J-list Blog

One observation I've made about Japan in the 15+ years I've spent there is, they pay a little more attention to music-related culture than we generally do in the States. It's quite common for Japanese kids to take piano lessons as they go through school, and my own kids went beyond this stage, becoming quite proficient at the clarinet and flute. Whereas I picked up virtually all my knowledge of the great composers of Europe from Peanuts comics (just 153 days til Beethoven's birthday!), most Japanese kids I've seen know Bach from Beethoven from Brahmas. One of our favorite TV shows each week was called "The Titleless Concert" which aired on Sunday mornings. The host was Kentaro Haneda, a kindly old conductor whose mission was to bring classical music to people in a form that everyone could enjoy -- kind of a Carl Sagan of the concerthall. Maestro Haneda was also a composer who, among many other achievements, wrote virtually all the music for the Macross animated series and movie. Sadly, he passed away last month due to liver cancer. He will be missed by many.

Coming to Japan and teaching English as a second language is in itself quite an education, and when a gaijin takes the plunge and comes to Japan to teach he will learn many things. First of all, you learn that you speak too fast for people here to understand you, no matter how slowly you think you're speaking, and by the time you've learned to speak more clearly, your friends back home will mock you for talking funny. Your perception of English starts to change, too, as you learn to call a kerosene heater a "stove" and a cheerleader a "cheer girl." You also learn odd words that you never thought existed, which are very much a part of the lives of your students, so you need to learn them if you're going to be effective as a teacher. One such word for me was "bukatsu" (boo-KAH-tsoo), which means "club activities," i.e. meeting with your club for an hour or two after school. The concept of clubs is much more important to a group-oriented place like Japan, and whether a certain person chooses to join the kendo club or the track team or brass band or the ping pong club (or the SOS Brigade) is an important choice, a "decision point" (just like in a dating-sim game) that could play a big part in that individual's personal happiness in the future. Clubs play an especially big role in junior high school, when teachers require students to pick a club and will force them to join one of they can't decide (my wife was made to join the volleyball club against her will). There's a little more leeway in high school, but most students still join a club -- the stigma of kitaku-bu" or "going home club (what students who refuse to join a club are called) is pretty significant (since by going home when everyone else is in their club, you are -- gasp! -- an outsider).

I'm enjoying my time here in San Diego, having my home country around me for a change. On Saturday I took my Miata out to the desert to remind myself what much of California is like, which was a lot of fun, at least until the temperature passed 110 degrees or so. Right now the poor J-List staff is enduring the tail end of Japan's dreary rainy season, which stretches from mid-June to mid-July, when most every day sees grey skies and rain that falls in large plum-sized droplets (the word for rainy season, tsuyu, is written with kanji that mean "plum rain" (梅雨)). There's another reason I'm not sorry to be ouside of Japan: there was a magnitude 6.8 earthquake today, centered in Niigata, right next to our home prefecture of Gunma. Several buildings were flattened and two elderly women were killed by the quake, sadly.

Remember that the next English-language PC dating-sim game to be released will be Pretty Soldier Wars A.D. 2048, a great game that puts you in the role of controlling a fighting team of female "Biosoldiers" who have been specially engineered to do combat with the evil Yoju, a demonic force that threatens humanity's existence. This game has been declared "golden master" but you still have a short time to get your preorder and lock in that free shipping. The game is just $24.95 -- order your copy now! (Of course, you'll get those cool free foil-wrapped JAST USA 10th Anniversary card and the new bishoujo game posters we've printed up too.)

Here are today's "really cool products" that I thought were especially noteworthy. Note: the J-List links below may be for adult products and should probably be considered "not safe for work." To see all the J-List products, check out J-List or the JBOX.com updated products link.

What's a road trip without a drink? Man you Americans have a lot of choices!

Okay, moving along out of Poway now.

If you like music, I recommend the Alpine stereos that interface well with iPod/iPhone. I had lots of tunes as I was driving.

I soon reached Dudley's Bakery, near Julian, CA, which is well known to all Miata owners in San Diego, since many runs through the mountains start or end here. (My mother is in the San Diego Miata Club and so she tells me all this.)

Julian is like our version of Snoqualamie, the real name of Twin Peaks, up in Washington State. It's quaint, they have good Apple pie, damn good coffee (and hot! (that was a Twin Peaks reference by the way (aren't parentheses great???))), and they have exactly one stoplight in the whole town.

Down on the floor of the desert. My mother kindly took my normal hat out of the car so I had...

...a J-List Totoro hat. Here it is in the middle of the road, having blown off my head.

The iPhone takes pretty good pictures as long as there's lots of light and no motion. I was impressed. Of course Google Maps didn't work in places like this but in the small towns, service came back.

This is Westmoreland, CA, a place so desolate that Google Maps won't bring it up when you search for it. My friends and I used to come out here in the middle of the night just when we were bored (we came to count the crickets). It's all a lot different from those days though.

Okay, trip is over. I cut down through El Centro and was home in no time. 110 degrees, that was really hot...