Japanese Men Refusing to Leave their Rooms

Off Topic
402

[quote]Chushin wrote:

[quote]spar4tee wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]spar4tee wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Chushin wrote:

You should have felt the culture shock going back after living here when then were no: fax machines / cell phones / bilingual broadcasts / computers / Skype services.

That’s back when Japan was a foreign country.

(Cue Cortes joke about how old I am.)

But seriously, you kids have no idea just how different it used to be here as compared to the West.[/quote]

I first went to Japan in 1989. I remember.

At the time the university thought it was going to have trouble finding a host family for me, because I had long hair, and many Japanese were somewhat conservative about such things. I ended up staying with a family in Onomachi, a little suburb of Ichikawa in Chiba prefecture.

My first real “foreign country” moment was when I was running up a flight of steps from the Main Street to the residential area, and I happened upon a large group of junior high school students. Whatever they were noisily discussing at the time was instantly engulfed in a shocked silence, and they all just stared at me as I passed. I heard one girl utter in awe, as if she could scarcely believe it herself, “me ga aoi!” (his eyes are blue!). Over the next two decades I found that the blueness of my eyes had a similar effect on adult women as well, but that’s another story. [/quote]

My brother is 6’4", blonde haired, blue eyes, with the whitest of white skin and decent looking. And he can just rake in the women while he’s here.

[/quote]
eyes that are blue I do not have[/quote]

I did TOTALLY okay with brown eyes and dark brown hair. [/quote]
I can see that lol. The only black guy I have to off of is Lil’ Bow Wow as far as I know.[/quote]

Black guy from my hometown (and university) is kind of a superstar here now.

His grandmother was Japanese, and taught him traditional enka songs, which he sings quite well.

He complimented that by studying Japanese in the program at the university, and came here.
[/quote]
I like that. I’m like 1/32 Chinese. I should be over there within the next 4 years I figure.

405

[quote]Chushin wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

Uh, dog porn is a huge industry here. You guys just don’t see it because it is illegal in your countries.
[/quote]

How in God’s name do you know THAT?[/quote]

Uhh, I mean, like, that’s what I’ve heard and, like, stuff.

Seriously, though. It doesn’t take much poking around to stumble upon this stuff. I was introduced to it as my wife and I were browsing the adult DVD section of a regular family video store.

406

[quote]Chushin wrote:
Japan in the news:

Dozens of Japanese train passengers pushed a 32-ton train carriage away from the platform to free a woman who had fallen into the 20-centimeter (eight-inch) gap between the train and platform during the busy morning rush hour Monday.

Pushy train passengers free woman stuck in gap [/quote]
lol I posted that earlier and everyone ignored it, but yeah, really cool story.

407

[quote]spar4tee wrote:

I like that. I’m like 1/32 Chinese. [/quote]

Never mind. Stay home. They’ll hate you.

408

[quote]Chushin wrote:

[quote]spar4tee wrote:

[quote]Chushin wrote:

[quote]spar4tee wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]spar4tee wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Varqanir wrote:

[quote]Chushin wrote:

You should have felt the culture shock going back after living here when then were no: fax machines / cell phones / bilingual broadcasts / computers / Skype services.

That’s back when Japan was a foreign country.

(Cue Cortes joke about how old I am.)

But seriously, you kids have no idea just how different it used to be here as compared to the West.[/quote]

I first went to Japan in 1989. I remember.

At the time the university thought it was going to have trouble finding a host family for me, because I had long hair, and many Japanese were somewhat conservative about such things. I ended up staying with a family in Onomachi, a little suburb of Ichikawa in Chiba prefecture.

My first real “foreign country” moment was when I was running up a flight of steps from the Main Street to the residential area, and I happened upon a large group of junior high school students. Whatever they were noisily discussing at the time was instantly engulfed in a shocked silence, and they all just stared at me as I passed. I heard one girl utter in awe, as if she could scarcely believe it herself, “me ga aoi!” (his eyes are blue!). Over the next two decades I found that the blueness of my eyes had a similar effect on adult women as well, but that’s another story. [/quote]

My brother is 6’4", blonde haired, blue eyes, with the whitest of white skin and decent looking. And he can just rake in the women while he’s here.

