The Argument at the Grocery Store: Why Living in Japan is Better Than Living in the West - It's a Part of the Culture

I just came back from my second trip tonight to the grocery store to buy booze. I'm kind of drunk now. The grocery store is a 3 minute walk from my house.

I've been drinking booze. Did I say that I'm drunk, now? I did? OK.

As I walked out of the store, there was a couple arguing about something.

But, in Japan, when a couple are arguing (outside a grocery store or wherever), it isn't anything like what happens when a couple argues (outside in the parking lot of a grocery store or anywhere else) in the USA.

People in the USA and the west argue and they like to scream.

In Japan, people are reserved and they aren't wont to make a scene; there's no shouting or making a "scene."

Making a "scene" in Japan just won't do, you see.

The couple that were arguing outside the store I just came back from were arguing in hushed voices. I couldn't understand what they were arguing about. But they were definitely arguing about something.

The last time I was in America, I was at a Ralph's supermarket grocery store parking lot, I saw a couple arguing in the parking lot; they were screaming at each other and throwing stuff at each other out of their grocery cart.

It was like bloody murder! 

The guy (I guess he was the husband) was screaming at the top of his lungs about something to do with a 25 pound bag of dog food versus a 50 pound bag of dog food.

Not exactly a life-ending crisis, but screaming bloody murder they were. People there must be quite stressed out (or drugged out). 

He was shouting, "You didn't tell me to buy the 50 pound bag!"

I think you could hear him screaming at the top of his lungs from a mile away! He seemed furious over such a trivial matter.

That would never happen in Japan. It seems to be normal in the west.

The couple I saw who were arguing at the grocery store near my home in Japan, were arguing in hushed tones. That's because that's how Japanese people argue; they never scream and shout.

In Japanese language (and culturally) there's no reason to shout and raise one's voice. 

It's just not a part of the culture.

And, as they say, if you want to understand the culture, you have to understand the language. 

In Japanese, you never know what someone is going to say until you hear the last word in a sentence.

For example (in Japanese): "To the store to go buy groceries I go not."

In English, "I'm not going to the store to buy groceries."

In English, I know before even half way through what you are saying if your intention is negative or positive.

In Japanese, you have to listen to the last word to know one's intent.

This is why there is no "ping pong effect" in Japan where people interrupt each other mid-sentence and start arguing. In the west, whilst speaking English, you can interrupt because you already heard the intent halfway through any sentence...

"I am not...." and so forth.

This makes for Japan to be a much more peaceful place. That's just the way it is.

That's one more reason why Japan is a better place to live than the west if you want to have some peace. It's also why you never hear Japanese people interrupting each other and screaming - whether they are speaking Japanese or English.

It's just not a part of the culture.

Hopefully, it never will be.

Trust me. It is inconceivable that this guy is going to raise his voice and yell about anything! It's just not a part of the culture. Ain't gonna happen,

Happy New Year 2014! The Year of the "Hose"!

Happy New Year 2014! The Year of the "Hose"!

This joke might be hard to understand for foreigners who don't speak Japanese or vice versa.... Next year is the year of the Horse... But "Horse" and "Hose" are written the same way in Katakana (the Japanese alphabet for foreign words - there's 3 alphabets in Japan, but the way, but that's another story....)

Horse in Japanese is "uma." When a Japanese studies English, they learn that "uma," in English, is pronounced: "ho-su." Which, you can probably guess, is the same pronunciation - and the same word - as the garden watering device... Also, hence, the pose that looks like I might be "riding" the hose.

The joke really gets to be an "inside joke" when you realize that in the red circle at the top right, there is a mix of the Japanese alphabet "Hiragana" (the language for Japanese things) for the "ho" and in Katakana for the "su." It's a curve ball!

It's a 13-year-old level joke, but I think it wouldn't occur to most Japanese so some of them think it's hilarious!

WelI, as we all know, a joke that must be explained isn't that funny… I guess, you'd have to be here to appreciate it!

Anyway, have a safe and Happy New Year!

May all your dreams come true in 2014!

If You Don't Speak Abbreviated Japanese Then You Are a Loser! Fluent in Japanese and Still Don't Understand What People Are Talking About? Join the Club!

The Japanese like to abbreviate their language all the time. It's called "省略語” (sho-ryaku-go) and means exactly "abbreviated language." The Japanese abbreviate everything. It drives me crazy.

Needless to say the curriculum at my Japanese language school was a tad bit outdated.

Especially the younger Japanese. They use abbreviations of common words in daily language all the time. It's gotten so bad that I often have a hard time understanding what they are talking about. Funny thing is that it seems many Japanese people have the same problem. 


While being far from a Japanese conversation master, I do know how to hold your basic run of the mill conversation in standard everyday Japanese... 


Let me prove it to you. For example:


"Good morning, Suzuki san, how are you?"


"I'm fine. Thank you."


"No. I haven't been having problems with hemorrhoids recently. And you?"


"Good day!"


See? Pretty good, eh? Of course I translated that conversation into English for you as most readers of this blog don't speak Japanese. But it takes a pretty diligent student student of Japanese language to know words like "hemorrhoids" (or an urgent need to know the word - or repetition of said need - so that one can explain quickly to a doctor!)

