Crazy Whim of the Day

Love in the Time of Cholera is one of my all-time favorite books. I've read the English language translation four times.

My wife has never read the Japanese copy I bought for her a few years back. So I'm gonna.

I don't really know why I'm blogging this. Maybe because it'll be harder to back out. Wish me luck.

Behind The Scenes on Japanese TV in the Aftermath of the Disaster

Author's note:
The first part of this post is geared towards Japanese Language students. If you're interested in the disaster related content, skip down past the vocab lists.

I've mentioned this before, but if you watch Japanese TV,
you'll hear the same handful of words OVER and OVER and OVER again.

They boil down to three basic categories: "Delicious," "Beautiful/Cute," and "Feels Good!"

Which means that even a beginning Japanese student should be able to survive a Japanese TV appearance with the following five phrases:

"美味しい！"
（おいしい）

"甘い！"
（うまい）

"きれい！"

"可愛い！"
（かわいい）

"気持ちいい！"
（きもちいい）

Of course, I get a lot of mileage out of those five. But since I've started working in TV, I've found myself using some other words A LOT more than I used to. I'd like to introduce you to those today.

癒される
いやされる
to be cured, healed

Used in relaxing situations. Connotations of peacefulness and quietness that magically clear away your stress. Good for nature and for onsen, and massages!

落ち着く
おちつく
to calm down; to harmonize

Also good for relaxing. Great for quiet restaurants with traditional Japanese decor. Think relaxing on the tatami and drinking tea.

圧倒される
あっとうされる
to be overwhelmed; over powered

Great for fantastic vistas, stunning scenery. Imagine a lookout point with a 360 degree view, beautiful in all directions. Or being confronted with like, an ENORMOUS tree that's been alive for thousands of years.

神秘的
しんぴてき
mysterious

While I NEVER use the word mysterious in English, it gets used a lot in Japanese. The Easter Island statues are "shinpiteki." So are jellyfish. It's a great word to pull out for travel segments that involve shrines, natural wonders, or "power-spots." Or jellyfish museums.

風景
ふうけい
the scenery

My English-language brain thinks that scenery always has to be outside, like a landscape, but 風景 can just be what's in your visual field. Interior decor can sometimes be described with 風景. The point is that it's what you're looking at, purposefully.

景色
けしき
the scenery

THIS one is for the landscape :)

絶景
ぜっけい
a superb view

A simple one word phrase that you can use to combine 風景 with 圧倒される。 Scenery that overwhelms you with how splendid it is. The kanji 絶, used in other compounds like 絶品 (a unique or superb item) or 絶妙 (exquisite, miraculous) has a touch of the high class to it.

風情
ふぜい
the flavor; the air

Encompassing hospitality and atmosphere, it's the intangible feeling of a place. You don't have to add more descriptive language to this word. Think of it like "This place has character."

雰囲気
ふんいき　（pronounced ふいんき）
the atmosphere

Again, the general feeling/mood of a place. This one is better used with descriptive words, and can be used to talk about places and people. Check this archived Nirav post for more detail.

豪華（な）
ごうか（な）
wonderful; gorgeous; extravagant

Useful when faced with a lavish spread of food, or anything that was clearly expensive.

贅沢（な）
ぜいたく（な）
luxurious; extravagant

Again, luxury is usually determined by the money. A hamburger is おいしい. A hamburger made with Kobe beef is 贅沢。

How the Earthquake Affected Language on TV:
A handful of these words actually became NG (no good) to use on television recently.
In the aftermath of the Touhoku Earthquake/Tsunami, most Japanese regular TV programming was canceled or preempted.

For live entertainment based shows, like the one I work for, this meant going off of the air for a while. I had about 7 days of scheduled work that, due to the crisis, became inappropriate to air.

And when the regular TV shows did resume, it was with a more somber tone. My first day back at work, I had to present a segment about going to an aquarium, watching a dolphin show, visiting a petting zoo, and eating whale sashimi. All while Disaster Relief information and aftershock updates ticked across the bottom of the screen. You can imagine the delicate nature of trying to figure out what kind of mood you want to communicate to the viewers.

