Archive for April, 2010

Awesome Legos for Hamsters

TV Tokyo recently assembled a group of Lego maniacs for a contest to see who could build the coolest Hamster play set. Here are the results:

The results are pretty neat, but it is doubtful that the hamsters prefer them to normal hamster wheels and cages.

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Jero + Cup Ramen

American Enka singer Jero (Jerome Charles White) enjoys instant noodles and cherry blossoms in a commercial for some spring-themed cup ramen:

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Loopy Hatoyama

Back on April 14th, Washington Post columnist Al Kamen wrote the following about the nuclear summit held in Washington:

By far the biggest loser of the extravaganza was the hapless and (in the opinion of some Obama administration officials) increasingly loopy Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. He reportedly requested but got no bilat. The only consolation prize was that he got an “unofficial” meeting during Monday night’s working dinner. Maybe somewhere between the main course and dessert?

The Japanese government complained about the disrespect shown by the Washington Post in its use of the word “loopy,” but a few days ago Hatoyama admitted that he might actually be loopy.

With Hatoyama’s approval ratings plummeting, it would seem that some people agree about the loopyness. Ampontan writes about an online poll conducted by Nikkei:

To the question, Do you support the Hatoyama Cabinet, only 11.8% answered yes.

More interesting was the response to another question: “What do you think of the harsh criticism Prime Minister Hatoyama received from the American media during his American visit?”

A total of 84.7% of the respondents answered, “They took the words right out of my mouth.” (同感だ)

Meanwhile, anti-Hatoyama internet users in Japan seem to have embraced the word “loopy,” using it in both English and Katakana formats ["loopy鳩山" & "ルーピー鳩山"]. Somebody has even created a hilarious parody video that inserts Hatoyama’s face into Kewpie Mayonnaise commercials (edited to read “Loopy Mayonnaise”) and “Loopy Hatoyama” t-shirts are being sold over the internet. Since “Kewpie” and “Loopy” sound so similar, it seems that a lot of the parodies involve turning Hatoyama into the Kewpie mascot [pun + Hatoyama with a chubby baby body = more loopy lulz].

As long as Hatoyama remains Prime Minister, it seems that we will continue to see the word “loopy” a lot on the internet.

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Chinese Navy Helicopter Harasses Japanese Ship

Japan has formally complained to China about Chinese navy helicopters buzzing Japanese MSDF ships in the waters south of Okinawa:

Japan protested to Beijing after a Chinese naval helicopter made a “dangerous” fly-by around one of its destroyers in high seas off a southern Japanese island chain on Wednesday, the government said.

A similar incident took place in the area near the Okinawan islands earlier this month and came as Tokyo warily watches China’s growing military might.

“The flight was made extremely close and it was an act which was dangerous to safe navigation of the vessel,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, adding the protest was filed through the Chinese embassy in Tokyo.

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Bye Bye Geos: Another Major Chain of English Conversation Schools Collapses in Failure

It seems like only yesterday when English conversation school chain NOVA collapsed and was brought out by G Communications. Now the same thing has happened with another major Eikaiwa chain, Geos:

Major English conversation school operator Geos Corp. said Wednesday it has started bankruptcy procedures at the Tokyo District Court, which ordered its assets protected from creditors.

The Tokyo-based school’s total liabilities are said to be 7.5 billion yen.

The school operator said it would hand over about 230 of its 330 schools nationwide to Nagoya-based G.communication Co. and shutter the remaining 100.

The transfer would allow 29,000 of Geos’ 36,800 students to continue studying at their current schools, Geos said. Additionally, about 7,800 students at the locations slated for closure could keep studying if they agree to transfer to nearby Geos schools.

N-H-K News reported on the collapse last night (For English audio, cover up the left side of your headphones):

It seems that some students are totally shocked this has happened. One guy said he called Geos just the day before and was told everything was okay and to come to class the next day. When he arrived, he found the doors shut with a bankruptcy notice. Like other students, he seems to have missed the signs that Geos was in serious trouble : there were news reports about Geos’ operations in Australia being collapsing without notice just a few months ago.

Read more about the collapse of Geos at Let’s Japan dot Org, which always has interesting discussion threads.

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Favorite Japanese Word

What kind of Japanese sounds difficult for foreign students who study Japanese?

For example, why do we say “Ittekimasu“? Is it going or coming back? Which is it?

It means “I’m going but coming back (for sure).” (The teacher didn’t refer to Kotodama, but in terms of Kotodama, saying “Ittekimasu” means something very important. That word may prevent the person from the accident or anything that makes him unable to come back home.)

When a woman is getting married to a man, she will say “嫁に行きます”（Yome ni ikimasu =I’m going out of my family to be a part of his family), but she should not say “嫁に行って来ます” (Yome ni ittekimasu = I’m going out of my family to be a part of his family and will be back to my family again.)

“Kekkoudesu” is also confusing. “X～は結構です(~wa kekkou desu)” means “I don’t want X.” “X～で結構です(~de kekkou desu)” means I’ll take X, that’s fine with me.

Some foreigners like old Japanese way of speaking because of the way it sounds. But why do they know such Japanese words that many of us don’t even use in daily life? That’s because Japanese manga, anime, music and TV dramas are good tools besides their textbooks. What makes Japanese difficult to non-native speakers is that Japanese has so may ways to express the word.

In video, foreigners were surveyed about their favorite Japanese word. The top answers were “Kawaii“, “Sakura“, and “Ichigoichie.”

What is your favorite Japanese word? If you ever studied Japanese, what was hard to you? As a blogger who blogs about kawaii fashion and culture from Tokyo, I’m glad to find the word “kawaii” here!

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Contributor Bio: Kirin is a Japanese woman spending her life so far somewhere around Tokyo. She now works from home and is also spreading Japanese kawaii culture and etc. through her popular blog, Tokyo Kawaii,etc.
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