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| A story or fact a week sure starts to build up after a while, so I created these archives to make room for some of the newer fun facts on the main page. Also, I created a list of all the different fun facts on this page so you can easily browse though what's available, and then click on the one you wanna learn more about. |
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Fun Fact archives for July 5 to December 27, 2004 |
| Here's a list of all the weekly Japanese Fun Facts. Just click on the one you wanna read more about, and it'll take to down to it... | |
| Taxis Honking in Japan Mmmm... Milk Tea! Wrapping We All Look Alike Japan's One-sided Olympics Tea, Burns, Japan, Ear Lobes, and Europe Arrogance Learning English in Japan Foreigner = American Social Consciousness Ichiro's Record |
Real Samurai Japanese Leaders Vote Bush Natural Disasters in Japan Japan's 'new' Law Mom's Visit to Japan A Business Man's Life Pt 1 A Business Man's Life Pt 2 Out-Sourcing in Japan GIANT Soul Calibur Poster More Japanese TV in America! Christmas in Japan New Years in Japan |
| .December 27, 2004 - New Years in Japan |
| New Years is called "Oshogatsu" in Japan, and it's the biggest holiday of the year. I think it's much more like our Thanksgiving than anything else. They don't really stay up and celebrate the stroke of midnight, but turning of the year is very important to Japanese society. |
| Typically, families get together for a HUGE meal on New Years day. Like our Thanksgiving in America, New Years is a time for family and food. It's also a time to be grateful for everything that happened over the last year, as well as a time to look forward to the new year. Besides the food and the family, the other big part of New Years is going to the local Shinto shrine to pay respects and get a blessing. People wait in line for hours! And it doesn't matter if you're Shinto or not... it's just something that everybody does. |
| People in Japan also send out a lot of cards for new years. It's mainly just to thank, congratulate, and say hello to people you know. Acknowledging relationships is very important! Japanese people are really into giving gifts too, and it's not odd for people to end up with a calendar for every wall. |
| BTW, the Cammy picture from the front page of CammyFan.com (this week only) shows Cammy sitting on a traditional New Years decoration. I don't know what it's called, but it's a pile of "mochi" (steamed rice pounded into a goo) and 3 stalks of cut bamboo. You see those everywhere. You'll also see people with arrows that they get from Shinto shrines, but I have no idea what those are for. Here's a Cammy picture of that... |
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| \.December 20, 2004 - Christmas in Japan |
| Yes, Christmas is really big in Japan! No, there aren't many Japanese Christians, but they've adopted the holiday nonetheless. Most people don't give our presents or anything like that, and everybody still goes to work on Christmas Day. But everywhere you look, you'll see Japan decorated for Christmas! I even remember walking around town and hearing Christmas music playing over the PA speaker on the streets. |
| It's pretty simple... Japanese people just love the look and feel of Christmas. You'll see Santas in ads and on street corners, stockings, trees, mistletoe, cards, and all most all the normal X-Mas stuff we've got around here. It's all meaningless, but quite fun. If nothing else, it made me feel at home the 2 years I was in Japan for Christmas. |
| BTW, friend told me that X-Mas eve is a big night for dates. I went out on X-Mas eve (to NeoGeo World!) and it sure seemed like that was true. |
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| \.December 13, 2004 - More Japanese TV in America! |
| By now, you've all seen Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, right? Well, the same people that brought you that show now have a new show called "Hey! Spring of Trivia". It's another very famous Japanese show that I'm sure you'll get a kick out of. The basic idea is that they go over ridiculous trivia. Only Japanese people could come up with stuff like this... How high can you kick off your shoes? How far can a huge rubber-band fly? Check it out if you get the chance! For more info, check out www.SpikeTV.com for more info. |
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| \.December 6, 2004 - GIANT Soul Calibur poster |
| When I returned to Japan after my month in Thailand, I stopped off in Akihabara (where all the biggest game stores are in Tokyo) on my way home from the airport. Yes, I'm a HUGE dork! Anyhow, one of the first things I noticed was a 3 story tall poster of Ivy from Soul Calibur plastered on the side of a building! You couldn't miss it because it was right there across from you as you stepped out of the train station. |
