Holy crap earthquake

[chocobojoe]

Tempura is pretty okay.

[Merk]

Adam is that a picture of your home / apartment?

How much do you pay in rent?

This thread should really be about asking Adam about Japan because it's actually pretty interesting.

[chocobojoe]

I like the random foot sticking out from under the table (as it appears).

[LikeableRodent]

I learned a little bit more about Japan today. Adam needs to make a weekly post on educating you-gaijin-Americans on Japanese culture. I know nothing outside of video games and California rolls.

Nah, too lazy to do that, though I'll happily answer any questions.

Tempura is pretty okay.

I personally don't like tempura, but whatever floats your boat...

Adam is that a picture of your home / apartment?

How much do you pay in rent?

This thread should really be about asking Adam about Japan because it's actually pretty interesting.

That's a photo I found on Google.

I have free rent. My apartment is in the mayor's name, and I've actually never even talked to my landlord even after four years here. Actually, I don't even know who my landlord is or where the office is. From looking online, other apartments in the same building are priced at 4.5万, which is somewhere in the range of $480/month. It's a pretty old apartment building, but it's in an extremely convenient area of the city. Also it's not like people are running head over heels to move to Fukushima...

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask away.

I like the random foot sticking out from under the table (as it appears).

Foot? I don't see a foot.

[chocobojoe]

Bottom right portion of the picture. Pink striped sock.

Are there any Japanese foods you particularly enjoy?

[LikeableRodent]

Bottom right portion of the picture. Pink striped sock.

Are there any Japanese foods you particularly enjoy?

Oh I see it now. To me it looks like a little girl's foot, which I don't really keep around my apartment very often.

By the way, going back to the rooms, washitsu (和室, Japanese-style room) uses the character 和 (lit. "harmony" or "peace") to stand for "Japan" and 室 means "room". Youshitsu (洋室, western-style room) uses the character 洋 (lit. "ocean") to stand for "western" and 室 again means "room".

In the same vein, food is separated into washoku (和食, Japanese food) and youshoku (洋食, western food). In the same sense as before, the prefix of "wa" (和) and "you" (洋, pronounced like "yo!" with the "o" stretched out a little) stand for "Japanese" and "western" respectively, while "shoku" (食) means "food".

So with that in mind, my favorite "Japanese" food is katsu curry (Japanese-style curry with tonkatsu meat. However, the thing with katsu curry is that it kind of straddles the line between washoku and youshoku. The curry is a bastardization of Indian curry, while tonkatsu traces its roots back to Europe. Despite the non-Japanese origin of it, I'd say that in its current form it's distinctly Japanese.

I had katsu curry for dinner last night and probably will have it again tonight. Yummy yummy!

I also quite like tonjiru (豚汁, lit. "pork soup"). It's pretty much a more hearty version of miso soup.

[Fluffyumpkins]

What is a 万? 10,000 yen?

[DAVE101]

You know what's better than Japanese culture? American culture.







The greatest.

[chocobojoe]

katsu curry

This sounds quite delicious, although I would rather chicken than pork.

New question: are Western TV shows (like crime dramas, sit-coms, etc.) popular at all in Japan? How about Western cartoons?

[Fluffyumpkins]

Oh, another question. Are Marvel superheroes (like the X-Men) well known in Japan, or more obscure. Could the average Japanese person identify Gambit or Cyclops?

[LikeableRodent]

What is a 万? 10,000 yen?

Oh, yeah. 1万(円) = 10,000 (yen)
10,000 yen ≈ 100USD

It's easier to think in terms of 万 (man, "ma" being pronounced like the "mo" in "mop") when dealing with that amount Japanese money.

You know what's better than Japanese culture? American culture.

Oh teach me! Teach me!

This sounds quite delicious, although I would rather chicken than pork.

New question: are Western TV shows (like crime dramas, sit-coms, etc.) popular at all in Japan? How about Western cartoons?

