Changing Impressions - Part 2

In the name of wrapping up this blog, talking about culture, and most of all having fun, I have chosen not to do something terribly academic for my "changing impressions" topic this week. The good news? You get two posts. As I will be leaving Japan in less than three weeks, I thought I'd try to wrap up my stay and my blog at the same time. What better way to do it than a top 10 list? How about two?

This time I’m focusing on the positives. Again, remember that they're in no particular order and they're purely opinion-based, so feel free to disagree. I'll still try to be anthropological in my explanations for what some of these items are. Now, the list:

Ten Things I Will Miss About Japan
1. The Amazing Friends I’ve Made
2. Plum and Cherry Blossoms

3. The Transportation System

4. Gyoza, Okonomiyaki, Yakisoba, Otabe, and other Delicious Foods

5. 100 Yen Shops that Sell Stuff Worth Buying
6. How There’s Always Another Matsuri to Attend

7. Temples and Shrines

8. Engrish
9. How Riding a Bike Isn't Considered a Death Wish
10. How there's Vending Machines Everywhere and They Sell Everything

And now for the discussion:

The Transportation System
What struck me first about Japan was the fantastic transportation system and why in the world don’t we have something similar in the US? The trains are convenient, fast enough to get you to pretty much anywhere within the region in a reasonable amount of time. And, if the normal train isn’t fast enough for you, then take the shinkansen (bullet train). And, best of all, the normal train is much cheaper than the gas it would cost to go there by car.

100 Yen Shops that Sell Stuff Worth Buying
The equivalent of a 100 Yen shop in the US is the Dollar store, but they differ greatly in one key way. Both shops have a large variety of merchandise, but you never go to a US dollar store. Reason? It’s all useless junk that will break within the first five uses. Not so in the Japanese 100 yen shop. In fact, for most items, it is advisable to go to the 100 yen shop first to see if they have it. They have everything from dishes to school supplies to organizers and storage containers, to hair accessories that won’t break, and I’m pretty sure I saw the kitchen sink in one of them.

Ocean, You Meet Engrish

Now that we’re back from Spring Break, it’s time to address a less than pleasant topic--midterms… So, I’ve included an extra post in which I can reminisce my spring break, discuss an aspect of Japanese culture, and avoid studying for those Japanese exams all in one go (yes, I know I’m horrible). It’s too late to count this as my “spring break post” but I thought I’d throw it in anyway to have a temporary (and fun!) distraction.

Found on the front page of the English version of the Kaiyukan aquarium information pamphlet. I ended up staying in the Kansai region over the break, so one of the things I did was go to the aquarium. The entire pamphlet features absolutely fantastic engrish, including “Please enjoy playful sea otters being popular among children,” and “Since large amount of plankton arise, schools of fish swim in this area to look for their foods.”

I want a tasty life. This store has branches all around the Kansai region and they sell all sorts of trendy stuff, from clothing to plants to dishes, to objects that would be in the “home” department of most US department stores. They have a pretty good advertising campaign going, I mean, who wouldn't want a tasty life?

A typical engrish shirt. Engrish is fashionable in Japan, much like kanji is fashionable in the US. I’d like to note that I’m not here to make fun of Japan for their bad English; after all, English is a very hard language to learn and I really have no right to talk since my own English grammar can be just as bad and my Japanese could use some work. The point is that in Japan, English is fashionable to the point where it’s not so much the meaning of the words that matters but the fact that English is on the item in question at all. And in all honesty, our kanji-fied clothing is usually just a whole bunch of pretty kanji slapped together with no consideration to the kanji's real meaning anyway, and what the Japanese are doing with English is no different. The only difference is that in Japan, english as fashion has expanded outside of clothing and onto other objects as well, such as information pamphlets, home decor, and store mottos.