How Westerners view the case of Asashoryu

The phrase "Japanese spirits" sounds very stinky.

I don't like sumo. But, I was wondering how Westerners would think about the case of Asashoryu. I found an essay written by one of them. Basically, I agree with him.

According to the Japan Times:

Sunday, Sept. 30, 2007
Asashoryu fiasco illustrates incompetence of
sumo's leaders

Case closed?

Well, not quite like the JSA wanted.

Instead of a repentant yokozuna, it got a seriously depressed one who required medical treatment, resulting in days of more negative coverage of the sumo community.

It was another instance of the JSA's seriously backward ways.

The people who run the organization are old and antiquated in their thinking, and were more concerned with making an example out of Asashoryu, than taking into account the overall welfare of the sport.

Singer Gil Scott-Heron once said: "America loves to live in the past, even if it was only last week."

Well, it seems as if the JSA is still living in another century-- the 19th. The handling of Asashoryu's case illustrates this.

The Mongolian isn't the first 26-year-old who has done something unwise, and won't be the last, but it seems evident to me that he has been treated unfairly.

He most certainly has a different temperament than the foreign yokozuna (Akebono, Musashimaru) who came before him. So expecting him to act like they did is illogical.

Some people may not like that, but that's the way it is.

The prevailing opinion from the Japanese critics of Asashoryu centers around why he can't behave like the Japanese rikishi do.

But that is precisely the point ? Asashoryu is not Japanese. Expecting him to act Japanese is not realistic.

The punishment in this case clearly did not fit the alleged crime.

Back in December of 2000, maegashira Toki hit and killed a pedestrian while driving in Osaka. It was sad enough that somebody died as a result of his carelessness, but it didn't help matters that sumo wrestlers are prohibited from driving while still active.

Nevertheless, Toki, who is Japanese, was suspended for just one tournament for his negligence.

Seems like a bit of a double standard, doesn't it?

There will be those who say, "The yokozuna has to be held to a higher
standard."

I wonder what would have happened if Asashoryu's alleged transgression had been committed by a Japanese yokozuna?

That would be impossible now, because there hasn't been a Japanese yokozuna for more than 4 1/2 years, since Takanohana retired in January 2003.

Which brings us back to the JSA. Let's face it, folks, if sumo continues on its current course, it is on the road to oblivion.

The vacuum in leadership and vision in the organization is immense. Tickets sales and television ratings continue to decline for the six major tournaments held each year.

For years the official JSA Web site stated openly, almost proudly, "No English is spoken in our office."

Boy, that's really progressive, isn't it?

The J. League and Nippon Professional Baseball both have several staff who can speak English. But the sumo guys just don't get it.

What is even more worrisome is the lack of interest shown by the Japanese youth in sumo. It is often referred to as "Japan's national sport," but I don't think that is anywhere close to the truth now.

I will bet there are a lot of kids on the street who could not tell you the name of the two current yokozuna, but they could surely tell you who Ichiro and Hideki Matsui are.

Sumo still contains a great allure for those outside the country. It is synonymous with Japan and serves as a great ambassador for the nation.

But if the sumo elders don't get their act together quickly, the sport will continue on its downward spiral, which would be a real tragedy.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/sp20070930jg.html

Why has the pro baseball become unpopular?

According to The Yomiuri Shimbun:

The Dragons fell two full games behind the Yomiuri Giants, whose magic number to clinch the Central League pennant dropped to two. The Giants are idle until their final home games of the regular season on Oct. 2 and 3.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/sports/20070929TDY24002.htm

Japanese pro baseball is getting less popular, although both the CL and PL are showing close games. Some people say that one of the reasons why Japanese pro baseball has become unpopular is that some superstars are playing in MLB. But, I don't think it's a main reason.

According to USA TODAY:

BOSTON (AP)-- The 12-year wait for the Boston Red Sox is over. At last,
they're the AL East champions.

Moments after the Baltimore Orioles beat the New York Yankees 10-9 in 10 innings, completing Boston's clinch, Red Sox players popped champagne corks in their clubhouse while thousands of fans jumped up and down in nearly empty Fenway Park.

...Daisuke Matsuzaka had set up the celebration with eight strong innings against the Twins. He won for just the second time since early August and David Ortiz homered for the fourth time in seven games.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/2007-09-28-red-sox-twins-clinch_N.htm

There's nothing you can call "perfect."

