Viewing items with Tag: "culture"

Many of you, gamers and 733+ hackerz especially, will be familiar with the term "all your base are belong us", but how many of you know where it actually comes from? Turns out its a Japanese Engrish blunder that the geek hordes quickly made famous. It was originally used in a badly translated Sega Genesis (thats Master System, right? Sorry, my early console history is a little sucky. All I had was an Amstrad, then straight to a 386 PC) game called Zero Wing, check it out on the video.



Do you know any other classic geek terms and phrases that came from Japanese?

Apparently Japanese women are getting better. Oops.. I mean, they are getting larger busts, wider hips, more buttock, and thinner waists!

ボン！キュ！ボン！(the sound of 36-24-36) Bon! Kyu! Bon!

Praise the influence of American (ok, ok, `western`) eating habits. It is good to see the positive effects of a western diet in the women that I actually see on the street daily. For some time I have wondered where the idea that all Japanese women have tiny boobs came from, as my personal experiences point to a wide variety of Boobage, with wonderful proportions abounding (and bouncing).

"It's just more fun to show some skin,"

"I had a hard time finding button-down shirts that would close,"

"Sometimes the buttons would burst off."

A Bra Commercial, case in point. This is the chinese version, so the commentray is in Chinese. Alas.



Here are some pics of a few brands mentioned in the article.. I admit it was fun searching for them.. heh.. Click Here for the Egoist website, and the Style to get to a Gallery of sorts..

Well, in response to MeestahJ's disturbed blurb about the newest craze in caring for your unwanted offspring, I thought this would be another good one to "throw out" (Bddum Tsstst). For all you soon to be parents out there intent on living your lives as the Japanese government deems fit, here's another PSA from our friends at the DIET.

Turns out the government has decided AGAINST releasing a plan that encourages breast feeding and discourages the youth of the nation to watch so much TV and be constantly tied to cell phones and the internet.

Via Secret Japan:

The technical term for these is Ita-Sha. Ita is derived from the kanji for pain, while Sha simply means car. It may also be a little play on words of “Italian car”, but who knows.

Any readers around Tokyo ever actually seen some of these? I was thinking of gimping out my bike with a decal or something... (JOKE! Seriously, that was a joke...)

Ashcraft over at Kotaku entitles this "Kid's Say The Darndest Things"

During the weekend, we took a family drive. It was a nice day, so I rolled down the window and let the breeze blow through the cabin. We hit a stop light. At the corner, there was a teen, couldn't have been more than 16 and what appeared to be his girlfriend. My car pulled up to the intersection and stopped. The kid sees me and says to his girlfriend, "Foreigner." She laughed. Rude all around. The rough way he said it, and tone of his voice was closer to "Fucking foreigner," than just "foreigner." The light changed, and I drove off.

Thinking aloud, I said, "I wonder why some people have to act like that?"

Sitting in a babyseat in the back seat, my kid piped up: "That's just something you're going to have to endure."

This coming from a three year-old, who still wets the bed. Well said. It's hard being different, but something tells me that Mini Bash is gonna be alright.

Since we seem to be on a bit of a sex-vibe at oldSushi today... could be due to the end of golden week, or just you're all sick sick people, but anyway heres my 2 cents.

This is a video I actually came across a good while back on Japundit, but never got round to posting it. Its a pretty good little documentary by the BBC looking at sex in Japan, Japanese peoples attitude towards it, and how it differs from Western style.

I'd love to hear all of your comments regarding this. It even has a western girl faking a dodgy Japanese accent! either that or its a Japanese woman with a really shit English accent

Highlights:

What clearly distinguishes Japan from the West is that Japanese men are not so bound by love and intimacy in their relationships with women. That is a traditional Japanese characteristic.

The traditional view of sexuality in Japan is, to put it simply, that love and sex dont go together. In other words, it is ok to have sex without love. This is considered natural in Japanese culture.

Japanese men are said to be married twice, once to their wives, and again to the company.

SO it IS getting bigger in japan. I thought it was just the dirty little shops around me.

By Michele Gershberg

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Men in South Africa say they cheat instead of taking second or third wives, Americans lament that love has died in their marriages, and the Japanese believe ex-marital sex isn't adultery if they pay for it.

These are just a few of the cultural excuses for cheating on one's spouse as recorded by Pamela Druckerman, author of a new comparative look at infidelity titled "Lust in Translation: The Rules of Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee."

This is not the first time I have heard this tidbit. It seems to be quite acceptable to pay for sex, even when married.

Japan has a huge sex industry, from oral sex booths to call girls, orgy clubs and rent-a-room-by-the-hour (and get a girl free!). One thing I bet you DIDN'T know, is that in Bali, Japanese women are the main sex tourists, often rodeoing with the Kuta Cowboys.

Frankly, the lack of sexual taboo here just tickles me pink!

More on this later,
LiK

Theres quite a bit of discussion going on at the moment on this guys Flickr concerning those people that just lurk in the aisles of combinis and book stores leeching manga without paying a cent for the privilege. The discussion is regarding a fitting name for these folk, with the current winner being "hobotaku".

Got something better? Post in the comments here for my personal entertainment, and then try and beat hobotaku off the top spot over at Flickr.

Here is a pretty interesting article on living and working in Japan. The article is specifically talking about the gaming industry, however a lot of the points made can easily be related to the Japanese working system in general.



Page 1 details some general facts about the Japanese working system, and some of the ways a Westerner might find him or herself in Japan, with page 2 detailing some of the differences between the working ethics.

I particularly like this part about working hours, and how Japanese workers are not necessarily 'working long hours', more that they are just hanging around because its not generally accepted to leave the office before your direct supervisor. I saw a LOT of this over the last 4 years, even in the school systems, and it always got to me. Foreigners are generally expected to fit in with these working hours too, but its something I decided early on not to become a part of, regardless of the consequences. The trick is to do it over time gradually, and make sure you get your work done on time. Then there 'should' be no problem. One of the authors of this article agrees with me

according to proper Japanese etiquette, nobody leaves until the boss and no individual leaves before his or her immediate supervisor. Regardless of whether a single individual has any work left to do. This is compounded by “slacking” during the day according to Tavares. “Japanese don’t ‘work’ long hours,” he said. “They just stay at work for long hours...

The article gets a bit more game focused on pages 3 and 4, but has some good general points on page 5 with a great summary of the UK, US and JAPAN working environments:

“The UK is a pub culture - people like to doss and arse about a lot, but they are very good and very skilled at their jobs - when they do them.”

“The US is a corporate culture, everyone is a cog in the machine, even in a smaller company, so there is far less responsibility towards the company and its finances and people assume that they should have the best wage, best equipment, best software, best everything, even if they don't use them. That said, they have great responsibility to the work itself and there are some extremely clever and diligent people there. Corporate politics, gossip and rivalries can get a bit too much.”

“The Japanese games development culture is still slightly "salaryman", everyone kind of avoids responsibility by remaining quiet but they persevere by themselves until they get the product done. Unfortunately, this lack of sharing is hurting the technical development of the games industry here in Japan. The Japanese never give up until all the details are in place and they try and leave nothing haphazard or rough-edged, or oozappa (in Japanese).”