Japan

[Martin]

So, well, I've been in Japan for over a month now (I came on September 26th), and I figured I'd write about it.

Japan is beautiful. I'm living in Matsumoto, which is surrounded my mountains, and...just wow. It reminds me of British Columbia. The people are all very nice, work is fun (if a bit slow) and getting around is easy and affordable. I've made a ton of friends, both Japanese and some people that I've met through the JET program.

The thing that gets me about Japan is how clean everything is. There's rarely any litter on the ground, partly because people just don't litter, and party because companies will often go out once a month or so and pick up garbage. This lack of garbage is strange too, in that there are vending machines everywhere and VERY few public garbage cans. When you do get to a garbage can, there're always 20 of them, where you have to tear apart your garbage sort it by weight, colour, coefficients of friction, index of refraction, bouancy, etc. (actually, there are just 5, but still). I just put everything in the bag that says 'Burnable.'

Partying is a blast. I have a new food every day - at least. Sashimi is great - I've even had raw horse meat. I can't say I'm a huge fan of cold soba though. Beer is expensive if only because they don't have pitchers. Also, finding imports is really hard. I miss my Stella Artois - not that Japanese beer is bad. Sake's good cold, not my favourite warm (they serve it both ways). Japanese popular music is, for the most part, pretty bad. It's very manufactured, and it seems like all of the biggest bands have their own line of toys to go with it. That, and singles sell for about $30. I've found some good not so mainstream bands that I like though.

Matsumoto is an old castle town (in fact, the castle still exists), so the streets were designed to confuse an invading enemy. Yeah...

Stuff is inexplanably expensive here, and there is this strange hip-hop culture. Jeans start at about $100. T-shirts at about $40. Watermellons sell for about $100. Ramen is cheap though . Eating out isn't too expensive either. Imported goods are crazy expensive - the hair gel that I use in Canada costs about $7, here - $30. Same stuff. Weird.

Sexism here is pretty bad. I've given up on Japanese TV because of it. The females on tv are cutesy, pretty, but absolutely weak human beings. If I see another pigeon-toed 25 year old woman with Hello Kitty on her purse I'm going to be sick. Even in real life, when a man gets off the train, him and his wife bow to each other, then she carries his bags, walking behind him. Weird.

The Japanese language is both simple and beautiful. There are three alphabets (plus romanji - roman characters). Hiragana and katakana are similar to our alphabet in use (albet with 46 characters), although each letter is strictly phoenetic. Kanji, on the otherhand has 1900 non-phonetic characters. You need to know about 1000 to read a novel. Yikes. Each of these kanji has a meaning associated with it. Tokyo for example, is two kanji - Too 東(pronounced toh-oh), meaning 'east' and Kyoo 京(kyo-oh) meaning capital. So Tokyo is literally translated East Capital. At first, this seemed like overkill (in that if you don't know a kanji, you can't just sound it out), but one of the benefits that it has is that China and, to a more limited extent Korea use the same characters, which allows for written communication although the languages are different. Counting in Japanese is also strange. They have a different counting system for everything. Even food is divided - asking for two bowls of rice is different than asking for two plates of soba. Strangeness.

Anyway, I'll add to this as time goes on.

[codemage]

Quote:

Sexism here is pretty bad

That's really really interesting, & a good summary. I'm a bit of a travel nut, so I'm totally interested in any other updates you're willing to post.

[brenn]

Please post photos, Martin-san!

I used to walk behind Tony all the time too, and he got really weirded out. ^^;

[rizzix]

codemage wrote:

Quote:

Sexism here is pretty bad

That's really really interesting...

actually sexism is apparent in their Anime's so it's not supprising..

[Tony]

brenn wrote:

I used to walk behind Tony all the time too, and he got really weirded out. ^^;

It's like having a freaking stalker. It took a while to get her to stop doing that, and she's behaving nicely now

[Paul]

I... don't really think its sexism as we perceive it exactly. I mean I spent half of my life in an asian country, and that always seems to be the case. I mean, its part of the culture. On the other hand the whole burying girls as they are born thing IS serious.