Nobody is perfect. And so is he.

According to the Japan Times:

At Yokohama Stadium, Yuki Yoshimura doubled home the winning run off ace closer Kyuji Fujikawa in the bottom of the 10th as the BayStars sent spiraling Hanshin to its sixth defeat in a row.

Shuichi Murata reached on a single to left with one out and after Fujikawa
struck out Takahiro Saeki, Yoshimura hit a full-count forkball off the right-hander to deep left for the "sayonara" victory.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/sb20070926j1.html

http://sports.yahoo.co.jp/fc/hanshin_tigers/

Okada, the Tigers Manager, didn't accuse Fujikawa of being unable to keep the team win twice. Probably, he is right because Fujikawa has been used too frequently since the last three weeks. However, Okada shouldn't have accused the starters and batters, I think. Any member of the team knows too much about relying on the JFK and it can't be helped, you know. Okada's accusing words may freak the team out rather than motivating them.

language matters in Japan

As soon as I got up, I went out to buy the Japan Times. It's Sunday. Help Wanted Ads was on the paper. That's what most English-speaking jobseekers in Tokyo do. There was nothing interesting. But, it is not unusual. Today, the things are worse. The paper announced that the price of the Japan Times will be 180 yen (1.50$) per copy from the current 150 yen on October 1st and later, which let me down a bit.

Today's issue was good, though. There's some articles about language.

Japanese: A language in a state of flux

...one may use loanwords just to show off -- despite there being plenty of Japanese expressions to convey the same meaning -- the other may not understand a word rooted in another language. In other words, communication is being lost -- not in translation, but because of no translation.

This is very true.

...Unlike kanji, which are ideograms whose combinations can convey intricate nuances of meaning, katakana characters are phonograms, meaning they convey only the sound of a word -- though their Japanized pronunciations often bear little resemblance to those of the English originals. It's also not unusual for imported words to take on different meanings in Japanese, such as ridusu (derived from "reduce"), which in Japanese refers only to "reducing"-- in other words, cutting down-- the amount of garbage we create.

I just didn't know that to "reduce" means to "cut down" in Japanese. Probably, my Japanese isn't that good.

But, the best part of the article is this:

Perhaps the next prime minister of Japan can demonstrate linguistic, as well as political, leadership. Whoever that person is, he would have to do better than his predecessor, Shinzo Abe, who, despite his nationalist policies and his "Beautiful Japan" slogan, often sprinkled his speeches with katakana jargon.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070923x1.html

The same page contained a different article by the same author:

"The English alphabet seems to be preferred because katakana phrases are ubiquitous and so they no longer sound fresh," Ito said. "When you consider the size of English-language school chains, and the fact that so many Japanese are studying English, few people find it odd to find English around them any more."

As a result, some movie titles and newspaper headlines today include "the" and "in" between Japanese words, although the grammatical concept of articles and prepositions has never existed in Japanese, Ito said. "It is quite a big deal (if everybody starts using those words), because it means Japanese grammar is changing as well."

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070923x3.html

I have to admit that the current Japanese is influenced by English. However, that change has never contributed to Japanese people's English language skills.

Surprisingly, today's issue had another article about the Japanese language. The article below explains Japanese idioms that contain "stomach," referring to Takashi Saito's book. He is well-known, but he hasn't reached the level of being called a popular linguist, such as William Safire or Deborah Tannen, I think.

Linguists gutted by body-talk blight
Traditional expressions are dying out as thought patterns change


On this point, Saito says: " 'Hara ga dekite iru' refers to having a calm mind even in times of urgency ? meaning someone who is able to deal with any situation calmly." To put this in its cultural context, he explained: "In the past in Japan, training in Zen or the martial arts strengthened your spirit and allowed you to keep your presence of mind even in the face of death."

It seems like he wants to connect expressions with "stomach" with Japan's traditions. I suspect that few old Japanese had the spirits of Zen or the other martial arts. Also, there's still many phrases that contain "stomach" in modern Japanese.

For example, "hara ga suwatteiru" literally means "stomach is sitting." It means "emotionally stable."

Also, some English idioms contain the word "stomach" in them:

turn sb's stomach: to make sb upset or sick

have butterflies in my stomach: to get nervous

This point is said in this article too.

