10 things

Credo - 10 things you have to believe to be a Republican
Lies and Lying Liars who Fund Them

Just a couple of links to great entries in a health-related blog. Ok, so the first link is more of a rant about people dense enough to support Bush, but generally the authors' posts are really insightful and focused on health issues, but as health care is tied inextricably to the economy and politics, it's a pretty far-ranging topic.

Anyway, on to today's ramblings. I was in the movie rental store ("Family Book") the other day and noticed some of the changed titles on Japanese releases of "Foreigner" movies. Conan is no longer a Barbarian, he's Conan the Great. Kinda makes Arnie sound like a magician. Or there's Resident Evil becoming Biohazard, and many others. But the one that fascinated me was The Color of Money - which becomes Hustler 2. Why the 2? I couldn't find anything just called Hustler, let alone a prequel to Color. (Added Sep. 26 - Ok, so maybe there is a sort of prequel. See the comments. My bad.) Maybe just because Newman and Cruise were partners, but the title is still gibberish. It drives me nuts to watch language being butchered like this, and this is a mild example. I don't care if people anywhere want to change the titles of whatever they want to make more sense to the locals, but to make a mockery of someone else's language to do it is just lame. I know this in itself isn't really a big deal, but so many things in Japan do this. Some phrase that is at best vaguely recognizable as having some meaning in English becomes standard Japanese, to the point that even though borrowed foreign words are written in a separate alphabet (linguistic apartheid?) Japanese people often don't realize that it's actually neither Japanese nor real English. Things like "Everybody fashion!"(a current popular slogan) are part of the common vernacular.

Surely a huge cause of this is that English is considered pretty cool here and probably anywhere that still buys the mythology of the American Dream - I don't know how many times I've seen "American Coffee" advertised like it's gold - but it doesn't seem so much to ask that we not be constantly talked down to by people who insist the general public can't handle anything that takes more than 30 seconds to communicate. Japan's uniquely tortured, fashionable English is well-documented and famous but reaches well beyond its shores. Western celebrities who take spots in Japanese commercials for quick cash on the side usually seem to keep their integrity hovering at least a few millimeters off the floor - Tommy Lee Jones barely speaks or does so in Japanese in this Boss Coffee commercial, Kiefer Sutherland manages to make sense in his Calorie Mate spots, there are others from Ang Lee, Natalie Portman, Angelina Jolie, maybe we can pass off John Travolta's shot because it was the 80's and just a brand name anyway, and Ahnuld skips on English, not that that's unusual, but if anyone can find the spot Uma Thurman is in with the Kill Bill costume on a motorcycle spouting nonsense, I'd be much obliged. Now that's rock bottom. The whisky commercial with Bill Murray in Lost in Translation is not far off at all - obviously it's just a paycheck, but how hard can it be for someone with that kind of star power to look at a script written in their native tongue and suggest changes?

The company I work for is technically a publishing company, with a native English-speaking staff of around 300 and growing, but their publications and even their English textbooks are riddled with mistakes too typically Japanese and awkward to make on a keyboard to believe that they were just typos. Obviously someone was too proud to ask a decent proofreader to have a look. I can't help but picture the nephews of company chairmen all over the country assuming that their 6 months abroad made them fluent enough to write anything you please in English, and then unable to risk losing face by getting a proofreader even if they were willing to do so.

None of this is to say that Japanese is alone in this. We do it all the time in English, and to a far larger extent, given how eclectic and flexible the language is, and how far the British Empire stretched. Then there are helpless and confused Chinese characters tattoed all over people who couldn't be bothered to find out what they mean or get them done properly. French and Spanish words routinely have all their grace and music stripped when they get assimilated. English is like the Borg, it's the ten-cent whore of the language world. It just absorbs everything, which is both its beauty and its greatest weakness. Sure it's a language of amazing versatility (and don't even get me started on the "language of Shakepseare" bit), but that versatility brings the pitfall of believing there's no point in learning other languages, like the apocryphal stories of Americans who've never been more than 5 or 10 miles from home, despite the relative wealth, freedom, and opportunity to travel, because "we done got ever'thang a body needs right here". Aside from the mental benefits of bilingualism, especially from an early age, there are untranslatable words in every language.

