Category: Language

“Taiwan still a good place to learn Mandarin”

The following is an op-ed piece from yesterday’s edition of the Taipei Times that considering I myself went to Taiwan instead of China to study Chinese makes a very good point. Time Magazine’s goddawful article on learning Mandarin can be found at their web site here.

Taiwan still a good place to learn Mandarin
By Dan Bloom

Tuesday, Jul 25, 2006,Page 8

“Time” magazine published a long feature in its June 19 edition about the benefits of studying Mandarin — in China. Not once did the magazine’s 10-page report mention that Taiwan is also a good place to study, learn and live the Chinese language. How could such a reputable, international magazine, with many readers in Taiwan miss the boat on this?

When a reporter in Taiwan queried a Time editor in Hong Kong about the cover story, which was titled “Get Ahead, Learn Mandarin,” he received the following note: “The story did not discuss Taiwan because the subject of our cover story that issue was the rising interest in studying Chinese. That phenomenon is directly related to the growth of the Chinese economy, hence the focus on China. People study Mandarin in Taiwan, of course, but that has long been the case and isn’t really news.”

Good answer, but it didn’t really answer my question. When an international news magazine devotes its cover story to “learning Mandarin” in Asian nations such as Japan and South Korea and does not once mention the country of Taiwan as a place to learn Chinese, something is very wrong in the biased way the editors perceive things. Perhaps Time’s editors in Hong Kong believe that Taiwan is a mere province of China and therefore not worth a mention in the article in question?

Mark Caltonhill, a longtime resident of Taiwan, recently wrote an online commentary in the Taiwan Journal about his own learning curve in acquiring Mandarin. He noted that Taiwan was a very good place to learn and live the Chinese language, and is not in any way inferior to China.

Caltonhill wrote: “Whatever [a] student’s interests and specialties — art or history, religion or philosophy, literature, martial arts or Chinese cuisine — Taiwan has as much or more to offer [than China].”

Taipei, of course, is a very good place to study Chinese. Time’s editors know that. Time even has reporters who work for the magazine here. And there are many schools here that offer Mandarin classes, such as National Taiwan Normal University’s Center for Chinese Language and Culture, the National Taiwan University Language Center and the Tamkang University Language Center.

The Time article stressed that “while English may be the only truly international language, millions of tongues are wagging over what is rapidly becoming the world’s other lingua franca: Mandarin.”

Quoting a statement by British linguist David Gaddol, the magazine added: “In many Asian countries, in Europe and the US, Mandarin has emerged as the new must-have language.”

Time even quoted a professor in China, who said: “Promoting the use of Chinese among overseas people has gone beyond purely cultural issues. It can help build up our national strength and should be taken as a way to develop our country’s `soft power.'” That was Hu Youqing, a Chinese-language professor at Nanjing University talking.

Time mentioned that China has sent more than 2,000 volunteers to teach Mandarin overseas, mostly in Asian nations such as Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and South Korea. Why didn’t it also mention that Taiwan also has sent volunteer teachers to several Asian countries? China’s goal is to have 100 million foreigners studying Mandarin by the end of the decade. Well, won’t some of them be studying Mandarin in Taipei or Kaohsiung? Time missed the boat again.

Will Mandarin ever overtake English as the world’s common language? Probably not, but as Time notes, “just as knowing English proved a key to getting ahead in the 20th century, learning Chinese will provide an edge in the 21st.” This was a good point and was an important theme of the entire cover story. But by ignoring Taiwan — not mentioning Taiwan even once in the entire feature — the magazine’s editors showed their ignorance and bias against Taiwan, even though they work and live in Asia.

Taipei is a very good place to learn and live the Chinese language, and Time magazine did a huge disservice to its readers around the world by ignoring Taiwan completely in its June 19 cover story.

Wake up, Time magazine, China does not have a monopoly on Chinese-language centers and Mandarin schools. Wake up and smell the coffee — in Taiwan, too.

Dan Bloom is a freelance writer based in Chiayi.

Is Japan getting bored with English? Let’s Hope So!

