Watching this stereotype over and over, gave me a deep fear of those buttons and the knowledge that I should never EVER touch them. As soon as I came to Japan I realised that it is very easy to flush and that the makers of those programmes must have gone to great lengths to get their money shot.

It has only been in the last few months that I have actually felt confident enough to investigate that control pad of buttons. An automatically rising seat in KFC was the closest I’d got to space age toilet tech until recently. Now I have given them a go, I realise that they are not as scary as they might seem.

The set of buttons that you may see to your right when you use a public toilet in Japan generally control a bidet along with an air freshener and occasionally an embarrassing noise cover upper.

Here is a useful bilingual guide to the control panel.

You will notice that there is a gauge marked water pressure there. A word of warning, this is usually set rather high by default. Please turn it down before you decide to save a few toilet roll sheets by turning the spray on.

I didn’t and felt quite violated.

The first item on my bucket list to be chalked off was much easier to achieve. Kalk Zamen Kuri no Hana is, in my opinion, Shiina Ringo’s greatest album and therefore the best album ever recorded. Not an easy listen but certainly one that rewards you one hundred fold if you take the time to get into it. KZK just oozes a kind of class unusual for a J-Pop star. Heck, unusual for any pop star  Hell, unusual for a musician. Of course, it didn’t achieve the mainstream success that her other albums before and since did, so unlike her other albums from this period there has never been a vinyl reissue of it.

As a result, it has become pretty rare. Despite half heartedly searching for in for the last 3 years, I never saw it in the used record shops I would waste time searching. So, after finally putting down the money for a Yahoo Auctions account (Japan’s far worse version of ebay, which you have to pay extra to bid over 5000 yen). I finally found what I was looking for.

For the cost of a cool 8000 yen I picked this up. And just look at it, it’s a thing of beauty.

The musical treat contained within is not betrayed by the packaging. As the album is very Japanese in its construction the cover’s spine is on the right rather than the left. Pure class!

Inside is a selection of the sheet music in gold plus bonus English Lyrics of Stem, odd since the English language version of this song doesn’t appear in the album.

The records themselves aren’t so exciting but the lyrics sheets are super nice.

Lovely Ringo on one side, turn them over for lyrics on the other.

 As a special Bonus, here are the lyrics to Poltergeist, which is probably my favourite Shiina Ringo song (at least it is today).

And how does it sound? Well, like most LPs compared to it’s digital brethren it has a more woolly sound. Maybe it is because of the reduced sound quality but this version just feels like it envelops you in a way my iPod doesn’t. I can’t really judge the audio quality though. I’m far from an audiophile and my setup is blatantly not the greatest.

This version of the album also has a bonus song at the end and taken on it’s own merit Ichijiku no Hana is truly beautiful and lovely. But appearing at the end of this album it is a bit odd. It kind of spoils the already epic conclusion to the album and it’s original last song. It’s like that bit in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band when A Day in the Life finishes and there is some strange warbling just after (except not as bad) . Apparently Ringo wrote this song for this album but cut it out. Maybe someone wanted to add it here as bonus but it spoils the flow a bit.

One thing I did forget about listening to LPs is that you have to  switch sides part way though. On a double album like this one, with only 3 songs a side, I am only just comfortable on my bed before I have to get up and turn it over. Which is super annoying. These days we really are pampered with 1000s of songs in our pockets.

And what of the other items in my list? Well, you will hear about them soon enough….

Leafleting is annoying, there is no getting away from that. 90% of leaflets handed to you are for things which are not at all interesting, so many people’s reaction to leafleters is to ignore them and hope they leave you alone as you pass. It is no fun for the poor people leafleting either. In fact as I read in (or more accurately, a friend read and told me about) the Dalai Lama’s book The Art of Happiness, he says that it is good to take a single leaflet from them so they can get their job done quicker. Making a small sacrifice like that will allow the leafleter that little bit more happiness. Having people constantly ignore you is no good for the soul and I guess they would quite like to be able to hand out all that paper so they can get out of the cold.