[/quote]
eyes that are blue I do not have[/quote]

I did TOTALLY okay with brown eyes and dark brown hair. [/quote]
I can see that lol. The only black guy I have to off of is Lil’ Bow Wow as far as I know.[/quote]

Black guy from my hometown (and university) is kind of a superstar here now.

His grandmother was Japanese, and taught him traditional enka songs, which he sings quite well.

He complimented that by studying Japanese in the program at the university, and came here.
[/quote]
I like that. I’m like 1/32 Chinese. I should be over there within the next 4 years I figure.[/quote]

Seriously?

To sing Chinese songs?

Nah – seriously? It’d be nice to meet ya.[/quote]
Lol likewise

409

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]spar4tee wrote:

I like that. I’m like 1/32 Chinese. [/quote]

Never mind. Stay home. They’ll hate you. [/quote]
No one would know unless I told them.

410

My kids are called “half” by everyone and this is somehow perfectly acceptable here. I strongly discourage the use of this word whenever I hear it.

Then, the other day, a new girl joined one of my jr. high classes (15-16 year olds). In conversation, it came up that her great grandmother is Korean, and that she is therefore part Korean (and can speak fluent Korean at the native level, impressively enough). The other kids in class wasted NO time calculating her fractional Korean quotient (1/8) and trying to remember the name for someone who is 7/8 NOT Japanese (which is what all that crap really amounts to).

There was no meanness of any kind involved, they seriously had no concept of how rude and alienating this is. I scolded them roundly and then asked the girl what she thought of it (keep in mind she has been raised as a 100% Japanese). She said the practice did not exactly make her happy, which, coming from a Japanese, contains an altogether far stronger meaning.

Grr…

411

[quote]Cortes wrote:
My kids are called “half” by everyone and this is somehow perfectly acceptable here. I strongly discourage the use of this word whenever I hear it.

Then, the other day, a new girl joined one of my jr. high classes (15-16 year olds). In conversation, it came up that her great grandmother is Korean, and that she is therefore part Korean (and can speak fluent Korean at the native level, impressively enough). The other kids in class wasted NO time calculating her fractional Korean quotient (1/8) and trying to remember the name for someone who is 7/8 NOT Japanese (which is what all that crap really amounts to).

There was no meanness of any kind involved, they seriously had no concept of how rude and alienating this is. I scolded them roundly and then asked the girl what she thought of it (keep in mind she has been raised as a 100% Japanese). She said the practice did not exactly make her happy, which, coming from a Japanese, contains an altogether far stronger meaning.

Grr…[/quote]
Sounds pretty robotic

415

[quote]Chushin wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:
My kids are called “half” by everyone and this is somehow perfectly acceptable here. I strongly discourage the use of this word whenever I hear it.

[/quote]

Agree strongly.

Have you found a good replacement word in Japanese?

I’ve struggled with that, short of saying, “His mom is an American, and …”[/quote]

I humbly offer “haiburiddo”.

416

Another option (which I always thought was silly, but it had some currency a few years ago) was “daburu” (double).

This has the connotation that the child is fully Japanese, while simultaneously being fully European, or American, or Caucasian, or whatever.

Or, you could just go full Varq and reclaim the word “zasshu”. Throw it right in the Japanese people’s faces. You know it’s what they’re thinking anyway when they see mixed-race kids. Say it out loud. You might just get the same species of embarrassed responses I did when wearing my Yabanjin shirt.

Okay, maybe forget that last one.

418

The more I think about it, the more I like haiburiddo.

With the shift toward hybrid cars, the word will be widely known, and everyone knows that in biology, a hybrid is generally stronger. What’s more, the word has positive connotations from the very first syllable: simultaneously the Japanese word for “yes” and the English word “high”. Why be a mere half when you can be a complete hybrid?

Yes, I was an advertising man. Sue me.

420

[quote]Chushin wrote:
Japan in the news:

Dozens of Japanese train passengers pushed a 32-ton train carriage away from the platform to free a woman who had fallen into the 20-centimeter (eight-inch) gap between the train and platform during the busy morning rush hour Monday.

well thats damn awesome in a lot of ways. she must have been one frail woman. Either way I hope she thanked all those ppl properly… :wink: