Hello from your friendly neighborhood gaijin in Japan!
First of all, congratulations to Yasu and his wife on the birth of their first child! Little Miu-chan was born on Sunday and is a very healthy and happy little girl (3302 grams, 52 cm long). Miu-chan is a “San Francsico Baby” — conceived while Yasu and his wife went on their honeymoon to that beautiful city. Here’s a picture if you want to see the happy father and daughter: http://www.jlist.com/c3/miu.jpg
One thing that’s often a shock to outgoing, cheerful Westerners is the Japanese tendency of modesty. Try praising a Japanese person by telling them how good their English is, and they’ll disagree with you, telling you “No, my English isn’t good at all.” If you compliment most American women on how pretty they look, they’ll probably reply with a warm “thank you.” Taking note of how pretty a Japanese women looks can be a confusing experience, though, as they shake their head and firmly disagree with you. In Japanese society, the concept of “kenson” (translated as humility or modesty) is an important quality for people to have in a land that’s got so many people per square kilometer (325 in Japan, vs. just 26 in the USA). There are many stereotypes and silly notions about Japanese modesty, many which were inserted into American popular culture by novelists like James Clavell, but basically, the concept of “kenson” just means that people not be boastful but instead try to play down their own skills or abilities in a polite way. There are many phrases in Japanese that illustrate this tendency to show humility in front of others. For example, when you give someone a gift, you usually say “Here’s something that’s not interesting” (tsumaranai mono desu kedo…) or if you bake someone a cake, you say, “I’m not sure if it tastes good or not…” (Oishii ka dou ka wakaranai kedo).
In Japan, it’s year-end gift giving season again. Companies give gifts to each other to show feelings of thanks for services rendered in the past, and to say “yoroshiku onegai shimasu” (a very hard phrase to translate — it sort of means “please continue to be of service to me in the future”) for the coming half year. The two gift-giving periods (called Chugen in the summer, and Oseibo in the winter) is a big part of the Japanese economy, and companies compete to make the most interesting gifts available. This year J-List sent sake from our prefecture and Starbucks coffee to the various distributors and other companies we do business with.
I get a lot of questions from people who want to teach ESL (that’s English as a Second Language in teacher-speak) in Japan. While there are tens of thousands of people teaching English in Japan at a variety of schools, the long Japanese recession has done a lot of damage to the “eikaiwa” (English conversation) industry, bringing salaries and general teaching conditions down. Teaching English is still a great way to get to see and live in Japan, and it’s also a super way to meet some very nice Japanese people who are interested in learning English — but anyone interested in teaching in Japan (or in other countries in Asia) should know that teaching ESL isn’t the stuff that satisfying careers are made of, for many people. Anyone who wants to give it a try, either on the JET program, or at one of the three major English conversation school chains, or at smaller private schools, would need a bachelors degree from a four-year college (any subject will do, no one cares what you majored in here), an open mind about things like squid pizza (you think I’m joking, don’t you?), and the desire to do right by your Japanese hosts — e.g., learn a little humility (see above). You can see my (slightly dated) article on teaching ESL in Japan at http://www.peterpayne.net
We’re making some improvements to the J-List site for you. When you purchase 10 or more of items like Pocky, Pretz, Japanese chewing gum, and so on, you can get 15% off your purchase. In the past, the discount did not show in the J-List shopping cart automatically, but now it does. So for our 25% off on “The Dog” sale this month, all you need to do is add 3 or more “The Dog” items to your cart and the discount will be calculated automatically when you check out. As always, please report any problems you experience with the site, in case we got something wrong — thanks!
