Disqus - Latest Comments for St

Re: 6 Reasons Why Kanji is Necessary

St — Sat, 31 May 2008 21:46:47 -0000

7. Using more obscure kanji makes you seem more erudite.

8. Using kanji is more respectful towards the native speakers. I know this is nowadays a very unfashionable way of looking at it, but I fundamentally disagree with those people who claim that the proper usage of kanji (or grammar, or idiom, or whatever) isn't important because what really matters is that you "can get your point accross". I believe that it is a basic sign of respects towards the native speakers of any language that you show you are willing to take the hard road when it comes to learning their language.

Re: Nara Actually gets a new Mascot, maybe

St — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:13:04 -0000

Number 7 would definitely have been the best choice. If you get bored with him you can gently remove his hantlers can use him as a 碁盤: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d...

Re: Another Reason Not to Use Online Translators

St — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:44:02 -0000

Another diplomatic incident caused by online translator-programming hedgehog (オンライン翻訳-プログラミングヘッジホッグ).

Re: Tofugu’s in a book!

St — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 08:11:26 -0000

Well deserved! You're up against an army of dramatic chipmunks, amateur Steve-O's, bootlegged TV series etc etc.

Re: Mini Post: Odd Personal Grooming Choices

St — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:20:11 -0000

It sort of gets pampered apparently, because it's the only eyebrow hair that's died the same colour as her other hair.

Re: How to Study Japanese Over the Summer

St — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:51:21 -0000

My $0.02:
"Oh you want proof Koichi? Below is a website by someone who learned Japanese to a native-level.

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/all-j...
That's funny though because the author of that website doesn't provide any proof that he actually speaks Japanese at a native speaker's level. What he does do though is pimp amazon books with referral links that will probably bring in a good amount of money from people who buy into his ideas. That's probably not a bad business plan, because a lot of people who study Japanese, from my perception, are pop culture afficionados (which is of course fine) with little motivation to study hard and little tolerance for delayed gratification (which is terrible).

Second, and I know this sounds condescending and conservative, some of us just don't want to learn "real Japanese" if by real Japanese one means the Japanese used in anime and manga. Or the Japanese used by Japanese young people. Some people simply prefer formal, erudite Japanese with heavy use of keigo. That's just my opinion of course, and I'm probably an old fogey for thinking that way. Still, I think it's quite assuming for people to think that informal speech is somehow "more real" than grown-ups' speech. You won't learn the latter by just watching anime 8 hours a day (assuming you'll learn anything at all that way if you're over 16...). Our teachers always told us that extracurricular material (e.g. TV) are necessary to enhance your abilities, but cannot be used as a basis for learning any language.

And finally, the idea that language is just a bunch of words with no cultural or societal implications is simply naive. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypoth...

Re: The “No Gaijin Allowed” mentality

St — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 08:48:50 -0000

I've never been to Japan so I can't tell if these signs are a common sight or not. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's vastly overblown like Koichi says. You have to look at it from a cultural studies perspective. Westerners (understood to mean white people) have historically constructed East Asian people (understood to mean anyone of East Asian ancestry) and others as atavistic, bound (in the sense of "restricted", not just "connected") by blood ties, and unable to identify with people beyond their own extended family, let alone their ethnic group or race. It's a idea that you can also encounter in novels like for example "The Daimond Age" by Neal Stepgenson. The west, then, is always constructed as the opposite of this. The reason, thus, why these signs get so much play is because "Japanese are racist" is "good to think" for white westerners. It helps them to confirm and reinforce their own self-image as rational, broad-minded, liberal, and humanistic.

Re: The “No Gaijin Allowed” mentality

St — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:46:18 -0000

@ darintenb

"2) I certainly don't see more than one racially offensive sign a month living in Tokyo for the past 6 years, but I've never seen one in America for the 19 years before that. (Being white it's possible I missed some, but you can rest assured the mainstream media would have attacked such a sign like Debito does here and that hasn't happened to the best of my knowledge.)"

Never seen one in 19 years? What about the confederate naval jack? You do know that people who use that thing often don't mean it as a sign of harmless regionalistic folklore, but do it with the precise intent of giving the middle finger to black people? To me that's even more offensive than a dry "no foreigners" sign, because it deliberately aims to make other feel bad or to intimidate them. And what about all the looney white power groups up there in the rocky mountains?

