In Japan, in the foreign community there seems to be some kind of argument at the words gaikokujin and gaijin are racist. In not sure that I agree with this stance, these word simply mean foreigner. How else can you describe someone not from your own country? Seems fairly safe to me. BUT, I have noticed that there seems to be a very us and them attitude in the way Japanese people express themselves that gets more and more disconcerting the more I hear it.

“Foreigners are loud”, “Foreigners drink too much”, “Foreigners smell bad”, “Foreigners can’t queue properly”(!), “Foreigners are taking our jobs and our women”. These are things that I think people say no matter where they are from, not unique Japanese complaints (except for that thing about queuing). People are scared of differences and just assume that because they saw one person who is different do something once, they are all the same. I don’t condone such views but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

No, my issue is that your average nice Japanese person (not talking about nationalists here) seems to think there are 2 places in the world, Japan and Aboard. I have had people say to me things like “What do foreigners do?” or “How would a foreigner eat this?, “What is popular with foreigners?”. In my internal monologue I think, “How am I supposed to know?”. The only place I feel qualified to talk about is England, that is the only other place I have lived. How I supposed to know what all foreigners do? Sure, I’ve seen some stuff about Brazil on TV but Aboard is a big place!

Another occasion, a friend’s girlfriend started speaking Japanese with a silly accent and saying “This is Japanese like a foreigner would say it”. This stuck me as odd and I think my friend was trying his best to ignore her. It is odd because she was speaking Japanese like someone whose first language was English reading romaji badly. Not like a ‘foreigner’. I’m sure we have all put on accents to sound like an Italian, an Indian or a Scouser or whatever but I find that English people name the vague area that the person being mimicked is from. Go one, try to speak English ‘like a foreigner’, you may be able to come up with something but it would not be based on anything tangible.

I have tried to subvert the Japanese usage of the word foreigner but it often falls on deaf ears. I have been with Japanese people in a bar who have said “There are loads of foreigners here”, I have replied with, “Yes, there are a lot of Japanese people here, aren’t there”. After receiving confused looks I explain that as an Englishman they are the foreigners to me and that I am living Abroad. I think that people don’t see were I am coming from because of my poor Japanese skills though. I managed to explain it to my Japanese teacher once but that was with the aid of an iPad and some diagrams.

Gaijin, meanwhile has become one of those words that foreigners say when they are speaking English. Unlike some others like genki, mendoukusai and shouganai there is already a perfectly acceptable English word in our lexicon. Why say gaijin when we can simply say foreigner?

Well, once I was in Hub, a pub which is basically where people go to pick up girls, and a woman in my group of people came back from the toilet exasperated. “I hate gaijin!”, she said in English, matter of factly. As she was an American and having drinks with people from a plethora of different countries, I challenged her on this. I explained that she had basically just stormed in and said that she hated me and most people around the table.

“Oh, no”, she said, “I didn’t mean you. These two guys were trying to chat me up”. She then pointed to 2 fat blading white guys.

So to her Gaijin means “fat sleazy old white men”.

Perhaps it is racist after all.

First video I’ve made in ages but I felt it was about time someone spoke out against evil Pocky.

It’s amazing that even after 5 years of living here culture shock can still sneak up on you. I did think that I had got used to things but then again, I’ve never worked in a tall building before.

Since I began working on the 11th floor I have noticed something rather disturbing about Japanese lift etiquette.  People are rather obsessed with the door open button. What I was used to back in the UK was standing at the back of the lift and when I got to my floor I would wait for people to file out and then exit myself. Or I would say excuse me and make my way out. The doors of any lift I entered would generally allow the time for this and there was not a problem to be had.

Here though is a different story. Who ever is nearest the buttons will generally hold the open door button and wait for me to leave. This is all well and good but generally I’m waiting behind them, waiting for them to walk out the door. Often our eyes would meet and I would eventually walk out apologising and feeling a bit weird. Now I have decided not to budge and wait for them to leave.

When in Rome do as I do.

I have good reason for this obstinance, generally the person holding the door open will be directly in my path meaning I would have to maneuver about skillfully to get past them, rather than just following them out. Most ridiculously is the situation that occurs when the person at the buttons assumes you want to get off at the same floor as them. They waste time staring at you for a while before you have to let them know they this ain’t my stop.

The worst thing about it all though is that THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO NEED TO PRESS THAT BUTTON! In general a lift gives you enough time for everyone to leave it. Sure you could say that they are trying to be polite by holding the doors open for you but if that is the case why doesn’t anyone open normal door for people here? The only reason you should ever need to press that open door button is to let someone onto the lift who didn’t quite get there on time.

Japan, stop delaying my lift by holding the doors open for people who do not wish to get off!

Today’s mobile obsessed society has created a few rather odd changes in people. Like me, maybe you have been affected by Phantom Vibration Syndrome, you feel like your phone is vibrating in your pocket when it is not actually doing so.

With all the information exchanged with smartphones these days I have noticed that people are just looking at the likes of Facebook and Twitter rather than talking to the friends around them. I have been guilty of things as well, so I can’t really complain too much when someone does it to me. However I once noticed a couple in a bar just staring at their iPhones and not talk to each other or even make eye contact all night.