After glancing at a few developments in Japan’s news, something has hit me – Japan’s interest in the English language seems to be on the decline! Let me give you some examples along with my own speculation as to why this is happening:

Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications reports that Japan’s municipalities will accept 5,508 foreigners as teachers/token foreigners in the JET program. More interestingly, this year marks the 4th straight decline in the number brought in by the program after a peak in 2002 (see the announcement for a clearer chart):

JET Number accepted 1987-2006.JPG

My explanation for this decline – JET salaries and other costs are covered by the central government in the form of kofuzei, or tax revenues collected from local governments and redistributed back so as to achieve an equilibrium in economic development nationwide. Since kofuzei has been the target of major cuts as part of Koizumi’s reform program to make outlying regions more autonomous, it’s likely that the municipalities had to make a decision between an ALT and money for a new bridge. Not a sign of a lack of interest per se, but the dynamic of the incentives to accept these people is changing, forcing towns to reexamine their priorities.

The decline in the English teaching market is even more striking in the private sector. FujiSankei Business-i examines the glut in English teachers in Japan in a July 12 article. According to NOVA’s estimates, the market may have peaked in 2004. The increased competition among schools is exerting pressure toward innovation, improvement of service, and the closure of schools (NOVA, the king of eikaiwa schools, is restructuring – not a good sign!). While this could spell a period of decline for the eikaiwa schools, maybe this will actually inspire the schools to actually get results.

The JET Program and private eikaiwa schools share the same essential method and selling point – put a recent college graduate from an English-speaking country in the room with Japanese person/people, wait for magic to happen. Call it English by Osmosis. For a long time college students have considered “teaching English in Japan” a valid first job option if nothing else panned out or if they really really liked Evangelion. But considering the above developments it could be only a matter of time before teaching English in Japan ceases to be an automatic option for undergrad students in English-speaking countries looking for something easy.

After something like 25 years of the “eikaiwa boom” it should come as no surprise that just about every Japanese person has given eikaiwa a try in one form or another. And once the majority realize that it’s not a magic replacement for a lack of motivation/talent, they get bored, leaving three things behind: 1) new generations of suckers; 2) hardcore students who know how to work the system and learn despite the flaws; and 3) disgruntled students who may no longer believe in the method. I realize that there are many teachers in Japan working very hard every day (I used to be one of them), but it is simply a flawed system.

And in a not unrelated development Japan’s pop culture is starting to look more into the Asian market these days at the expense of Hollywood. Just as we here in the US finally picked up on the trend of US celebrities making extra cash by appearing in Japanese commercials, it looks as though Hollywoord stars are no longer the commercial pull that they once were:

A Hollywood in-house secret, Japanese TV commercials were once talked about with a wink and a shake of the head. Piles of cash were paid to stars willing to peddle anything from whiskey to cigarettes, cars to coffee, instant noodles to cafe latte — as long as nobody told the fans back home. Hey, did you know Dennis Hopper did one for bath products? How much do you figure Leonardo DiCaprio got for that SUV spot? A million? Three?

Sadly, the days of seeing, say, Harrison Ford guzzling Kirin beer may be over. American stars have not vanished from the Japanese advertising landscape, but their numbers have dropped dramatically since the heyday of the 1990s, when even Mickey Rourke was considered bankable here.

The article goes on to say that the recent popularity of Korean dramas has spurred the shift in focus. Thankfully, the good times aren’t over – you can still see the many many ads that the Japan-pandering era produced at the wonderful Japander.com.

Another development in the background of all this is the political backlash against Koizumi’s reform agenda. Those who decry economic reform often cite their distaste for “market fundamentalism” (such as privatization of public corporations etc), considered a mechanical application of the American system to Japanese society. Regrdless of the validity of such claims (even though the US is unlikely to privatize its postal service anytime soon!), it may be inevitable that the anti-America rhetoric translates into fewer people taking up English as a hobby.

While the JET Program and eikaiwa schools are here to stay as an institution in Japan, it seems to me that the underlying support for grassroots English interest is waning a bit – the Japanese are getting a little bored with the “English through osmosis” model. While I dread the uncomfortable oyaji conversations that will no doubt result from the popularity of tripe like Dignity of a Nation, Japan’s shift away from its fascination with English/Hollywood (and perhaps by extension the rest of Europe/the entire “white race”) may at least have the fortunate side effect of making people realize that foreign-born TV personalities in Japan such as Dave Spector and Pakkun aren’t intrinsically all that interesting despite their mad Japanese skills. One can only hope.