I think I'd have a tad bit of a problem teaching this English to my female students.

So, I'm pretty slick when it comes to jowling with the locals. But, when it comes to modern dialect that includes common abbreviated lingo and vernacular, I haven't a clue as to what people are talking about! It's maddening especially with new words that come into the Japanese dialect and then are twisted beyond recognition.

About a year ago, I was on the train using my iTouch and some guy scowled at me starting angrily pointing at me. He was asking me something but I couldn't understand what he was talking about. He kept pointing at me and asking, "Is that a sumaho?" "Is that a sumaho?" 「スマホ ですか？」I didn't know what the hell he was talking about! Then he touched my iTouch and repeated, "Is that a sumaho?" He told me to turn it off! 


Later on I figured out that "sumaho" was the abbreviated word for "smart phone." He was asking me, "Is that a smart-phone?" 


It wasn't a smart phone but an iTouch looks exactly like an iPhone which is a smart phone so I turned it off. He was really mad!


The Japanese like to abbreviate everything! I can't keep up. So many times people will be talking about something and then a new word comes up and I haven't a clue as to what they are saying. I remember a few years back this dumb 25-something year old girl that I had to work with spoke like a 13-year-old dippy student. She would say, "Me and my friends are going to meet at maru-kyu."


"My friends and me!" Dumb broad! Jeez! Brought up under a rock!... Anyway, "Maru-kyu," I'd find out later was the famous Japanese department store 109, usually called "ichi-maru-kyu." That dumb girl and her friends were too busy to say "ichi" (one) so they dropped the "one" and just kept the "oh - nine" as in "maru-kyu." No one else besides her small circle of friends would have any idea what she was talking about.


...That's okay, though. That girl was so daft that half the time she didn't know what she was talking about either! 

Probably very dumb but wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating rice crackers

Several years ago, I used to have this same problem at Japanese radio stations. One girl kept talking about "Sumapa." I didn't know what she was talking about. She said she loved "Sumapa". She meant Smashing Pumpkins! And every Japanese under 40 knows that "Misu-chiru" is the Japanese Pop band, Mister Children.


There's a million and one of these abbreviations and they've been coming faster and faster as technology and the Internet progress. Many years ago, "pasonaru konpuuta" (personal computer) was abbreviated into "paso-kon." That one was easy to figure out. A wireless controller for radio controlled devices "rajio kontororu" (radio control) became "raji-kon." And, my favorite, and everyone else's, Loilta Complex became "rori-kon." (I've always wondered why Lolita Complex was such a heavily used word that we needed an abbreviated version for, but, well, this is Japan.)

But yesterday, while sitting on the train, I overheard a conversation between two high school girls who were sitting next to me talking very loudly and I wondered if their mothers wouldn't wash those mouths out with soap if they heard what they were saying. I was shocked!


They were talking about a friend and they said, "ona-chu." Yes! They did! I heard it. I was shocked! Here were two extremely cute sexy Japanese high school girls in their sailor uniforms talking about what goes on in their bedrooms without a care in the world! 


Of course, I had never heard that word, "ona-chu," before but knowing how the Japanese like to abbreviate their words, I could figure out what they were saying! "Ona" means "Onani." "Onani" means, "to masturbate." "Chu" means "in the middle of" or "center." I figured that these two high school girls were talking about being in the middle of masturbation!!! Oh stay my beating heart!


I cleared my throat and tried to act like nonchalant. I looked around at the other folks sitting down next to the girls and across the aisle. One lady was reading a book. A guy was sleeping on the other side of the girls. A few other people were standing. Two old ladies sat right across from me, staring at me and not saying a word. I wondered what those old ladies were thinking? It wasn't my fault these two high school girls were talking about being in the middle of masturbation! No one else seemed surprised by these girl's conversation except me. 

The conversation was making me nervous. I loosened my neck tie and wiped a bit of sweat from my brow. When, suddenly, they said it again! Only this time very loudly! They were even laughing about it! Those sex-starved little kittens!


Well, my train station came up and I quickly jumped off the train before it got even hotter in there. And, on reflection, I began to really come to realize that all these comic books fetishes and fantasies of these dorky guys in Japan were probably true about sexy Japanese high school girls! They wanted it and they wanted it all the time! They even spoke about it and did it freely on the train and no one else seemed to care! Extraordinary!


Later on I cooled down a bit and tried to control my fluster with a cold shower as soon as I got home. I began to tell my wife about how far Japanese kids have fallen into degradation and sin. I began to tell her about, "ona-chu."


But before I could start, she interrupted me and said, "Oh? Ona-chu, means 'onaji - chugakko.'" 


"Onaji" means "the same." "Chugakko" means "junior high school." The girls weren't talking about someone in the midst of masturbation, but from the same junior high school!


Weird, eh? How is it that, just after I mention, "Lolita complex" and then  "sexy Japanese high school girls in sailor uniforms" you could confuse their purely innocent conversation about school friends into one of ribalry and wild scenes in your head of sex and self-gratification with sexy Japanese high school girls?


You pervert!


For some reason, this is dedicated to my friend Roger Marshall