Last week a friend of mine did cross the line though. The two of us went to a bar, as we sat down he reached for his phone. “Ah, he is going to check his messages”,  I thought. But no, he launched a game. Feeling pretty put out by this, I quizzed him and without looking at the screen, while aimlessly brushing his finger across it, he told me that what he was doing would only take a second. With that, he pressed the home button and put the phone down.

It shocked me that he had started this game in the first place but I was even more shocked by the fact that all he did with it was randomly stab at the screen and then put the phone down again. I told him that it seemed like a pretty shite game if that’s all you do. “It very addictive,” he instantly countered, “Don’t knock it until you try it”.

So I tried it.

And it is indeed shite.

All you do in the game is put some plant food on a log and wait, eventually (after a couple of hours) some mushrooms grow and you swipe the screen to pick them up. You can mix various things together to make special mushrooms grow. If you don’t pick up the mushrooms in time they wither and give you no points. Pick up mushrooms to gain points, use points to buy more stuff to grow mushrooms.

Forgive me in asking this but what is the point? At my most generous I can say it is a bit like those item combining mini-games you sometimes get in Role Playing Games like Dragon Quest. Something which I have always found tedious and usually don’t bother with. Perhaps it’s a bit more like the Zen Garden in Plants Vs. Zombies, where you grow seeds to make plants sprout, which eventually gives you more money. The difference is though these are just extra ways to get added bonuses and have more fun in the actual game, not the whole point of the game itself. Is it a game or some kind of lame collection’em up?  You can replicate the gameplay simply by unlocking your iPhone’s screen.

A Zen Garden

The only positive thing I can say about the game is that it is free. At least getting new mushrooms is based on patience and not just micro-transactions to buy the best stuff. One of the reasons I dislike Angry Birds is not just that it is a pretty meh game but also because of all the micro-transations it insists on. Call me Mr Traditional but I believe that if you spend money on a game you shouldn’t have to pay more to skip a level. Paying more to play less, it’s madness.

Anyway, maybe my friend is right and I am wrong, this app is currently the most popular smart phone game app in Japan and has launched a brand new Hello Kitty style character into the nation’s conscience.

A penis with a face.

I jest of course, this is supposed to be a nameko mushroom and while I can’t deny its resemblance to that foodstuff, there is something disturbingly phallic about the whole thing. No wonder the character is amazingly popular with girls.

Despite this character’s recent popularity, he (it can only be a he) is not an entirely new creation. Quite a few years ago a point and click game called Touch Detective was released on the Nintendo DS. I have always loved point and click games so I was very happy with the mini revival that this genre was receiving on Nintendo’s all-conquering duel screened machine. I was very tempted to buy Touch Detective but the perturbing character designs made me feel uneasy. Not only did the main character have giant, never closing, saucer eyes but by her side was a cock with arms, legs and a face.

Put me right off.

I knew that if I bought that game and looked at that member any longer the damn thing would haunt my dreams. Luckily after one sequel the Touch Detective games died and were forgotten about.

Unfortunately for me, some businessman somewhere decided to resurrect that character with the intent to market the hell out of it. Within seconds of that mobile game coming out, plushies, key rings, stickers were rolled out and the public, being the obedient little puppies they are, swallowed it all. Hell, there was even a song written about them. Say what you want about the likes of Hello Kitty and Rilakkuma, they are at least cute and cuddly. These “Funghi” are just grim.

Not only is the character itself disturbing but the situation stinks of the biggest corporate marketing shenanigans since Muppets Take Manhattan unleashed Muppet Babies on the world.

In my life no one has really pointed out that I look like anyone famous, except some random internet face anayliser saying I look like that bloke off American Pie.

When teaching kids they always ask and point out the same things about me, “You have a big nose” they will say, “Why do you have blue eyes?”, “You have big shoes, where do you buy them?”, “Your hair is curly, let me touch it”. Such statements are often said to me in quick fire style. As a result, I expected people to come up to me and constantly compare me to random western celebrities with big noses (which is all of them from a Japanese point of view) but it never happened.

This was until, after a delightful meal, the waitress lent over and asked me, “Are you Chado-san?”. Neither me or my dinner guest had any idea what she was on about and wrote her off as a loony. Some time later, in a crowded bar, a guy came up to me and said “You’re Chad, aren’t you? Don’t deny it.” I denied it and he spent the rest of my time in there giving me ‘I know your little secret‘ faces until I got weirded out and left.

Curious about who this Chad character is I googled for him and found this:

This bloke is called Chad Maren and he does not look like me. He comes from Australia, has become a comedian in Japan and he does not look like me. It’s impressive that he came here, became proficient enough in Japanese to get on TV and be funny but he does not look like me.

At all.

Let’s look at this scientifically.

See! Nothing alike. In fact, I would wager that Mr. Chad looks more like Jerome off Robson and Jerome than me.

I also don’t look like Jerome.

When high school kids start shouting “Hey Chad!” at me from the opposite train platform of Futamatagawa station they are just deluded. Or have bad eyesight.