weekend for 「花見」. Except for maybe the students who can go whenever they want, any day of the week. (Those punks) Anywhere, the only park I know of are 日比谷公園 and 上野公園. But since I don't want to be a trendy, I decided to look around the web for some other interesting places to go. I find this site on ideal Hanami date spots. I might check out the 井の頭公園 which has a full five hearts. I've also considered going to 小金井公園 because it has the most trees at 2000本. But it sounds like it's a pain to get to requiring train and bus. Plus, this page says it has only just started blooming.

I'm interested in what parks other people are setting their eye on for the 花見 this year.

My project leader also recommended some place called 権現堂桜堤 in 埼玉県. Information on that park can be found here. It's really out of the way but apparently it's really 凄い. Can't decide, can't decide.

Import Food Stores

2005-04-05T20:35:00.000+09:00

I bought a couple stuff from the import food store right outside the east exit of Ebisu station.
I like to call it my "weekend special" shopping list: tonic water, cocktail stuffed olives, cranberry juice, and gin. (The vodka was actually left over from who knows how long ago.)

Import food stores is the only place I know of where you can get Macaroni & Cheese and cranberry juice. I hear there are import food stores everywhere in Tokyo but the ones I've been to are at 恵比寿、北千住、and さいたま新都心.

Anyone know of any in Shinjuku or Ikebukuro?

Oh god, please kill me now

2005-03-29T12:50:00.000+09:00

You know how RPGs sometimes have "luck" as a stat? Well, my luck stat is probably around -1 to 0. That is, you actually need luck to get the kind of bad luck I get. And so when I found out that I had to give a presentation and paper to conclude my 2 year training period on May 13 (no actual training though), I took out my calender thinking, "Please, not a Friday," all the while knowing in my heart that it was indeed a Friday. I was doomed.

Ok, first of all, I majored in computer science specifically to avoid having to write papers. The longest paper I ever had to write during four years of college was a 10 page Chinese history paper. It's the only assignment I didn't wait until the last minute for. I sweat and toiled and busted out a 9.5 page paper including references. And that's my native tongue. Now I have to write a 15 to 20 page paper in Japanese?! Look, I can't even write a 15 page paper in English! Combine that with a presentation in front of elite Japanese salaryman on Friday the 13th. (Well, I don't know about elite but they all work for a very old and very large Japanese company). Like I said: doomed.

Paper Doors

2005-03-28T00:08:00.000+09:00

I learned a new word today for paper doors: 障子（しょうじ／そうじ）. Naturally I wondered what the difference was between that and 襖（ふすま）. Apparently, there are all sorts of different types of paper doors like 明かり障子 and 衝立障子（ついたてそうじ）襖 is just one type of 障子. Now I know more about paper sliding doors than I ever wanted to.

On a related topic, here's a scary story I heard as a kid that involves paper doors.

Apparently some guy was in the woods, traveling or something at night when he ran into a little hut. "Hmm, what's this hut doing all the way out here in the middle of the woods." he thought. So he went in for a closer look and he could see a shadow of a womanly figure inside. (The door is made of paper after all) Getting excited, he went up to the door, poked a tiny hole, and peeped inside. But oddly enough, all he could see was a room all in red and no women to be found. Disturbed by the sight, the man hurridly runs aways and heads for the village. Anyway, he goes into town and meets some townfolks. They start telling him to be careful because of men were disappearing in the woods. Apparetly, there were tales of a ghost sighting in the woods. The traveler asks, "What does this ghost look like?" And one of the townsfolk answers, "I hear the ghost is a beautiful woman... with red eyes."

I think if you get the mood right, this story can be quite creepy.

Japanese grammar guide goes international!

2005-03-26T16:19:00.000+09:00

I got an email about letting people know who were translating the Japanese grammar guide in other languages so that people can get together and work together. I thought the idea was so great I created a translations page features translations of the guide. There's not much on there yet so email me at kimchi314@yahoo.co.jp if you're interested in working on a translation!

The access numbers for the guide have exceeded 5,000 hits for the first time this month! (This is server side so it doesn't include cache reloads)

As you can see by this graph, the first month had only a measly 200 hits after launch (mostly by me). Well, I guess all that hard work has started to pay off!

Update
In this week alone, the site has gotten about a thousand hits bringing this month's total to over 6,300 hits!
いつもご愛読ありがとうございます！

クロッキー

2005-03-25T21:31:00.000+09:00

この目覚し時計は、なかなか起きられない人のために作られた時計です。スヌーズボタンを押したら、どっか逃げ出して隠れた場所からまたアラームを鳴らすそうです。サイトは英語だが、画像を見れば大体わかると思います。

もっとかわいくしたら、日本では絶対大人気になると思うけど、どうだろう？ドクタースランプの目覚し時計みたいなのがいいな～。

More pictures, ya happy?

2005-03-21T20:45:00.001+09:00

My sister complained that she doesn't like to read and that she prefers pictures so I scrounged some up and decided to post them here.

Here's me impersonating those Japanese girls who cover up their face with victory signs. (I still don't understand why and yes I know I look retarded. Thanks.)

And here's my girlfriend looking sleepy. Awww, is baby sleepy weepy?

Oh, and here's an old picture back while I was on the exchange program at Waseda.

Fakkin!

2005-03-21T18:57:00.000+09:00

「ファッキンに行こうか？」

I like to be mischievous sometimes and ask Japanese friends, "Hey, wanna go to Fakkin?" (should I be in the mood to go) Everytime, they reply either yes or no without batting an eye.

Now I've gotten used to it. Hmm... do I want Mos Burger or Fakkin? I like Moss Burger but I'm kinda in the mood for Fakkin. What to do, what to do?

Japanese people love to abbreviate. For instance, McDonald's is usually called 「マック」(Makku) or 「マクド」(Makudo) in the Kansai Area. There's also a fast food chain here called 「ファーストキッチン」(First Kitchen). I really have to give props to the first person who thought, "First Kitchen is too long... I know let's call it Fakkin （ファッキン）!" It's either monumental ignorance or mischievous brilliance.

I had thought that the f-word is known and recognized all over the world. I guess Japan still has a ways to go. Here's a t-shirt my girlfriend ran into while shopping at Shibuya 109.

Apparently, she and her friend were laughing hysterically much to the confusion of the saleswoman whom, when asked, replied that no, she didn't know what it meant. Aaaah, I love this country.

My girlfriend tells me that it also says "69 Sport" on the back. Now, now, naughty t-shirt makers. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Maybe I outta submit this to Engrish.com.