| Unfortunately, my my camera was buried in my luggage, or it was out of film (or something like that), so I had to come back the next day to take a picture of it. However, when I arrived the next day, the poster was gone, and there was something else up in its place! Sigh... I really wanted a picture of that. It was such an impressive sight, and I didn't think anybody would believe me if I'd tried to describe it to 'em. But it's true!! |
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| \.November 29, 2004 - Out-sourcing in Japan |
| Like American companies send jobs to places like Mexico, Japanese companies send jobs to Thailand, China, etc. They even send jobs to the USA LOL. Unions demanding high wages & extras for menial jobs in the USA drive most of the jobs out of the country, but I'm not quite sure what the case is in Japan. I don't know about unions over there, and I don't know about taxes or minimum wages, but I suspect that it's mainly the lack of land that makes having factories in Japan too much trouble (price of land, commutes, etc). |
| BTW, the middle-of-nowhere Thailand factory that I went to paid their workers about $1 a day! It sounds outrageous, but when you put it into perspective, that's a great job. It was by far the best job in that area, and I guarantee you every one of those workers was happy to have it. Take into consideration that you can go out and have a fresh-cooked meal for about 30 cents! A can of soda was like 10 cents or less. $1 a day doesn't go far in the US or Japan, but things are different in Thailand. If they got paid $4 an hour ($32 a day), they'd be filthy rich in an area where there's nothing to spend you money on... and that would just lead to trouble. That's another very interesting thing I learned about "sweatshops" in foreign countries. |
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| \.November 22, 2004 - A Business Man's Life pt 2 |
| As bad as I thought the situation was for the newlywed guy I worked with, I found out it was much worse when I got sent to work in Thailand for a month. Our factory was in a puny town where there weren't any houses or apartments to live in! However, there was a small hotel built mainly for the new factory. The hotel was for the visitors coming to the factory... and the foreigners who worked there! The guy I worked with lived in a hotel room, and that's where he'd stay for about the next 5 years. This wasn't a fancy apartment hotel room, it was just a normal old hotel room. |
| Side note... The hotel was fairly nice, but it had 2 types of water that seemed to randomly come out of the shower or faucets. One was a greenish water that smelled like onions, and second was just plain old muddy brown water. >_< |
| His wife on the other hand, lived in an apartment in Bangkok. Bangkok was about 3-4 hours away from the factory, but at least she had a nice place to live. Nevertheless, she had no job, no friends, and she didn't know anything about Thailand. Her husband worked 6 days a week at the factory, and then he flew back to Bangkok late Saturday night so he could spent Sunday with his newlywed wife! They had just gotten there at that time, and they were expecting to stay for about 5 years. It's bad enough to spend life like that, but to start a marriage like that...?! |
| How much does that SUCK?! Could you imagine being put in that situation? And could you imagine actually accepting that situation? Well, I'm sure they didn't like it, but doing anything to fight back against it was out of the question because there's such a strong sense of duty to your job. |
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| \.November 15, 2004 - A Business Man's Life pt 1 |
| When I got out of college, I went to work for Mitsubishi in Tokyo. One of the guys I worked with was about 35, and he just got married to a girl about the same age. Unfortunately, a week or two later, he got transferred to the new starch and citric acid factory out in the middle-of-nowhere (town of Kalasin) Thailand. I got a chance to talk to him about it, and he never considered getting out of it because that was his job, and he felt like he had to accept it. So, he and his new wife packed up and moved off to Thailand for the next 5 years. |
| Business men in Japan put work above family, friends, and everything else in life. It is absolutely their first priority, and this is especially the case in a traditional company like Mitsubishi (it's almost 150 years old). I was really shocked that he was put in that situation, but as I learned later... it was actually much worse than that! Come back next week to hear the rest of the story! |
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| \.November 8, 2004 - Mom's visit to Japan |
| While I was working and living in Tokyo, my Mom came over to visit. She's German, but she's lived in the US for over 30 years. My Dad, who's German too, has been to Japan on business a few times, but it was my Mom's first trip over to that part of the world. |
| I took her all over the place... Mt. Fuji, Lake Hakone, all around Tokyo, all around Kyoto, and even to Osaka. I showed her all kinds of amazing cultural and historical sights, but do you know what she still says was the coolest thing she saw in Japan?! Answer: the grocery store. I don't even know why we went in there, but she was totally fascinated by it, and she still talks about it all the time! LMAO ^_^ |