[Martin]

It's totally sexism. Let me expand though.

I think one of the major defining points in North American history was the women's rights movement. Before that, women in North America really were treated like crap.

Now, it's not as bad here (in Japan) as it was pre women's rights movement, mostly because of the respect thing that runs through Japanese society. Men don't beat their wives. Women can vote (although on the census, the options for household position include "wife of head of the household"). However, women here are still thought of as being "less than men."

As a plus, as soon as you start talking to a Japanese girl as if she's your equal, she's in love with you.

[Mr. T]

rizzix wrote:

codemage wrote:

Quote:

Sexism here is pretty bad

That's really really interesting...

actually sexism is apparent in their Anime's so it's not supprising..

eg. Paul's avatar.

[Martin]

Another strange thing about Japan is that they don't use daylight savings time, so it gets light here at about 5am and dark by 5pm. The work day is still 9 - 6 though. Doesn't make any sense - they'd save MILLIONS in energy costs if they shifted the clocks two or three hours.

[Mazer]

Martin, have you heard any music by B'z? Or are they included in the "pretty bad popular music" category? Apparently they've been around for quite a long time, I just started listening to their music when Ian lended me one of their CDs (Brotherhood) which I though was pretty cool.
Has your comprehension of Japanese gotten to the point that you can actually understand the music?

PS, I hate you.

EDIT: Perhaps I should make it quite clear. One of my devilish plans includes getting you drunk and having you impregnate somebody. Perhaps quite a few people just to be safe. Anyways, the child(ren) will be raised to hate you, and trained to destroy you. Um, the end, I guess. If you can think of anything that will improve the efficiency of the plan (to kill you, that is) I'd like to hear it. But more importantly, I want to know the above music/language question?

[Martin]

I haven't. I'll check them out. I can read the lyrics sometimes :p

Children eh? That'd mean I'd have to have sex. Sweet deal.

[Dan]

Martin wrote:

Sexism here is pretty bad.

I think this stament is prity realtive, if you look at our own socity objectivty you whould come to the same conusltion about north armaican socity. In reality all socitys are prity dam pergusisted at least about somthing. Everywhere peoleop are being juged on and thread in a secrent way b/c of somthing that they can not easly chage nor should they have to, to have repsect of there socity. A person being a living intengentl being should be enought to be treated equatly but every socity seems to have somthing they like to juge them on and use to show they are lesser. Talking about sexism how offten on t.v. do you see the high up boss or "bizness man" as a women? In our socity we are just sexists in difrent ways, our story types are longe blond hair, blue eyes, thin, big brests and long legs. I have yet to meet some one in real life who is realy like the peoleop i see on t.v. here. I am not justing what jappen dose but rather saying that it is a problem with alot of place if not all on this litte planet of ours and despreantly needs chaging. Tho i do not see that haping any time soon, our hole socity is based apoine person A being better then person B. If no in terms of sex or looks then money or some other pointless chariterists that has litte or nothing to do with who they are as a person.

[Martin]

Oh of course sexism is everywhere, but in Japan, it's really a lot worse than in the US or Canada. I think I explained it pretty well in my above posts.

You're absolutely right that we shouldn't judge people, but as it stands, I'd prefer people to be judged based on income instead of gender, as income is something that you at least have some control over. There's a long way to go for both societies, but the trip for Japan is longer.

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Another strange thing about Japan is racism. It's still legal for a Japanese shop to have a sign that says 'Japanese Only' on their window, and there are a couple of shops in the city like that. Now, it's not widespread, everyone hates the gaijin, but it's there. Another weird thing is that cartoon child pornography is also legal, called lolicon manga. This is sold in 7/11's and other places. Gross.

[Dan]

I think you baised b/c you where born and rasied in our socity. I blive they both have an equal way to go. Also you do not allways have control over your income and you can be born ritch or poor.

[codemage]

@ Other strange things about Japan.