As for the "mainstream media", don't forget that one of the most popular pundits, Michelle Malkin, defended the internment of Japanese Americans. Not a peep about that form the mainstream media.

Re: The “No Gaijin Allowed” mentality

St — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:07:24 -0000

darintenb, you can't just brush it all off as "free speech". I gave you three prime examples of racism in the US
-The confederate flag, one of the most common displays of overt racism
-Hate groups, probably the most extreme form
-The succes of people who believe interning entire groups of people is justifiable.

Now ok from a legal-technical standpoint this may all fall under "freedom of speech", but that doesn't mean it isn't cause for serious concern. In fact I find this casual, trivialized racism far more disconcerting than the occasional case, perhaps punishable in the US and other countries, of foreigners being barred from a certain establishment. I'm curious what you'd think if a good portion of Japanese in areas with a large foreign population suddenly started driving around with a flag of imperial Japan stuck to their car if you'd know they did it just to stick it in your face, like people do with the confederate flag. I doubt whether you wouldn't find that racially offensive for 19 years.

Re: The “No Gaijin Allowed” mentality

St — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 12:30:13 -0000

darintenb there's no need for you to assume that I didn't read your posts carefully. Nor is there a need to bring up the argument of authority or be condescending towards people who study (or "vacation", as you call it) in Japan for only one year.

As for the black vans, I know about them. I've never been in Japan, but I can't help but have the impression that they're far less usual in Japan than people / cars / state buildings flying confederate flags are in the southern United States.

But, back to the core of what we were arguing about. You claim that racism is less of a problem in the US because the ubiquitous racism I see in the large parts of the US is protected under the first amendment clause of the constitution, whereas the "no foreigners" signs that have been spotted on occasion in Japan is worse because it a kind of racism that affect someone very directly and was outlawed in the US in the 1960's. I do not follow that rather legalistic line of reasoning though. Whether something is legally protected or not does not determine whether it is something that sensible people ought to be offended by and concerned about. You brush it off because of the strict dichotomy you make between "discrimination", which you find outrageous, and "protected free speech", about which you say "One someone uses their free speech to be racist, it doesn't bother me.". However, from a critical legal theory standpoint, this dichotomy is untenable. One has to acknowledge that racism is a structural feature of American society and that it comes in many forms. You can argue that denying someone entrance to your business because of the colour of their skin is worse that constitutionally protected hate speech. But you cannot argue that just because Japan has a couple of cases of punishable discrimination it has a bigger racism problem that America just because America's ubiquitous racism falls within the borders of constitutionally protected speech.

Re: The “No Gaijin Allowed” mentality

St — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:13:15 -0000

Well, that's roughly the answer I expected. You only see those instances of racism which have a very direct, very tangible causal connection to concrete negative effects for the person experiencing it as having to be criminalized. And I'm inclined to agree with that.

But then you totally ignore that huuuuuuge social cost of constitutionally protected hate speech. After a lot of prodding I could get you to admit that you actually do care a little, but certainly not too much. What do you think has the most serious negative consequences for people as a social GROUP? Being barred from one or two public baths or restaurants and having a couple of jackasses driving around in a van spewing hatefull rants? Or having the media and entertainment industries portray you as a criminal (if you're African-American), a rapist (if you're African-American), a bandito (if you're hisanic), an illegal alien (if you're hispanic), an eternal other (if you're Asian-American) a terrorist (if you're Arab-American)...?

In conclusion, it doesn't attest to good judgement to focus all your anger and outrage on one form of illegal discrimination and downplay all the rest just because it is covered by the first amendment.

Re: The “No Gaijin Allowed” mentality

St — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:55:19 -0000

"My argument was not that Japan is worse than America, that was your interpretation of my argument."

Well let's see

"I certainly don't see more than one racially offensive sign a month living in Tokyo for the past 6 years, but I've never seen one in America for the 19 years before that. (Being white it's possible I missed some, but you can rest assured the mainstream media would have attacked such a sign like Debito does here and that hasn't happened to the best of my knowledge.) In this case, I don't think Japan is even doing the bare minimum. 1 sign is already too many."

