Cultural Lessons and Initial D

The other day I bought an Initial D driving game for my Playstation 3, which is fun since the mountains of Haruna, Myogi and Akagi are all real places located near J-List. I had a problem with the game, however: every time I tried to select an option I found I was hitting the cancel button instead of execute, which would bring me back to the previous menu. The reason was related to an interesting cultural wrinkle between Japan and the West: here, a circle (maru) always means “yes” or “correct” while an X (batsu) is always “no” or “wrong.” So while gamers from America and Europe expect the X button to execute the current menu option, in Japanese Playstation (and PSP) games this is reversed. I first encountered this issue when studying Japanese at SDSU: when my teacher handed me my test back marked with dozens of red circles, I thought I’d gotten all the answers wrong, but I soon figured out that circles meant good. We’ve had similar cultural issues with the coffee maker we use at J-List, a large 12-cup model purchased in the U.S., since the girly-man coffee makers here are laughably small. The Mr. Coffee switch displays a 1 for “on” and a 0 for “off,” and invariably one of our Japanese staff members will put the switch in the “circle” position, expecting the coffee to flow then wondering when nothing happens.Living in Gunma is fun for an Initial D fan, since I can go on these real roads if I want.