It’s hard to talk like a pirate in Japanese, but the best alternative is to talk like a samurai. Here are five phrases to get you started. Main point: Say “gozaru” a lot.

First it was みずほ銀行 (Mizuho Bank), then it was さいたま市 (Saitama City). Now the word is that two of the new companies coming out of the postal privatization will be ゆうちょ銀行 (Yucho Bank) and かんぽ生命保険 (Kampo Life Insurance).

What is it with hiragana names these days? Have I studied kanji for so long, only to have the language be dumbed down before my eyes?

Readdressing an age-old question: how does a visibly non-Japanese person deal with living in Japan?

Everyone in my office is bilingual to some extent, but the lingua franca is Japanese. When the three foreign employees use English in the office, people almost seem surprised at how good we are at it. Or, in the words of my boss, they seem to be thinking: “Wow, he isn’t a retard after all!”

But every day I have to go outside, into the Real Japan, where speaking English to a foreigner is a much more natural feeling. Hell, it’s practically a legal presumption now. I can tell you from personal experience that bureaucrats definitely treat you better when you speak to them in English. Even in our office, our Japanese clients are put at ease when they can practice their English on a foreign lawyer, but have the option to switch back into Japanese if the conversation starts getting difficult.

I occasionally poke around on mixi when I’m bored, and sometimes I enjoy slipping into the discussions in a group called 英語★できる人＆勉強してる人 (“ENGLISH – People who know it and people who study it”). A high school-aged girl in Yokohama made a post a few weeks back along these lines:

I’m working part-time at a convenience store now, and I get quite a few foreign customers. I don’t know much English, but I’m wondering what I should say to them in English. Any ideas?

There were a bunch of replies, with varying degrees of appropriateness. I decided to slip in the Debito answer to this question at the bottom of the thread:

These are all good ideas. One thing you should watch out for, though, is that many foreign people in Japan want to speak Japanese. So if you see someone and immediately think “Oh, I’m going to speak English to them!” they might not appreciate it. Of course everyone has a different attitude, but there are such people out there.

Now I disagree with that suggestion. I remember poking through a book that advised people learning Japanese to “say you don’t speak English.” That’s an effective response, but it always struck me as extreme. Do I really have to lie to speak in Japanese with people on the street?

The Debito answer isn’t the right answer. The better example comes from Anthony Bianchi, the Brooklyn-born city councilman in Aichi Prefecture who we started talking about a few days ago. He likes who he is. As a result, people like who he is. He doesn’t need to file lawsuits to get his way: he can get himself elected.

In the Campbell hero archetype, this is called being the Master of Two Worlds. This is what you get when you blow up the Death Star, ride your horse into the sunset or accept surrender papers on a battleship in Tokyo Bay.

Now, I started writing this post as a bitchfest after a trip to Wendy’s came out like this:

ME: Bacon burger set.
EMPLOYEE [apparently a trainee]: Uh…. fo-a hee-uh o-a to go-o?
ME: [getting impatient] For here.
EMPLOYEE: [motions vaguely toward the set options part of the menu]
ME: Fries. Pepsi.
EMPLOYEE: S, M, L?
ME: (sigh) I want the small size, please.

The employee proceeded to ring up a small fries and small drink, but no burger. I didn’t want to make the situation any more difficult for him, so I paid my 200 yen, ate and left.

But in the end, there’s a comfort zone in Japan. It’s not enough to be Japanese or American… you have to be able to be both at once. And that’s something I’ll have to work on a bit. Maybe that kid just wanted to speak English; maybe he isn’t a retard after all.

ZAKZAK!

“I had marijuana”... Middle School Asst English Teacher Arrested

The Gunma Prefectural Police, Shibukawa Precinct, arrested a male American citizen (34) working as an assistant English teacher at a middle school in Shinto Village [a real town, not some Japanese-style Santaland, unfortunately – Adamu], Gunma, for possession of marijuana.

According to police investigations, the man had several grams of marijuana in his home. The man was the only asst. English teacher in the village and has been employed on a contract basis since August. He has admitted the crime and the precinct intends to pursue questioning on the route by which he obtained the drugs.

ZAKZAK 2006/04/06

Now, take a look at this headline:

マリフアナヲモッテマシタ…中学校の英語助手を逮捕

(The words before the ellipse mean “I had marijuana” written in letters to mockingly indicate a foreign accent)

For you gaijin in Japan who get hot under the collar when Japanese people praise your Japanese, maybe you should try getting arrested! I can guarantee no one will tell you how smart you are for learning such a hard language, certainly not the press.

