Koda Kumi – Erokawaii
Posted by harvey in Language, Media, Music on 16. Feb, 2007 | 8 Comments
Every year an organization called U-CAN awards prizes to the most popular new Japanese vocabulary of the year. The contest is called 流行語大賞 (ryuukougo daishou) and from 2006 one of the words was EROKAKKOI (エロカッコイイ) and the variant EROKAWAII (エロカワイイ) which were made popular by the smash-hit JPOP artist, Koda Kumi. Surprisingly, you can actually [...]
Weird Al – Eat It on Japanese TV
Posted by harvey in Humor, Media on 15. Feb, 2007 | 2 Comments
Weird Al on Japanese TV doing “Eat It”… Long long ago. さあ、喰え。これ喰え。みな喰え。もっと喰え。ブタみたいに。 すき焼き。天ぷら。 Sumo backdancers. A Michael Jackson double in that oh-so innocent yet disturbing Japanese blackface make-up. Oh my goodness. This is rich. Apparently the TV show this is on is called 「俺たちひょうきん族」。 Thanks to my pal KICK for the link! – Harvey
Takoyaki Party 2006
Posted by harvey in Food on 13. Feb, 2007 | 6 Comments
Making Takoyaki You guys didn’t think I would go back to Osaka during winter break, and not pull out yet another takoyaki update did you? I was invited to a friends place in Nara for a Takoyaki party. We cooked Takoyaki and drank from 3pm into the night. Good stuff! This is what you need [...]
Picture Bride
Posted by harvey in Media on 10. Feb, 2007 | 6 Comments
I heard about this movie, Picture Bride during my modern Japanese history class the other day. It came up during a discussion about the early Japanese immigrants to the United States. I’m no history buff, but it seems the story goes like this… Back in the early 1900′s, the United States only allowed male Japanese [...]
Japanese Wedding Gifts
Posted by harvey in Culture on 09. Feb, 2007 | 15 Comments
In Japan there is a tradition of “hikidemono” at weddings. Basically, the bride and groom give a gift to everyone who attends their wedding after party. This “after party” I am referring to is called the 披露宴 (ひろうえん) in Japanese. The gift is called 引き出物 (hikidemono), and usually it comes in the form of fancy [...]
Japanese thoughts…
Posted by harvey in Culture on 08. Feb, 2007 | 1 Comment
My friend had a “deep thought” that I would like to share with you. The same friend who studies Kanji in the psychadelic way that I showed you before… The thought was… “One boring thing about Japaense is that… You can’t do all-caps.” How true… I guess writting things in Katakana is a similar way [...]
Genghis Khan up to no good
Posted by harvey in Food on 08. Feb, 2007 | Comments Off
Remember the Genghis Khan restaraunt, Daruma in Sapporo I mentioned oh so long ago? Asahi Shinbun reports that Daruma has been suspected of tax evasion, for about 10 million yen over three years (about $100,000 dollars). However, the point is, they suspect this restaraunt is actually run by a North Korean group, and they have [...]
Visions of Kanji
Posted by harvey in Language on 07. Feb, 2007 | 4 Comments
Kanji is the bitter pill of learning Japanese. Nobody (ok, so that’s not true) likes it, but it is certainly not something you can skip and expect to become skilled at Japanese. Just the other day I came across a situation where knowing Kanji has helped me quickly grasp something I would have otherwise missed. [...]