Maybe I'm weird but I believe in knowledge for the sake of knowledge, learning just for the joy of it, art for art's sake, all that liberal hippy crap. I hope and believe that most people share that view, although I have to wonder how people of otherwise reasonable intelligence can not only believe in God but insist that God and science are mutually exclusive. If God created the universe, didn't he also create the laws of science that govern it? I don't go quite as far as Richard Dawkins in this clip from The Root of All Evil, where the premise is essentially that religion is destroying civilization, but I do believe that the spiritual benefits of any religion and the inner peace faith can bring have to be weighed carefully against the radical elements and intolerance that people seem determined to read into religious texts. (Yes, I do realize my topic is wandering a bit, check the title of the blog.)



On the other hand, maybe I'm just getting all preachy because what I ended up renting was V for Vendetta. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it, not as the typical Hollywood wire-fighting and stuff blowing up fare, but because it's a thought-provoking look at terrorism and the mindset that inspires it, and the idea that in the right circumstances it's not necessarily a bad thing. The movie doesn't offer pat answers about right and wrong, though it does lean towards V pretty strongly in most parts and is full of obvious references to the Bush administration.

Unfortunately the disc also included the pilot of "Supernatural", a mind-numbingly flat ghost story series that's probably old news or hopefully cancelled back home by now. I watched the entire painful episode hoping to find enough in the end to redeem it. No luck.

That's about all for today, I'll leave you with two things: one last photo, just a light chuckle. If you think God and Technology can't coexist, check out this computer school. And last, a reminder that mangling English can also be fun!

Holy Brastrap Batman!

(Original post and comments here.)

I'm stunned. Flabbergasted has been redefined. I'm blown away, and can't decide whether I'm upset or not about there not being any photos to go along with this post. I want proof. I've just seen the most unbelievable thing yet on Japanese television, and I cannot conceive of what will take its place. When I've talked to people about what they know about Japanese tv invariably it's something about Iron Chef or maybe Takeshi's Castle, but this is something that I think the west is unlikely to ever syndicate. Keep in mind that it was only around 9:30, maybe 10.

The only thing I can do is describe the show. Please bear with me, this is my best approximation of how I experienced this and, with my limited Japanese, pieced together the details of what the hell was going on.

When I flip to the channel, there are 6 girls and 1 guy on stage. The girls all look around 13-15 so they're probably 18-19 (you get used to the age-guessing arithmetic here after a while), all wearing uniform pink shirts with a slogan and something to do with a mermaid but the resolution and focus are inadequate to know more. The guy (perhaps 20) is rarely seen, and it doesn't take long to deduce that he's not the feature here, just the emcee. One of the girls has pulled the side of her skirt down enough that she can lift the waistband of her underwear to show to the camera, which obligingly zooms in for a closeup, then two of them hold up their skirts for the cameras to pan slowly across their undies for a few seconds. The camera zooms back out to a shot of the two girls obviously being featured (the other four hover in the background and don't warrant a microphone), and suddenly a family name comes up on screen below them (Kobayashi in Osaka or something like that). The two girls are given a magic marker, with which they write/draw on the shirts they're wearing for a few moments.

There is much applause for Kobayashi-san as two of the girls in the background step forward to accept large ziploc bags and hold them out for the featured girls. They, in turn, proceed to strip off their shirts and reach under their skirts to take off their underwear, which are all destined for the ziplocs. Someone in the studio takes a photo of them standing there topless, there is much applause, and they depart.

By this time I have pieced together a few more things from the intermittent glimpses of the t-shirts and banner:

• The shirts say "Stop!AIDS" [sic] - sounds more like a warning sign, doesn't it?