JLPT Level 1 Kanji

2005-03-18T00:57:00.000+09:00

I'm still thinking about taking the JLPT Level 1. I realized my biggest weakness is that while I can read Kanji, I can't write them. You would think that this would be no problem in an all multiple-choice test, but then they bust out questions where you have to match identical Kanji from the Hiragana. For instance, this question is from the 完全マスター series.

(Select the sentence that has the same underlined Kanji)
前の社長は、事業の拡大に失敗して、しっきゃくした。
１）借りた本をへんきゃくする。
２）ラジオドラマをきゃくしょくする。
３）かんきゃくは5万人に上った。
４）きゃくまに花を生ける。

In other words, you need to know the Kanji for 5 separate words to be perfectly sure you're right. Ouch.

Update
Here's another one I completely bombed because while I knew all the words in the answers, I didn't know the word in the question. (That's how they get you)

今晩泊まるホテルは、山のちゅうふくにある。
１）毎日ふくしゅうしよう。
２）くうふくで夜中に目が覚めた。
３）ふくし関係の仕事に就きたい。
４）おうふく切符を買った。

Googleサジェストの日本語版公開！

2005-03-17T20:14:00.000+09:00

ついに出ました！Googleサジェストの日本語版！これはすごいですよ。最近、GoogleのGmailやMapsで注目されてきたXML HTTP Request object技法を用いて作られた物です。ページをリロードせずに、サーバーからXMLデータを取得し、即時に画面を更新する。暇なときにちょっと勉強しようかなと思っています。

What's it like to be white in Japan?

2005-03-16T20:29:00.000+09:00

Despite being American, there are a great deal of comforts I enjoy everyday by looking and sounding like Japanese. I probably don't even notice most of them as I slide through the crowds camouflaged in a sea of black or bleached blond hair and brown eyes.

But you know, sometimes I wish I could be a white version of myself in Japan for like a week just to see what it's like.

Do salespeople really freak out afraid that you're going to speak English to them? My girlfriend is half Asian (and looks more Japanese than me in some ways) so when she's shopping with me, salespeople are all coming up to her and chatting away about their wares. Apparently, when she went shopping with a white friend, the salespeople were all avoiding them; afraid that they were going to have to bust out their High School English.

Do girls really jump all over you if you're decent-looking and tall? When I was studying as a student here, a really cute girl was earnetly asking a fellow young strapping exchange student for help with her English. I asked him, "Hey, who's that?" and he answered, "I don't know. She just came up to me out of nowhere." Wha? I'm fluent in English too... (．.)ゞ

Do people really constantly ask you if you can eat Japanese food, raw fish, or use chopsticks? Actually, I'm sure they do because even I get asked this all the time. Raw fish? Hello? My first language has a separate word for raw fish. And chopsticks? I think over 15 years of practice is adequate to mastering them.

I think the biggest reason I might want to try being white is that I just don't want people sitting right next to me on the trains because I like to have a little extra room on the sides.

アメリカン人は何を食べるんだろう？

2005-03-14T20:44:00.000+09:00

アメリカ人の食生活が気になる方はこのサイトを見るといい。ニューヨークに住んでいる誰かがいつもの食事を写真撮って、フォトブログにアップしているみたい。暇だなとしか思えないが、面白くなくはない。

今日の出番はシリアル。アメリカに行ったことのない人は知らないかもしれないけど、アメリカは日本と比べてシリアルを食べる人も多いし、もっとたくさんの種類がそろっている。スーパーにシリアル専用のアイルがあるほどだからね。

ちなみに、日本人がたくさん滞在している地域以外は、和食をなるべく避けた方がいい。このお寿司はおいしそう？

いや、全然。

大体のアメリカ人はお寿司の本当のおいしさを知らない。それは事実であります。（お寿司屋はたくさんあるのに･･･まずいけど）

More Gmail Invites...

2005-03-07T16:50:00.000+09:00

I don't see why google continues with this gmail invite nonsense since they're giving so many away now. Now I've got 50 invites and I don't even know 50 email addresses! Even though anyone who cares probably already has one, anyone who wants can leave your name (real or fake, I don't care) and email address in the comments.

I like jerk... chicken

2005-02-28T00:38:00.000+09:00

今週末は、恵比寿にあるAALAWIというジャマイカンレストランに行こうと思っている。この間テレビで取材されたレストランで、Jerk Chickenがおいしそうだった。俺は、San Diegoで1回食べたことがあるが、その時はかなりうまかった。ウェブでこんな地図が見つかった。ウェブって便利なもんだ。

I've attached a map to a Jamaican restaurant called AALAWI near Ebisu. I saw it on TV last week and thought I'd try out the Jerk Chicken over the weekend. It's a bit far but the one time I tried Jerk Chicken in San Diego it was pretty good, so I thought, "Why not?" If you see an Asian male with short black hair there this weekend, that might be me so make sure to say "Hi". (That was a joke)

顔文字ボキャブラリーアップ！

2005-02-25T00:49:00.000+09:00

I found out today how to make emoticons like the saluting emoticon below:
(^-^)ゝ

It turns out that if you type in くりかえし in Windows, you can get a bunch of special symbols that indicate a repetition of the previous character. (Yes, I use Windows - Windows 2000 actually)

For instance, 々 is the repetition character for kanji. You may have seen it for words like 様々、色々、数々、時々、and 度々.

Well, it turns out that ゝ is the repetition symbol for hiragana while ヽ is the repetition symbol for katakana. There are voiced versions as well: ゞ and ヾ. So I suppose you can write things like 「こゝ」 instead of 「ここ」 or 「たゞ」 in place of 「ただ」. In reality, since くりかえし is five times longer than simply retyping the character, the only thing ゝ and ヽ are good for is making funny faces.

For fun, you can also type きごう and scroll through to see all the other types of symbols available. Yeah!! (／o^)／ I'm so excited!! o(^^)o

I still have no idea how to produce the pencil-holding character for the "head-scratching while writing" face below.
φ(．.)ゞ　さっぱりわからん

Update
Here's a site with much more Japanese emoticons. I have no idea how they manage to make the faces look so darn cute like this running away one.
・・・・・・・・・・＼(* ＞＜)／きゃー！

I also liked this 突っ込み one.
(-．-)ノ” ナンデヤネンッ！

Why programs like Dreamweaver sucks...

2005-02-23T13:01:00.000+09:00

Dreamweaver is evil. It's not as bad as MSWord of course but no matter how good an html program is, if you use a WYSIWYG interface to make anything more than the simplest webpage, you're going to get some brain dead html. Here's some highlights of brain dead html handed to me to be turned into JSPs.

