President Obama's bow to the Japanese Emperor

I wanted to weigh in on the 'controversy' momentarily.

1. Bowing is a sign of respect, but in addition it is in many ways the 'Japanese handshake'. To bow to someone isn't to lessen your authority or power. Obama was probably just trying to be polite, and to participate in a Japanese cultural act as a symbol of cultural understanding.

2. While the angle of the bow can indicate subservience or submission, I think the reason Obama bowed as low as he did has more to do with the height difference.

I mean, the emperor is pretty short. Obama is pretty tall. The pictures I've seen of it make Obama look like a giant next to a midget, even though I think the height difference is less pronounced.

It just struck me as such a silly thing to get worked up over.

Kamemushi War!!!! カメムシ戦争

The cooler days are bringing an end to the spider and bee reign of terror on my life, but an unfortunate side effect of the shift in temperature is the rise of that foe unbeatable by conventional warfare, the kamemushi.

While bees and spiders are easily killed without remorse and with little hassle (unless you like to keep the soles of your shoes clean, freak), death is the ultimate weapon of the kamemushi. While living he is menacing, like a suicide bomber but instead of dynamite that produces an explosion, he has glands in his thorax between the first and second pair of legs which produce foul smelling liquid.* He taunts you, daring you to smush him with a rolled up newspaper, slowly crawling around, or falling on the ground legs up and writhing pitifully. Daring you to make your move. Daring you to be your own undoing.

The kamemushi protests he only attacks when he himself is threatened, but there is nothing passive about the full-on assault the kamemushi is waging upon this fair hillside country school. In one classroom yesterday, intrepid students counted 200 of the kamemushi which had invaded.

That's what this is. An invasion.

Kamemushi King, if there is such a thing, I beg of you. Please leave. Take your army and go elsewhere. While you are easy to kill, doing so only harms ourselves in turn... NO, please give us peace. We want peace. Give us your demands.

*Thanks wikipedia!


I found this on google images. Work of a kamemushi sympathizer.

NO joke...

How many workers does it take to perform maintenance on a single Japanese pine tree at area Japanese junior high school? (Bonus question: How long do they spend on the tree?)

Answer: 14. 7 to work hands-on, removing and manipulating individual needles. 7 to watch and make sure the other 7 don't muck it up.

Bonus answer: about 1 hour per tree.

Trees look nice though.

ノーメーク、ノーライフ No make, no life.

Yesterday during the 3rd year classes, the students were given much of the period to study for their midterms today on their own. In one class, I happened to spend most of the class just chatting with one of the girls Rio, as well as a few other students, but mostly Rio.

The conversation started when I asked Rio if she was going to study. She said no, and then started staring at me. After a few moments...

'Jessie-sensei...no make??' ('no make' is kind of Japanese-English (和製英語) which means 'no make-up')
'Right, I have no make-up on.'
'kirei! Very Beautiful!'

Warm fuzzies. Awww.

The conversation lasted a while, and we discussed all sorts of things, like cooking and eye color and gyaru and the ideal kind of boy.

Rio is good at cooking, and doesn't want a guy who does 'girly things' like cooking. Nearby student Rina would prefer a guy who can cook and clean, because she can't do those things herself. I stated my preference for cooking-enabled men.

Japanese names (Real ones)

This morning it's test day at work, so I have been hunting out interesting reading materials in the meantime.

This trio of articles from The Japan Times cover some of the interesting history of names in Japan.

What's in a (Japanese) name? This article touches on the naming conventions of the pre-modern era as well as the taboo/'neuroses' surrounding personal names in that era.

The long road to identity This article details the origins of some of the most common names in Japan, such as 'Tanaka' (in the rice field). Of the three articles, I recommend this one the most.

Fake names were to the fore in many a rise from humblest to highest This article describes how people in Japan, in particular Toyotomi Hideyoshi, changed their names in a reflection of their rising status.