Because of that, in editing all of the footage we had shot, the directors chose to excise any instances of words like "extravagant," "luxurious," "fun," and even "delicious." Whole sections were cut out of a trip to Kumamoto segment, like a scene in which a local fish market presented us with a 5 pound brick of fresh sushi-grade maguro.

Even words like 癒される (to be healed), and 落ち着く(to relax) had to be called into question. We were being "healed" by relaxing in onsens. What right did we have to even talk about "healing" when those affected by the disasters were in real emotional and physical pain.?

The nature of these kinds of shows in general is problematic in a situation like this. The basic format is "We're going to show you someone enjoying something." When faced with a disaster, it suddenly became inconsiderate to do that. We were living it up, wasting money, and going on and on about how great it was.

Personally, I don't enjoy watching Japanese gourmet or travel shows, even in the best of times. Every reaction just seems over the top, and as a "reporter" having to rant and rave about how good the theme park curry is has only reinforced that opinion. So I was impressed by the recognition for the need for restraint and respect.

At the same time, I draw mental parallels between the director who says "We can't show people having fun" and the governor who says "It's inappropriate to hold a flower viewing party."

True, a private flower-viewing party with friends and family in a park isn't quite on the same scale as broadcasting a TV show next to disaster-related news. But for me, hanami and Japanese TV are both manifestations of the culture, and both hold a place in Japanese life. And there comes a time where you have to go back to normal life.

It's neither my intention nor my place to say "We've spent enough time on this disaster, let's move on." I actually would have preferred a longer moratorium on television shenanigans. It's REALLY uncomfortable trying to sell a fun little video clip of yourself rowing a boat and feeding ducks, when the news at the top of the hour is about evacuees.

I talk about TV's place in Japanese life because of the emails, faxes, and letters that the TV station receives.

Many of them say "Thank you." Just like the people who refused to abstain from hanami, the people who watch the show seem to feel that it's important to be able to have fun again. The messages are full of phrases like "元気を貰える”　(we can get our positive energy back) or "笑顔が戻る" (to be able to smile/laugh again). They say they think it's important to be able watch someone "enjoying" things, because it lets them imagine themselves feeling the same way. They say it's what people need in a time like this.

I can see what they mean.

I also understand the opposing argument, that TV is used more to distract than to galvanize. But our show is still working to help support the survivors. The anchors have filmed a commercial that tells people what they can do to contribute. Miranba-kun, our mascot, makes public appearances and brings a donation box.

In any case, as of last week, "delicious" and "fun" are back on the table. On TV at least, it seems like everything's back to normal.

My Answer to The China, Korea, Japan question is finally up!

Question I got from JetDaisuke. What's the deal with Western movies and TV confusing Asian cultures?

Your comments really helped me with the answer to this one, so please, check it out:

Japan, China, Korea: All the Same?

I got a question for the next 「ボビーと１ビール」from YouTube user "jetdaisuke" who's a pretty popular electronics/product reviewer on J-YouTube.

His question is this:

"よく欧米のテレビや映画などで
日本と中国と韓国が、混同されています。
In Western television and movies, you often see a confusion of the cultures of Japan, China, and Korea.

服とかインテリアとか音楽とかね
みんな、どれくらい違いが分かるのかな？"
Like, mixing up the clothing, or interior decorations, or the music.
How much do Westerners actually know about the differences between these cultures?

I'm trying to frame my response to this, but I'm not sure what to touch on, so I'd like your help.
Can you think of any specific instances of confusion I might be able to reference?

I was wondering also if I ought to talk about how it's not just a one way street. Most Japanese people think a white face equals English.

If you have any links I might be able to use, let me know. I was trying to find an article I remember reading recently, about how people of other races really do all look alike (it was a scientific study about having trouble with facial recognition when dealing with a racial group that you didn't grow up seeing). Does anyone know where that is?

And in the comments, please tell me what you think about the question in general:
If someone asked you, how would you answer?