Hr (00:00)
I guess the spacebar is obsolete now

<span class="someclass"></span>
Obviously, something was erased but the program wasn't smart enough to erase the now useless span tag

People need to stop using these programs so that we don't get handed down crazy html files.

As you may have noticed, my recent entries are all related to programming. That's because work has gotten busy and that's what I do for about 12 hours a day. I need to find another line of work... I've been thinking of studying to become a Japanese professor lately. I wonder what major I should take?

Don't forget to recompile the jsp...

2005-02-18T10:08:00.000+09:00

Don't forget, if you make changes to your .tld (tag library definition) file, it's not going to do anything unless you recompile your jsp file. I spend hours banging my head wondering why it absolutely refused to read my changes yesterday. Then a flash of inspiration came. I opened up my jsp file, made some garbage changes, undid them, and saved it to change the update time on the file. Then I ran ant, reloaded, and problem solved! Remember, you have to make an actual (although fake) change to the file or else the application server won't recompile it.

I heard the funniest thing at work today.

送られてきた設計書、さっぱりわかんないけどさ。それがわかったら天才だよ。

くすくす

And and here's todays Japanese tidbit

突く【つく(P); つつく(P)】 (v5k) (1) to thrust; to strike; to attack; (2) to poke; to nudge; to pick at

Wait, so do you read it as 「つく」 or 「つつく」? Who knows? Ha ha, I love Japanese!

Why javascript is evil...

2005-02-16T12:56:00.001+09:00

I hate javascript because it's evil. Whenever I have to make an estimate of how much time something will take to code up, if it involves a great deal of javascript, I automatically add another day because of all the stupid inconsistent things it should be able to do but can't. If I had to make something like Gmail, my only estimate would be: I'll be done when I'm finished... if it's even possible. And I won't find that out until I'm done or I fail. That's because you never know how much of it actually works the way it should and which browser will totally ruin all your plans. Here's an example. Let's try to assign a value to a form field that's decided at runtime.

eval("document.forms[0]."+ "dynamicname" + ".value") = 1;

Hmm... IE6 says ';'がありません. That's very helpful. But this page says this should work. Maybe it does... in Netscape?!?! God I hate Javascript!!! Die, Javascript, DIE!

By the way, I figured out a way to work around this by actually passing in the form object itself to the function and not the name of the object. Then you don't have to bother with all the eval crud.

Bought some books...

2005-02-14T21:41:00.000+09:00

I received a 1000 yen book certificate for my birthday last year so I bought a couple books over the weekend.

I still have no idea how you're supposed to find a book of fiction in Japanese bookstores because they are organized by publishers. Do Japanese people remember the publisher for the book they want??

Anway, I looked around and decided on 「キッチン」 by 吉本ばなな and 「こころ」 by 夏目漱石. I recommend reading 「キッチン」 if you're just starting out in reading novels. It doesn't seem to be too hard if you've been studying Japanese for a decent while.

I've probaby read only about 5-6 novels so far; a couple from 村上春樹 like 「ノルウェイの森」. Maybe it's just him and a couple others but Japanese novels are... weird. The stories are just very surreal. But I don't mind reading them because it's interesting and it's always very educational. Nothing like reading to remind me how much my vocabulary is lacking. You'll never learn words like 「脊椎」 or 「朦朧」 unless you crack open a book, I say.

Sometimes, I think authors have a little too much fun like when they write 「お茶を淹れる」. I mean is that really necessary? Sometimes, I have a sneaking suspicion that they make words up like 「蜜色」, I'm guessing it's read as 「みついろ」 but I have yet to find it in any dictionary. And just what color is "nectar color" supposed to be anyway?

This is off topic but in Dragon Quest VIII, why are the easy words like 「こうげき」 and 「ふくろ」 in hiragana when they use kanji for everything else like 「鎌」 or 「錬金術」? Can Japanese kids read that stuff?!?!

Update
It's been confirmed. 「蜜色（みついろ）」 is a made-up word. I guess it should mean honey color. Though I have no idea why the author didn't decide to use a real word like 「蜂蜜」 and add 「色」 to that instead. Aren't there enough words in the language already???

白人男性の魅力は？

2005-02-10T14:08:00.000+09:00

この間、家に帰るところで中央線に乗ったら、日本人の女性が白人の男性の肩に顔をうずめて泣いてる姿が目に入った。どうも、何かが起こったらしくて、男性の方は英語で「大丈夫だ、丈夫」と繰り返していた。「ふ～ん」と思いながら、辺りを見回したら、電車のドアの隣にいる女性が英語でメールを書いていることに気づいた。ちらりと携帯の画面を盗み見たら、宛先は男の名前になっている。しかも、内容はとてもきれいな英語で間違え一つもなかったと思う。その晩、彼に助けてもらったらしい。（Thanks, you really saved my life tonight!みたいな文章だった。)

その前に乗っていた電車でも、白人の男性が赤の他人だった日本人の女性と話をしながら、名刺まで渡すのを見た。（どっちが先に話し掛けたかは、わからない）「今日はどうしたんだろう？」と俺は思った。白人男性は魅力的？そうだとすれば、どこが？英語能力？それとも性格？白人男性が、日本人男性より本当に優しいのかな？電車で女の子が日本人の彼氏に泣きながら抱きつこうとしたら、慰めてくれるかな？あるいは、「電車で何すんだよ？」と叱られるのか？

俺の知り合いの中で性別で英語能力を比べると、女性の方が圧倒的に強い。それはまた何か関係あるかな？

Ramen-101

2005-02-06T10:49:00.000+09:00

The one thing I'm going to miss the most if I ever leave Japan will be the vast array of ramen available. All they have in Korea and the US is instant ramen, which is a pale substitution to the real thing. I've never been to China but I doubt that ramen can be any more popular than it is in Japan. (Unless its so big that an economic downslope of the ramen market causes a depression.)

Those of you new to Japan may be unfamiliar with how big ramen is here. In Japan, there are ramen shops in just about every corner of the country. You can get ramen with every type of soup, noodle, and ingredients imaginable. I've even been to a ramen shop that hands you a sheet of paper to check off the toppings you want in your ramen. You can even get characteristic region-specific ramen like 熊本ラーメン or 北海道ラーメン. Anyway, in yet another informative post, I hope you provide an introduction to the basic types of ramen out there. Hopefully, this will help you get started on exploring the world of ramen.

First, we'll go over the basic types of ramen out there.

醤油ラーメン (しょうゆラーメン) - The most common and generic type of ramen. Nothing much to comment on here except that it doesn't really taste like soysauce. Sometimes 「醤油」 is written as 「正油」.