But seriously, getting away from this flawed approach toward language learning is a promising sign for Japan. I tend to agree with calls to “learn Japanese first” (made in a recently popular anti-American diatribe Dignity of a Nation and elsewhere) that recently seem to be hitting a nerve. The logic in Japan of “English is the world language, so everyone needs to study English” is just basically wrong (as is the general curriculum that forces students to memorize a series of codes that only happen to be English and have no bearing on applied use of the language). In short, if you don’t learn your native language well and can’t express yourself on a deep level, there’s not much point in you being conversant in another language – you’ll have nothing to say! I think it’s best to provide quality opportunities for people to learn languages, and encourage those who are interested to pursue it to a high level. That might not make Japan into a nation of English speakers, but I don’t think that it’s politically possible for Japan to take the real steps needed to do that (i.e. make English essentially a second official language).

And another thing: it’s a little unfair for the JET Program to lure some 5k foreigners to Japan every year knowing that most of them are wasting their time. Considering that everyone is hired on contracts that last a maximum of 3 years, just what do 2 years at an elementary school or sitting at a desk in a city hall in the middle of nowhere in Japan have to offer anyone in terms of skills that can be applied elsewhere (outside maybe education)? In my own experience, I have met dozens of former JETs who are completely at a loss for what to do after completing terms in JET. They often want to use their Japanese language skills in their careers but for a number of reasons (never got any decent chance to take their Japanese to a high level, no meaningful job training except very little in education, and no meaningful further job opportunities for them inside Japan) it just doesn’t happen. But at the same time I can understand the mass interest in Japan and the eagerness of college grads to take a job in an interesting foreign country.

But rather than frittering their time away in a classroom, both sides would be better served if Japan had a JET Program for areas in which the country actually needs foreigners, like nursing, factories, finance, and IT jobs. Some recent proposals to promote these less parasitic foreigners, such as enhancement of visa programs, elimination of corrupt “language schools” and “entertainment visas” that serve as hotbeds of illegal immigration and crime, and attraction of more foreign students, whose numbers keep growing, are intriguing steps in the right direction IMO. This way, maybe all those people thinking about living in Japan might try studying something in a field that they know Japan needs, so when it comes time to graduate maybe they can get jobs that actually contribute to Japan’s GDP rather than padding its massive fiscal deficit. And for the Japanese, perhaps living in tandem with folks like this will provide a real incentive (“This person is my neighbor and I want to be her friend” rather than “I don’t want to waste the lessons I’ve already paid for”) to deal with foreigners and perhaps actually acquire the diversity and fresh experience that they seem so willing to pay for with eikaiwa.

Sickeningly Insulting Info-tainment from the Daily Yomiuri

Consider these two phenomena:

1) Athletes endorsing products that supposedly help their performance; and

2) Exploitive marketing of second language learning products that offer a specific pattern of drills as a purported secret to learning the language.

By themselves, they are typical, if somewhat sleazy parts of everyday consumer life. But put them together and you get this nugget of infotainment from the ethically-challenged Daily Yomiuri:

Bobby Valentine learns the joy of Japanese

Yoko Mizui Daily Yomiuri Staff Writer

“The most exciting thing that ever happened to me was not winning the Asian Championship and the Japan Championship last year. Nor was it winning the Major League. It was not even winning koryusen this year,” said Chiba Lotte Marines baseball team manager Bobby Valentine. “The most exciting thing was that at the age of 50 plus, I could discover Step Up Nihongo and learn the language.”

Valentine talked about how he learned the Japanese language and utilizes it in managing his team at a seminar to introduce a new e-learning system, “eSUN,” in Tokyo on June 26.

Step Up Nihongo (SUN) is a set of textbooks for non-Japanese to study the Japanese language, written by Shigekatsu Yamauchi, who also writes the monthly column “Japanese in Depth” for the Language Connection page of The Daily Yomiuri.

That’s right, just when you think Chiba Marines manager Bobby Valentine is going to give us some insight into ups and downs of his attempts to learn the language of his adopted home (which he incidentally lives away from in the off-season), BAM you get a sales pitch. There is nothing indicating that this article is an advertisement meant to promote a specific product. And adding insult to injury, there’s next to no info about how good Valentine’s Japanese actually is or how he really learned it. I guess it’s up to us to try eSUN and find out, right?