For the new update, we’ve got a lot of great items from Japan, including:
- First, we love the hit show Tokyo Mew Mew, which we think is
set to out-Sailor Moon Sailor Moon in the world of transforming cute girl
shows, even if one of the girls is named Mew Lettuce — we’ve got some nice
toys from this show in stock
- For fans of our delicious Japanese snacks, we’ve got some great
new items for you, including animal calcium cookies, a new flavor of the
runaway success Gravel Choco (chocolate that looks like little rocks), and
limited edition “air-in” chocolate (that is, whipped, fluffy chocolate)
- Also, a very cool item: famous Japanese icons like daruma,
inviting cat and the famous Japanese raccoon, which come with delicious
chocolate-filled cookies
- For those who’d like to try furikake, a word for any food that
is sprinkled over white rice, we’ve got some nice items including kimchee
flavored furikake and more
- We’ve restocked several Totoro and related items, including
several Totoro music boxes, the Totoro Doll Collection, and the very
popular Totoro Magnet Set
- Also, we’ve added stock of the very cool Snoopy Music Box from
Sun Arrow, which is a great item and only licensed for sale in the Japanese
market (except through us, wink wink)
- For Hello Kitty fans, enjoy a super fun Kitty Drawing Board,
similar to Etch-a-Sketch, as well as other fun only-sold-in-Japan items,
restocked for you (including the popular Kitty business card holders)
- We love the great English-dubbed and -subbed releases from
Studio Ghibli, and we’ve got fresh stock of one of my all-time favorite
Hayao Miyazaki films, Lupin III, the Castle of Caliostro, a *great* anime
film (region 2)
- We’ve got a fantastic set of super deformed Kubrick-style
figures, MyClone, which parody Micronauts, Kamen Rider, and much more —
and we’ve got full sets available
- Look for more cool chopsticks from Japan, in both adult length
and small sizes for kids
- For fans of Japanese idols, we’ve restocked Yuka’s charming
swimsuit DVD (region all)
- In Japan, virtually everyone sends New Year’s cards, and we’ve
got some spiffy stamps for making your own
- Finally, find a super way to keep doors from closing, a nifty
all-purpose bag from Japan, more ways to enjoy a real Japanese hot springs,
and more!
For our adult customers, we’ve got many new 18+ products. They include:
- For fans of excellent adult magazines from Japan, we’ve got new
issues of E-Cup and I’m Gonna Ask You Out, featuring many lovely hardcore
Japanese gals (including Hitomi Hayasaka)
- Enjoy superb busty women from Japan with Super Natural Peach
Breast Girls, a double-thick issue of Gal’s Dee
- We’ve got great photobook items for you, including Ai Kurosawa
as your virtual live-in girlfriend, as well as a super-sexy photobook
featuring Mayuka Suzuki (love those rabbit ears)
- Also for fans of Japan’s dynamite leg and stocking fetish
photobooks, fresh stock of the superb “Tail to Nose”
- We’ve got a nice issue of DVD Baveux, featuring a DVD with 2
hours of great sampler content and more (region 2)
- For hentai manga fans, enjoy many nice new volumes posted to
the site, including an erotic “Happy Present” from Plaza Comics, a new
Electric Fighting Daughters
- We’ve got some excellent new DVDs in stock for you, starting
with a new No Cut!! featuring three full hours of Sai Mari’s lovely and
very erotic hardcore performance (region free)
- Cocolo is a fabulously beautiful professional AV actress from
Japan, with a fantastic body and stylish sex — see her new 2-DVD release
from HMP (region free)
- For fans of bukkake, a fabulous new “Idol Semen” release from
the beautiful Chiharu Moritaka and Soft on Demand, not to be missed (region
free)
- Yuna Akimoto is a fabulous lesbian nurse in a new installment
of Lesbian Hospital, from Deep’s (region free)
- Mariya Mai is an amazing new girl with a very small body and a
cute face, and you can see her great performance in a new Dogma release
(region free)
- We have a new Waap Dream Shower DVD, featuring Juri Takahara’s
extremely erotic bukkake action (region 2)
- Finally we have a bunch of newly restocked items, including
Megumi Osawa’s erotic Stars!! DVD offering, Nao Oikawa’s very nice “Feel
the Breasts” and cosplay DVDs, fresh stock of Ichigo Milk’s most popular
DVD works and more!
You can shop for unique products from Japan with many ways to pay for your orders. First, we accept credit cards (Visa/MC/Amex/Discover) through a secure server, which is the most popular method with our customers. Paypal is another very convenient way to pay for orders — you sign up with the company and can make purchases using a credit card or checking account tied to your Paypal email address. Check or money orders are also cheerfully accepted, and cash is okay too, as long as you take precautions with it. For many international purchasers, we’ve found that postal money orders, which you can buy in US$ from any post office, are often the most trouble-free (and inexpensive) way to send money overseas. Finally, if you need it, Western Union is also an option. Let us know how we can serve you!
The J-Mate site has been updated yet again, with a new interview with the lovely Asai Honoka, conducted by another female (so it’s real “girl talk”). You can also see reviews of many items we just happen to sell at J-List. The URL is http://www.jmate.com/