塩ラーメン (しおラーメン) - A simple, refreshing salt-based flavor. (It works great for hangovers.)

味噌ラーメン (みそラーメン) - As the name "miso ramen" implies, the soup's flavor is based mainly off of miso. If you like miso, you'll probably like miso-ramen.

坦々麺 (タンタンメン） - A spicy soup with the taste of sesame seeds either black or white.

豚骨ラーメン（とんこつラーメン） - Literally meaning "pork bone ramen", the soup is flavored by boiling pork bones in water. This gives the soup a whiteish color. Personally my favorite type of ramen.

チャーシューメン - Most ramen come with a slice of pork flavored differently depending on the ramen called 「チャーシュー」. This ramen is for lovers of 「チャーシュー」 as it has several heaped on.

ねぎラーメン - For those who like 「ねぎ」 or green onion, this ramen is for you. It's heaped with the stuff.

The 「四川黒ごまタンタン麺」 from the big Chinese restaurant across from the movie theater in 「さいたま新都心」. I'm sure you're thinking, "Boy Tae, is it as good as it looks?" Ooh yeah, it's FREAKIN' GOOD!!

In addition to the different types of ramen, they can also be separated into two different types of soup and noodle. Some restaurants allow you to choose whether you want your soup oily or light and whether you want your noodles hard or soft. Here's one such store. If you prefer a lighter, "refreshing" soup, you would be a 「さっぱり系」. Those who prefer the thick, oily soup would be referred to as a 「こってり系」. After eating different types of ramen, you might develop your own preferences and find your own path in life. Next time someone asks you what you are, you can answer, 「私は長めの固麺で、さっぱり系のチャーシュー麺です！」

Also, if you haven't watched it yet, I highly recommend watching the movie about ramen called "Tampopo". It's one of my favorite movies.

Writing for 3yen.com

2005-02-04T21:44:00.000+09:00

From now on, I will be writing about learning Japanese at nihongo.3yen.com. It's a part of a network of blogs about Japan which you can access at www.3yen.com.

Don't worry, I will still be continuing this blog, since most of what I write here is not about learning Japanese anyway. But if you are learning Japanese, you should check out the other site from time to time. In fact, I like my first post so much, I'm going to copy some of it here.

What's the difference between 「は」 and 「が」?
I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard the question, “What is the difference between the 「は」 and 「が」 particle?” This question has successfully managed to baffle countless generations of people learning Japanese. There has also been countless number of equally baffling explanations seeking to explain what the difference is. And so, as a service to the world, I will at last explain, “What is the difference between 「は」 and 「が」?”
「は」 and 「が」 have different meanings.
I think the more appropriate question would be, “What isn't different about 「は」 and 「が」?” You may be thinking, “But in English, they both identify the subject of the sentence.” Ahh, English. Isn't English that language that can’t even express the very concept of 「は」 and 「が」? Well, no wonder it looks the same in that language. That’s like a green-blue color-blind person holding a green and blue sheet of paper and saying, “Hey, isn’t this the same color?”

What do you think? Interesting?

My favorite show...

2005-02-02T21:24:00.000+09:00

My favorite TV show is 「ケロロ軍曹」. In fact, it's the only show where I actually bothered to remember the show time. It's on every Saturday morning from 10:00 to 10:30. I'm not sure which channel it is but I'm sure you can figure it out by channel surfing. There's only like 6 channels that work anyway.

There's really not much more to say except that it is funny and that you should watch it. Plus, it seems like 「夏美」 always ends up getting into some type of skimpy outfit (at least two out of the three times I've seen it so far). Yowza.

If you can stand RealPlayer, you can see the preview for the next episode at this site.

Yes, it's a cartoon. And yes, I'm an adult. I'm 23, watch Saturday morning cartoons and I'm proud of it.

More on Japanese second class-citizens

2005-02-01T21:30:00.000+09:00

Here's an informative article from Japan Times that goes into more detail about the decision to bar foreigners from senior civil service jobs. It discusses all the details left out by Japanese newspapers. Here's a sample.

Chong was born in Iwate Prefecture to a Japanese mother and Korean father, who she says was thrown out of Korea for anticolonial activities. She began life as a Japanese citizen, but in 1952 her parents switched nationalities after Korea's colonial status, and automatic Japanese citizenship, ended. Her brother, a university lecturer, later became Japanese but Chong stayed Korean.

Update
Well, ok, I didn't have a full grasp of the situation on my first post so I admit it was a bit harsh and shortsighted. I didn't know that Chong was in an easy position to get Japanese citizenship. I think she should just get Japanese citizenship if her job really requires setting local policies that affect the public at large. However, I think she should still get money for damages if the following conditions are true:

1) They discriminated against her because of her name or some other information that wasn't required of all applicants.
2) They did not check citizenship of ALL the applicants of the job.
3) There was no clear set requirement of citizenship for the post BEFORE she applied for the job.

Because otherwise, it's just race discrimination plain and simple.

節分、get that 鬼

2005-01-31T20:19:00.000+09:00

節分(setsubun) is coming up pretty soon or rather February 3 to be exact. It's on either February 3 or 4 depending on some crazy lunar calendar. If you don't know what 節分 is, demons may be in your house RIGHT NOW, eating your chips and stealing your socks (so they never match). That's why you have to drive them out your house every year. How do you do this, you might ask? You might think it involves shooting a rail gun that shoots silver crosses at hyper-sonic speeds while shouting, "BURN IN HELL, YOU EVIL DEMON SPAWN OF SATAN!!!" You would be wrong.

No, what you do is throw delicious roasted soy beans around your house while saying, 「鬼は外、福は内!」 Then you eat a bean for each year of your age (or more depending on how much you bought and how frugal/hungry you are). You might thing such cute shenanigans would have little effect. That's because in America demons look like this:

(taken without permission from www.scifidimensions.com/May03/demon.jpg)

This is what a demon （鬼） looks like in Japan:

(taken without permission from www.bbsmail.com/event/monthly/1046978141.html)

And so you see, beans are more than adequate. Delicious!

And now for something actually informative. You might think that in order to say "throw beans" in Japanese you would say 「豆を投げる」. Ha ha ha, you're so naive. Actually people say 「豆をまく」. In kanji (never used), it is written as 「撒く」 and means "to scatter". I have never heard this verb used outside of this context yet.

Foreigners in Japan = Second-class citizen?

2005-01-27T23:51:00.000+09:00

Yesterday, the supreme court declared that it is constitutional to refuse examination for government jobs based on nationality overturning a decision from a lower court.

