Hello again from Japan, the home of strawberry and butter sandwiches!
There are some words that the Japanese are doomed to have problems with, due to the fact that Japanese is a rather phonetically impoverished language, with just 5 vowels and a limited repertoire of phonomes. The sounds of L/R are not differentiated in Japanese, which makes some English words very hard for them — hence, jokes about the Japanese sending Viagra to the U.S. during the 2000 Presidential election because we couldn’t get an election. “Cone” and “corn” are impossible to separate in Japanese, and Japanese may be apt to think that cones for Ice Cream are made out of corn. I’ve lived in Japan for 11 years, but I’ve never seen a Japanese spell the word “flea market” correctly — it’s usually “free market” (as in, a market you don’t need to pay to get into), and I’ve even seen “frea market” once. A curb is something by the side of the road, and a curve is a turn in the road, but don’t ask a Japanese which is which. And finally, one of the most famous pizza chains in Japan is Pizza Hut, but 120 million Japanese all think it’s Pizza Hat (as in Red Hat Linux).
In Japanese, words are made from kanji, the Chinese characters that have meanings built into them (unlike the two kana writing systems, which are just sounds). This is quite a flexible system and it’s easy to create new words when they come along. When modern hospitals came to Japan and a word for “operating room” was needed, they built a word out of the meanings in the Chinese characters, in this case using the characters for “hand,” “technique” and “room.” Sometimes, though, the meanings of words breaks down when their definitions change. The Japanese word for a preschool teacher is “hobo” (literally “protecting mother”), but like words like fireman, stewardess and mailman in English, it needed upgrading to a term that didn’t refer to a particular sex. The new “correct” is “hoikushi” (a professional-sounding word that means care-giver). Some words haven’t been updated yet, though. A family with only one parent is called “boshi katei” which literally means “household of mother and child,” but this word doesn’t serve its purpose very well if the single parent is male. And Japanese who spend several years overseas then return to Japan are called “kikoku shijo” or “girl-children who have returned to their home country.” The terms is used for males as well as females, despite the fact that the “girl” meaning is built into the word.
A fun part of learning Japanese is memorizing the “counters.” In Japanese, you use different words for counting different objects depending on what shape they are. If you’re counting sheets of paper, you count with “mai” (ichi mai, ni mai, san mai, and so on). For any long, cylindrical object, you use “hon” (which changes to pon or bon depending on the preceding word), e.g. ippon, ni hon, san bon, and so on. (Roppingi, if you want to know, means “six trees” — roku plus the “pon” counter, and ki is Japanese for tree.) There are some difficult ones to get down — for example, an umbrella is counted with hon/pon because it’s long and cylindrical when closed, but when it’s opened, it’s in a different shape. How do you count it? Does the Space Shuttle count as an airplane or a ship? We used to bug my Japanese teacher back at SDSU with questions like these.
Curse my fingers — when mentioning the retirement of Takanohana, who has the rank of Yokozuna (“Grand Master”), I accidentally typed “Yokozuka.” Sorry about the error.
We thank everyone who supported J-List in the 2003 Calendar Season. We had a blast, and sold a ton of these excellent glossy calendars to people all over the world. For any fans of Japanese idols, JPOP and anime who have some wall space left, we’ve got an offer you won’t be able to say no to — 50% off any purchase of 2 or more calendars, which effectively means buy 1 get 1 free. Considering that most calendars are just $10 currently, this is major steal for you at just $5 each. We’ve still got 40 or so different calendars available, although they’ll be going fast. Don’t wait to take advantage of this offer! Discount applied at checkout.