(Picture plucked from Google Images and probably does not depict the actual suspect)

You think Dave Spector is the Antichrist:

“Issue 6 [of Aum official magazine Vajrayana Sacca] ran a feature [in late 1994] entitled “Manual of Terror: The Jewish Ambition,” which cites the Jewish people and the freemasons [as forces working to destroy Japan and conquer the world]. Of great interest is the article, “WANTED! The Black Elites Who Sold Their Souls to the Devil,” which introduces and comments on 12 Japanese people and two foreigners:

“The Dark Emperor (暗黒帝王）, Ichiro Ozawa [senior DPJ leader] (trying to build a Japan that is subordinated to the world unified government).

“The 6th Demon　（第六天魔）, Daisaku Ikeda [founder charismatic leader of Soka Gakkai] (General of the vanguard army to destroy Japan)

“The Puppet Emperor　（傀儡皇帝　かいらいこうてい）, Emperor Naruhito (Had the ideas of masonry beaten into him from childhood via teachers poisoned with Jewish thought. The imperial family is already hijacked by them)

“Queen of the Ruined Country　（亡国后妃　ぼうこくこうひ）, Masako Owada　[now known as Crown Princess Masako] (She is a person who worked to help American multinational corporations and pushed Japanese companies to destruction!)

“The rest are Lord of Ruin （没落大名）, Morihiro Hosokawa [former Prime Minister]; The Three-day Ruler （三日天下）, Tsutomu Hata [former Prime Minister]; Ambassor of Hell （地獄大使）, Hisashi Owada [noted diplomat and father of Princess Masako]; Death’s Apprentice （死の丁稚　しのでっち）, Yasushi Akashi [former UN Under-secretary general for peacekeeping operations]; Killer of Refugees （難民殺し）, Sadako Ogata [former UN High Commissioner of Refugees]; Father of Beasts （家畜の父）, Rev. Sun Myung Moon [founder of the Unification Church]; Heart of Extreme Evil （極悪用心）, Ryoichi Sasakawa [prewar gangster and accused war criminal turned boat racing magnate and Nobel Peace Prize candidate]; Electric Geisha （電波芸者）, Dave Spector [White American TV personality in Japan]; Wholesaler to America （米国問屋）, Yasuhiro Nakasone [notoriously powerful former Prime Minister]; and the Human Bomb （人間爆弾）, Ken’ichi Ohmae [powerful businessman and political mover].”

[Translated from The Aum Shinrikyo Incidents by Shoichi Fujita, p. 64; notes in brackets by me]

One little-publicized project being undertaken by the Japanese government right now is to write official English translations of the most important Japanese statutes. This is being done by a special Conference for Examination of the Implementation and Foreign Translation of Laws (法令外国語訳・実施推進検討会議), which has met several times over the past few years (see the Cabinet Secretariat website).

As part of this project, the government is creating an official Japanese-English legal glossary, and trying to end the practice of using awkward English translations for Japanese legal terms. Some of the changes, as reported by the Asahi Shimbun:

• 法律, which has previously been translated as “Law,” will now be translated as “Act” or “Code.” This is a really, really good change. The translation “Company Law” for 会社法 has always made me chuckle: my American legal ears expect it to be called “Corporations Code.”


• 株式会社, glossed in most dictionaries as “joint-stock company,” will now be translated as “business corporation.” This is an awesome change. I don’t think native English speakers have talked about “joint-stock companies” since the days of Queen Victoria.


• 法人, previously called “legal entity,” will now be called “juridicial person.” I really wish they would just call it a “corporation.” ALC seems to back me up on this one.


• Here’s a real stinker: 時効, the Japanese equivalent of what Americans refer to as a “statute of limitations,” is going to be called a “prescription.” WTF? This word has so many meanings in English, and it’s hardly ever used in this sense.

The GOJ has really been on the ball lately about updating agency websites and I must admit, they have been surprisingly savvy about the whole business. I wish I had time to do an entire post introducing each site, but being pressed for time I must limit this to an announcement of the latest bit of GOJ awesomeness, the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy’s press conference podcast!

From the site:

2006年2月から、諮問会議後の大臣記者会見を、ポッドキャスティングによる音声ファイル配信サービスを提供しています。
ポッドキャスト用RSSを登録することで、定期的に更新データを取得することができます。また、お手持ちの携帯音楽プレーヤーに保存することで、いつでもどこでもお聴きいただけます。
（音声の内容は、当サイト内で配信している「動画でみる諮問会議後記者会見」と同じです。）

Okay, so it’s the same thing as the press conference streaming video that has been on the site for months. But it’s still cool.

Lately I seem to be surrounded by menstruation. Read the rest of this entry »