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| \.November 1, 2004 - Japan's 'new' law |
| I've known for a long time that Japanese culture has had a lolita fetish (underage girls), and it's usually more or less innocent (I think)... but not always. I'll never forget when I heard on the radio that there was a new law banning payment for sex (including 'gifts') to any girl under the age of 15! I couldn't believe it! It was allowed until then? And all that's banned now is paying?! So if it's freely offered, it's OK with a girl under the age of 15?!! *shudder* |
| Wow, that's freaky. Sure morality is different between cultures, but isn't that just downright strange and wrong no matter where you are? I wonder how common it really is? Maybe it's just one of those news issues that happens a few times and they make a such a big deal out of it that you think it's happening all the time (like school shootings). I hope that's the case. |
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| \.October 25, 2004 - Natural Disasters in Japan |
| Japan has got almost everything... tsunami, volcanoes, earthquakes, and typhoons. A volcano close to where I lived in Kyushu was a tourist attraction the first time I was there, but it was closed down after a few people were killed by gasses shortly after that. I never felt a major earthquake in Japan, but there were a lot of small ones. And remember about 10 years ago the BIG earthquake that hit Kobe? Every year Japan gets hit by a few typhoons. I've been there for 2 minor ones. And although it's very rare, Japan is a target for most of the tidal waves that form out in the Atlantic Ocean. |
| BTW, Northern Japan was just hit by a 6.8 earthquake. That's a big one, but luckily it wasn't centered around any of the very populated areas in central Japan. |
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| \.October 18, 2004 - Japanese leaders 'vote' Bush |
| Here's an interesting article from the news today about how Japanese leaders favor Bush for President. The basic gist of it is that they don't trust Kerry when it comes to N. Korea, which is a VERY big concern in Japan. They think President Bush would do a better job in stopping the N. Korean threat. |
| N. Korea has tested missiles over Japan, or in Japan's direction, obviously trying to intimidate the Japanese. If you look at a map, the southern tip of Japan (the island of Kyushu) is very close to S. Korea. America and Japan have been very close allies since WW2, so they're counting on our support. On top of that, America has tons of military bases in Japan because I don't think Japan has had its own army since WW2... so they count on our presence to keep them safe. |
| If you wanna read more about it, click here. |
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| \.October 11, 2004 - Real Samurai |
| Here's something that's extremely interesting to look at... a very nice collection of real-life samurai photographs from around 1863-4. That means it was right around the Meiji Restoration (the revolution that ended the samurai). |
| You probably can't read Japanese, but there's not much here besides their names and ages. I don't think the numbers show up if your browser can't read Japanese, but if you see some numbers underneath the photographs, that's their age. Most are in their 30s, but the youngest is 16, and the oldest is 44. Anyhow, enough babble... click here to check out the collection! |
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| \.October 4, 2004 - Ichiro's record |
| Ichiro Suzuki, Japan's baseball superstar playing for the Seattle Mariners, just broke an 84 year old baseball record! This year Ichiro got more hits in a single season than anybody in history. He's amazing, and I know everybody in Japan is SO proud of him! |
| If you wanna read more about it, click here. |
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| \.September 27, 2004 - Social conciousness |
| I was talking to somebody I met about Japan, and he said that he'd heard that Japanese people are so law-abiding that if you're out at 3 AM, and there are no cars on the street, a Japanese person will actually stop and wait for the light to turn before crossing the street. |
| Hmmmm... that may very well be true, but I don't think it's exactly typical. However, the point is that Japanese people follow the rules, and that's so true! It's not that there are cops waiting to catch you and write a ticket, but it's the guilt of breaking the rules and making yourself look bad in other peoples' eyes that keeps most Japanese people in line. It doesn't even matter if the people who see you breaking the rules know you or care... but following the rules is just the right thing to do. |
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| \.September 21, 2004 - Foreigner = American |