日本国籍でないことを理由に管理職選考の受験を拒まれた東京都職員の保健師で在日韓国人女性の鄭香均さん（５４）が、都に慰謝料を求めた訴訟の上告審判決で、最高裁大法廷（裁判長・町田顕長官）は２６日、受験拒否は違憲として４０万円の支払いを命じた２審東京高裁判決を破棄、鄭さんの請求を退けた。逆転敗訴が確定した。

You can read the full article here.

Now, I have no problem with blocking foreigners from holding office in political positions but a manager in a government office? The article says it was a 管理職 position. So if they only allow citizens to take the test, why doesn't she apply for citizenship? After all she's worked there for 16 freakin' years and probably lived in Japan for much longer. She might even have been born here. Maybe she doesn't want to become a Japanese citizen. Or more likely the problem is that they wouldn't grant it even though there's no problem with granting citizenship to a freakin' sea otter off the coast of Japan. I think it's so messed up that families can live in a country spanning generations and still be refused from getting citizenship. Ok, I was wrong, it's no problem for her to get citizenship, as well as, all the Koreans forcibly brought to Japan during the war and their children. Sorry...

Update
In other news, it's been reported that the increase in Japan's population has been the lowest ever of .05% this past year. There are other articles online about ways of dealing with the problem of a shrinking work population supporting an aging society. Does anybody else see a blindingly obvious solution to this problem? Or maybe I shouldn't give away too many bright ideas before they start letting a sea of cheap engineers from China or India come into the country to take my job...

英辞郎、a godsend for Japanese learners

2005-01-27T20:54:00.000+09:00

The site is also on my list of links but the 英辞郎 dictionary powered by SPACE ALC is a godsend for Japanese learners everywhere. At first, I was floored by the edict dictionary presented by Jim Breen's WWWJDIC and its superiority to all Japanese/English dictionaries in print. But, I have to admit, 英辞郎 is even more amazing mostly because the WWWJDIC does not have a English->Japanese dictionary. 英辞郎 is the only dictionary I know of that can give you a clue on how to take something you want to say in English and translate it to Japanese. You can enter English phrases and have a good chance at getting some suggestions for the Japanese. Unless you have a bilingual speaker around you can ask, this is the only tool I know of that can do this.

For instance, lets say you wanted to say, "They crowded into the train," but were not sure how to say "crowded into" in Japanese. You know 「込んでいる」 means something is crowded but you're not sure how to use that for crowding into something. If you search on 英辞郎 for "crowded into", you get these following helpful suggestions.

# crowded into a room
《be ～》部屋に溢｛あふ｝れる
# crowded into a small area
狭い場所｛ばしょ｝になだれ込む
# crowded into a small room
《be ～》（大勢｛おおぜい｝の人が）狭い部屋｛へや｝に押し込められる

Now you can use these suggestions and google around to see which one most closely matches what you want to say.

Yet another example. I was wondering how to say my ears popped as I was riding an elevator that flew up 16 floors. I tried a couple combinations like "ears pop" and hit pay dirt when I searched for "ear popped". I got the following:

My ear popped.
気圧で耳がへんだ。

I don't know why 「へん」 is in hiragana but I'm guessing it's 「変」. Now, I know that in Japanese, you can say your ears feel strange for changing altitudes and that there probably is no exact equivalent for the English "ear popping" phrase. Without 英辞郎, there's really no way to look up this type of information without having a bilingual speaker handy. (Which I think is rare for most people.)

Even something as simple as trying to find out how to say "Big Dipper" in Japanese can be a major headache without this dictionary. The WWWJDIC returns no search results because it only searches the definitions of Japanese words (and poorly, I might add). With 英辞郎, you just pop in "big dipper" and there you go.

Big Dipper
【名】《米》北斗七星

I'm surprised that this site is supposed to be for Japanese people because I think it's far more useful to English-speaking people learning Japanese. What do you think?

Sometimes learning ことわざ is useful...

2005-01-26T14:33:00.000+09:00

But most of time, it's not. Let's face it, how often do we say something like the following in a normal conversation?

"Whoa! Don't count your chickens before they hatch, man!"

In my opinion, most 「ことわざ」 are really mostly worthless, which is why I can never remember them. But sometimes, you actually want to say something like, "To each his own." or "Better late than never." The same thing goes for Japanese too. Here's a small selection of some ことわざ I suggest you pick up if you haven't already. Trust me, if they've forced themselves into my brain despite my total lack of interest, they must be useful.

１．一石二鳥（いっせきにちょう） - Kill two birds with one stone. There's another one 「一挙両得」 which means the same thing but that one's not used as much.

２．一期一会（いちごいちえ） - Literally, it means something that only happens once in a lifetime. You can infer other meanings from it like, "Treasure the moment cause it's the only one", etc.. Here are some examples.

３．石の上にも三年（いしのうえにもさんねん） - Good things come to those who wait. (Japanese people like to say this when you complain about a crappy situation.)

４．備えあれば憂いなし（そなえあればうれいなし）- If you're prepared, you won't be sad.

I think I'll stop here cause it's almost impossible to remember these things anyway.

マナーを守りましょう・・・

2005-01-25T01:29:00.000+09:00

This morning, the train was late because someone felt ill or some such. Anyway, the trains were packed and so was the platform. At one station, people were in such a rush to get into the already crowded train, they didn't even wait for the people to get off first. So whole process ended up taking even longer as people had to shove their way past a wave of people to get out first. Geesh, are people stupid? Don't they have a brain? I usually try to stick up for Japanese people when others try to bad-mouth them. But today, it was just plain embarrasing to see those adults pushing and shoving. They just had to get on that train so bad.

電車が込み合っている時に、人が降りる前に電車に入り込むのをやめましょう。当然だと思いますが、そうしないと、逆に時間がかかります。電車が遅れたら、ストレスが溜まるかもしれないが、冷静に頭を使って考えましょう。というか、マナーより常識だろう。（-_-#）

気に入りのぬいぐるみ

2005-01-24T22:15:00.000+09:00

宮崎監督のキャラクターはかわいくて、上野の店でぬいぐるみを３匹買っちゃった。どんぐりの袋を持っている中トトロとねずみ姿の坊とジジ。あまりにかわいいから写真を撮ってみた。（ジジはパソコンの隣にいるから、写真に入ってない）後ろには彼女が獲得したUFOキャッチャーのぬいぐるみ達。UFOキャッチャーマニアだよ。本当。（お金もったいね～）

Can you buy Miyazaki stuffed animals in the States? I hope so, cause they're cute, aren't they?