In the interest of fairness, there are dozens of press releases put out and promotional events held every single day in Japan announcing the arrival of some great new product. Every one of them claims to be newsworthy, making it up to the reporter/editor’s judgment to know what is really worth printing. If we give the Yomiuri the benefit of the doubt, “Bobby Valentine endorses Japanese study method” could be newsworthy in and of itself. He’s yet another success story of a foreigner in Japan, so people want to hear just about any tidbit of information that’s available. I mean, color me ignorant, but I didn’t even know Valentine was seriously studying Japanese, although I’m not about to start believing it now (Question: is his Japanese any good? According to this Nov 2005 interview it’s “a major problem”). Unfortunately, the article is not exactly written to emphasize the newsworthy aspects of the event. Again and again the writer emphasizes the benefits of eSUN.

Keep in mind that in the Japanese media, product placement passed off as news (i.e.: with no mark denoting that you’re looking at an ad rather than actual news) is rampant (for example, Nikkei has an entire Saturday supplement for just such a purpose). Marxy has some good coverage of that phenomenon on his blog.

I would say this article fits snugly into that tradition of unannounced advertising. Especially since after about 10 minutes of the most cursory research, I was able to unearth a good bit of info to that makes it unlikely that Valentine is merely a volunteer supporter of this learning technique.

First let’s consider: are we really expected to believe that the discovery of this product was the most exciting moment ever in the life of the Bobby Valentine, the only foreign manager (except for Sadaharu Oh I guess but he doesn’t count) in Japanese baseball to ever win the Pacific League and Japan Series championships and, coincidentally, the inventor of the “wrap” sandwich?

If it is, he’s been quiet about it up to now – he only mentions the product once on his official blog (which in turn is a marketing gimmick for a different site) in the form of a brief non-sequitur in a February 2006 post explaining how the blog works:

It is very interesting to note that David, who is bilingual in English and Japanese, learned his Japanese from the same teacher I am currently learning mine! Our teacher is Shige Yamauchi-sensei of ICI, a foreign language school in Tokyo. Using Step Up Nihongo (SUN), which is a wonderful teaching tool for those that want to learn Japanese, students can not only learn it by book and tape form but also interactive internet lessons as well.

But that brief endorsement was enough to warrant ICI, creator of the Step Up method and the company featured in the article in question, to include a full-on graphic logo (linked to the above blog post) on their website to let potential students know that Valentine endorses their methods:

And I’m sure he does – but I have a tough time believing he’s doing this simply as an uncompensated advocate. The article claims that Valentine was hooked on eSUN after someone handed it to him on a plane. Sure, and James Bond drives a BMW to impress chicks. Valentine is a businessman. Look at the way he’s doing his blog: some secretary is recording his thoughts while he’s on the road, and then transcribing them onto a blog that links directly to a major Valentine investment. Pretty shrewd!

And from the get-go, the seminar that constitutes the “where” of the article was held by a company run by a Yomiuri contributor. Considering that the very existence of his column is a convenient way to drum up business, sneaking in a cheap promotion of a celebrity endorsement of his product doesn’t make for much of an intellectual stretch. And being a part of the Yomiuri establishment must make it easy to cut in line ahead of other, less-connected Japanese learning methods.

So we’ve got a) An article that is clearly pushing a specific product but does not identify itself as an ad; b) a subject who in all likelihood is a paid (but unannounced) spokesman for the product; and c) The company offering said product has personal and financial connections to Yomiuri. In my own amateur opinion, such an article violates the “newspaper ethics” that the Yomiuri supposedly subscribes to as a member of the Japan Newspaper Publishers and Editors Association (NSK). Here’s the relevant excerpt of the NSK’s Journalistic Canon, Newspaper Advertising Printing Standards (for some reason these standards are left out of the English version of the NSK website):

[Newspapers] shall not print advertisements that correspond to the following:
[omitted]
3. Falsehoods or items for which there is a danger of misinterpretation.
“Items for which there is a danger of misinterpretation” refers to the following:
(1) [Advertisements] that use formatting and expressions that look ambiguously like editorial matter, making the fact that it is an advertisement unclear.
[rest omitted]

So as long as the journalistic canon applies to online articles (at least it seems to in the US) the DY might consider sticking the word “advertisement” above articles that serve little purpose than to sell us something. Until either that happens or I get definitive proof that Bobby Valentine has no endorsement deal with Step Up Nihongo, I will continue to be properly offended.