But what if picking up a leaflet was not a sacrifice, what if you could actually make it beneficial to take what is being handed out. Companies have tried to do this by including money off vouchers but if the service is not something you think you’d be interested in, why pick up a voucher for it?

Some time ago, back in the mists of time, Japanese companies hit upon the solution and I’m shocked that the idea has not caught on elsewhere. Often when handing out flyers, little packs of tissues are included. Of course, tissues are ALWAYS useful. It’s a rare day when people aren’t happy to receive a free pack of tissues.

So if people pick up your tissues they will probably look at your little leaflet for at least a couple of seconds longer that just a sheet of paper, the leafleter will be about to stop earlier because people will take what they are handing out and everyone will be more aware of your business. Everyone wins.

Unless you are Kleenex, no one needs to buy packs of tissues in Japan.

“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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd5eVtHwdBs

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!

If you watch British telly you will be under the misunderstanding that F1 in Japan is all silly hats and cosplay.

Well, there is a lot of that but going to the Japanese Grand Prix I got talking to people and learnt there are a few more things going on around the sport.

Actually I didn’t learn too much because I was mostly talking to other foreign types at the beer tent but would I did learn rocked my world.

Ask any Brit what “the F1 song” is and you will always get the same answer, Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain. It’s a song that is forever linked with F1 for British fans and for those in the other countries that got BBC coverage (i.e. there rest of the English-speaking world)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcqswuaGWAQ

Japan is not part of the English-speaking world though and got its own song. Truth by a Japanese Jazz fusion band called T-Square has a bit of a different feel to The Chain but it works and the CG intro is nicely put together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqC1mNZAYd4

These days the song has been retired but it is miles better than just playing American Idiot by Green Day like Japanese TV did for its F1 intros last year. It also doesn’t stop T-Square from playing a concert at every Japanese Grand Prix either.

That’s it for F1 and music but what about F1 and manga? Everyone knows that the Japanese love manga, they also love their F1, so it is only natural that there is an F1 manga out there. Grand Prix Heaven (Guranpri Tengoku) is a 4 panel manga (US comic style basically) that has been running in an F1 magazine called F1 Newsflash (F1 Sokuho) for the last 20 or so years. The manga is by a fellow called Fumio Murayama who doesn’t seem to have any other manga of note under his name. As a result of the magazine this thing is serialised in only F1 fans know about it, that is fine though, only F1 fans would get any of the jokes.

The strips all parody the various events, stories and controversies going on in F1 at the time. The writer also injects some interesting personalities to the drivers and people around the pit garages, his versions of F1′s various heroes and villains can be very different from the British public perception of these characters. The collection of strips I picked up from Suzuka this year were all taken from the 1999 and 2000 seasons. I ended up seeing running gags such as Mika Hakkinen’s scary wife, Ron Dennis constantly giving David Coulthard the cold shoulder by closing a curtain on him and Heinz-Harald Frentzen acting like a woodpecker.

Here are a few of the strips (keenly translated by me), I hope they bring back a few memories for the F1 fans amongst you:
(Remember! They read right to left!)

One last thing:
(Not entirely sure what it is but thought I’ll show you anyway)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8684zCTN40

You know when you go on holiday to some exotic clime and you think, “Oh I’ll buy a little something for the office from here. You know, just to be nice.” You do this and everyone in your office appreciates the kind gesture. What happens is Japan is, “Oh, I better not forget to buy something for the office or they will regard me as scum.”

Yes, in Japan buying a little something for the office is basically expected of you. You not only have to buy them when you go on a big holiday but also if you go on a weekend trip somewhere. I dunno about you but when I worked in an office I definitely did not expect random snacks every time someone went on a weekend trip to Margate.

These little gifts, known in Japanese as omiyage, can be just about any small foodstuff. Generally sweets, chocolates, cakes or jelly but can also include stuff like sake and cheese. Omiyage is what I blame for there being no Japanese version of Mars Celebrations, but that is another story.

