Kevin Hutson: Japanese Language and Culture

Fri, 11 Apr 2003 06:13:36 GMT

I saw Cowboy Bebop tonight. What a great flick! For this subgenre of Anime (action flick?), it is certainly one to see. You shouldn't try to compare it with Sprited Away. Cowboy Bebot is the animated version of...I don't know..Die Hard and [insert some vigilante movie here]. This is an action flick with a lot of thoughtfulness. A lot of reviewers say it could have been shorter. But, why? It gives the movie atmosphere. It lets the viewer reflect on the actions of the characters and their moods. The animation is top notch. Again, not the super slick Spirited Away type of animation, but just a detail bonanza of a kicked up Mars cityscape. Way to go!

Check Slashdot for a good review with links other reviews.

Mon, 24 Mar 2003 04:22:27 GMT

Spirited Away wins Best Animated Picture.

Finally, Anime has received the critical acclaim it deserves.

Wed, 28 Aug 2002 03:16:00 GMT

Notes from a suicide manual
The Guardian publishes English excerpts from a kamikaze manual.

Sun, 02 Jun 2002 20:43:56 GMT

NYTimes: English 101: How to Handle a Thirsty, Big- Bodied Soccer Fan

The Japanese are famous for advocating proper behavior for the group. They have signs everywhere reminding everyone to be nice and things like that. It's an ingrained part of the K'ung-fu-tzu (Confucius) culture.

This article from the New York Times illustrates that tendency quite well. The idea is very refreshing and one Americans could learn from. Nonetheless, it's also good for a bit of a chuckle. Here are some example translations:

Please be careful how you translate "nomi hodai." It will be all right if you translate it as "as much as you can drink for . . . yen," but it is incorrect to say "Free Drinking." This means you are giving drinks away for free.

Even if your bar is full, that won't stop supporters trying to come in. They might buy alcohol to take outside and drink in the street or in parks, so it's a good idea to think about serving drinks in plastic cups. . . .

British people might try to tip taxi drivers, waiters and hotel staff. To refuse politely, say: "You are very kind, but tipping is not necessary in Japan."

Thu, 30 May 2002 03:36:34 GMT

Tokyo Music Festival
Rapping Japanese kids with dreadlocks and afros singing rap and Guns n' Roses. Now that's entertainment!

Thu, 23 May 2002 04:14:51 GMT

YahooUK: Japan reports record deaths from overwork
"Japan, famed as a nation of workaholics, says the number of deaths from overwork -- known as karoshi -- leapt 68 percent to a record 143 in the year ended in March."

Wed, 15 May 2002 04:58:13 GMT

Banzai! and other Japanese Gestures
" Banzai literally means ten thousand years (of life). It is shouted in happy occasions while raising both arms. People shout banzai to express their happiness, to celebrate a victory, to hope for longevity and so on. It is commonly done together with the large group of people."

Tue, 14 May 2002 05:00:13 GMT

Ronald-san wants email with his Happy Meal

That's pretty amazing. I didn't know there were 4000 McDonald's in Japan? Wow. How many are there worldwide? Geez. So, no mention of the cost of using the McDonald's wi-fi. I hear the Starbucks net is not free. hmph. Figures. Why don't we band together with the non-chain (or psuedo-chain) used bookstores and coax them into setting up wi-fi and a local coffee brand? I think it would be awesome if Half Price Books and Little City could broker a deal. That combination would revive the true slacker in me.

Mon, 01 Apr 2002 03:06:23 GMT

But Do They Flush? Japan's High-Tech Toilets Do Nearly Everything, Even Redden Faces
"Japan is the world leader in high-tech toilets, and its biggest toilet company, Toto, is working on a home model that will chemically analyze urine. Already selling well are toilets that clean themselves, have coatings that resist germs and spray pulsating water to massage your backside."
At first, this might seem weird to our culture. However, I can see how with the increased use of pampering in bath products, aromtherapies and such that the idea of high-tech toilets might catch on a little. After all, the idea of a restroom, is to well, rest and relax. Toilets that clean themselves? Why not. We have cat litter boxes that clean themelves. I've got an open mind willing to listen.

Tue, 19 Mar 2002 05:09:11 GMT

Some more great Tokyo links: RealTokyo: Cultural Search Engine and TokyoQ: Life in the Megalopolis

Tue, 19 Mar 2002 05:06:11 GMT

Justn Hall's site has some interesting starting points on Japanese culture, from describing Roppongi, Gaijin, food, etc. All very thorough.

