Reuters reported:

She is big-busted, petite, very friendly, and she runs on batteries.

A Japanese firm has produced a 38 cm (15 inch) tall robotic girlfriend that kisses on command, to go on sale in September for around $175, with a target market of lonely adult men.

Using her infrared sensors and battery power, the diminutive damsel named “EMA” puckers up for nearby human heads, entering what designers call its “love mode.”

“Strong, tough and battle-ready are some of the words often associated with robots, but we wanted to break that stereotype and provide a robot that’s sweet and interactive,” said Minako Sakanoue, a spokeswoman for the maker, Sega Toys.

“She’s very lovable and though she’s not a human, she can act like a real girlfriend.”

The model name EMA stands for Eternal Maiden Actualization, and the girlfriend robot can also hand out business cards, sing and dance.

It’s for adult men, although I’m not sure what adult men can do with a 15 inch-tall “girlfriend”. Of course, the real sad thing is that I’m pretty sure it’ll be popular among otaku.

A lot of Americans who have never been to Japan or studied its culture in detail think that anime = Japan.

(Which BTW is 100% false.)

The influence of media however isn’t limited to America.

I was talking with a Japanese friend once (BTW — she’s never been out of the country) and she told me that although she wanted to visit San Francisco, she thought America was entirely too dangerous for someone like her.

So I asked her, “Why do you think that?”

Her response: “Because…they have guns in America, right? What if they don’t like me or something and shoot? People always shoot each other in American movies.”

*facefault*

Yesterday there was a tragic incident in a high traffic area in Akihabara, where many electronics goods, anime shops, etc. are located in Tokyo (it draws a lot of tourists and is popular among otaku). A young man named Tomohiro Kato (age: 25) drove a white rental truck into the area, rammed into people and stabbed multiple victims indiscriminately. (Note that guns are illegal in Japan, so he couldn’t shoot people.) Seven people were killed, and ten were injured. The police arrested Kato, and the media reported his life story, along with his resume. (Japanese people are always very interested in whether or not the criminal was employed and if so, where.)

Some reporters have said that Kato is a yakuza member, but later it turned out to be false. Besides, Yakuza members do kill each other, but it’s usually for a very specific reason (mostly revenge or territorial disputes) and they do not kill indiscriminately. You usually never hear about yakuza members killing non-yakuza civilians without a very good reason.

Kato claimed that he was sick of everything and wanted to kill people. He was a temporary worker at a car part company and was making about ¥200,000 a month (that’s about $2k US). Some believe that the inequality in the system probably angered him among other things. Temporary workers and full-time regular workers (called “seishain”) are treated very differently even if they do the same work. Seishains get paid more, are eligible for promotion and the company-sponsored pension plans and other benefits, may join the labor union, and receive biannual bonuses and so on and are generally treated like a family member. However, temporary workers are treated like a second-class citizen, even if they work hard and so on (meaning the only thing they’re entitled to is the pay). And most likely Kato also had some mental instability of some sort, although it’s not clear yet as to what kind and how severe since psychiatric help is not something people seek in this country. (Culturally speaking, it’s not looked upon favorably to seek such help.)

Many Japanese people claimed that they feel unsafe in Akihabara, and if people avoid the area it’ll have a fairly significant economic impact in Tokyo. Most likely the government will step in to allay people’s fear. There are memorials and so on in Tokyo for the victims, and many news analysts are wondering why there are so many stabbing rampages in Japan recently.

Japanese language is quite peculiar in that the consonants and vowels aren’t really separated. The only consonant that’s separate is the special “n” that gets added at the end, such as:

jibun

But even this “n” is added almost like a separate sound to the word…like

ji - bu - n

The hardest part for me is getting some Japanese students to stop adding superfluous “o” “u” and so on at the end of English words. Such as:

I don’t think so.

Ai - do - n - tu - si - n - ku - so.

Disney World

Di-zu-ni wo-ru-do

Sometimes they get it. Of course, then they decide to delete all the o’s and u’s.

So instead of saying “I want to go to Toronto”, they say, “I want to go to Toront.” Or “I like Orland Bloom.”

So if you ever hear Japanese people say “I like Toront”, just realize that they’re merely overcompensating by deleting necessary o’s and u’s.

I talked about being unique in Japan and promised to talk about why it’s not a good thing.

So here it is.

Japan values conformity and the group harmony over all else. Individuality or anything like that is tolerated as long as it doesn’t mess up the group harmony a.k.a wa.

Japanese people have a saying that a nail that sticks out must be hammered down. That should tell you something about how they feel about individuals who do not conform. Hence, being unique is almost like a stigma or something.

This is a short rant directed at English conversation school teachers in Japan.

The teachers at Berlitz are striking because they think they need to be paid more. The company made a handsome profit since 2005, and they think they are entitled to some of that pie.

Of course, they never even consider the fact that Berlitz lost money in 2004, but the company never asked the teachers to share the loss.

And the idea that they think they’re real teachers deserving some super respect is laughable.