Torture, Murder, and The Legal System

I really like テレビドラマ。

I've spent way too much of my life watching shows like The Shield, The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Justified, Boardwalk Empire, and Dexter.

You might notice a common thread: they're all about cops and criminals.

Recently, I've been rewatching Dexter because my wife has gotten into it. I'm currently caught all the way up through season 5. Yuri's just finished season 3. Yuri's conversational English is great, but there's an awful lot of Dexter that has to be explained. I'm sure it would be the same if I was watching this kind of show in Japanese: most people just don't come across vocab related to homicide investigations and crime during their day-to-day.

So today, I'll share with you a helpful list of vocabulary to help get you through a crime drama, a detective novel, and the occasional story on the nightly news. In making the list, I was surprised at how many of these words I can actually remember not being able to come up with in conversation... I'll mark those ones with * so you can wonder why the hell I'd need to know those words so badly.

Here we go:

Criminal

犯人　（はんにん）；犯罪者（はんざいしゃ）

An incident of murder

殺人事件（さつじんじけん）

A crime scene

　　　　

（事件の）現場　（（じけんの）げんば）

Murderer

　　　　　　　

殺人　（さつじん）

Serial Killer

　　　　　　

連続殺人犯　（れんぞくさつじんはん）

Serial Killings

連続殺人　（れんぞくさつじん）

*Victim

被害者　（ひがいしゃ）

*Evidence/Proof

　

証拠　（しょうこ）

Witness

　　　　　　　　

目撃者　（もくげきしゃ）

Motive

　　　　　　　　　

動機　（どうき）

Alibi

　　　　　　　　

アリバイ

Informant

　　

通報者　（つうほうしゃ）

A rat

　　

密告者　（みっこくしゃ）

Investigate

　

取り調べる　（とりしらべる）

*Interrogate/Cross-Examine

　　　

尋問する　（じんもんする）

****Torture

　　

拷問　　（ごうもん）

To torture someone

人を拷問にかける　（ひとをごうもんにかける）

*Trial

　　　　

裁判　　（さいばん）

Prosecutor

　　　　　

検察官；検事　　（けんさつかん；けんじ）

Defense (Attorney)

　

被告側(弁護士)　（ひこくがわ（べんごし））

Jury

陪審　　　（ばいしん）

**Guilty Verdict

有罪判決　　　（ゆうざいはんけつ）

Innocent

　

無罪；潔白　　（むざい；けっぱく）

Illegal Drugs

　　　　　　　　

禁止薬物；麻薬　　（きんしやくぶつ；まやく）

Stimulants

覚せい剤　（かくせいざい）

Serving Intestines and Bowing a Lot

Mentioned at the end of the last post that I got a new part time job...

It lasted all of three days. That is THE definition of 三日坊主.

The place is a motsu-nabe restaurant, which means it specializes in serving intestines that customers cook themselves in a hot pot on the table. While their ad specified that they were hiring kitchen staff, apparently there's a lot of cross-over between kitchen and hall, and it takes less time to learn the table-waiting protocol than the kitchen duties. So my first few days were all serving. And it's the most Japanese-style restaurant you could imagine.

First, the Japanese language required is super polite: ALL 敬語、ALL THE TIME.

Every place I've worked until now, I've heard the other staff using what's called コンビニ敬語, convenience store polite Japanese. It's a lesser version, an incorrect version of Japanese politeness, the most famous example being: 〜になります。

Many times you'll hear waiters say this when they hand you your meal, let's say... yakisoba: 「 焼きそばになります； This becomes yakisoba.」

This is obviously wrong. Why will this become yakisoba? It already IS yakisoba, isn't it? Will Jasper, of now defunct NihongoJouzu fame said in a speech once that he liked to reply to this with a joke, asking: いつ？ At exactly WHAT point will this become yakisoba? Brett and I liked to hold off on our joke. On the off chance that we had any uneaten remains on our plate, when we handed it back to be cleared, we'd say 「ゴミになります；This will become garbage.」

Hahaha.

Long story short, this is the first place I've worked where コンビニ敬語 was expressly forbidden. NEVER say 〜になります。ALWAYS say 〜でございます。The polite way to say "This IS yakisoba."