Tue, 19 Mar 2002 04:39:58 GMT

Japanese Mobile Phone Culture
This is an interesting snapshot of how far behind we are in our mobile communications with regards to Japan and other countries. How many more years will go by before I can buy a Coke from a vending machine with my cell phone, or take a photo, or play an online multi-player mobile RPG like Samurai Romanesque reviewed here recently [photo].

I'm really fond of the Prime Minister phone charm. I'm definitey getting some accessories if I ever head over there.

Sat, 16 Mar 2002 15:40:19 GMT

Metropolis is now out on DVD
Get yours here.

Thu, 14 Mar 2002 03:32:11 GMT

I just watched a DVD of Neon Genesis Evangelion, an anime about a young boy's quest for finding himself (I think). Of course, the whole thing is about him piloting this massive robot to save mankind. Is that suprising? It's Anime! Anyway, it was pretty cool. I kind of liked the music on the menus. It's sort of pop, but the Japanese made it kind of cool. So, the DVD I rented only had episodes 1-4. So, I thought, "Oh, this must be something that just didn't make it past episode 4". Not so. Just typiing Evangelion on a Gnutella network proves that assumption very wrong. Indeed, there were (as far as I can tell) at least 27 episodes. Very cool. The odds of me ever being able to rent all of them. Nil. However, I'm sure I can get a compilation off of AnimeFu or somewhere? More digging!

Mon, 04 Mar 2002 04:53:12 GMT

Happy Doll's Festival!
March 3rd is Hinamatsuri (Doll's Festival) in Japan. This day is for praying for young girl's growth and happiness. Japan also has a Boy's Festival, which is really the official Children's Day or Kodomo-no-hi. There is a song "Ureshii Hinamatsuri (Happy Hinamatsuri)" for this holiday. Click here to hear it. Hit page 2 on the first link to read the words to the song.

Sun, 03 Mar 2002 21:33:08 GMT

Disney Aquires Sen to Chihiro, Lasseter to Dub [Slashdot] - Another great Anime heading to America. Sounds like a good flick. I can't wait!!

Sun, 03 Mar 2002 00:33:39 GMT

Japanese Proverb. "Fall seven times, stand up eight."
[Adam Curry]

Thu, 21 Feb 2002 01:40:18 GMT

Metropolis: The not-so Definitive Review
The beginning of Metropolis was nice but not overwhelming. The animation zoomed in on a high-tech city. It's great animation, with backgrounds reminiscent of Final Fantasy but with your standard Anime-style characters. We learn about the Ziggurat, a massive Tower of Babel-like structure just completed by Red Duke, the city's boss...Read More

Wed, 20 Feb 2002 21:40:04 GMT

Wow. Only 6 people for the Metropolis matinee. That's just more room for me.

Wed, 20 Feb 2002 17:31:22 GMT

It's only 100 days until the 2002 World Cup in Japan and Korea. Maybe that will be the thing that makes me finally buy a Tivo?

Sun, 17 Feb 2002 15:40:27 GMT

Bush and Koizumi Confront Economy, War and Climate
"Bush last year abandoned the treaty, which Japan strongly supports. His alternative unveiled last week is a voluntary plan that would use tax breaks and other incentives to slow the U.S. growth of global warming gases, but there are no mandatory reduction targets as in the Kyoto pact."
I am actually pleased that our president is visiting Japan while in a position of weakness. Yes, weakness. And diplomatically, this is indeed the case. The U.S. has nothing to offer Japan except acceptance of Kyoto. I doubt that would happen, but I keep my hopes alive. Nonetheless, I doubt Japan will be impressed by any gestures short of this. Recession or no, Japan will pull though, with or without the support of U.S. foreign policy. Bush really needs to watch his words this trip. I would start with no more "evil" announcements. It's not very diplomatic to go around bullying other countries.
Here are some really nice pictures of the protests going on in Japan: CO2 don't kill, and student protest turned back.

Sat, 16 Feb 2002 04:44:33 GMT

Wow. Here is some nice Japanese calligraphy at Takase Studios. But, is it really worth $200? hmm..maybe.

Sat, 09 Feb 2002 06:05:48 GMT

OK. You may not have noticed, but the last one worked. This was mostly thank to MS Word.