• The woman on the t-shirts I thought might be a mermaid is just standing in a giant condom


• This is the 2006 24-hour fundraiser - presumably for AIDS-related causes x, y and z

Two new girls come on, very briefly introduce themselves, give a hint of what they're wearing, and a CG banner slides onscreen. They say "Start!" (well, ok, "Staato") and a white-board is greenscreened into the bottom left corner of the screen with "24 yen" written on it (that's basically 24 cents, give or take a pittance). The last piece clicks into place: people are phoning in bids to get these girls' underwear! I didn't want to believe it when it first occurred to me, but this put the nails in the coffin, even though 24 yen has to be a joke. The girls continue to show their frilly bras and demonstrate that the panties you can buy are going to come straight off their bodies. All this while the bids keep coming in, and top out at 35,000 yen($350) when, for whatever reason, the bidding ends, which the generous So-and-so-san in Wherever won. There is much applause, and the Ziploc Strip begins again.

Some kind philanthropist shells out 50,000 yen for the next two girls' dainties, perhaps because one of them was too modest to show her panties to the camera while she was wearing them and would only show them to the emcee. Someone obligingly held a thin strip of paper in front of the camera when she had to lift her skirt a bit to take them off. (NB - they obviously weren't prepared for this possibility.)

I flipped back across this channel about half an hour later and the parade was still going.

Now I realize that it's largely my North American upbringing that makes my first instinct tell me there's something weird about topless young girls on early evening TV, and I try to look past that. They're adults and don't seem to be prostitutes or anything, just normal girls trying to raise some money for a good cause. What was really tough to wrap my head around was that the society here is so used to the idea of buying girls' freshly worn underwear that this probably didn't raise an eyebrow. It reminded me of the time a Japanese friend told me to call her "Yellow Monkey", and another responded to my astonishment with, "It's OK, we're all Japs here. And you guys are Limeys, and Yanks, and ...what do you say for Canadians, anyway?"(Good question. Canucks? Doesn't really have the same connotations.) Don't get me wrong, not having to tiptoe around the PC monster 24/7 is great, but I should think there is a line somewhere between calling consenting friends Japs and Yellow Monkeys and leering old men drooling with anticipation of the first whiff when they open their Ziploc bag full of hot-off-the-press underwear.

Am I just a prude?

Finally Keikyu, Boy meets goat, and Bear gets political

(Original post and comments here.)

I just love good news! But what do you get for this couple?

It's good to finally have the Fuji story out of the way. I really wanted it posted but had a hard time finding the time to do it - twice. In any case, it's done and now I can go back to posting trivial crap. Isn't that nice? I've got tons more photos and stuff on the way, including the magnificent keikyu poster.

I'll get back on here hopefully this afternoon to throw on a few more photos and maybe start a caption contest. I gotta get some hustle on at the moment.

<play yourself some elevator music for a few minutes>

Ok, I'm back. I realize it's a couple of years old, but I thought this was a good cautionary tale. Trust our friends in Nature, stay away from Bush.

But on to the main event. Here's some more wacky Japanalicious English and assorted unsanity.

Fashion critic in Nagoya Apparently if you're not careful about how you dress, the sun will send his fists of fury after you. It goes without saying that gramps' glasses are a no-no, but even little old ladies aren't safe from that vicious south-southeast jab. And I can tell you now, the sun being the massive ancient nuclear reactor that it is, if it's getting impatient about a little thing like some of us not being able to coordinate an outfit, we might be in trouble. I think maybe sunny-bunny needs a nappy-wappy, huh?