I did interpret this as you implying that you think that Japan has a bigger racism problem than Japan, given that you say it performs worse with regard to the one form of racism that you can genuinely become upset about, namely illegal discrimination. If there a different way to interpret this, I'm sorry for not having notice.

As for human rights, that is, in my opinion, just a load of Anglo-American mid 20th-century hooey. I'm much more inclined to agree with the People's Republic of China that how a country organizes it's political system and how it treats it's people is part of it's internal affairs. Of course countries that violate said human rights can be quite unsavoury places, and we should our distance from them. There are of course extreme cases like genocide, but generally we should not try to impose our values and ideas on other countries. After all these universalistic human rights discourses contain no guarantee that they will not be abused in the interests of imperialism. But that's of course a completely different discussion.

Re: The “No Gaijin Allowed” mentality

St — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:26:36 -0000

"All you white people have it good!"

Ah really? I for one am a 7 foot 6 golden-haired honkey of pure Swedish ancestry, with DNA directly extracted from the melting water of the purest nordic glaciers and eyes as blue as those of the Dune Fremen. And don't get me started about my musculature... So what does that translate into in terms of social status?

Re: The “No Gaijin Allowed” mentality

St — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 07:25:50 -0000

Yes that's right, 新幹線: new trunk line. Which is of course far more convenient than the 古枝弯.

Re: Why Japanese in Hawaii Weren’t Interned during WWII

St — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:37:23 -0000

Well, besides the economic aspect of interning one third of your population, there are four other reason why Japanese-Americans were not put into internment camps
1. Less anti-Asian sentiment compared to the states on the west coast
2. No statehood, meaning no outlet for existing anti-Japanese sentiment on the federal level
3. Hawaii was already under martial law since december 7th 1941, so there was no perceived need for any special meassures.
4. The persons involved. Delos Emmons, commanding general in Hawaii, seems to have operated on the assumption that Japanese-Americans were loyal citizens. His counterpart on the west coast, general John DeWitt, on the other hand was much more racist, assuming that loyalty was determined by ancestral blood ties, hence that Japanese-Americans were disloyal.

"Did a lot of Japanese people actively (for a certain value of active :P ) support Japan during WW2?" In all seriousness, there wasn't a single case of Japanese-Americans sabotaging the US war effort or actively supporting Japan during the entire war.

Re: Why Japanese in Hawaii Weren’t Interned during WWII

St — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 07:47:15 -0000

"My family’s sword was taken. Bastards!"

Oh you mean that's your family's swords my family has been using as an oversized toenail clipper for the last half century?

Re: Learn Japanese NOW!

St — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 10:08:29 -0000

Is that 「完全マスター語彙日本語能力試験1・2級レベル」 you're holding?

Anyway I totally agree with the sentiment. Japanese may be somewhat hard, but if it were easy it wouldn't be worth it, right? People sometimes have strange reasons for wanting to know Japanese, more so than with other languages in my impression. I study Japanese simply because I enjoy studying it, it gives me intellectual satisfaction. I do not intend to study Japanese in 10 minutes a day (reading nothing but manga of course) in order to one day live out orientalist phantasies in Japan with the Japanese as an embarrassed captive audience.

It's the same with all these people who claim Japanese textbooks are boring because they only want to read about manga or bushidou instead of learning how to talk to your superiors, how to exchange small talk in polite company or how to make sure you don't get ripped off in the store because you don't know how to haggle. Of course they're boring. You're just learning the basics, you're not entitled to have fun.

Haha oh I do sound awfully grumpy.

Re: Jim Breen on the iPhone

St — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:59:16 -0000

Last screenshot has 犬猿の仲 on it, one of my favorite idiomatic expressions!

Re: Japanese Face Shaped Watermelon (and other weird shapes)

St — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 08:38:16 -0000

I wonder what it's like when you've finished eating a ５２．５００円 watermelon. Sort of like having uncokred a 1900 Château Pétrus? Or like eating the world's smallest bowl of ramen and finding yourself still hungry.

Re: Japanese Face Shaped Watermelon (and other weird shapes)

St — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:37:27 -0000

OK koichi, sorry if it came across as if we (I) were trying to push your buttons earlier.

Re: Listen to Japanese Podcasts via iTunes

St — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:52:32 -0000

If you're just going to listen to it on your PC, you might just as wel download KeyHoleTV. It's free, and you get moving pictures with that order.