システム開発における用語

2005-01-22T15:09:00.000+09:00

I remember when I was trying to get a computer job in Japan, I tried to learn some computer termininology worried that I wouldn't understand any of the technical words in Japanese. Unfortunately, I couldn't find such a site on the Internet. And so, in an effort not to pollute the Internet with just junk, I've tried to present the following informative post for the up-and-coming programmers wanting to work in Japan. (I was feeling bad that people searching on google for "JLPT" ended up at my post about how anything less than level 1 was a waste of money.)

General Terminology

オブジェクト指向（しこう）- Object-oriented
変数（へんすう） - variable
固定値（こていち） - constant
値（あたい） - value
関数（かんすう） - function
引数（ひきすう） - parameter
配列（はいれつ） - array
スレッド - thread (no it's not a sled)
継承（けいしょう） - inheritance
カプセル化（か） - making into capsule (black box programming)

Design-related Terminology

定義書（ていぎしょ） - a document that defines something （ex: XML定義書）
クラス図（ず） - class diagram
基本設計（きほんせっけい） - basic design (broad level)
詳細設計（しょうさいせっけい） - specific design
仕様（しよう） - specifications (what your program is supposed to do)

僕の彼女を紹介します

2005-01-20T21:58:00.000+09:00

日本語で何かを書こうとすれば、いつもつまんない内容になってしまうので、今回は写真をアップしよう。この間、彼女が着物を着ている姿を初めて見た。自分で言っちゃうけど、着物は彼女にとても似合うと思う。ほら、着物が似合うのは日本人だけじゃないよ。正直に言っちゃうと、白人にはちょっと違和感を感じるが･･･（すみません）

海外に行く時には荷物にご注意・・・

2005-01-20T21:42:00.000+09:00

僕は日本の一番好きなところが、お店で何かを置き忘れても、後に戻れば大体見つかるところだと思う。日本ではそういう経験が２回あったが、問題なく2回とも見つけることができた。一回目は、彼女が新宿にあるインターネットカフェで電子辞書を忘れちゃった時。大変だ！と思って次の日に行ってみたら、フロントの人が箱から取り出してくれて、びっくりするほど簡単に済んだ。（彼女は一年間以上日本で暮らしていたから、冷静に「取ってきて」とお願いしたわけ）二回目はコンビニで国人登録証明書をそのままコピー機に置き忘れた時。大事な物だから心配していたが、二日後に行ってみたら、期待通り店員さんがカウンターから出してくれた。大都市でこう簡単に忘れ物を見つけるなんてアメリカではあり得ない。日本人は本当に恵まれていると思う。

さて本題に入りましょう。こういう快適な環境に慣れている日本人は、海外に行く時に気をつけないといけないいくつの点があります。

第１は、公共の場では物を目から離すと、例え数分間であっても、誰かに取られる可能性があると認識しないといけない。例えば、レストランでトイレに行く時、荷物を友達に見てもらうか、全部持っていく必要がある。面倒かもしれないが、そのまま置いていくとトイレに行っている間に取られてしまうかもしれない！

第2は、何かをなくしたら、絶対戻ってこないという心構えが必要。日本はあくまで例外であって、大体のケースは何かをなくしたら、また見つける確率は５％以下だと考えてよい。つまり、自分の所持品を大事にするということ！パスポートなど、非常に大切な物は命のように大切にしてください。

Katakana woes....

2005-01-18T21:13:00.000+09:00

You know, the transition from real English to katakana seems so natural to me now that I've forgotten how crazy it is. For instance, why the hell are there two words for glass, 「ガラス」 and 「グラス」? What's even worse, their usages are different. For example, 「グラス」 often means glass cup but 「ガラス」 doesn't. 「ガラス」 is instead usually used for glass panes such as windows. Why? Are they spelled differently in English? No. Are they pronounced differently? Not where I'm from at least.

Another interesting phenomenon is the word for "can" (as in "container"):「缶」. I don't get it, is that from Chinese? Because why is that pronounced 「カン」 when the katakana for the verb "can" (as in "able to") is 「キャン」? I know this because there are super lame-ass slogans on adverts like 「ユーキャン！」. You can... do what? Objects people, objects! English grammar requires an object. How many years of mandatory English do you need? 50? 100?

Anyway, to those of you new to this, it must seem pretty crazy. So I thought I'd shed some light on the subject to provide a few explanations to get you started.

As you know, since Japanese sounds always consist of consonant-vowel pairs, any English words that deviate from this pattern will cause problems. The only combination that doesn't create problems is the consonant-vowel + n (using 「ン」). Here are some trends you may have noticed.

If you've seen "Lost in Translation", you know that "l" and "r" are indistinguishable.

Lady -> レディ
Ready -> レディー

If you have more than one vowel in a row or a vowel sound that ends in "r", it usually becomes a long vowel sound.

Target -> ターゲット
Shoot -> シュート

Abrupt cut-off sounds usually denoted by a "t" or "c" employ the small 「ッ」
Examples:

Catch -> キャッチ
Cache -> キャッシュ

Anything that ends in a consonant sound require another vowel to complete the consonant-vowel pattern. (Except for "n" and "m" for which we have 「ン」) For "t" and "d", it's usually "o". For everything else, it's usually "u".

Good - グッド
Get -> ゲット
Top -> トップ
Viking -> バイキング

All 'v' sounds are pronounced with a 'b'. There are special katakana spellings for "v" but it's usually ignored and whatever the spelling, it'll still be pronounced 'b'.

Very -> ベリー

I hope these guidelines will help you get started on conquering the mystical world of Japanese English.

Update
Oh, the irony of ironies. It seems you can take English lessons from the 「ユーキャン」 people. （なんとなく、やらない方がいい気がする）

Top ten signs of being assimilated...

2005-01-17T21:19:00.000+09:00

Here are the top ten signs that you being assimilated into the Japanese collective. Some of them might happen to be funny but the intent was to come up with realistic things.

You know when you've been in Japan too long when...

1) The crush of human bodies in the train during the morning commute actually feels warm and comfy during the winter (as long as nobody nearby smells).

2) You pronounce all 'v' sounds with 'b' (like DBD) because it's easier and it "sounds the same anyway".

3) You start bowing when you apologize over the phone.

4) You pronounce English words with Japanese katakana pronunciations... while speaking English.

5) You push yourself into a crowded train, knocking people down in the process and feel no remorse.

6) You don't feel cold wearing a short skirt in the middle of winter because you have your extra-long scarf on.