For the new update, we’ve got some excellent products from Japan for you. They include:
- First, a stunning item for collectors of high-quality Japanese figures, we’ve got a giant cold-cast resin statue of H. R. Geiger’s original Alien
- If you love Japan’s lovely idols, including Morning Musume, we’ve got limited stock of the new Yuko Nakazawa photobook — really lovely
- For anime DVD fans, we’ve got the new Tokyo Mew Mew DVD in, so you can be on the cutting edge of anime-dom and enjoy this really fun show (region 2)
- Also, for fans of the bold and cool OH! Mikey DVDs (which are sold out, although fresh stock is coming in soon), we’ve got The Color of Life, a huge collection of sassy, bold Japanese television from Vermilion Pleasure Night — and it’s subtitled in English! (region 2)
- If you love the excellent Studio Ghibli music boxes that have been popular in Japan lately, be sure and see the dynamite Princess Mononoke deluxe music box we’ve got — stock is very limited, but more are on order already
- Also, Yasu has restocked several of the popular Ghibli music boxes for fans of Laputa and Kiki’s Delivery Service
- For fans of Japanese snacks, we’ve got delicious Caplico chocolate ice cream cones, interesting furikake, and fresh stock of Takoyaki Pretz
- Also, a really cute series of Hello Kitty “Message Angel” plushes with chocolate candy inside
- For fans of cute things from Japan, look for Hello Kitty and other Sanrio items, including chopsticks, bento items, a new Hello Kitty lap blanket that’s incredibly soft, and more
- We’ve gotten in some very cute bag and wallet accessories for those who want to see what’s popular in Japan right now
- To help combat winter, we stock the excellent Japanese “Kairo” heating pads — put one in your pocket and stay warm for hours — as well as Japanese “Bub” onsen tablets for your bath
- If you’re a baseball fan, see the two figures of Hideki Matsui we’ve got — they will no doubt be very valuable someday!
- Finally, find authentic Japanese origami, cute Pom Pom Purin pocket tissues, wacky Japanese bottle erasers, fresh stock of Japanese study cards, and more!
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of Japan’s unique adult video world, we’ve got the new issues of Video Boy and Best Video, two excellent magazines that allow you to keep up with virtually all Japan’s famous AV stars — dozens and dozens of girls in each issue
- For fans of amateur and love hotel sex, we’ve got a nice new photobook for you, with very nice models and couples
- For Japan’s unique married women fetish, we’ve got a duel set of two dynamite photobooks
- For photobook fans, we’ve got several great new items, including drama actress Miri Sugihara’s dynamite erotic first nude photobook
- Also, a rare item for Yulia Nova fans, her rare and hard to find (even in Japan) series of erotic photographic postcards, just lovely!
- For manga collectors, check out our newly posted erotic volumes, including love slave works from Sanwa Comics, incredibly erotic artwork in a new Heaven’s Road, and yaoi works, too
- We love AG, the English-language magazine of “art, sex and CG culture” that features Japanese artists’ hentai comic works — we’ve restocked all volumes of this great magazine so you can get any back-issues you’ve missed
- Also, if you love the great anime Chobits, be sure and see the hentai Chobits manga we’ve posted
- For doujinshi fans, we’ve got another dozen or so excellent books, all of them brand new releases at Japan’s most recent Comic Market — see them before they’re all gone
- For DVD fans, enjoy an incredible *eight hours* of superb large breast AV from the wonderful Million — 480 minutes of the best breastplay for you! (region free)
- “Nakadashi” is the fetish of men blowing their wads into women, and SOD has assembled a great collection of erotic nakadashi AV for you (region free)
- Also from Soft on Demand, Isshiki Shino and Ai Nagase show their thanks to their fans in a new erotic Festival of Fan Gratitude offering (region free)
- From Cinemagic, a wonderful 180 minutes of Slave Secretary, lovely bondage and rope-play AV with 13 beautiful women (region free)
- From Moodyz, a new direction — Black Swap in L.A., in which two lovely starlets get creamed by large black men in the USA (region 2)
- Remember that J-List’s dynamite January DVD sale is still on — you can choose 4 or more of the over 200 DVDs we’ve got on sale, and get 25% off. Search for “January sale” to find these items.
J-List sells wacky T-shirts with message like “I’m looking for a Japanese girlfriend” (our most popular shirt ever), “Respect the Emperor, Expel the Foreign Barbarians” and so on. They’re funny and wacky, and make great gifts, too. Why not browse our selection of T-shirts today? Because your satisfaction is important to us, J-List goes the extra distance for you, stocking a wide range of sizes (from small to XXXL for most shirts), so everyone can enjoy our fun Japanese T-shirts. They’re printed in the USA and all sizes are full American sizes. If you’re not sure exactly what size you need, the measurements for the shirts in centimeters and inches is displayed via the “Click here for size info” link.
Interested in learning hiragana and katakana? There’s a cute Javascript game in which pretty girls take off their clothes if you learn you recognize Japanese characters (don’t worry, it’s PG rated, and a fun way to learn). The URL is http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~ah3q/project/japanese/