You can put katsu (the breaded stuff) on whatever you want; it's just most commonly used on pork. I've come across katsu chicken and katsu beef too. Also when I make curry at home I tend to go back and forth between using chicken or tonkatsu (pork).

Yes, western TV shows are popular. It's kind of died down now, but when I first got here for some reason Full House was really popular. It seems kind of late to the game to me, but whatever.

Heroes and Prison Break were pretty popular. I've also come across Ugly Betty more times than I'd like (with the amount of times I'd like to come across it being zero). Over the past year or two I've seen ads for The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Fringe, House MD, Supernatural, and Galactica. Yes, they tacked "MD" on the end of House so people didn't think it was just about a house, and they also got rid of the Battlestar in BSG's name. I've come across all of those shows airing on TV, with the exception of BSG, Fringe, and House.

As for cartoons, Spongebob is extremely popular, as is Lilo and Stitch (both the movie and the TV show). The Nightmare Before Christmas (not exactly a cartoon, but whatever) is also pretty popular, but it's more for the characters than the movie itself. I've also come across plenty of other Saturday morningish cartoons on TV, though I don't remember which ones.

Also, Disney (particularly Mickey) is worshiped here. It's actually been pissing me off to no end that despite all of the shit that's going on up here in Tohoku, news shows are allotting plenty of time (and live helicopter reporting) to the status of Disneyland, which is in Chiba prefecture a bit outside of Tokyo. It's been shut down since the quake and is set to reopen today, though I personally don't give two shits about it and only know because the news won't STFU about it.

Actually, on the day of the quake they specifically reported that Disneyland was shut down and even put it on the ticker of important stuff at the bottom of the screen. "500 confirmed dead... 10,000 confirmed missing... 3 million homes without power... 3.5 million homes without water... Oil refinery exploded and is in flames... Whole cities washed into the sea... Disneyland is closed..."

Why the fucking fuck would you put Disneyland on the same fucking line as that other important shit. You news people can go fuck yourselves.

/rant

Oh, another question. Are Marvel superheroes (like the X-Men) well known in Japan, or more obscure. Could the average Japanese person identify Gambit or Cyclops?

Uh, I dunno? The movies were released here, and I became quite giddy when I saw the trailer for X-Men: First Class the other day (I went and saw The Rite. Boring movie. Pro-tip to Anthony Hopkins: I want to like your movies, so don't star in boring ones, k?).

But yeah, I'm not really sure. A sure for "ガンビット x-men" (Gambit in Japanese; without quotes) came up with 22,500 hits. That's obviously not much, even when you consider that the Japanese web is smaller than the English web.

As a test, searching for "リロ　スティッチ" (lilo stitch; without quotes) came up with 720,000 pages. Searching for (without quotes) "lilo stitch" and "gambit x-men" in English came up with 6,030,000 and 1,730,000 hits respectively.

This means that in English the "lilo stitch":"gambit x-men" ratio is 3.5:1, whereas in Japanese it's at 32:1.

So really all this shows is that either (a)Lilo and Stitch is far more popular in relation to Gambit in Japan than the US, or (b)I picked bad strings.

I'll go with (a).

[Fluffyumpkins]

I guess the heart of my questions was around Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. The same way that we have no idea what the hell Tatsunoko is, I wonder if Japan knows Marvel Comics.

[DAVE101]

American culture can't be taught, or explained... it's just something you have to experience.

[LikeableRodent]

I guess the heart of my questions was around Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. The same way that we have no idea what the hell Tatsunoko is, I wonder if Japan knows Marvel Comics.

No idea. I'd ask my friends, but I don't have any.

American culture can't be taught, or explained... it's just something you have to experience.

Been there, done that, got the flag tie tack.

[chocobojoe]

This has nothing to do with Japan, but do you still have a large mop of curly hair? Do you still ride your unicycle? Do you still use your computer mouse with your left hand or switch it up sometimes?