Skip to content

japanese

In the Beginning

While I am a little (okay, a LOT) burned out on it, I am a bit of a theology nerd.  This is not a theology blog and it will not become one.  But as in the post Kami, there are some interesting theological insights to be gained from seeing how western theology interacts with Japanese culture. The Bible has been translated into Japanese.  The very first sentence is this: まだ何もなかった時、神は天と地を造りました Note the character 神, which means Kami, or God. Here in the west, we have a very specific idea of who… Read More »In the Beginning

Discovery

One thing I love about learning a new language, is that once you get past the basics, there is always something to discover.  I’m still a beginner by all means, but I consider having learned hiragana and katakana, and getting to the point where I understand the language enough to actually discover things, to be “getting past the basics”. Even though arguably I have not. Yesterday, I encountered the word “大日本”, which means “greater Japan”.  I found that it was pronounced “dai-nihon”.  I knew the characters for “nihon” (日本), and I know… Read More »Discovery

A Post About Actually Learning Japanese

After all of the posts about Japanese culture I’ve been spewing forth, I thought I’d write one about actually learning Japanese. I finally found a tool that I actually like, and I finally feel like I’m actually learning things. Putting the effort into learning hiragana and katakana has been completely invaluable.  I say this because it underpins absolutely everything else, and I think that this is probably the first thing that needs to be done – before kanji, before pronunciation, before everything.  Because it makes everything past that so much… Read More »A Post About Actually Learning Japanese

Wotagei

If you ever see an idol concert, don’t only pay attention to the performers – if you do, you’ll be missing out on what is perhaps the most unique aspect of Japanese concerts.  That is wotagei. It seems that wota, or people who are devoted fans of a particular idol group, coordinate very advanced dances for particular songs, using glowsticks, and then perform them in the audience while the performers are dancing on stage.  Let me repeat this:  there is an entirely different performance, synced to the stage performers, happening in… Read More »Wotagei

Japanese Food and Stores in Austin, part 3.

I had some errands to run this morning up in Cedar Park.  On my way back, I decided to stop at Lakeline Mall to see what they had to offer.  I was not disappointed. However, I was indeed disappointed by their “Japanese” fast food restaurant in the food court.  It was kinda sorta Japanese food, but just barely.  I had a chicken bento, and while nothing in it was particularly bad, it was just not of any quality at all.  Basically, Japanese food of mall quality.  I’ll pass. So after that, I… Read More »Japanese Food and Stores in Austin, part 3.

Shave and a Haircut, HAPPY

I am, by training, a classical musician, so from a musical perspective I find most idol music trifling. This does not mean it is always uninteresting.  Every piece of idol music I hear (well, almost) has  something interesting or thought provoking.  Sometimes it’s even in the lyrics, which are mostly insipid but with glimmers of depth to them.  For example, the lyrics of “what is love” by Morning Musume: If you can’t even make one person understand you how will you seduce the world? If you leave one person feeling sad… Read More »Shave and a Haircut, HAPPY

Pranks

One thing that has singularly impressed me about Japanese culture is their utter dedication to pranks. Here in America, a prank is a pie in the face or pulling a chair out.  But the Japanese take it to an absolutely absurd level. One prank, however, has to take the cake. In this prank, they led the Japanese idol group to a concert hall in the middle of nowhere, built an entire building in the middle of the hall with collapsible walls, waited for them to go to sleep, bussed in 400… Read More »Pranks

Japanese Food and Stores in Austin, part 2

I have been continuing my search of Austin, and found a couple of interesting places of note that I thought I’d review. The first is Asahi Japanese Store on Burnet just north of Koenig.  It is a store that carries only Japanese groceries and gifts, and is manned (womaned?) by Japanese speakers.  It is a small, out of the way place, but it has a lot of unique Japanese treats you will not find anywhere else.  I found some berry and mikan daifuku, and while I couldn’t eat the whole… Read More »Japanese Food and Stores in Austin, part 2

Kami

Spiritual content ahead.  I won’t make it a habit, but I want to take this blog where my linguistic and cultural explorations take me, and I found this fascinating. A few days ago, while I was reading up on Shinto, I learned something very interesting. See, Japanese nouns have no concept of singular or plural.  It’s something that’s simply not encoded into the language.  I mean, you can use the “tachi” suffix to specify plurality, but in general, when a noun is specified, you don’t know whether it’s singular or… Read More »Kami

Japanese Food and Stores in Austin

I have a serious post in the works, but this one is fun, I hope. Today I went around my current town of Austin, Texas, looking for interesting Japanese things.  I found a store called FIT Japanese Store over on Lamar, in the ChinaTown shopping center.  It had a pretty decent selection of interesting and cutesy stuff, including toys, housewares, plushes, etc.  I was a little disappointed at how small their selection was (I would have hoped there were more plushes and other cute things) but all told, it was… Read More »Japanese Food and Stores in Austin