Omiyage is also another example of not being able to trust anything your Japanese-English dictionary says. The usual translation for omiyage is generally souvenir. Don’t trust that definition for a second. The always useful Dictionary.com defines souvenir as:

“A usually small and relatively inexpensive article given, kept, or purchased as a reminder of a place visited, an occasion,etc.;memento.”

Sure, omiyage is generally small but souvenirs are supposed to be a reminder of a place visited. Many times the place that you have just visited may hold no special meaning for the person receiving the omiyage or, at least, none that you are aware of. This is it just something that you must give to co-workers/family/friends, simply because that is what people do.

The best meaning for omiyage I can think up is:

 ”A small gift (usually food) that you must give people after you have been on a trip, otherwise they will think you are rude.”

Omiyage is so ubiquitous that shops dedicated to the selling of it are at just about any location of vague interest. Anywhere even just a little bit touristy has these things all over the place. Worse is that in the many shinkansen stations and airports dotted around Japan there are now omiyage shops which specialise in goods from other regions. So, say a couple who live in Tokyo visit Kyoto for a weekend, they no longer have to bother with the difficult process of thinking of others while there. They can just buy some random stuff from Kyoto at Tokyo train station when they return. Even madder there are now companies that have “Omiyage catalogues” which deliver this stuff to your door. So you don’t even have to take the time to go to a shop.

To me omiyage seems to be a thing that people are expected to do rather than stuff given out of the goodness of their heart, which is kind of sad. But perhaps this culture of gift giving has lead to the BEST THING EVER MADE™.

I recently went on a trip to Yamanashi, the prefecture where Mount Fuji is. We went for a drive up to the base of the mountain and there I found something incredible, Mount Fuji shaped melon bread. Anyone who knows me will be aware that I think freshly made, bakery melon bread is the greatest of all Japanese food. Shaping it in such a cool Japanese way just perfects it. Not only that it was, hand on heart, perhaps the greatest melon bread I have ever tasted. Having sampled it for myself I realised that I had to share its greatness with others. So, I am telling you about it dear readers and I also bought a couple to share with my house-mates.

THAT was done out of the goodness of my heart, as they are British folk no omyiage is expected but this find is something that I just had to give them a chance to try.

Have you ever tried to tear into a sachet of sauce only for it to be impossible to open, the plastic stretches out but there is no getting into it? Or even worse, suddenly it explodes, resulting in all manner of ketchup covering your clothes and not your hot dog. Well, due to the latest Japanese technology such problems are now a thing of the past.

A company named Dispen Pak Japan have invented a genius dispenser for sauces and salad dressing which is easy to open and aim. It works by having 2 soft plastic pouches covered by a hard one on top. All you have to do is fold the two pouches together and the top bit will form a spout. If all went well the sauce pours out beautifully and as a bonus, squeezing the two pouches together makes sure you don’t waste a drop.

The two pouch system not only eliminates waste but it also allows you to pour out 2 different sauces at once. Although this does assume that you would want both butter and jam in your toast every time.

I first saw these little packs a couple of years ago and my first thought was that we should use them back home. I have been in Japan for such a long time now though. For all I know they are standard issue in British B&Bs. Has the UK embraced the future or is it still lagging behind, as it has for so many years, in condiment technology? Answers on a postcard please.

(or just in the comments if you don’t know my address)

I don’t know about you but I don’t go to the cinema very often. It’s just so expensive these days. It is very rare that I really want to pay so much just to see something on a big screen surrounded by crashes and bangs. Since 3D got popular, it has only gotten worse. The last thing I want to do is pay more for an over-hyped special effect which at best is unnecessary and at worst distracting.

Most of the time I only go to the movies to watch the latest Hollywood blockbuster, which means having to endure (and paying extra for the privilege of wearing) those 3D glasses but it does give me the relief of understanding everything in the film. In Japan dubbing foreign films is not so popular, even with animation, so non-Japanese films appear in their original language which 9 times out of ten will be English.

