Via Eat Me Daily, our future robotic overlords/servants.

Just a quick drive-by linking post (without even a kanji or katakana lesson, gasp!): Japanese food robots !

(Nothing to see, move it along.)
(But I might edit this post to have lessons later.)
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A lesson in kanji:

I worded this as unoffensively as possible, but some people still may be offended at the sexual nature of it, so the article is under the cut.

Did you know that the Japanese word and kanji for "clitoris" is the same as "blister" or "corn"? And the two kanji used for it are "meat" and "pain"?

It's hard to miss the relevance in that, isn't it?

It sounds like it might be older style or not commonly used, though; it doesn't show up in the kanji-a-day dictionary when you search "clitoris"; only when you search "mame" (which is bean...that's what I was originally looking up the kanji for, I swear O.O haha). I reviewed several other online dictionaries, and a little searching shows similar results.

That is really interesting in a way, though. Sorry if it's a little crass for your tastes; I didn't mean it to be. I just remember in my gender roles class, that our teacher made us make lists of slang for male and female genitalia, and it was amazing how many more positive terms there were for male genitalia, or even more words at all.

That is one thing I like about learning Japanese; a word can mean something but be represented by something else, and sometimes it shows how it's viewed in a culture (or used to be viewed). I'm sure many of our English words developed that way; we discussed the etymology of the words "good" and "bad" in Philosophy class, and it was really interesting.

The point is, kanji is sooooo interesting, and if it takes learning the etymology of the word "clitoris" to make people think it's interesting, well, so be it. A study in radicals would probably be even more interesting, but here are some examples of word values in kanji:

-There are two spellings of "gohan", or rice, and one of them has the kanji for "honorable" in it (the "go" part).

-Sushi is made up of "longevity", and "administrator" for some reason. There is no mention of "vinegared rice", even though that's what it is.

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Something else cool we won't get:

Coming soon to Japan: green tea flavored Coca-Cola.
(article foun via snopes.com)

The new green-tea flavored Coke is targeted toward health conscious females and will have the benefit of green tea antioxidants...


Aw, yummy! Do you ever notice how other countries get the coolest sodas? I'm not much of a soda drinker, but I was excited when I finally saw Manzanita Sol hit the shelves over here quite a while ago - a drink I had in Mexico that tasted like biting into a fizzy red delicious, only better. Apparently they even have melon sodas in Japan - it sounds totally worth the trip.

Vocabulary:

お茶　(おちゃ): green tea
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Through the eyes of 寿司...

Well, this is obviously a filler post, but I think it's interesting, anyway! Someone put a camera on a 回転寿司 (kaitenzushi) conveyor belt and filmed its trip.

THIS IS WHAT A SUSHI ROLL SEES BEFORE IT DIES.


(YouTube user: AndySearce)

面白いですね？

Now, a little about kaitenzushi...


Kaitenzushi is a sushi restaurant where the sushi is served on a conveyor belt; it's not a specific type of sushi like nigirizushi or makizushi. The conveyor belt takes the sushi throughout the restaurant so people can pick up whichever sushi they please. It's generally cheaper quality but you get a good variety of things to try, and you typically pay per plate. It is super-super-popular in Japan.

Other terms for kaitenzushi: kurukuru sushi, or sushi-go-round.

More on kaitenzushi from Wikipedia (dude, shut up; it's a good article, okay? lol): Click.
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Scare your self shi-...Well, you know where this is going...

Only in Japan will you find the scariest toilet paper ever. (Yahoo News)

Yes. Yes. YES!

The author of The Ring novel (yes, the one the movie was based off of), Koji Suzuki, can now be famous for his "bathroom literature" as well; a horror story printed on toilet paper.

The short horror story is called Drop, and even features a public restroom as its setting. According to the article, it takes up about three feet of toilet paper and just a few minutes to read all of its nine chapters.


View pictures of the toilet paper and another article here:

http://inventorspot.com/articles/horrorthemed_toilet_paper_japan_puts_you_edge_your_seat_28072 (Inventor Spot)

All I can say, as a horror fan and Japan enthusiast - I totally want a roll.

More on Japanese toilets (very interesting stuff, especially if you ever want to visit!):

http://www.restroomratings.com/features/japan/

Vocabulary (just one today, and no kanji!):

トイレット (toiretto): toilet
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Um...What? Pulse (JP) Review

(x-posted to my horror movie review blog, Horror Movie Love)

Pulse (or Kairo, its Japanese name) is a J-Horror movie directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

Pulse follows several Japanese college students who...Do stuff...One of them dies...And then this other guy doesn't know how to use a computer and contacts the dead through the internet somehow...And...Yeah...

Okay, this movie was really hard for me to follow.

People are killing themselves, and there's a website that asks his guy if he wants to meet a ghost, and there's a forbidden room and some red tape that makes ghosts go away and the city is pretty much empty of people, and (I will give away the ending because I don't even know if it counts as a spoiler) they end up on a boat trying to get away from whatever it is for some reason even though whatever it is is everywhere. That is all I got from this movie.

It's often said that Japanese horror is much more subtle and leaves more to the mind than western horror - this might have been a little much for me. I really don't have much to say about it. Perhaps a second round of viewing is necessary, but I feel kind of done with it.

I can't deny that it was pretty damn creepy at times, though. But Pulse/Kairo is skippable, unless you are really into Japanese horror.

Vocabulary (click on kanji for stroke order from Kanji-a-Day.com):

コンピューター (konpyuutaa): computer
何 (nani): what (as in...WHAT??!!!??)
幽霊 (yuurei): ghost

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Learning through song!

If I have to have it stuck in my head, you do, too.

But seriously, songs are a great way to learn/memorize Japanese. Will you ever forget what "ひつじ" (hitsuji) is, now? I think not!


A little more useful - the Japanese Alphabet song:



If you're new to learning hiragana and katakana and are having trouble memorizing them, Genki-Online has flash charts that show stroke order and sound out each syllable when you click them. Very cool!

Hiragana chart
Katakana chart

More songs can be found at genkienglish.net (not related to Genki-Online) or on their YouTube account (tons of other cool videos on their website, too!)

Vocabulary (click the kanji for stroke order from Kanji-a-Day.com):

歌う (utau): to sing
ビデオ (bideo): video
アルファベット (arufabetto): alphabet
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