British Style, huh? About the meal. Cornflakes is eaten in the morning and daytime eats sandwiches and potato chips... Fish is what fried the white fish... British people attach vinegar, when eating Fish & Chips... grayvy sauce is attached and eaten to it... Garnishes are... A carrot, a cabbage, a pea, etc.
Yes, yes, of course we knew all that, except the bit about milk chocolate containing very much milk. Dammit man, you've been questioning him for 92 hours straight and this is all you've got? Where is the Amulet? Who is this "grayvy" and how does he know about Vegetarian? Speak!

Now we're getting somewhere It also runs today...
Well done, Stevens! I say, chaps, we should have the Amulet within which can see from the only Britain owns the red. Great Scott! what am I Saying? He must have brought some virus in here and more more more! Where is the place to want to go? Let's go out with me!

Drunkomo, the new Docomo mascot, had a few too many before showing up for work this morning.




And finally, the tremendously popular gay Swedish wrestling marionette duo "Slammerungdasheize" are here to tell us about Keikyu's caption contest!
"At this time, we invite all of you to encaptionate this photo. Please tell us of your desire for to see its underwords with use of comment feature. Winner will appear when selectioned. Thank you! We are on fire!"

One Last One

(Original post and comments here.)

I have to do one more about silly photos, then I promise I'll post real stuff for a while. Yes, I survived Fuji, that saga is in the works, but for now you'll have to make do with this.

I hope that clears it up for you. This is at a hair salon outside a friend's old apartment. I really like that you can basically tell what they were getting at, but the whole thing drank a good dose of Dr. Jekyll's formula when noone was looking. In case it's hard to read, it says, "This hair style is symbol of womanlike./ Is your hair style nice and beauty now ?/ If you lose your control making your hair style./ Please remember back about us." We're the ones who get it right when it matters.

You uhh, you gonna buy that? What a lovely afternoon! Aren't we comfortable here together? I hope you're enjoying your time in this store, fellow shopper! Aren't these products nice? You have certainly taken your time - 23 seconds, in fact - to look at the 3rd red sweater from the top on table 7, followed by a detailed examination of two of the mannequins in section J-4. Let's chat again sometime!

In a modern living space it's important to reach a good ratio of trapeze equipment to drugged wildlife... Mind you, I'm really not sure if I like having so many spare batteries east of the hot wax vats, what do the principles of Feng Shui have to say about it?

Can you say 'Bandwagon'?

(Original post and comments here.)

Have you seen this crap?

http://www.davincimethod.com/indigo.html

"I always thought my kid was more of a fuschia. Got anything for him?"

But ultimately that's not why I'm here. You guessed it, I have more goofy photos to share with you, because I'm a sharer. A giver. A bestower of substances. From flatulence to photos, you can count on me to share it if I got it. If you need some eggplant or a spare sacroiliac, you're on your own. Speaking of eggplant, I was checking out a little supermarket I biked by this morning and the lady putting produce on the tables had, I swear to (insert local deity), an eggplant that came out of the box shaped like a penguin. I wish I had that photo, I would share it with you too, but custody was awarded to the classification "Eggplant" and so I cannot. Penguins and photos all over the neighborhood are planning to appeal this latest decision.

...unless you want to The wonders of the 100 yen shop are not to be believed. I wanted to get one just to confuse smokers, but wiser heads prevailed. Oh, how I was looking forward to watching the twitching worsen when they tried to process this, maybe if I got lucky I could watch someone's head explode... Too bad they're persecuted so much already, as it is most smokers I know would probably just glance at this and then ash in my hair.

Home Pie and Creamy Powder I put these together to save YOU time. Damn I'm too nice.
Home Pie: On a bed of the finest Norwegian driveway and garnished with ground windowpanes.
Creamy Powder: Every time I think they've finally made the dehydrated mayonnaise I've dreamed of for so long, it's just coffee whitener. Or creamer. (Is that a dirty word?) Whatever. If it has to do with coffee, I can't be bothered.

