Japan

As you guys might know that I’m a Japan freak. I just love Japan and would like to travel there some where in future. Recently, Ruben Frosali are so kind to share his point of view of Japan with his photo blog ReallyJapan. His photos are creative and very different from other Japan photos I saw before. I really like the photos and would like to share with readers here.

Ruben is Italian but now lives and works in Japan. Equipped with a Nikon D80 with Nikkor and Sigma lenses, plus his unique photo taking sense, he captured photos mixed of Japan street urban environments and people that giving a surrealistic, imaginative, humorous and realistic kind of feeling. To be honest, I was amazed by the photos shown on ReallyJapan when first time visit the site. Bravo Ruben! Your photos are cool! Below are some of the photos showcased and be sure to visit the site to view more photos! Besides, you can also check out new stock images at DepositPhotos.com.

Teen girls in Chinatown

Young mommy and her daughter

Future Landscape

Airport Stereo-type

Aliens flying over Ueno park

Post header: Yatai in Ueno

Ok, finally a J-drama related post :P. Watching Japanese Drama is been my hobby for several years since Densha Otoko. I like to watch is because I can learn Japanese language as well as getting know Japan better. For this Spring season J-drama, I learnt three things and would like to share here.

Japanese birth rate is among the world lowest

I know this after watching the first episode of CHANGE starring Takuya Kimura. Actually after doing some research on the net, I only know that this problem was long existed. Podcast (episode 22 I think) from Japancast.net had covered this, and so do BBC. According to Wikipedia, Japanese birth rate is actually ranked at the bottom of the world birth rate chart. There is just 8.3 births per 1000 people. And according to World Factbook, Japan’s death rate is even higher than birth rate. So this is really a serious issue because their population is declining and the population of young generation will decrease too.

KY – Kuki Yomenai

This is the current trendy slang in Japan – KY (pronounce as KayWai). I get to know this when watching Aoi Yuu’s drama Osen. KY is abbreviation of Kuki Yomenai (空気よめない), literally means cannot read the air, and the real meaning is describing a person that unable to read a situation. Discover Japan! blog has pretty good explanation of this slang. So next time when your friend doesn’t read the situation, you can shout to him “KY!” 😀

Koshien (甲子園) – The god place for high school baseball tournament

I’m not really into baseball stuff but I keep hearing this when watching the manga come drama ROOKIES. Koshien is the short description of Hanshin Koshien Stadium. It’s home court for Hanshin Tigers, and it also held two big high school baseball tournament annually – One is National High School Baseball Championship, played in August, and second is National High School Baseball Invitational Tournament in March, which is a smaller, invitational tournament. Both tournaments are generally known simply as Kōshien. The highschool baseball players look Koshien as a dream stadium to play. I don’t have many idea on this but from the drama and some research, Koshien is a symbolism of the Japanese high school baseball.

Basically this is it! And sorry for lacking in posting in J-drama related stuff, because I think you can get many of the info at d-addicts, Jdorama forum or Tokyograph. But in the future if I found something interesting, I will still make a post of it. 😀

First of all, sorry for the lack of updates on this site because I’m quite sick for these few days and still haven’t fully recover yet. Well, last few days I stumbled upon on this article about “Learn 35+ Languages for Free in Itunes” and discover that actually I can also learn Japanese language for free besides attending classes.

What you need to do is first download and install the Itunes player. Then launch it and go to the Itunes Store, and search for “Japanese Language” or “Learn Japanese”, and you will get a list of free podcasts on Japanese language lessons. There is a lot out there and I’m so amazed. I actually downloaded some episodes especially from JapanesePod101 and Japancast. It’s very educational and entertaining, and the quality of the podcasts are very good and I learn a lot from the lessons.

Extra: Display furigana above kanji

Japanese language uses a lot of kanji where sometimes I found hard to identify or read them. But these two FireFox extensions helped me out by displaying furigana on top of the kanji. The first one is Furigana Injector 0.71, and another is XHTML Ruby Support 2.1.2008040101.

It’s very helpful to Japanese learners like me, but somehow I found some display error like the picture above, the “母” was supposed to read as “haha (はは)”, but it shows as “kaka (かか)”. Article was taken from Japanese Wikipedia on Mother’s Day.

Happy Mother’s Day

Last and never forgetting, today is Mother’s Day. Here I wishes “Happy Mother’s Day” to my mom and all the mothers in the world, thanks for all the support and caring for all these years. Here, I dedicated the song “Mother” by SEAMO to all the Jay-han.com blog readers out there and wish you all having a Happy Mother’s Day too 😀

In Japan, there are a series of holidays from late April to early May which they call it as “Golden Week”. During Golden Week, many companies are closing to let their employees to have a long nice rest and many Japanese people are going off for long vacation. So during this period of time, leisure-based industries will be very busy and all flights and hotel rooms will be fully booked!

The Golden Week kicks off in April 30th which is Greenery Day until the 5th of May where the Japanese celebrates Children’s Day. A specific Golden Week holidays are listed below, cited from Wikipedia:

Golden Week

April 29

• Emperor’s Birthday (天皇誕生日, Emperor’s Birthday), until 1988
• Greenery Day, or Nature Day (みどりの日, Midori no hi), from 1989 until 2006
• Shōwa Day (昭和の日, Shōwa no hi), from 2007

May 3

• Constitution Memorial Day (憲法記念日, Kenpō kinenbi)

May 4

• holiday† (国民の休日, Kokumin no kyūjitsu), from 1985 until 2006
• Greenery Day, or Nature Day (みどりの日, Midori no hi) (from 2007)

May 5

• Children’s Day (こどもの日, Kodomo no hi), also customarily known as Boys’ Day (端午の節句, Tango no sekku).

Many Japanese take paid time off on the intervening work days, but some companies also close down completely and give their employees time off. Golden week is the longest vacation period of the year for many Japanese jobs. According to P. Sean Bramble, the author of CultureShock! Japan:

The Golden Week is always gorgeous: warm sunshine and without any oppressive humidity. Many people if they take a vacation at all, will take it as this time, with the result being that public transport is clogged with vacationers and air ticket prices increase dramatically.

So, I think if want to travel to Japan, it is better to avoid this period of time because the streets of Japan is flooded with vacationers and no more hotel rooms available! To know how is 2008’s Golden Week and 2009’s Golden Week locate in the calendar, you can visit the Japan Guide’s article on Golden Week.

Finally, Happy Golden Week to all Japanese people out there!

I always had a question when checking a drama’s rating, why they split it into two categories which is Kanto region and Kansai region? I also came across these two terms when watching dramas where it sounds like there is big difference between them. What is Kanto and Kansai and what is their history?

I found a useful PDF document called “Kanto vs Kansai” from jpf.org.au where it explains the history, dialect, food difference between them. Well generally Kanto represents Tokyo and its surrounding area while Kansai was formed of Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe. You can read more at above or click here if it does not load.

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Japan is one country that really loves ranking. One of the ranking that I want to share is the latest edition of “Scholar Idol Ranking” which rank the current hottest top 100 female idols in three age categories: Under-25 (U-25), Under-20 (U-20) and Under-15 (U-15). From the chart shows that Aoi Miyazaki, Yui Aragaki, Narumi Riko crowns the top spot of each category.

This ranking basically reflects on how active one idol’s in that particular year, how much exposure and the popularity gain that she received. For example, an idol who breaks out in many fields like commercial, movie, music, or even sports will likely getting higher rank than other who is not. There are so many idols in Japan and getting the top 100 is no easy job. Congratulations who entered the chart and let’s check out who is in. Continue reading