Tangentially related, I found this editorial by activist and naturalized Amerian-born Japanese citizen Debito Arudou about the case of the international custody dispute between a divorced Japanese woman and American man. The article's brief summary:

After a couple divorced in America, ex-wife Noriko Savoie absconded with their children to Japan. Then ex-husband Christopher, who had been awarded custody in the U.S., came to Japan to take the kids back. On Sept. 28 he tried to get the children into the American Consulate in Fukuoka, but was barred entry and arrested by the Japanese police for kidnapping.

But what really shocked me about the article was the fact that in Japan, even for a divorced Japanese couple, there is no way to have joint custody of children. A child can only legally be connected to one family, so when the family splits into two, they are no longer connected to one parent by law... Many children in divorced families lose contact with one parent (usually dad) until adulthood, or forever.

I guess if the father wants to lose all contact with their children, it works out for them. But in cases where the non-custodial parent would want to be a part of their children's lives, there is no legal recourse for them if the custodial parent refuses to capitulate.

漢字で名前 Writing your name in Japanese

For official documents and the like, I write my name as ジェシカ　パーカー. This comes out in English as something like 'Jeshika Paakaa' with long vowel sounds in the 'parker' bit.

However, most foreign people who come here at some point choose some kanji to represent their name.

Kanji, the complex characters imported long ago from China, are used predominantly for names in Japan. Kanji for names tend to be very complex and can have many readings. For example, the kanji for 'west' 西 can be read nishi, sai, and sei. Anyone who has sent me snail mail before might be interested that the 'Sai' in 'Saihaku' means 'west.' Many kanji have far more readings than this.

Following current naming trends in Japan, one could go the route of ateji and choose kanji based on meaning and arbitrarily assign readings to them. An example here is the word 'Tobacco', which came to Japan many years ago. Tobacco is usually written in hiragana like this: たばこ (tabako). However, in the Meiji era (1868-1912), this was commonly written in kanji as 煙草. If you used the typical readings of these kanji it would come out 'ensou' or 'kemurikusa' or something like that, but these kanji were read as 'tabako' regardless of their true meanings.

However, most parents in Japan still use traditional readings when they choose kanji for names, and most foreigners who choose kanji for their names do the same.

Ideally, one can find kanji for ones name which both have the appropriate sounds as well as a good meaning. For my first name, I need 4 kanji. One to represent 'Ji' 'E' 'Shi' and 'Ka'.

Here are some 'funny' examples I've come up with:
児枝鹿　- Newborn, Branch, Deer
時餌死蚊 - Time, Animal feed, Death, Mosquito

As you can see, choosing based on sound alone could leave one with a ridiculous name.

In English, as per my 'name meaning' mug that currently resides at my parent's house in Florida, my name means 'Grace of God' in Hebrew. Therefore, I wanted to have a name that had the meaning of Grace or something similar in it.

Here are some kanji I like for my name: 慈恵紫花
慈 - Ji - mercy
恵 - E - blessing, grace
紫 - Shi - purple
花 - Ka - flower

I found a keychain with the first character on it. :)

For my last name, I like to use 公園人 (public recreational) park-er or 駐車人 - (car) park-er. The first corresponds to the name's origin in English. The second is for laughs (hur hur, Parker...do you park cars for a living? hurhur.) But both have different readings, kouenjin and chuushajin respectively. Really, they are both for laughs...

What kanji would you choose for your name? If you are interested, let me know in the comments and I will help you pick some out.

Changing directions

Pardon the following boring blog-related post!

I've started to reconsider my blog. A lot of times I don't know what to write because I'm too worried about audience, topic, etc. I leave a lot unwritten because it doesn't necessarily fit with my ideas of what this blog should be.

So, what I am thinking I will be doing in the coming weeks is moving this blog to a new name and expanding it to a general blog that just happens to be authored by me, a person living in Japan. The focus of Japan and Japan-y things will likely continue, considering many of my observations and thoughts have to do with where I am and what I am doing. But you will probably see an increase in 'videos I found on YouTube and want to share' or 'Books I read' or 'Things I'm thinking about'.

I know I could have been doing that all along here, but for some reason I allowed my perception of what this blog had to be prevent me from sharing a lot I may have shared had I not limited myself artificially in this way.

I also hope to up my post count to at least 5-7 posts a week (not necessarily every day, any maybe not only one post per day.)