(Thanks to FG for pointing this article out to me)

Why Japanese reading comprehension matters

If you’re like me 5 years ago, or like a good number of the folks at Crisscross, you are a young American, you’re learning Japanese, you’re enrolled in a liberal arts-focused university program, and you probably want to use your Japanese language skills in your future career. That’s great, and I commend your aspirations. But I am here to tell you that if you’re seriously looking to use Japanese in your career, good reading comprehension is absolutely crucial.

Most Japanophiles who make it to Japan for an extended stay are far less likely to pay attention to developing reading comprehension in Japanese as they are to speaking pidgin-slang Japanese with their gaijin-groupie friends (see tip #23 at the link), hooking up with the locals, and in general taking the path of least resistance. That is understandable, but there are numerous benefits of boning up your reading skills even while you are in Japan. Kate McArthur, a columnist for Japan job site daijob.com, summarizes them well: expanded menu choices in restaurants, ability to find coupons and other deals, using Japanese websites, and reading the ubiquitous subtitles on Japanese TV (Like her, I hold the irrational belief that “the written language is so intriguing with all the various looks and meanings that I can’t understand how it could possibly not be interesting to someone”).

Even among those who are interested in learning to (and in some cases already claim they can) read Japanese – the types who intentionally stay out of the gaijin bubble – many do not measure up when it comes to reading ability. This phenomenon I attribute to the gaijin complex, by which foreigners interested in Japan isolate themselves from others of their kind. They’ll stick with their girlfriends, host families, or whoever and seek out the so-called real Japan – the “Other” if you will. Without objective scrutiny or friendly competition (and with the entire population of Japan praising them for supposedly excellent Japanese abilities), these people start to think their Japanese is much much better than it actually is.

But the fact of the matter is, good reading skills are almost always an essential element if you want to make yourself useful in a quality Japan-related job, and most employers are not going to tolerate someone who cannot deliver no matter how entrenched his/her gaijin complex is. If you are otherwise lacking in specialized skills, companies that hire “Japan-friendly” university graduates usually put them to uses that stray significantly from what the employee would like to do – following developments on Capitol Hill or a specific industry, editing the English of superiors, coordinating between Japanese and foreign staff, website development, and so on. Not quite what you had in mind, right?

So now that you see why reading skills are important, the next question is how good do they have to be? For Americans, the general standard should be the ability to read any given written work in Japanese and precisely tell someone what it means in plain language (English or Japanese).

This should be obvious, but did you ever hear anyone tell you that in Japanese class? Perhaps because most students are only in the classes for the credit requirements and don’t have much serious interest in studying, Japanese as a second language classes at universities tend to hold their students to unacceptably low standards. On top of that, the most exalted goal for JSL learners who are somewhat serious is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 1 (“ikkyu” in Japanese). As someone who paid the $50 and passed ikkyu in 2003, I can tell you from experience that while passing the ikkyu was a very helpful goal during my earlier studies, it was in no way the end of the journey.

The JLPT, sponsored by the Japanese government-affiliated Japan Foundation, tests listening, vocabulary, kanji, and reading abilities on 4 levels, 4 being the easiest and 1 the hardest. Level 1 requires knowledge of around 2,000 kanji and a corresponding vocab/listening/reading ability. It’s certainly not easy to pass the JLPT Level 1, but in fact Level 1 Japanese abilities often do not translate into the common-sense reading abilities mentioned above.

So if you’re not quite there yet, keep at it! The Internet provides an inexhaustible wealth of study materials at your fingertips free of charge. Read asahi.com, kikko’s blog, 2-channel, Bloomberg Japan, slashdot Japan, public-domain novels, or whatever floats your boat! The vast majority of material never gets translated into English, so if you have a blog you might consider summarizing or translating the more interesting bits into English for posterity and practice. And if you’re reading something and don’t understand a concept or the topic at hand, look it up on the ALC dictionary or read up on it at wikipedia Japan! Even if you don’t end up landing the job you want, it’s a wonderfully unfiltered way to learn about Japanese culture and society.

911 is a joke…to Koreans in the US

I was just watching Korean TV from my posh executive digs here in Washington and a fun ad for a Korean-language emergency hotline came on. I’ll describe it for you:

There’s been a car crash. A besuited Korean man, bleeding but coherent, has called 911 on his cell phone. The music is urgent and dramatic. He speaks in slightly halting but proficient English:

“Hello my name is Park and I’d like to report an accident… no Park is my name! I have a rent-a-car… Hello? No, there has been an accident!”