| To most people here where I live, there's really no difference between Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and "whatever else is over there". Some people just all 'em all "Chinese" instead of Asian or whatever they specifically are. People don't mean anything bad by it, but they just don't know any better. |
| Well, to a lot of Japanese people it's kinda like that too when it comes to foreigners... sometimes they just call 'em all "American" because they assume that a foreigner is an American. America is such a mixture of cultures that it really does have a little bit of everything. Most Japanese people haven't had the chance to learn all about the world, so they get confused by it too. They know a little bit about this and that, but when it comes to details, a lot of it gets blurred... and that 'blur' is America/American. |
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| \.September 13, 2004 - Learning English in Japan |
| All kids in Japan start learning English in the 3rd grade, so almost every person in Japan knows a decent amount of English. And since America has such a BIG influence on culture around the world (music, movies, etc.), they see a lot of English outside of school too. English is also the default international business language, so it's also very common at many jobs. |
| The interesting thing about English in Japan is that most people don't speak it very well! In school they focus much more on reading and writing, so a lot of people don't learn or practice how to speak English. I knew a person in Japan who could read an English newspaper, but could hardly speak or understand a word of English. I think the 2 main reasons that so many Japanese people just read and write English is because it's much harder to practice conversation, and the pronunciation of English words is very difficult for them. So in the end I think the focus more on their strengths and avoid their weaknesses. |
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| \.September 6, 2004 - Arrogance |
| Every issue of Xbox Nation magazine has an interesting little interview with Tomunobu Itagaki (Team Ninja & Dead or Alive). One question was "What - in your humble opinion - is the difference between Japanese and American people?" His answer: Arrogance. |
| I would have said the same thing! Japanese people are very humble, and it's one of the things that I love most about Japan. On the flipside, however, I'd say that Japanese people can be so cold/emotionless sometimes that they almost come off as arrogant. Although you'll find many more American who are downright arrogant, you'll also find many more Americans that are warm and friendly to a stranger. |
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| \.August 30, 2004 - Tea, burns, Japan, Europe, & ear lobes... |
| Japanese love to drink hot tea (VERY hot tea), but their stupid cups don't have handles, so they get really hot and you sometimes burn your fingers. This happens a lot, and when it does, Japanese people pinch their ear lobe. Somehow that's supposed to help. I've seen a bunch of people do it, and I've been told to do it after I've burned my fingers. |
| Sure that's strange, but what's more, is that Europeans do it too. My whole family is German, and when they burn their fingers, they do the ear lobe pinching thing just like the Japanese! I wonder who started this nonsense? |
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| \.August 23, 2004 - Japan's one-sided Olympics |
| I was living in Japan for the Winter Olympics in 1998, and of course all of Japan was really excited. To be honest, I hate the Olympics, and the only thing that really excited me that year was the fact that pro hockey players from the NHL were playing for the first time. But besides that I watched a lot of news on the TV because there wasn't much else to do in my downtime (working at an orphanage). |
| Anyhow, what was so funny about Olympic coverage in Japan was that they only talked about the gold metals they won. I think they won three or four that year. But every time somebody from Japan won, it was headline news for 3 or 4 days! I never saw them report on any other Olympic stories... just that one from that that guy a few days ago. |
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| \.August 16, 2004 - We all look alike |
| Japanese people are all fairly short, they have straight black hair and brown eyes, and they're rarely overweight. White people, come in SO many sizes, shapes, and colors, but for some reason I've had a few Japanese people tell me that we all look alike to them. ^_^ |
| I think it may be that we white people come so many combos that it just gets overwhelming. Maybe the variety all just blurs together? Although most Japanese people have the same physical characteristics, I never go the impression that they all looked alike. It's really amazing how much variety there is with so little work with. |
| One thing I've been told on 2 occasions is
that I look like David Duchovny from the X-Files! I don't at all see it, but I
always took it as a huge compliment since I know so many girls really like him.