That in itself would've been NO problem. I was already in that habit from my previous job, where, even if other waiters were screwing it up, I liked to feel superior by always using the correct form. No, here was one of the problems.

The entire procedure for delivering the yakisoba:

1. Wait for the cook to bring out yakisoba and say "Here's the yakisoba for table 1."
2. Scream "はい！” in the genkiest voice you possibly can.
3. Pick up the yakisoba.
4. Scream "I'm taking the yakisoba to table 1," or literally "１番様に伺いいたします：I'm going to humbly inquire after the honorable table 1."
5. Take off your shoes.
6. Go to table 1.
7. Kneel outside the door.
8. Set the tray down on the floor.
9. Knock on the door.
10. Yell "I'm going to be rude and enter" (失礼いたします), but not in so loud a voice as to be disturbing to the customer.
11. Open the door.
12. Pick up the tray.
13. Enter the room.
14. Kneel inside the room.
15. Set down the tray.
16. Apologize for the delay and tell them you brought the yakisoba:「大変お待たせいたしました。焼きそばをお持ちいたしました。」
17. Take the yakisoba off the tray and place it on the table.
18. Explain how to eat the yakisoba to the customer.
19. Pick up the tray.
20. Say 「失礼いたしました、」 "I was rude to disturb you."
21. Leave the room.
22. Bow.
23. Close the door.
24. Head back to the kitchen.
25. Put on your shoes.

For me, the worst part of the whole ordeal (besides the fact that repeating it over a hundred times a night left my knees and back sore as hell) was number 17. EVERYONE knows how to eat.

Sure if you were delivering something rare, or novel to the table, the customers might want an explanation of how to eat it. But the staff at this restaurant is OBLIGATED to say, upon delivering gyoza (pot stickers), 「餃子をタレに付けて、お召し上がり下さい。」　"Please dip the gyoza in sauce and then eat it, honorably."

Half of the customers shrug this off. The other half look at you like, "Did you SERIOUSLY just tell me how to eat gyoza? I fucking know. Leave me alone."

Yelling and bowing and irrelevance aside, the whole experience was an exercise in arbitrariness.

I learned the word 補充 （ほじゅう；replenishment）which we had to do EVERY NIGHT for everything. If a customer had taken ONE spoon out of the jar of sesame seeds, that one spoon had to be replenished, even if there were still a full 3 cups of sesame seeds left in the jar.

When customers left a table, every item on the table had to be wiped with a rag. A specific rag. Blue for the gas stove on the table. Pink for the gyoza sauce bottle and sesame seed jar, as well as each one of the 6 separate menus. Yellow for the 座布団　（ざぶとん；seat cushions) and floor.

I also learned that some Japanese people don't realize that the word バッシング（busing, as in tables) comes from English. And at this restaurant, バッシング a table takes 20 minutes.

The procedure lists for doing things like greeting customers, taking and checking in reservations, and eating your own dinner after you clocked out were equally long and equally formal.

There were scripts for everything. Like how to tell a customer to take off their shoes, or to put on slippers before they went into the bathroom, WHICH bathroom to go into before you let them, even though the doors are clearly marked. In fact, if you see a customer who looks like they're headed to the bathroom, you have to ask them to confirm, and then go with them to the door.

On top of all of the annoying stuff like that, there were a handful of other deal-breakers.

1. Two of the three days I worked, were 9 hour shifts with only one 5 minute break.
2. It was only 700 yen an hour.
3. I was the only バイト who wasn't a young student. It was kind of embarrassing being 27 and still having to do that bullshit, especially since EVERY table I waited on asked me if I was a student, and I had to say "No."
4. It didn't look like I was gonna get to learn anything about the kitchen.

So, that's that. Back to the job search.

Question: How Do You Get Famous in Japan?

Answer: I dunno.

A handful of people have been asking me, both on YouTube and on the Yoji, about how I got into the TV and publicity work I'm doing now.