I wrote some Japanese characters in Microsoft Word.
Then save as Encoded Text (.txt), choosing Japanese (JIS) as the encoding method.
Open the text file in Notepad. It will look garbled.
Copy/Paste into the Radio editor with the Source button selected. It will not seem to work when posted.
As a matter of fact, it doesn't seem to work at all in Opera. However, I can actually get it to work in Internet Explorer by changing my encoding to Japanese (Auto-Select).

Not a very successful solution, but I know I've got the correct text to paste now. I'm hoping I can just change an encoding instruction somewhere, but to what UTF-8 or ISO-8859-2 or shift_jis? Oh well, try it til ya get it right.

Sat, 09 Feb 2002 05:52:39 GMT

$B%+%S%s(B $B%h%,(B $B%=%K(B

Sat, 09 Feb 2002 05:12:30 GMT

¥—p

Wed, 06 Feb 2002 03:48:17 GMT

IBM has a nice site supporting Unicode, International Components for Unicode

The ICU LocaleExplorer could be very valuable when implementing a foreign language into your website. It not only gives stuff like the "Windows Locale ID", but useful info like the region display name, days, weeks, date and time options, and so on.
The Unicode browser is also very cool. For Japanese, you can browse Hirgana, Katakana, and the Kanji. Although, I think the Kanji in these sets is referred to as CJK Symbols and Puctuation.
I'm assuming CJK refers to China Japan and Korea? Just a guess :-)

Fri, 01 Feb 2002 04:52:45 GMT

Hmm.. The kanji on the front of the box translates as seedling in babelfish. That's probably not even close :-) What is funny is that I can find the character using IME Pad via Microsoft Word. Yet, that doesn't tell you the pronunciation. That's the rub with Kanji. However, I like the the fact that there are 2 syllabaries in the hiragana and katakana. That makes it nice to learn foreign words and certain native phrases. But, I've got a loooong road ahead of me to become anywhere near literate. I think I'll have to add a Japanese culture category, but not before I figure out a way to post Kanji.

Fri, 01 Feb 2002 04:42:12 GMT

Nope. That didn't work. I guess that's a good question for the userland discussion.

Fri, 01 Feb 2002 04:41:22 GMT

My katakana and hiragana studies are starting to pay off. So, the chocolate strawberries are "ichigo" or if you have Japanese language set installed, it's ‚¢‚¿‚². Hmm. A good test to see if Radio can handle Japanese posts?

Fri, 01 Feb 2002 04:31:43 GMT

I know I mentioned this a few days ago, but these chocolates were REALLY good. They are basically dehydrated strawberries dipped in white chcocolate. Mmmmm...

So, I had to scan the package. It comes packaged in a little paper box not a whole lot unlike a box you would see for holding rice or other dish.

Tue, 29 Jan 2002 04:40:10 GMT

Well, in case you were curious, the flavors DID swell up tasty!

Tue, 29 Jan 2002 04:12:47 GMT

So, a colleage of mine just got back from Japan. It was her first trip. She got me some snacks. One of those items was "Strawberry Chocolate". I'll quote the paragraph underneath the title. She got it for me, because she knew I would enjoy the Engrish.

"This taste was taught. Both colors and
Biting at it is has the perfect to me by the season.
flavors will swell up tasty.
the chocolate degree of tastiness."

Tue, 29 Jan 2002 04:01:25 GMT

To be an elegant queen, you have to buy a Samsung SGH-A400 phone
This is some of the best Engrish yet. As some of my friends pointed out today, I don't know whether women should be amused or offended when they found out that this "...elegant phone can check women's Pink Schedule & Calorie that it helps you to be a woman of sense." Oh. Well, if they can build a watch that can find a pub, they should be able to build a phone that can keep up with that monthly visitor.

Mon, 28 Jan 2002 14:20:21 GMT

So, I was at the Dobie mall last night. I walked by the Dobie cinema. It appears that they are going to be showing Metropolis after all. That's great stuff. Now to find out when they are going to show it. It only said "Coming Soon".
Update: This was actually posted (without links) Saturday via pager. Apparently, I have a weekday business hours only pager. Ugh! So, Metropolis is showing for one week only in Austin starting Febuary 15. Click here for more info.

Fri, 25 Jan 2002 05:15:34 GMT

Two new great looking animes (Escaflowne and Metropolis) out today. Well, Metropolis is re-packaged sort of. And, from the looks of it, I'll have to wait until it comes out on video. Uggh..

Mon, 21 Jan 2002 03:34:49 GMT

NYTimes: Anime, Japanese Cinema's Second Golden Age - nice objective article about Anime.