Bite Size Beer My ex's mother used to drink one of these a day because she couldn't handle a normal-sized beer but she liked the taste and heard it was good for your health. I've heard they're actually intended to be left on tombstones as offerings to the departed(more likely the caretakers). That kind of cool take on spirituality is what redeems the culture here; when you die, sure you get flowers and whatnot, but how about something you enjoyed in life to take with you? Remember, a spirit only weighs 21 ounces, so at afterlife parties this is at least the equivalent of a keg.

Pet Sugar Can't keep up with the hectic demands a goldfish places on your life? Japan has the answer for you.

Used Hard But I didn't hear any complaints.



Okay, I still have a backlog of several years worth of stuff like this and I find more all the time, but that's all for today. Wait'll I get around to putting the Keikyu poster on. Mwahahaha.

See you next time! In case you're wondering, comments can be left by clicking the word 'comments' below...

(Update Sep 06/06: the Keikyu poster is finally here!)

Amazing Reproductive Quality

(Original post and comments here.)

A few weeks ago I had to cover for a coworker at one of her classrooms for a day. Next door was this little gem:

I know, so what, right? Nothing special about that. But look what H.C.C. stands for:


Pretty awesome what photocopiers can do these days.

On Second Thought (and defective Ball Cheese)

(Original post and comments here.)

I hope the previous post was at least moderately entertaining. But I got to thinking...Mushroom Research? Man, in a country where the psychedelic variety are at least semi-legal, maybe guys that chose looking at fungus as a career wouldn't be so dull after all. It's one of those things that probably wouldn't have much of a middle ground, like art films; they'd either be brilliant or godawful boring.

Anyway, I promised more about Fressay, but it's just a grocery store. What I found there is what I want to talk about, but first, can anyone tell me if Dr. Pepper has labels like this back home?:


By the way, you can click on the title of this post to go to Dr. Pepper's Japanese home page and see these in their native habitat, or click on the pictures to see larger versions. If you can't read it, the site is www.drpp.jp ... yeah, Dr. PP, that's right. No pun intended, I'm sure. What really drew me to these was the subtle tastefulness of the sexual references and imagery. The first time I read one of these labels I started laughing out loud in the grocery store, which is a sure way to get sent to the loony bin in Japan. Basically only small children and high school girls make any noise in public.

Seriously though, I can't believe the marketing weirdness involved in selling carbonated sugar water. This baffles me. I'm just as much for gratuitous displays as the next guy, but what's up with the hillbilly frog? Who invited this guy along? What skillz has this guy gotta have to be hanging out with those chicks?

There's an 'interview' with the Pepper Chix on the site. Apparently their names are a bit more down to earth than their ahem mammary glands, which isn't saying much, I know: Julie, Peg, Markie, and Ashley. (One of those may be the frog, I don't know enough Japanese to say for sure.) By the way, I'm gonna try to find some labels that still have these guys' predecessors on them, the busty rollerskating insect transformer girls. Then you might appreciate that in some ways, this is a step UP in quality.

Some more packaging bizarreness:
Doritos NEW "Better'n a Kick in the Nads" flavor! You technically can't get them for false advertising on that, they are just the teensiest bit better than a kick in the nads. If you're curious, the label at the top says "Taitsukun Adult Doritos" and the black triangles are what these things actually look like. Interestingly, I think the yellow guy is the hero, Taitsukun.
(Update: A Japanese friend told me these two guys are friends in an old Japanese comic, and the message beside them reads "The Electric Massage is back." Kinda one of those things where the translation renders the whole thing even weirder.)

Ball Cheese - Visit a harvesting station near you! Trust me, the bit after Ball says 'Cheese' - or to be precise chiizu - in Katakana (phonetic Japanese for foreign words). I'm impressed that the word cheese is in a speech bubble coming from the cheese itself. Very artistic. The whole thing is particularly special because I found this little gem in a store inventively named "Bakery Outlet." What went wrong with this product that got it sent to the outlet? I figure you have to be hurting pretty bad to go out and buy not just ball cheese, but defective ball cheese.

And that is the end.