Hello again from your friend in Japan, J-List!
In many ways the Chinese language is to Asia what the ancient Latin and Greek languages were to Europe: a defining blanket of culture over the entire region. Languages like Japanese and Korean originally used Chinese characters as their sole writing system, then later came up with new writing systems based on kanji (hiragana and katakana for Japan, the Hangul alphabet for Korea). Just as Greek and Latin form the basis for most vocabulary words in modern European languages, virtually all Japanese words are written in kanji, and when new concepts come along, the Japanese can combine existing characters to create new names (when they’re not making up funny English names, that is). Because I can read the 1,945 “joyo kanji” (required to pass level 1 of the Japanese Ability Test), when I go to Hong Kong I can puzzle out the meanings of about 20% of what’s written around me, although I have no idea how to pronounce it. It’s a lot like going to France actually — English speakers can easily pick up 20-30% of the meaning of written French because so many of our words are of French origin.
One concept you have to get used to when learning Japanese is that there are long and short vowels, which you have to keep track of. For example, the word ojisan (oh-gee-SAN) means uncle or refers to any middle-aged man, but ojiisan (oh-GEEE-san), with a long middle vowel, is grandfather or an old man. (Similarly, obasan means aunt or a middle-aged woman, while obaasan means grandmother or an elderly woman.) It’s tricky to follow when writing in the Roman alphabet (“romaji”) because our alphabet is not set up to write Japanese correctly. The long vowels are usually ignored in English — if they weren’t, we’d be writing Toukyou instead of Tokyo and Oosaka instead of Osaka — but it can still be confusing, especially in the age of Internet searches, where the results you get will depend on how the person chose to write the word you were searching for (for example, the Japanese idol Yuka, whose name is also written Yuuka). To avoid these problems, J-List’s search engine is “smart” and will bring up the same results for most words regardless of how you search for them. Because English is completely unsuited to accurately representing written Japanese, I strongly advise that anyone trying to learn the language be sure to choose a class that uses a textbook that uses only hiragana, katakana and kanji, the actual writing systems of Japan, and not the English alphabet. (See my personal homepage at http://www.peterpayne.net for an overview of the Japanese language and my advice on how best to study it.)
The upgrades to the J-List site seem to be running smoothly so far, once we solved the cookie problem that kept some customers being able to see adult products even though they had clicked the “yes” graphic. Our server move is completed and everything seems to be running fine currently. As always, if you experience any problems with the site, please let us know by email and we’ll get on it right away.
We’ve got a nice update of new products for you today, including a great item for Race Queen and swimsuit idol fans like Miho Yoshioka, a great series of piggy banks based on traditional Japanese mailboxes, cute items like Afro Ken beer glasses and plush sushi toys, new snacks including the deluxe Strawberry Pocky and Meiji’s Village of Chocolate Bamboo, a rare Lord of the Rings item that also comes with chocolate inside, new Chobits items, unique Hello Kitty items sold only in Japan, new Kubrick-style figures based on Hikaru no Go and the Diablock, a parody chocolate bar that is really a mirror, a traditional sake cup, and more.
For our adult customers, we’ve also got many new products, including new magazine items including Aishite Ageru (“I’ll Love you”), the new issue of Karte Club (playing doctor fetish), a very nice selection of new erotic manga for you as well as a great restocking of some very popular books, some very nice nude and sexy idol photobooks, and great adult DVDs including a new Deep Kiss lesbian offering from Soft on Demand, a great parody hardcore DVD featuring the famous busty idol Yuka (you decide if it’s really her or not), and a very interesting indies offering from Aroma with Japanese lesbians taking on women from America, Canada and the UK. Please see all the new items!
The top 5 has been updated, so you can see what products are the most popular right now with J-list customers. Clicking on each top 5 link will show you those items (actually it shows you the top ten or so items).
J-List sells many cool things, including some cool products from the U.S. that we like to support. Two of these are the excellent AG, the English-language magazine of “art, sex and CG culture” that publishes hentai manga in English from Japan (including the famous Shiwasu no Okina) and America. Also, there are the English-language Blue Eyes comic translations from White Lightning Productions that we stock in San Diego for you. We love to support these companies and hope that you will too, through us! (Revolving subscriptions to AG are available if you want to make sure you get each issue automatically.)
Calendar season is moving along, and we expect to start receiving preordered calendars in a week or two. We’ll process all calendar orders ASAP, and get them out to you as quickly as you can. Since we have so many unique anime, JPOP, pretty idol, nude and wacky 2003 calendars from Japan, we’re sure we have something that you’d love to have on your wall — or gift to someone as a unique gift. Please browse our many cool 2003 calendars and see if there isn’t something really special waiting for you.