Compare for yourself if you want... Stefan vs David Duchovny (from a Japanese fan site called DD Lovers) |
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| \.August 9, 2004 - Wrapping |
| Wrapping gifts and purchases is a big thing in Japan. Anything you buy over there will definitely get a bag, and they will usually take a small piece of tape and tape is shut for you. And whenever you get a present of any kind (and that happens a lot), it's guaranteed to be wrapped up nice and neat. Most every store in Japan will wrap up whatever you buy if you request it. |
| Why? I have no idea. I'd think that with the trash problem over there (not enough space to put it), they would naturally shy away from that kinda thing. They don't even have a bag recycling program that I've seen. Bags and wrappers are so useless for the most part, but for some reason, it's important to the Japanese. |
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| \.August 2, 2004 - Mmmm... Milk Tea! |
| My very favorite drink in Japan is Kirin's Gogo no Koucha Milk Tea. Ironically, milk tea is a western drink (English), but I'd never had it until I went to Japan. There's another brand in Japan (and think of what it is) that's pretty good too, but the brand by Kirin is the best. And what's cool about the milk tea is that vending machines in Japan serve it cold in the summer, and hot in the winter! Either way, it yummy!! ^_^ |
| I tried to look up some more info online, but there really isn't much... so just keep my recommendation in the back of your mind somewhere, so if you do stumble across it, you can give it a try! I recently went to a Japanese grocery store in California called Mitsuwa, and I picked up a whole case! I drank 1.5 liters a day because I had to enjoy it as much as I could while I could. |
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| \.July 12, 2004 - Honking in Japan |
| In America or anywhere else I've been around the world, if you're driving and you honk the horn at somebody, it's not a good thing. It usually means "Get out of the way!", "F*** you!", or "Watch out you idiot!" |
| Japan is one of the most crowded places in the world, and as you can imagine, traffic is hell! They drive small cars there, but the streets are even smaller. I would never in a million years dare to drive a car in a Japanese city. But even with all that chaos, when you hear somebody honk the horn in Japan, 9 times out of 10 it means "Thank you" or "I'm sorry". That's a perfect example of why I love it in Japan... they have a different attitude that makes everything seem a little bit better, even if it's a little bit worse. |
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| \.July 5, 2004 - Taxis |
| In most Japanese cities, public transportation is awesome. Subways/trains are most common, but there are usually extensive bus systems too. Between the two, it's pretty easy to walk wherever you need to go. In the cities, people don't bother driving their own cars too much because it's just too much trouble (tolls, parking, traffic, etc). So, the other main option is a taxi. |
| There are taxis all over the place, but unlike most places in the US, you don't wave them down as they drive by... you go to a nearby area where taxis line up in wait for customers. They're usually a bit expensive, but you should expect to pay extra for convenience. |
| OK, besides all this really average info on taxis and transport, the one thing that I always thought was strange was that taxi cabs in Japan all have automatic doors! The driver can open and close the door from up front, so when he sees you walk up, the door will swing open. When you arrive at your destination, he'll press a button and open the door for you. And of course when you get out, another one of his buttons will close the door. It took me a long time to get used to that! They don't like it when you do it yourself, but it's such a habit, I couldn't help it. |
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For older fun
facts check out:
Fun Facts
Archives #1 (June - December 2002)
Fun Facts
Archives #2 (January - June 2003)
Fun Facts
Archives #3 (July - December 2003)
Fun Facts
Archives #4 (January - June 2004)
Fun Facts
Archives #6 (January - June 2005)
Fun Facts
Archives #7 (July - December 2005)