7) You don't panic after forgetting expensive electronic equipment at a store in the busiest part of Tokyo because you can just go back to pick it up later.

8) You go back to America and everybody looks fat.

9) All white people start to look alike.

10) Your train is running late from a 人身事故 and the only emotion you feel is annoyance at the delay.

塊魂

2005-01-12T21:14:00.000+09:00

塊魂 seems to be getting inexplicably popular in the States. It's even mentioned in an article about video games on Wired. I don't know why the title is romanized as Katamari Damacy though. I guess it looked cooler than damashii. Anyway, the article says it's a Japanese cult hit. I don't know what that means. Does it mean you join a cult automatically by playing it? Anyway, best to my knowledge, it's not much of a hit in Japan, where store shelves are filled with weird games. A hit video game here would be Dragon Quest VIII but oh wait, that hasn't hit the American market yet. Ha ha, sucks to be you guys.

The prince is such a cute little character
Anyway, I bought the game, ironically having heard how popular it was in the US and that it was sold out and impossible to get for a while. It was interesting at first but for some reason the King only talked in katakana and that was really annoying. The game itself got old pretty fast. Then I found out there were a bunch of presents to look for and my obssesive video game instincts took over as I tried to get every single item in the game. I hope to shake this self-inflicted addiction sometime soon (as soon as I collect all the presents).

Update
For your amusement, here's a Penny Arcade strip on the matter.

Old Japanese Slang

2005-01-11T23:41:00.000+09:00

I'm always eager to learn old Japanese slang because I can pull them out nonchalantly during conversation to amaze Japanese people with my knowledge of useless crap. That's why I was delighted when I ran into this blog entry about アッシーくん, a slang which dates back to around 1990. You bet I memorized it all in a heart beat: アッシーくん、メッシ－くん、ミツグくん、キープくん、本命くん. (I wrote this all from memory) Now all that remain is to lie in wait to throw it out there in a conversation.

And while on the topic of useless vocab, only in Japanese will you find a word just for walking around in 銀座：「銀ブラ」. This is, of course, a combination of 「銀座」 and 「ぶらぶらする」 which means to wander around aimlessly.

あけましておめでとう！

2005-01-04T22:04:00.000+09:00

あっという間に冬休みが終って、仕事に戻りました。悲しい限りです。（T_T）
今年の冬休みはほとんど何もせず、のらくらした生活を送りました。かなり楽しかったです。色んなところに行くつもりだったが、予算と寒さの関係で殆どどこにも行かなかったんです。結局は、栃木県の鬼怒川温泉ぐらいですね。

I saw this really funny quote so I thought I'd share it with all of you.

The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck is the day they make a vacuum cleaner.

Ha!

By the way, for those of you unfamiliar with Japanese smileys, here's a site that explains them. I know, it's a bit いまさら but hey, better late than never.

Japanese smileys

In other news, it looks like Japan might finally have the one major thing it's always been lacking: Cranberry Juice! It looks like it's distributed by Sapporo under the authority of Ocean Spray. Unfortunately, I have no idea where it's sold and they'll probably water it down for Japanese tastes anyway. That would, of course, defeat the whole point of buying cranberry juice in the first place. Maybe Japanese people don't know that one of the tastiest way to drink vodka is to mix it with cranberry juice.

クランベリーとウォッカ、本当にうまいですよ！お酒が入っていることが判らないくらいです！本物のクランベリージュースを手に入れることができたら、是非試してみてください。

いよいよデジカメ購入！

2004-12-29T13:08:00.000+09:00

やっとデジカメを買ったので、写真をいっぱい掲載します。

今朝、（実は昼）起きて外を見たら、東京の初雪が降っていました！

Here are some pictures I took at the 温泉.

Apparently Bruce Lee decided to stop by.

This is the first time I ate gold. Yes, there's gold in the soup! It tasted rich (haha).

I tried to take a closer picture but the gold reflected the light from the flash. Ooohh, sparkly.

Oh, and as for the 温泉, it was overpriced. The food was good, but overall I wouldn't recommend it. The best time I had at an 温泉 was when I went to 箱根. I plan to go there again next time I go.

マッハ!!!!!!!!

2004-12-27T13:32:00.000+09:00

I watched 「マッハ!!!!!!!!」 yesterday and man it was great. Nowadays with even Jackie Chan using wires, it seems like you can't watch an action movie without flying and jump kicks with electric lightening that sends the victim hurtling through a brick wall. Not so with this movie. It's full of amazing stunts and awesome fight scenes without wires or fancy computers. Just some crazy talented Thai people with obviously no regard for their safety and well-being. You can't get this from Hollywood folks probably because of some sissy "safety laws". In fact, I still have no idea how you can jump off a ledge onto a guy with your knees and not hurt the guy. Especially since the table he was laying on sure seemed to feel it as it broke into pieces. I have a scary suspicion that in fact it probably did hurt... a LOT. It begs the question, "Is this even legal?" I guess it is... in Thailand. I'd love to see Keanu Reeves in a sequal to this movie cause you'd probably get a gem of a blooper with Keanu crying like a baby.

Though the story leaves much to be desired, the action more than makes up for it. I highly suggest you go out and rent this movie now.

In other news, according to the Google Suggest search tool, I have become one with Japanese. When you type my name "tae kim", google suggests "tae kim japanese".

Are traffic lights blue or green?

2004-12-22T01:39:00.000+09:00

You know it's debatable really because depending on the model of the traffic light, some might be green and others might be more bluish. In Japan, there appears to be a monopoly on traffic lights since all the ones I've seen are identical. And no matter how you look at it, the green light is green. Yet everybody insists on calling it "blue"（青）. At first, I thought that all Japanese were afflicted with blue/green blindness or rather, that the word 「青」 meant either blue or green. I imagined that when Japanese people think 「青」 they imagine a bluish greenish color and don't bother making a distinction. This is kind of like how people would consider "beige" to be white or "burgundy" to be red. The edict dictionary seems to agree with me as seen by their definition of 「青」.

According to the WWWJDIC
青【あお】 (n) blue; green; green light; (P)

So then I ask a Japanese guy something like 「これは青いですか？」while pointing at something green and he replied, 「いや、緑だな。」Ok, so it's green not blue.

I suspect that the green traffic light is called blue by convention due to some incredibly boring history about the origin of the 「青」 character from China. For normal circumstances, in today's Japanese, it seems wise to call blue things blue and green things green. If only the Japanese government had picked a traffic light with a more bluish color...

Incidentally, in Korea, people call the green traffic light "blue fire" (파란불). "Green fire" (녹색불) also seems to be ok. Koreans don't seem to be as big a stickler as Japanese people are to the traditional "blue".