Granted there are some really dedicated linguists and English teachers in Japan. But almost no English conversation teachers in Japan are actually qualified to teach. The vast majority of them don’t have any sort of teaching certification or license. They also do not have a degree in education, linguistics or any other related field. Some of them are so fricking illiterate and stupid that talking to them will rot your brain. Of course they want to hide this fact, so they give incorrect information to their students. (It’s painfully obvious that their “advanced” students don’t know anything about basic English grammar if you talk to them for about 10 minutes or so.)

The only requirement for getting a job as an English conversation teacher in Japan is a four-year university degree from any English-speaking country in the world. (And perhaps having a Canadian, Australian, American, Brit and/or Kiwi passport helps.) That’s it. Most schools provide about three days of “training”. *snort* Don’t tell me that makes you a REAL teacher.

I watched some kind of food show on TV today. Japanese people love shows about animals or fish…although the ones about fish are almost always about eating.

Today’s show was about bluefin tuna a.k.a. maguro. Maguro is one of the most popular fish in Japan. You can make a fortune selling maguro in Japan because they’ll pay over $100K for a single maguro. Japanese people love maguro so much that they have specific words for various parts of the fish, and the best is toro — the fatty belly meat of maguro — and chutoro — middle toro. There’s also otoro — big or great toro. Anyway, they’re all good. And chutoro nigiri is very expensive, at least $5 a piece at a nice sushi restaurant.

(I’m dirt poor, so I eat cheap negi-toro maki, which is a maki roll with toro paste and finely chopped green onion.)

Some professor at a university (I couldn’t read the name; it was in kanji) found a way to farm maguro so that they’re about 80% fatty. Currently about 20% of a maguro can be categorized as toro. (Remember toro must be very fatty…some parts are so fatty that they’re almost white, and they’re the most expensive of all.) If you quadruple the toro yield per maguro, it’s going to make a lot of Japanese delirious.

The professor brought one of his fatty maguro to the studio. It was already gutted, but otherwise intact. The show had four maguro butcher experts (?). They carved it all up and critiqued the quality and the color of its various parts and flesh. Of course, the entire Japanese audience was near-dancing with excitement. (They really really love seeing fish getting carved up.) Then the host introduced a super sushi chef from a sushi restaurant in Ginza. (Ginza is so ridiculously expensive that you don’t belong there if you need to know the price before you buy.) The chef made nigiri sushi with the newly farmed maguro and the regular maguro. Everyone ate and gushed.

Unfortunately I didn’t speak Japanese well enough to understand the final critique. But very interesting nonetheless. What amazed me is that the professor got the research grant in the first place. Can you imagine submitting a research grant request so you can farm super fatty tuna????

1. Bousouzoku is the Japanese version of American Harley gangs.
2. Unlike American motorcycle gangs, bousouzoku go very very slowly.
3. They also like to swerve around on their motorcycles.
4. Bousouzoku’s motorcycles also make a lot of noise because they don’t have mufflers.
5. If you’re new to Japan, you may think, Oh those poor kids! They can’t afford to fix their motorcycles.
6. However your sympathy won’t last very long…
7. Bousouzoku love to ride at night and be as loud as possible to keep everyone awake.
8. After a week of no sleep, you may be tempted to shoot bousouzoku from your balcony.
9. Bousouzoku members are usually young.
10. They are also not very academically inclined either. If they were, they would be in cram schools.
11. You should never attack a bousouzoku member. Bousouzoku travel in a big group (even if you don’t see the others) and if you fight one, you have to fight them all.
12. Now if you are Jet Li, the above scenario is probably okay.
13. I’ve yet to see the local police arrest bousouzoku.

When I first came to Japan, I had the following conversation with a Japanese friend.

Me: Do you know Tanaka-san*?
Sayuri*: Yes.
Me: What do you think about her?
Sayuri: She’s a very unique person.
Me: (smile) Oh cool!
Sayuri: (uncomfortable pause) She’s really unique.
Me: Isn’t that a good thing?
Sayuri: Well…no.

*Names changed.

Well, it turned out that when Japanese people call you “unique”, what they really mean to say is “WHAT A FREAK!” in a polite way so that you don’t feel too bad. It’s not some Japlish slang, and every Japanese person knows what the word “unique” means in English. So why is it that unique = freak? I’ll blog about that later this month.

Japan’s Diet forcibly added another new gas tax, effective immediately, right before Golden Week starts. It’s like the US lawmakers adding an immediate gas tax right before Thanksgiving or something. (Golden Week is a long holiday and many people travel during this time)

The new measure will add about $1.20 (US) of tax per gallon.

Japanese gas price is about ¥ 160 or more per liter after the tax is added.

So that makes the new gas price about $6.00 per gallon. (Before the tax measure was passed, it was about $4.80 per gallon.)

I’m not sure how Japan’s democracy works anymore, since according to the recent poll, about 70% of respondents opposed the gas tax, which the government plans to use for road constructions. I guess construction companies’ interests are more important than the 70% of the population…