...However, Japanese do not own the copyright on this line of thinking. In English, too, there are various phrases that make use of this central part of
the body.

...In Japanese, many other terms using hara still exist. There is, for example, hara wo kimeru, literally meaning "decide in your stomach," which denotes that you have made a firm resolution. Then there's hara-guroi, literally meaning "black stomach," an adjectival phrase for someone who is evil-minded.

Are you obsessed with something?

I watched a movie named "the Commitments" (1991). This movie describes youngsters in Dublin who makes a band, which I think is good. I guess anyone who wants to be a artist, such as a musician, writer, and actor, has got a strong ego that irritates others. And if these people get together to accomplish one goal, there will be a lot of trouble. This movie reminds me of a group meeting of school paper editors I belonged to when I was a high school student. Although they were not artistic, most people in the group had strong egos and arguments. I just observed them and always wondered why they needed to be that excited.

Dubliners who engaged in making a soul band

Probably if you are like them, you don't know why I'm talking about now. Well, I couldn't be like them because I wasn't able to be absorbed in editing school papers, which didn't look that cool. But, at the same time, I envied them because I knew that it is a previledge of young people to get crazy about something, whatever it is. In a way, my youth was already gone even when I was in high school. That sucked.

You can't learn anything about your life from detective stories.

I finished reading Yusuke Higuchi's A Good-For-Nothing Fellow last night. Not bad. However, I didn't find myself obsessed with his novels as much as I used to be. I don't know why. Probably people around me would say it is because I has become too old. Yeah, people can't stop getting old and becoming old means giving up a lot that excites you.

Anyway, this book was based on his other book, which is written ten years ago. However, he changed the main character into one of the heroes he created, Sohei Yuzuki. Anyway, Yuzuki is kind of a girl who appears in the novels of Raymond Chandler, Micheal Z. Lewin, and so on.

I am a fan of detective stories, and I know that there's a kind of group of people who are fond of hard-boiled mysteries. I don't say that I hate to read those novels, but I don't want myself to be like heroes in those novels, which don't seem to be cool.

Gotta have some nookie!?

According to the Mainichi Daily News, Ai Iijima said:

"I was thinking the other day that ever since my life started, it has lacked sensuality," Shukan Asahi quotes Iijima posting on her blog. "I haven't got a boyfriend. I haven't even got a sex friend. Oh my god, I'm dying for a bit. I've just got to have some nooky."

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/waiwai/face/news/20070831p2g00m0dm006000c.html

In this article, Iijima was called "sex camel." Anyway, I don't understand why her banal comment has become sensational or interesting. Although some people may have thought that she is very honest or brunt, she seems to be cleverer than they think. Probably she put the comment on her blog knowingly in order to get some public attention.

For ESL learners, "nookie," or "nooky" means sexual intercourse.

Spellcheck? Why is it necessary? Hmm... maybe you could avoid an accident like this...

Sometime we feel like this: "Spellcheck? It is a waste of time. Who cares?" However, sometimes missspelling will bring big trouble.

English Translation of a news article in Japan:

Misstyped for invitation letters regarding Emperor family members' visit: "bad emperor" for "bad weather"

Akita prefecture announced that a staff member was fired because of sending invitation letters with missspelling, and that the head of the department the staff belonged to was also reprimanded.

According to the department, what happened was because of misstyping and the staff was in such a letter and he didn't wait for check by his boss. He sent 181 invitation letters to people who would see them off before the Emperor and Empress left for Tokyo. Out of the 18l letters, 21 letters contained the phrase "bad emperor" instead of "bad weather."

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20070918-00000141-jij-soci

Japan's English education industry is in danger.

About ten days ago, I talked with a Japansee lady who's got an American husband and some children. She said that she want to have their children go to an "international school," where they are educated in the English language. And I am very surprised by the fact that they have got to pay more than 3,000,000 yen per year for tuition (probably, much more. She said that she would have to pay donation as well).

Not only international schools but also cram schools, which intend to teach practical tips to pass the entrance exams, are a booming market. Anyway, parents expect their children to have good education, although I think that their expectations are too much at times.

Compared with the two industries above, Japan's English teaching industry is in danger. Some Eikaiwa (English conversation) schools are closed and English teachers are losing their jobs.

Incompetent teachers need to give up teaching. However, it is kind of sad that some Japanese EFL teachers who acquired English language skills and teaching skills after a lot of time and efforts are losing their jobs and some people who acquired English just because they have studied at an international school is appreciated as a "bilingual and intelligent".

Japanese blog

Some of my Japanese friends told me that I should write in Japanese more often. However, I don't want to write Japanese on this blog site any more just because I've felt that the blog written in the two languages doesn't look beautiul. Therefore, I decide to have another blog site that I will write in Japanese.

http://outre2007.exblog.jp/

Furuta leaves the Swallows.

These two are really good. But, their team is...

Yakult Swallows reported on 17th that Fukuta will announce his resignation of the team both as a player and the manager. Despite the fact that there are some players with .300, including the leading hitter Norichika Aoki, and Greisinger who has been gaining the best wins, the team is at the bottom. So, it can't be helped, I think.

Furuta was thought to be a very intelligent player and a prospective manager. He is not doing a good job as a manager now. Probably, playing in the team is totally different than managing the team.

Actors and generations

I drank with my friend at Shinjuku last night. He said, "Juliette Binoche has become old." He also referred to Jodie Foster, who has been in the movies for ages. He might have wanted to mention that time goes so fast.

Juliette Binoche was in "Trois Couleurs (Three Colors)" trilogy (1993/1994)

Actually, I've never felt that I belong to any particular generation. So, I don't have any pop culture that makes me think about my age. I like many actors and books that are generally thought to represent an era.
I know that Jodie Foster is a very famous actor. But, I don't know which movie is thought to be the one.

Hayden Panettiere in "Heroes" is just eighteen. Also, Michelle Trachten berg in "Ice Princess" is a young and prospective actor.

Even so, it must be true that more and more young talented actors are taking positions of older actors. I think that you don't have to think about actors' ages that much, though. you can just enjoy them acting in the movies regardless of how old the actors are as long as they are good movies. I recommend Woody Allen's "Match Point." In the movie, Scarlett Johansson is good.

I don't know how many times I recommend this movie, but this movie is really good. Not only Scarlett Johansson but also other actors are very contibuting to the whole plot.

Be aware of the atmosphre? Who cares?

I never support Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who announced his resignation on Wednesday. However, I don't like to hear people use the term "Be aware of the atmosphere," to describe how little he understands what Japanese people really want.

I believe that you should be assertive in public. To make others understand what you feel, you've got to tell them that. It's not fair to say "that's not what I want" without stating your intention.

The Japanese society requires its nations to acquire the skills to be aware of the atmosphere more often than the other societies are. Although some may say this is the virtue of Japan, I believe that this rediculous custom is making our life uncomfortable. It seems that Japan will be better if we are able to state our opinions freely.

As you know, Mr. Abe's case doesn't apply to "Be aware of the atomosphere" situations. Simply, he didn't listen to people around him and Japanese citizens.

Some news I can't make a comment about

Although there's a bunch of news that intersts me, I don't know what to comment. For example, there's this news about a flight attendant and her outfit. I would say that she can wear whatever she wants for her free time, but not for a flight. But, I think this comment is too general.

Evan Rachel Wood has got it going on!?

I watched this movie, which was good. It's hard to tell why it was good, though. I guess what makes this movie good was how it describes main characters. The way Tobe, the heroine, gets tired of her boring life was pretty much real, and how she meets Harlan, a drifter who will be a psycho, was natural also. Also, Harlan's phycology is well described.

Evan Rachel Wood is doing a really good job in this movie, I think.

Synopsis (MSN):

A romance between a teenage girl and a thirtysomething drifter takes the young woman down a dangerous and unexpected path in this independent drama. Tobe (Evan Rachel Wood) is a pretty 18-year-old whose father, Wade (David Morse), is the sheriff of a town in California's San Fernando Valley. Tobe is driving to the beach with some friends when she stops at a filling station and meets gas jockey Harlan (Edward Norton), who dresses like a cowpoke and claims to have recently relocated to Los Angeles from South Dakota. Harlan is immediately and obviously taken with Tobe, and when she asks him to tag along for the day, he impulsively quits his job to follow her. Tobe and Harlan soon become a couple, but Wade is convinced Harlan is not all he claims to be, and Tobe begins to wonder if her father might be right when Harlan takes her horseback riding and their date is cut short after police inform them the horses have been stolen from an rancher (Bruce Dern) whom Harlan claims is a friend - and who promptly turns up with a gun to confront both of them, insisting that he has never seen Harlan before. Tobe's suspicions grow when Harlan offers to teach her little brother, Lonnie (Rory Culkin), how to shoot using a pair of real .45 revolvers, as his actions become less charming and more worrisome. Leading man Edward Norton also served as producer on this project. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie.aspx?m=565508&mp=syn

Stereotypes don't fade away.

Most Westerners still seem to believe that the Japanese have characteristics some Japanologists such as Ruth Benedict referred to. I doubt that many Japanese youngsters have a national sense of patience or self-control.

According to International Herald Tribune (9/11/07):

Some say that a national sense of gaman (that suffering in silence is a virtue) and a feeling of guilt by World War II survivors contribute to the resistance to using morphine to help ease suffering.

How to relax

Japanese people use many English words. They use them differently than native speakers of English do, though. Below is an article written by an American who has been living in Japan for a long time. Although she is writing this article with humor, it still tells you the problem of Japanese-English.

According to the Japan Times:

JAPAN LITE
Japanese-English holds key to Japan

Amy Chavez

....This got me to thinking seriously about the meaning of "relax" in Japan. It seems to be more of a feeling than an action, more an adjective than a verb. And it is momentary: a daydream here, a green label there, relationships with cute little thingamajigs. Even the new Starbucks bags advertise their azuki frappucino with, "Taste the day dream." When I think about it, these animal pillows were probably not made for beds at all. They were made for Japanese who like to sleep at their desks in their offices. These are desk pillows. For daydreaming.

...To me, the meaning of "relax" is a bit more drawn out, such as sitting on the front porch enjoying a cool summer evening. Shorter things, such as daydreaming at your desk or having a frappucino are moments taken to refresh yourself. But people in Japan rarely sit outside and enjoy a summer evening.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20070908cz.html

By the way, here are the definitions of "relax" (verb) in some dictionaries:

to become lax, weak, or loose (Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th Ed)
to feel calm and comfortable and stop worrying, or to make someone do this (Longman Advanced American Dictionary, 2nd Ed)
to make or become less worried or tense; to spend time not doing very much (Oxford Dictionary of American English)
If you relax or if something relaxes you, you feel more calm and less worried or tense. (Collins Cobuild Advanced Dictionary of American English)

Of course, your life is occupied with text messages in your cell phone. You're not relaxing...

some questions about language

Even in Japan, the news about Madeleine MaCann's Case is very drawing public attention. I went to Guardian Unlimited to know how it is reported in the UK. And two parts of an article in there took my attention linguistically.

According to Guardian Unlimited:

Exhausted and under suspicion, Madeleine's family come home
Esther Addley

Monday September 10, 2007

.... "Whilst it is heartbreaking to return to the UK without Madeleine, it does not mean we are giving up our search for her," Mr McCann said. "As parents we cannot give up on our daughter until we know what has happened."

.... "Kate and Gerry are just happy to be back at home. They have been through three or four of the most difficult days in their lives. They are tired, very tired. If it was me, I would be absolutely shattered."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2165720,00.html

I didn't know the word "whilst," which is used as a conjunction like "while" and "although."

Also, I found a subjunctive sentence that contains "was" instead of "were." Although it is very obvious that native speakers often use "was" when they speak. But, Japanese EFL learners, especially middle school and high school students, are often annoyed by their English teachers about this usage.

Better Vocabulary

For non-native speakers of English (maybe native speakers too?), learning new English words is permanent work.

There's many reference books about vocabulary. And some of them may contain the words most frequently tested on some standardized exams such as TOEIC, TOEFL, SAT, ACT, and GRE. However, it is not easy to memorize the words in those books. Although it is becoming a classic, Word Power Made Easy by Norman Lewis is still superior to other books in this respect. That's why I'm reading this book now.

Make a girlfriend?

"I'm looking for a boy like Koichi" is a correct sentence. But, "I'm making a boy like Tsuyoshi" is rather strange.

In Japanese, people say "Make a girlfriend/boyfriend" (Kanojo/Kareshi wo tsukuru). In English, people usually say "find a girlfriend/boyfriend." As you know, a girlfriend/boyfriend is not what you will create. But, whey do the Japanese use this expression? Maybe, they need to make some efforts to find a girlfriend/boyfriend.

