Somewhere between the staid features of futsu (normal) Japanese and the dizzying varieties of face, hair and body types seen in Westerners lie what many Nihonjin consider to be the perfect blending of the two, and I’ve always enjoyed analyzing the special status given to haafu (ハーフ） in the normally homogenous, in-group-or-out-group Japanese society. There’s a sizeable segment of half-Japanese, half-Western singers, actors and other popular “talents,” from actress/model Becky to TV commercial idol Emily Nakayama to half-Japanese, half-German American heartthrob Eiji Wentz, who make use of their “otherness” to create a strong niche with fans. Anime characters are sometimes created with mixed ancestry to add new dimensions to them as well, with the best example being the fiery Asuka Soryu Langley from Evangelion. You find this tendency to blend Japan and the West in other places too. Takara’s Licca-chan is Japan’s #1 fashion doll, sold since 1967, and this doll that’s been idolized by so many Japanese girls over the years turns out to be half-Japanese and half-French. The ideal of haafu, it seems, blends all the mystique found in the West with all that’s good and familiar in Japan, and thus serves as a bridge between the two. When my daughter was small, we got her ears pierced in the U.S., a custom that doesn’t exist in Japan, where girls must wait til they graduate from high school before they’re allowed to take such a “grown up” step. Once I was shopping with my daughter here and we were suddenly encircled by high school girls who were admiring my daughter and her pierced ears, clearly envious of this special child who was born with the best of both worlds, which presumably included American facial features, the ability to speak English and no need to follow all the meaningless rules they faced every day.
Like most of the world, the Japanese have embraced cell phones in a big way, and virtually everyone in Japan carries a “keitai,” including a large portion of elementary school kids and the elderly. Recently my phone was acting up, so I took it to the “au by KDDI” shop to get it looked at, and while I was there I glanced over the new models. Since my family had bought new phones just three months before, I didn’t expect to see that much that was new, but I was shocked to find that every handset the company made had been refreshed. The new offerings included a music phone that you could dock with an external subwoofer, a “dual style” phone that could be opened horizontally or vertically, and a phone made specifically for video chatting. Since the Japanese are very design oriented, many phones existed almost entirely for aesthetic reasons, like the “beauty x beauty” series with an exterior surface that lights up with snowflake patterns when a call comes in, or Toshiba’s “Drape” concept, built around the keyword of “Emotional Electronics.” The recently launched Wanseg system that allows you to watch TV on mobile devices was found in several phones, too. I had fun checking out what names they’d given the colors, like “stillness silver” or “moonlit black.” As usual, there was nary a Smartphone in sight, despite many gaijin like me who would kill to have even a first-gen Treo they could use here, but since the phone system Japan uses is incompatible with the rest of the world, and since syllable- based Japanese can be quickly entered with a normal phone keypad, there’s not much demand for phones with (admitedly ugly) QWERTY keyboards.
As you can imagine, learning a foreign language requires a sustained effort over several years. It also requires plenty of passion, and I’ve always observed that those who were able to jump into language study with both feet and really make it a part of themselves have the most success with their studies. It’s quite natural for students of Japanese to develop a short list of “favorite” words which he or she likes for various reasons, perhaps because of the way the kanji is written or what the word means, or how it sounds to them. So I’ll tell you some Japanese words I’ve become fond of over the years. First up is a word that’s important to everyone at J-List, gambaru (gahm-BAH-roo、頑張る), which means to try one’s best, to work hard, to give it your all, and is usually used as a request (gambatte kudasai、頑張ってください) or in a command form (gambare!, pronounced gahm-BAH-reh、頑張れ！). Two words I liked so much we recently made J-List T-shirts out of them are ganko (GAHN-koh, 頑固、meaning stubborn, obstinate, unchanging) and ore-ryu (oh-REY-ryoo, 俺流、lit. “my style,” roughly translatable as “I’m doing things my damn way, so if you don’t like it, too bad”). Some words sound so goofy they’re fun to use, like dekopoko (deh-koh poh-koh、凹凸, and aren’t those kanji funky?), which just means “bumpy” like the surface of an uneven road, or one of the first words I learned back at SDSU, tokidoki (toh-key-doh-key、時々), which means sometimes and had everyone in the class giggling over its resemblance to “okey dokey.” As a fan of the Mazda Miata (I’ve got one in the U.S. and one in Japan), I like their slogan jinba ittai (jeen-BA ee-TIE、人馬一体) literally meaning “man and horse as one,” which pretty much sums up what a Miata is like to drive. Finally, when I was going through a bad time in my life and feeling negative about everything, a Japanese friend taught me a word I’ve used to great benefit over the years. The word is mae-muki (ma-EH MU-kee, 前向き), literally meaning facing forward, and it carries a strong implication that everything will be better if you’ll face forward, look straight ahead at the future and be positive, not negative, as you move through your life.
Christmas is upon us, and the hardworking J-List crew on both sides of the Pacific are hard at work getting products out the door at a furious pace. If you find you’ve forgotten to get gifts for anyone on your list, we’ve got a great suggestion: the J-List Gift Certificate, which can be sent to your recipient (or you) via email, and which includes a spiffy custom created PDF gift certificate which can be printed out by your recipient (or you). Giving the gift of Japan-style “gross national cool” in the form of a J-List Gift Certificate is a great way to share J-List’s wacky brand of Japanese culture and give something you know will be appreciated. J-List Gift Certificates never expire, and can be used on both the J-List and JBOX.com websites.