Then an announcer begins speaking in Korean. The only word I can pick up is “hangukeu” (Korean language). Then an 800-number appears on the screen with some Korean text. End of commercial.

I can’t tell if the hotline is at all government-sponsored, but if there’s a real need for such services maybe it should be. I hope the 800-number doesn’t connect you to an ambulance-chasing lawyer or something.

Lost Words

I just re-discovered a wonder web site that I had seen a few years ago and utterly forgotten about. Have a look at The Phrontistery:English Word Lists and Language Resources, and in particularly the Repository of Lost Words. What is a Lost Word, you ask? The definition is as follows:

1. The word must have a header entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.

2. The word may not appear in its proper English context on any readily accessible web page.

3. The word must have been used in Modern English.

4. The word must have been used in a standard English variety rather than simply in a regional dialect.

5. The word must not be a simple variation in spelling of another word.

Each word is presented with a basic definition and period of recorded usage (courtest of the fantastic OED, which I am utterly convinced is the greatest dictionary existant of any Earthly language), the page’s maintainer (who goes by the name of Forthright) has also cleverly provided a modern example sentence for each lost word. While the words run the gamut from the no longer particulary useful

sputcheon n 1842 -1878
metal lining of the mouth of a scabbard
The blade rang against the sputcheon as he drew it, eliminating the element of surprise.

to the utterly obscure

krioboly n 1850 -1882
sacrifice of many rams; bath in blood of rams
Contrary to rumour, pagan rituals do not involve krioboly or baby-eating.

or overly technical technical

zygostatical adj 1623 -1656
pertaining to a market official in charge of weights
His zygostatical training allowed him to cheat the scales undetected for decades.

you can also find some that, in the context of current events, are probably due for a comeback.

psephograph n 1906 -1907
machine for automatically recording votes
These newfangled computers are no more reliable than an old-fashioned psephograph.

New official Japanese-English Dictionary

As part of Japan’s move to open itself up more to foreign investment, the Japanese government commissioned a group of translation experts to put together a site of resources for English translation of Japanese laws. It’s been available since March now, so if you haven’t seen it, now is the time.

The crown jewel of the project is a Japanese<>English glossary of major legal terms (PDF). Ever wondered how to translate 会社の分割? Well now you can all rest easy – it’s “corporate demerger”. What about 出訴期間? That would be “statute of limitations for filing an action”.

Two of my favorite entries so far:

悪臭(あくしゅう)
offensive odor

育成者権者(いくせいしゃけんしゃ)
holder of a breeder’s right

For people like me who deal with this kind of stuff every day, it really helps put to rest – more or less satisfactorily – some of the more ambiguous words that are hard to pin down when translating from Japanese to English. Though as Joe pointed out in an earlier post, not all of the translations are the preferred nomenclature (法 should really remain “law” if for no other reason than that’s what I’ve been using all this time! Changing everything to “act” will be such a pain), but it’s still an extremely handy resource. My one beef with it – at 250 pages it is way too short and doesn’t cover a sizable portion of the issues covered in government regulations, particularly in specialized areas. But then if you have to you can always compare translations of laws as they become available.

Japanophiles’ Innermost Desires Exposed!

The Japan news forum Crisscross has a great new feature in which users list their “goals.” I really don’t see the appeal of this, but it’s a revealing window into the collective hopes and dreams of the Crisscross readership. Let’s take a look:

1. go to Japan (72)
2. Learn Japanese (61)
3. become fluent in Japanese (38)
4. marry a Japanese girl (34)
5. Learn Japanese perfectly (33)
6. get a new japanese girl friend (31)
7. meet new friends in Tokyo (31)
8. teach english in Japan (26)
9. live in Japan (25)
10. be friends with Japanese girls (21)
11. marry a nice sweet Japanese man and shower him with affection and devotion! (19)
12. Be happy (18)
13. learn about Japanese culture (16)
14. see Memoirs of a Geisha (16)
15. get a kitten (16)
16. eat sushi (16)
17. go to Osaka (15)
18. learn aikido (15)
19. completely master Kanji (14)
20. get somewhere with an asian girl before I die (14)

The aspirations of these Japanophiles (presumably so if they read Crisscross) range from the mundane (Read Harry Potter, wear a kimono, grow out my hair) to the horny (“get somewhere” with an Asian girl) to the ambitious (completely master kanji, dance on bin Laden’s grave, hug a friend in a monsoon). But the goals throughout the list definitely center around “go to/live in Japan,” “score with a Japanese girl,” and “master Japanese”.