Well, but if you were a mad scientist who could make a human being, this sentence would totally make sense. Jessica Alba isn't human in "Dark Angel."

Murder based on a story

This is like a movie or a novel. A mystery writer commited a crime based on his own story.

According to the Independent

Guilty of murder, the author who based novel on his crime

By Peter Pophamin Rome
Published: 06 September 2007

A Polish author, travel writer and intellectual whose best-selling novel described a grisly murder has been jailed for 25 years for committing the crime he had so vividly portrayed. The killing of Dariusz Janiszewski in 2000 was notably gruesome. The victim – a successful, popular professional – was humiliated, starved and tortured, before having his hands bound with a rope that was looped around his neck in a noose.

When fishermen scooped the body out of the river Oder, it was stripped to shirt and underpants and the limbs had been distended and bore marks of torture. The police had no leads and after six months the search for a culprit was abandoned.

But the murderer could not resist gloating over his cleverness. During the investigation, anonymous emails were sent from South Korea and Indonesia to Polish television's equivalent of Crimewatch, describing the killing as "the perfect crime".

Those were just straws in the wind. But fully five years after the killing, the detective in charge of the investigation, Chief Inspector Jacek Wroblewski, received an anonymous call suggesting he take a look at a novel entitled Amok, written by Krystian Bala and published two years earlier. Ch Insp
Wroblewski read the book several times. The similarities with the murder of Dariusz Janiszewski were too strong to be ignored.

In the book, a group of bored intellectuals finds distraction from the monotony of their lives in sex, drugs, alcohol – and murder. Their victim is first tortured, then has her hands and wrists bound with a length of rope that is then passed round her neck. Details of the Janiszewski murder that were never publicised were duplicated in the novel.

The victim's body was dragged from a river in Wroclaw. The Oder, where Mr Janiszewski was found, flows through the city.

After Bala's arrest in 2005, friends and supporters launched appeals on the Web, claiming he had been "kidnapped and physically abused" by police and falsely accused of murder. Amok, they said, was "strong" in language and content, and "there are several metaphors that might be considered against the Catholic Church and Polish tradition."

Bala told police his inspiration for the story came from press reports, while the bits not mentioned in the media, which happened to be the most gruesome, came straight from his imagination. After three days, the author was set free. In outrage, Bala told his supporters that the detectives "seemed to know my book by heart. The police were treating the book as if it was a literal autobiography rather than a piece of fiction."

Ch Insp Wroblewski and his team of investigators were unconvinced. Digging further they found new links between the crime and the author. Bala, an experienced diver, had been on diving trips to South Korea, Indonesia and Japan when the mystery emails describing the murder as "the perfect crime" arrived in Poland . Investigators found the victim's mobile phone had been sold on the internet four days after his disappearance, from an account in Bala's name. The author had no answer to that. Bala acknowledged he used the name Chris when outside Poland –the name of the murderer in Amok.

Judge Lidia Hojenska said Bala was driven to kill Mr Janiszewski because he believed he had had an affair with the novelist's estranged wife. There was insufficient evidence to prove that Bala carried out the murder himself, she said, but sufficient to prove he "committed the crime of leading the killing ... He was the initiator of the murder; his role was leading and planning it."
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2934346.ece

Is she really popular in Taiwan?

I found a small article about Vivian Hsu a couple of days ago. It seems like she is not as popular in Taiwan as in Japan. My friend in Taiwan told me that she didn't have a lot of carrer before leaving for Japan.

May be she is like Paul Auster. And again, it's not a bad thing.

American pop culture only for Japanese

When I lived in Missouri, I realized that there's so many things Japanese people don't know in the United States. But, at the same time, I came to know that Americans don't know something about the United States that most Japanese people know. For example, in Japan, everybody who likes mystery novels knows Ellery Queen, an American writer. His name is not that popular in the US. Some old people may have seen the drama series, but few Americans have read "Tragedy of Y," which is a must for Japanese mystery fans.

Also, American writers who are translated into Japanese by Motoyuki Shibata, a guru of translation, aren't read by young American litterary people. Basically, they prefer classics, such as Steinbeck, Twain, Hemingway, and Vonnegut.

It's not a bad thing. Also, most Westerners know much more about classical Japanese than Japanese youngsters.