Muffin tops and bread edges...

2004-12-21T20:57:00.000+09:00

If you've been to convenience stores in Japan, you know that they sell various types of sandwiches. (In fact, I'm enjoying one right now) These sandwiches made with plain white bread are cut diagonally in half and always have the brown edges removed.

Sometimes I wonder whether they have huge stockpiles of bread edges in bags sitting in some factory somewhere waiting to be trashed or fed to the pigs. I hear there's an episode of Seinfield where they tried selling only muffin tops and went out of business because they didn't know what to do with the bottom. Now if you could invent the technology to only make the top part of the muffin, and bread without the edges you'd become instantly rich, I bet. また変な事を書いちゃった･･･。

日本語関連
Darn it! I just made the same mistake of saying 背が短い again! In Japanese, your height is not short, it's low. (Saying it's small is also acceptable.)
背が低い or 背が小さい not 背が短い

While were at it, for large and small amounts you say:
量が多い and 量が少ない not 量が大きい and 量が小さい

アメリカンジョーク

2004-12-20T13:51:00.000+09:00

しばらく日本語で何も書いてないから、今回は日本語で頑張ります。まぁ、特にテーマは決めてないので、てきと～に書いちゃいます。

「アメリカンジョーク」という言葉は、二つの意味があることを最近知りました。もちろん、１つ目は「アメリカからきたジョーク」という意味です。知らなかったのは、それに従って、「訳のわからないギャグ」という二つ目の意味も裏に存在していることでした。

その原因は、恐らく言語の根本的な違いにあると思います。日本語は正直な言語で、素直に「かっこいい」とか「きれい」とかを言ってもおかしくないでしょう。だが、「You're very handsome」や「You're pretty」など、10年以上アメリカ滞在で実際に聞いたことはありません。「Sarcasm」すら表現できない日本語で、皮肉なコメディの面白さを解るのは、とても難しいでしょうね。

アメリカンジョークが分かりかねることは、とても残念だと思っています。かなり面白いですよ。個人的に爆笑したのはSNLの「Celebrity Jeopardy」でした。「therapists」を「the rapists」に読み間違えたのは、笑っちゃいましたね。（やっぱ、面白くない？）時間があるとき、日本のコメディも楽しんでいます。「貧乏アピール」をこの間見ましたが、とても面白かったです！

You think Japanese is hard?

2004-12-17T08:37:00.000+09:00

Most of you have probably already seen this amusing description of the difficulty of Japanese. Well, here is my counter-argument of why Japanese is so much easier than English

Why Japanese is approximately 1.342x10^6 times easier than English
So you're all bruised up from having engaged in a 2 hour royal rumble match with your Japanese teacher in which you failed to convince her to curve your grade even after 2 DDT's and a Moonsault off the top rope. Well, what you need realize is that you're a big sissy (yes, you) for not realizing just how easy Japanese is to learn. But after reading this, you'll understand why your massive beer drinking is the root cause of your bad grade and not some intrinsic difficulty of the language.

1. Pronunciation is easy because Japanese people have a tongue disability
Japanese people can only make about 45 sounds. No, really. As a result, it's incredibly difficult for Japanese people to correctly pronounce other languages. This is why simple English words like, "TV" sounds like "te goo goo ba ba" in Japanese.

On the other hand, much to your benefit, pronouncing Japanese is a cinch. Unfortunately, your brain has been so thoroughly messed up by English that for some reason "karaoke" looks like "kery-okay". I mean look at the word "thoroughly", just look at it. Does the spelling make any sense? So the next time you ask in Japanese, "Where is the elevator?" and the Japanese person smiles and says, "yua Japanese bery guddo" and just walks away, you'll know that it's really your fault he thought you were speaking in Swahili.

2. Grammar is easy because Japanese people are mind readers
In Japanese, there's something called 以心伝心, which basically means that Japanese people can read each other's minds, thereby creating a hive consciousness that is constantly plotting to take over the world with giant robots. That's why Japanese doesn't have a singular/plural distinction and only past/non-past tenses. There really isn't any sentence structure to speak of for that matter, either. You might think that leaving the subject and object out of a sentence would make it too ambiguous to say anything but you forget that Japanese people can read your mind. As a result, you don't have to worry about subjects, participles, sentence order, subject-verb agreement, articles, prepositions, pronouns, and pretty much basically all of English grammar.

For instance, if you wanted to say, "Hi, I'm looking for a cheap place to stay," all you have to do is say, "Me...", trail off into silence, nod, and point knowingly to your head. The Japanese person will nod knowingly back and then go back to whatever he was doing. In all likelihood, that's probably his way of saying, "Back off you foreign infidel, you shall not have my daughters!" But you should have expected that since you were probably thinking nasty thoughts about his daughters.

3. Spelling is easy because it's impossible
In Japanese, you don't have to worry about spelling because each sound has a corresponding letter. Most words consists of 2 or 3 Chinese characters anyway. You might complain that it's so hard to figure which Chinese character to use but since no one actually knows how to write Japanese without a computer, you don't have to worry about it. Not to mention the fact that Japanese classes and textbooks don't use Chinese characters because of the fear that it'll make your head explode. (Which I imagine would create a huge headache for schools and publishers)

4. Japanese people are friendly to foreigners and are willing to help
In the unlikely event that you find yourself stuck, you can easily ask any Japanese person for assistance and she'll gladly oblige. The only catch is that you'll have to be fluent in Japanese since Japanese people can't speak any other language. (See the first reason) Also, when I said foreigners, what I really meant was white (and possibly black) English-speaking foreigners. (Japanese people will automatically assume you're completely fluent if you look Asian)

For some reason, most Japanese people are brainwashed from childhood to have an irrepressible desire to learn how to speak English. This is quite sad because it's practically impossible considering how more more difficult English is compared to Japanese. But that doesn't stop them for trying for 10 or 20 years. What results is a very interesting language that, unfortunately, no one understands. So remember, as long as you are either 1) fluent in Japanese, or 2) own a 200 processor Beowulf cluster that can parse Japanese English into real English, you should have no problems finding help.

Conclusion
I hope I have convinced you with my clear and concise arguments about how easy Japanese really is. While this amusing essay makes quite a few jokes about the difficulty of Japanese, I just wanted to clear the air with a somber discussion of what Japanese is really like.

Author's Note
I would like to clarify that I am, in no way, trying to prove that learning Japanese makes your teeth crooked and turn ugly colors. If that's what you were thinking, you totally missed the point of this treatise.