Greetings from J-List April 8, 2002

Greetings from all of us here at J-List!

I’ve lived in Japan for nearly ten years now, but before I came here I got a lot of enjoyment from Japanese students who came to stay at our house through various homestay programs. Through this great system of sharing cultures, we were able to make friends with many great Japanese young people and teach them about our family while we learned from them. There’s one unfortunate reality to homestay programs, and that is since host families receive money for putting up their Japanese guests, homestay has been turned into a for-profit activity by some, who host as many foreign guests as their houses will hold and greatly reduce the chance for useful cultural sharing. If you think you’d be interested in hosting Japanese students and sharing your home with them, learning from them as you help them learn about your home country, please look into what programs you can find on the web. Searching Yahoo or Google for homestay programs in your city is a good place to start. Personally, I got the most from hosting high school students and recommend hosting students between the ages of 15 and 18, especially if you have kids of similar ages.

I’ve heard is said that when French people learn English, the first thing that needs to be done is to re-learn how to pronounce many words in their target language, since so many words in English originate from French (a little gift from William the Conqueror). Similiarly, Japanese use many English words, but the pronunciations aren’t always the same as they are in American English. First of all, you have to get “in tune” with the way words are forced into the Japanese system of syllables, which often changes the way they sound. The English word “weekend” becomes a six-syllable word when pronounced in Japanese — “u-ii-ku-e-n-do” (oo-EE-koo-EHN-doh), and if you want people to understand you, you have to be at peace with pronouncing the word that way, instead of “weekend.” Also, some words are just imported differently, according to phonetic rules that make sense to the Japanese. The two most popular search engines in Japan are Google and Yahoo, but they’re pronounced “goh-guru” and “yah-hoe” — only slightly different from how we say them in the States, but it’s enough. Live in Japan long enough, and you start letting this Japanese pronunciation of English words slip back into “real” English, and the results can really be embarrassing.

Spring has come to Japan, and although I love cherry blossoms as much as the next gaijin, I could truly do without the pollen that causes terrible hayfever for many living in Japan. Dozens of flowering trees (Japanese cedars being the most famous culprits) give off their pollen, one flowering in season right after the other, and the end result is an endlessly running nose, watery eyes, sneezing, and general misery.

For our latest update, we’ve got some nice items for you, including:

• First, we’ve got some nice new magazines, including the new Gal’s Dee, featuring lovely pro and amateur Japanese models of cup “D” and larger
  
• For fans of erotic Japanese photobooks, enjoy the lesbian grave of Izumi Morino and Yuka Asato, and the slender hair nude of Neon Yukino
  
• For fans of Japan’s high-end bondage and fetish photobooks, we’ve got an excellent new item for fans of “New Half” (i.e., dick girls)
  
• We’ve got another major update to our hentai manga page, with half a dozen or so all-new volumes, as well as fresh stock of several popular manga
  
• For yaoi lovers, we’ve updated the yaoi page for you as well
  
• DVD collectors should check out our newly posted items, starting with the very erotic Deep Kiss 14 lesbian kissing DVD from Soft on Demand, great as always (region free)
  
• For fans of the very attractive Japanese “girl next door” Shinobu Kasagi, she’s got a fun bondage bukkake DVD offering from SOD (region free)
  
• For fans of cosplay and adult performances from Japan, we’ve got a great “non stop mega hits” collection featuring 230 mind-boggling minutes of top adult video on one great DVD (region free)
  
• For fans of M’s Video Group, the very rare and popular bukkake studio in Japan, we’ve got a great new release (VHS)
  
• For more erotic cosplay fun, see the dynamite Yuuna Akimoto perform in some of the sexiest costumes we’ve seen, including China dress, erotic ninja, anime costumes and more (region 2)
  
• For serious leg, stocking and boot fetish fans, we present “Boots and Stocking” with the performances of three gorgeous ladies. As the package says, “it’s satisfied with the lady’s leg deliciously!”
  
• Newly restocked adult DVD titles include the excellent Complete Compilation of Ai Nagase and All About Ai Nagase (you can see that Tomo really loves her, since he’s in charge of ordering DVD titles), Shake it! (tekoki fetish), the Semen Championship Carnival, and more
  
• For sweet idol fans, enjoy the lovely Happy End?, a cute mini-drama in which four beautiful girls manage to fall in love with the same man
  
• Also: fresh stock of some cute swimsuit idol photobooks for you
  
• For fans of Japan’s excellent and unique toys, we’ve got a major update of Kubrick Planet of the Apes toys for you, with stock of all the great action figures based on the original movies
  
• Also: fresh stock of some extremely popular items, including Totoro and Kiki’s Delivery Service change purses, the totally cute Soot Sprite keychain, Laputa figure sets, and fresh stock of Sun Arrow stuffed animals
  
• We’ve got some great new snack items for you, including sesame seed covered chocolate balls (yes, we know, but they’re really quite good), tasty Honey Black Candy, fresh stock of gum and Pocky, and more
  
• Also, great foods you can prepare at home, including garlic fried rice (Japanese style), a fun Hello Kitty Milk Pudding mix, and two new varieties of furikake (food you sprinkle over rice)
  
• Now that the weather has gotten warmer, we’ve brought back a summer favorite, tea bags for making delicious Japanese mugi (barley) tea, a very healthy and delicious drink for the summer
  
• We have some great Hello Kitty items for you, including notebooks for school, hair care products,
  
• We’ve got more cool items for dog lovers, including an official “The Dog” cube money bank with different dogs’ images on each side
  
• If you ever loved Ultraman, we’ve got another extra large soft vinyl figure from the world of Ultra-Q in stock
  
• Finally, find killer chopsticks made of sturdy bamboo, the most excellent push pin you will ever find, authentic Japanese incense, and bath powder containing real green tea, all in stock now!
  

We’re making some more improvements to the J-List database system to increase speed and bandwidth. If you notice any weirdness with images displaying oddly, or anything else working strangely on your system, please let us know. Things should be running smoothly in a very short time.