It’s often said that Japanese society follows behind the West by one or two decades or so, and time and time again I see evidence that this is true. Various changes in Japanese society, from laws governing discrimination in the workplace to child safety standards and public smoking, as well as the slowly growing divorce rate here, seem to come between ten and twenty years after the U.S. and Europe. This year Japan seems to have suddenly discovered that such a thing as asbestos exists and that it causes various forms of terrible cancer, despite the rest of world knowing this for the past quarter-century. Incredibly, asbestos was only recently banned, and hundreds of schools still use it as their primary insulation, possibly my daughter’s. Ack!
No matter how much we may try to fit in to our life here in Japan, there are inevitable differences that crop up between our family and our Japanese friends. We finally finished reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and went to see the movie the other day. A friend of my son’s wanted to come along since he liked the books, too, but there was a problem: we always watch the subtitled versions of films rather than the dubbed one, which kids generally see because they can’t read the difficult kanji found in Japanese subtitles. My son’s friend was too young to read the subtitles, so we had to go see the movie without him. I’ve always made it our family policy to only buy movies in English, which has really helped my children get linguistic input in their second language, but sometimes they know so much English they can’t interface with others well.
Yes, the Japanese preference for watching foreign films with subtitles rather than dubbed in Japanese is one of the great benefits to living here as opposed to say, China, where all film are dubbed into the local language. This is no doubt part of Japan’s special relationship with English and general open-mindedness when it comes to mixing English into their own language. Still, there are many times when the “English” the Japanese use can be confusing, when a word is imported but assigned a slightly different meaning. Many anime fans know that the word for magic is maho, but the Japanese use the English word magic (majikku) too, however only in reference to slight-of-hand tricks that a magician might perform. If you put real milk in your coffee, you’d use the Japanese word (gyunyu); the English word milk (miruku) is also used, but only when talking about powdered or liquid creamer. Every foreigner in Japan has to unlearn the word “bike” (baiku) in reference to a bicycle, since the term always means motorcycle here. And a few weeks ago, we went to buy a new sofa, and I was confused by the salesman, who showed us sofas made out of real leather (kawa) as well as ones made with imitation leather (called “leather” in Japanese, pronounced lezaa). Of course, the differently-defined words aren’t “wrong,” just different from my own North American dialect, but it can still take some getting used to.
It’s never too late to give the gift of wacky things from Japan, thanks to J-List’s convenient gift certificates, which you can give to anyone very easily. Gift certificates can be given as physical items sent in a gift box from our San Diego office, or (since Christmas is so close) “virtually,” as a printable PDF file sent through email. You can enter any name you like for yourself and your recipient, enter a customized message, and choose whatever amount you want to give. Best of all, email gift certificates are free (physical delivery ones are $3), and they never expire.
We’ve got one more treat for everyone: a price drop our very cool portable region-free player, the AMW M-280, a take-anywhere DVD player with high-quality letterbox screen that plays DVDs from anywhere in the world, be they region 2 discs from Japan, PAL discs from Europe, you name it. It’s got many excellent features, like the ability to play DVDs on a TV or accept video from an external source and display it on the unit’s screen, two headphone jacks, and of course it has a full 1-year warranty. At the new price of just $148, it’s too good for you not to pick one up. (They’re great for keeping in the car, too, for long trips with the kids.)