I can happily sit in the cinema for a couple of hours, turn my brain off and enjoy some vacuous entertainment the way Hollywood wants me to. The only distracting thing is the presence of Japanese subtitles which you can’t help but try to read during a film’s duller moments (or in the case of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the whole damn film). In 3D movies the subtitles annoyingly jump out at you as well, making them even more in your face, literally.

However when I want to see a Japanese film, I would prefer to see those subtitles that seem like such an annoyance when watching films in my native tongue. Thus with Japanese movies, despite living in Japan, I generally have to wait for some sort of American DVD release before I can watch them. There are some films though, generally adaptations of things from other media that I love, which I just have to see NOW. Thus I have been to the cinema a few times to sit there straining away, trying to work out what is being said while all around me sit there all relaxed munching on popcorn.

The feeling I get from other people and, to be honest, deep in the dark recesses of my own heart is that people would rather not pay expensive cinema prices to sit in a dark room and have incomprehensible words played at them at high volume. I think there is a bit of a fear there and I can say that the few Japanese movies I’ve seen at the cinema are all remakes of stories I know well anyway.

You can count those films on less than 1 hand too, the two Evangelion remakes, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney and Rurouni Kenshin. Watching them has been very unique and eye-opening experiences.

I watched the first Evangelion film a long time ago and went in with no delusions that I would actually understand anything. I hadn’t been studying Japanese for very long and was just along to watch the pretty colours and flashing lights projected on the screen. There was very little different from the tv show that I had watched an obscene number of times so I knew everything that was happening even if I didn’t understand what they were saying.

The 2nd Eva film played havoc with my expectations however. I left the theatre pretty proud of myself, happily declaring that I had understood 70% of it despite them deviating from the TV series in some ways. I also marvelled about how unexpected these changes were, especially when they switched around characters and had me thinking they had killed an important cast member off. That had caught me totally off guard and I was so shocked. It was only when I watched an English subtitled version of it that I realised they had flat-out said that the character would be there two scenes before hand AND that she wasn’t dead just in sick bay all along. I felt like a right fool and watching the English translation made the film worse in my eyes. They should have kept it a secret until the last-minute and they should have made it seem like they had killed that girl off, it would have been so much better.

With Phoenix Wright, the first part stuck close to the original story, so I took it all in my stride and enjoyed it. The finale of the film took place in a court room, with all the specialised words that entails, coupled with the fact that it differed from the game quite a bit by the end. I was completely lost as the credit began to roll.

It felt like the end had dragged on for ages and as a result I did not enjoy it as much as I could have. The fact that the English version of the game it was based on changed all the names of the characters didn’t help me keep track of who was who either.

And so, 800 words into this post, I finally get to the reason I’m writing this. Last week I saw the Rurouni Kenshin movie. I thought it was as about as good as a live action anime adaptation can be. All the actors cast looked and acted the part, there was a nice mix of playing it mostly realistically with the odd impossible moment.

Before I watched it I was wondering how it could tell all of the first third of the (rather large) Kenshin story in one movie. In the original, the stories were told one after the other but in this film it had them happen concurrently and it weaved the various tales together well. Sure, they cut out one fan favourite character but replaced him with another to make up for it. Kenshin is an anime that I really loved when I first watched it and there is even a flashback scene that is almost shot for shot the same as in the Kenshin OVA, which I thought was a nice little bit of fan service for those that know its significance.

I thought the film was wonderful and I felt that I had understood a large chunk of it, I have been studying Japanese for a good 5 years now after all and I know the original story pretty well. I am eager to watch a translated version of the film to find out if I understood the plot correctly or I just made assumptions based on educated guesses.

Finally, I have to mention the best reason to go to the cinema in Japan, the anti-piracy message that plays before the film. The camera may be doing something illegal but he sure can dance!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT7ijnOHEDs