I'm happy to tell you all about it, but please, keep in mind a few things:

I'm not famous, nor likely to get famous. The TV station I'm working with is Saga TV. I do short segments about either restaurants, food, or things that they'd like a foreigner's or English speaker's perspective on (stories about Japanese cultural events, foreigners/foreign events, or stories about English education in Japan). They broadcast an evening 番組 that can be seen in Saga Prefecture and in some places in Fukuoka, and I go on to present those segments and talk about them live. So basically, it's the equivalent of being a reporter on the local news, without the journalistic bit. At the most, I do work for them two times a week. At the least, two times a month.

Also, if I wasn't a foreigner I wouldn't be doing the job. I don't have the personality or the talent to pull it off without some kind of a hook.

So I have three hooks:

1: I have a foreign face.
2: I'm a young male who cooks well, which is not THAT rare, but rare enough to count for something.
3: I speak not only Japanese, but the regional dialect with a high level of proficiency.

Of these three, I'd say that the last one is the most important. No matter how interesting they are, you don't see foreigners really "make it" as public figures in Japan unless they speak Japanese well. And the benefits of speaking a local dialect go beyond just the local area. It helps you stand out among everyone else.

Why Try to Make It Big in Japan?

I think every young foreigner who comes over to Japan has heard the rumors about how much love you'll get just for being a foreigner. Before I came, I heard about restaurants that would offer free meals to blondes, and seat them by the windows just to draw the attention of Japanese passersby. Never heard that that's actually happened though.

I'll go a little bit further and say that I think most young foreigners who come to Japan entertain, even if only in the innermost recesses of their heart, fantasies of achieving celebrity here. It definitely crossed my mind, and from some of the messages and comments I get, I know there's no shortage of people who expect to arrive and LIVE those fantasies.

Once I got here, those fantasies disappeared, and I fell into working, living, and studying the language. It wasn't until I was on the ground here for over two and a half years that I started to develop a sense of what I wanted to do and, more importantly, what I could realistically expect to be able to do.

What I decided was this:

I want to open my own restaurant in Japan and have a cookbook published here.

To those ends, I started to strategize. Just compiling all of my recipes and documenting them takes a lot of work, and once it's done, submitting them to a publishing company would more than likely elicit a reaction of "And who the fuck are you?" So the original plan was to keep working my regular jobs (teaching and waiting tables) and save money, while taking small steps towards getting myself and my cooking "known."

I thought that if I could somehow draw attention to myself and have proof of my abilities, that would be easiest. Sending query letters to cooking magazines and things like that fall flat if you don't have a portfolio.

How I Actually Went About It:

I started posting cooking, gourmet, and Japanese language videos on YouTube, and when I documented a recipe, I'd put it on my blog.

This is my earliest attempt at a video (of the ones I haven't erased):



I'm kind of embarrassed watching it now.

This is my earliest Japanese recipe post, from way back before I moved to Ameblo.

I hope there's been progress on a Japanese level, but there have definitely been changes.

Once I had established a little bit of a following, I started applying to modeling and talent agencies. I was hoping that they'd be able to help introduce me to magazines that would want recipes, or cooking shows that would want guests.

My first attempt, at a Tokyo agency called BESIDE, with a branch in Fukuoka, did not go well at all. I applied online with a couple of facebook pictures, and got an appointment. I brought my whole cooking portfolio, and that was all I wanted to talk about. They had me audition for runway walking.

I did not receive a call back.

But I learned a lot from it. They DID have the connections I wanted, but they weren't interested in helping me (see "An Aside About Modeling Agencies" below).

About this time, I was lucky to come across an audition notice for foreign extras for a commercial. I applied and along with 16 other people or so, got the job. Filming took 2 days, we were put up in hotels, and we ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner with the crew. At every chance, I tried to talk to all of the Japanese staff members, and got a whole lot of business cards. One of the project managers and I became VERY good friends and we still hang out together all the time. Another one of the project managers knew someone who managed a modeling agency and introduced me.

When I went to talk to the agency this time, I brought no food pictures, and didn't even mention cooking, except as a hobby. They signed me up right away.