To many, these goals might represent the masturbatory fantasies of anime nerds worthy of nothing but scorn. But not to me – they were, in fact, my top three priorities at age 17, in precisely that order. Seeing so many like-minded people really takes me back…

I started learning Japanese at 15, and as soon as I mastered hiragana I was completely hooked. Japan and its new and unknown culture, mysterious and forbidding language, and strange women who actually seemed somewhat interested in talking to me came to be an obsession.

Now, at 24, after two years in Japan, a nightmare relationship that all but turned me off from Japanese girls forever, and landing a job as a translator/researcher, I’ve accomplished all three of the above-mentioned “goals” and can look back and see them for the self-absorbed, adolescent, small-minded yearnings of a high school dork that they were. And I’ve changed – even though I’m still a proud nerd, my interests have broadened beyond just Japan stuff, I don’t feel the obsessive need to live in Japan or befriend Japanese people (though I’ll never let my Japanese language skills slip), and I am not worried about “getting somewhere” with women.

It’s been a fun ride, and I don’t regret for a minute the path I’ve taken as a result of my earlier immature ambition. Living in Japan and learning Japanese first and foremost opened my mind to “world things” (as Mrs. Adamu and I like to call them) and expanded my palate for delicious food my friends in the US can hardly bear to look at. But it also served as the stage on which I ended up wrestling with a lot of my high-school era demons – and the process I learned humility, became a little less selfish, and found out who my friends are.

As corny as it sounds, it allowed me to find out “who I am” and become more comfortable with myself, surely moreso than I could have if I just stayed home. And if I may be even more trite, sometimes to get to somewhere interesting in life, you’ve just got to follow your dumb teenage heart. It may well get you killed, but in most cases it’s far preferable to having stayed at home.

Kikko Misjudges English “Nuance”

Japanese uber-blogger Kikko scoffs in her most recent post at what she terms lame and unpatriotic promises that certain celebrities have made “if Japan beats Brazil” in the upcoming World Cup match. Kaori Manabe, for her part, has reportedly promised to “hold a Carnival in a bikini” in the off chance Japan can topple the current World Cup defenders. Sure, maybe they shouldn’t be prematurely predicting Japan’s elimination in the first round, but to me it makes perfect sense to make wild wagers when the odds are stacked in your favor.

In the (as always, too long) intro to her post, however, Kikko-san makes some interesting claims about the English meaning of the word “cop”:

Speaking of Croatia (NOTE: the team Japan recently tied against in the World Cup), that’s the homeland of (PRIDE kickboxer) Mirco Crocop. Since I heard it a while ago, I know that Mirco, who worked as a police officer, took that ring name from the “Cro” in “Croatia” and the English “Cop” meaning “police officer” to make his ring name “Cro-Cop” meaning “Croatian Police Officer.” In other words, since a robot police officer is “RoboCop,” then a Croatian police officer would be “Crocop.” But “cop” has the sense of “beat cop” (NOTE: omawari in Japanese) or “po-po” (NOTE: pori-ko in Japanese) or “the fuzz” (NOTE: mappo in Japanese), doesn’t it? “Police officer” (NOTE: keisatsukan in Japanese) means “police” or “policeman” [in English], as in “strange police officer” or “a policeman with his nipples in the wrong place,” so “cop” has more of an informal (NOTE: kudaketa in Japanese) connotation. Then, if you pronounce it “cop” (NOTE: as it is normally pronounce in English; “cop” in Japanese is normally pronounced COPE-poo), then it has an even more informal connotation. So if someone says “Cops are coming!” then it’s like “The fuzz are here!”

Um, no? First of all it’s always pronounced cop (i.e. カップ; it would be different in British English, I guess, but that doesn’t change the meaning at all). And another thing: “cop” is something of a colloquial term, but it has none of the pejorative connotation contained in the Japanese satsu, pori-ko, or mappo (unless I misread these terms), or even the English slang “po-po” or “fuzz.” Any lame-o on the street will “call the cops” on someone if they’re acting like a douchebag. Your posts are always enlightening, Kikko, but you might want to stay away from analyzing the “nuance” (a Japanism meaning “connotative meaning”)of the English language.

UPDATE: In related/parallel lives “news“: Home Depot Criticized For Pledging $10 Billion To American Cancer Society For Every Padres Home Run