An Aside About Modeling Agencies:

One of the most common misconceptions I've come across is that if you're foreign, it's easy to make a career as a model in Japan, no matter what you look like.

That's just not true.

If someone tells you they model professionally in Japan, it'd be rude to ask them how often they work, or how much money they've actually made modeling, but in most cases, they're probably just registered with an agency.

Because what is true, is that it's easy to register, especially since there are usually modeling agencies in big cities that cater exclusively to foreigners. Sometimes they're Japanese run, sometimes foreign run, but my overall take is that modeling agencies in general are scams.

They make more money off of the models that they represent, than in bringing in outside work.

A modeling agency will ask you to pay for headshots, and to have a composite printed that they can use to advertise you. Most of them also function as modeling schools, and they offer lessons, which they'll recommend you take, and usually charge for.

A good rule of thumb is that if a modeling or talent agency GENUINELY believes that they can get you work, and that you can be a profitable model, they won't charge you for those classes. They might not charge you for the headshots either, but even if they do, they won't take cash from you. If they think they can get you work, they'll just recoup it out of the modeling fees you'll eventually earn.

Foreign modeling agencies are worse than regular modeling agencies. They WILL sign you up now matter what you look like. They WILL take your cash. And then you're registered with a ton of other people just like you, and when a company comes looking for a foreign model (which doesn't happen all that much) your picture is lumped in with a whole agency full of people that are essentially your competition.

Both foreign agencies and Japanese agencies have the same downside in that they don't really care how much money the individual model is making. They have their "stars" and they have their hopefuls, who will never make anything but keep paying for lessons. And then if the other models that they have working for them each make a little bit of money a month, they get to add up EVERYONE'S totals, and take 30% or so from each. Yes, if I make more money, they make more money, but they deal in so much volume, that when I first started they had no real motivation to sell me.

It was just like, they had a male foreign model on their list, and if someone happened to be looking, they'd go, "Oh, yeah, we've got this guy. Check him out." But they weren't pounding the pavement with my headshots.

So the first 4 months I was there, I did a handful of jobs: fashion shows, bridal advertisements, and a coffee maker commercial. After I had established the fact that I could DO what work they could find me, I started pushing them a little bit.

Making Connections:

I talked to them about my YouTube channel, and had them link my blog on their website, and suggested approaching magazines about doing a cooking project. One of the magazines went for it, and I got a cooking column.

The cooking column in the magazine ran with my blog address at the bottom, and the information that I lived in Saga. Some TV people in Saga saw the magazine, followed it to the blog, and sent me an email.

From there, we set up a meeting and talked about what we could do. They liked me, but again, more importantly, they liked my Japanese. Being a foreigner and cooking were enough to get me on one time to guest host a cooking segment. But they made it clear that if I proved that I could handle the language on TV, that they had more ideas in mind for me.

The relationship has grown from there to the point where I don't have to rely on teaching to pay my bills anymore, and since I no longer need it for a visa either, I said my goodbyes.

To get to where I am right now, it's taken me about a year and four months of pro-actively working on it.

This year, I'm still hoping to branch out, so I'm pushing the agency again to start showing some of my clips to TV channels in Fukuoka.

The overall plan remains the same though. Rather than shooting for big fame, I'm just trying to put together money and connections as quickly as possible and if I can make a living by cooking, I'll be happy.

The General Plan for the Future:

The more my Japanese blog grows, the closer I get (I think) to the possibility of a book. But the market for cookbooks these days is so over-saturated that you need some kind of theme or gimmick. One potential gimmick I'm exploring on the blog is "国際結婚キッチン" as that seems most likely to resonate.

Another possible one involves traveling around the world. My wife and I are putting together our money and planning to take off early 2012. I'm hoping to continue YouTube-ing and blogging food and recipes in Japanese during the trip.

When we get back, the idea is to spend some time trying to focus my efforts on the cookbook, and getting it sold.

I'll keep posting about what I'm learning and what new opportunities come my way.

As of tomorrow, I'm starting a new part-time job cooking at a local restaurant, so hopefully that will yield some good experience.

If you have any other questions, please leave them in the comments!