March 27, 2003 - 9:16 AM
Wes Ehrlichman

I haven't directly updated in just over 2 weeks, but I have been gradually changing a few things about the site. I created a local messageboard because the site that hosts my messageboard was down for a while. Now it's back up though, so I've switched back to the one hosted by that site. I also changed the arrow colors on several of the pages to the snazzy blue red and yellow ones that you see to your right. Most interestingly though, I made an advertisement for my site.

I don't honestly think this advertisement will ever make it onto any other sites. I mainly just wanted another excuse to mess around with Flash. At any rate, you can check out the advertisement at a later date in the Links section of the site. If you want to slap the ad up on your site let me know and I'll give you the required HTML.

OK. Now that that's out of the way I can talk about something interesting. Hmm. Got no ideas today so I'll just talk about my bout of culture shock, brought about the blatant stereotyping that goes on in Japan. In America we usually try to be subtle about stereotypes, but in Japan they just come right out and say them because many people here honestly seem to think that stereotypes are a 100% accurate representation of whatever culture they are referring to.

Without getting into of my own personal stories just yet I'll talk about something that was pointed out to me in my video games class in college. In the original Street Fighter 2, which was subtitled "The World Warriors" there were 8 characters all with varying backstories.

1 Ryu: martial arts master from Japan
2 Ken: Ryu's reckless American rival
3 E Honda: a Sumo Wrestler from Japan
4 Dhalsim: a yoga master from India who breathes fire because he eats too much curry
5 Guile: an American Army Man. Fighting to uncover information on a lost friend and fellow soldier
6 Chun Li: a Chinese girl whose backdrop is a bustling Chinese market, complete with bicyclers
7 Blanka: a Brazilian who looks like a huge green monster with red hair
8 Zangief: a physically strong Russian. His background is a Russian factory complete with factory workers drinking vodka.

The one thing that all of these characters have in common is the fact that they are all blatantly stereotypical of people in the part of the world that they're from!

Keep that in mind as I relate these stories to you:

Story 1: Blood type is everything

A few weeks ago in my Thursday night English conversation club (Eikaiwa) I came unprepared as always. Luckily I brought along Sue from the town over as a sort of show and tell. She's from England so I wanted to talk about what words were different between American English and British English (this could be a whole nother topic, so I won't go into it right here). Two students showed up at the beginning of class and another one came about half way through. One of the students brought her two sons with her too. I'm pretty sure they're both her sons, but one of them might just be one of her son's friends. They usually bring Yugioh cards or Go, but that night one of them brought a gameboy and the other one brought a toy gun that looked exactly like the real thing. Somehow this toy gun kept one of the kids entertained for an entire hour and a half.

The legendary English Yugioh Card...

That night, rather than focusing on the difference between American and British English we ended up just talking about lots of random things, including superstitions. Having played a lot of video games I've noticed that characters' blood types are always mentioned in character profiles. I had heard that there's a superstition in Japan saying that blood types are associated with different personality types.

This was our conversation in a nutshell:

"What does blood type mean in Japan?" I said.

"What is blood type?" they said.

I pointed at my arm. "For example, A, B, AB..."

"Ohhhh, ketsuekigata," they said, obviously ignoring the English equivalent. "Ketsuekigata... hmmm."

"Type A is hard worker to omoimasu," one of them said.

"Most Japanese people are type A," the other one said.

Blood type A?

"Type B means that you are shy. I think most Japanese people are type B," they said.

"Type AB is rare, it means Kind," They said.

I chucked a bit. "What's type O?" I asked.

"Type O means you are loud and not shy."

"I'm type O," one of them said very loudly.

"I can see that," I said.

"What is your blood type?" one of them asked.

"I don't know my blood type," I said.

They were shocked. In Japan everyone knows their own blood type.

"I'm probably whatever most Americans are," I said.

"Most Americans are type O," they said.

Blood type O?

So basically it's safe to assume that all Americans are type O because Americans are really loud...

This was funny, but it wasn't quite the funniest part. We kept talking about blood type for a while and I tried to teach them the word superstition. I typed it into my electronic dictionary and showed them the screen.

They didn't seem to understand.

"No no, kenkyuu," they said.

"Huh?" I handed them my dictionary and they typed it in. This is what they handed back.

research

So apparently they think that the blood type thing is completely researched and infallible. Great.

Story 2: Japanese schools are very safe

When I don't have classes I usually just hang out in the teacher's room and pretend to be busy (actually I brought my computer into work and that's where I'm typing this).

A few weeks ago I was making myself a cup of coffee and one of the teachers decided to start some small talk.

"Japanese schools are very safe aren't they," he said.

Do we look safe to you?

"I don't know about that..." I replied. "The kids are always wrestling in between classes. As soon as the bell rings the kids jump up out of their seats and go nuts. There are also kids that sleep in class or do homework from other classes while you're trying to teach and they don't get in trouble or even try to hide it." (All of this is true by the way)

"Yes... but in America students have pistols..."

At this point I went into a big diatribe about how that's only on TV, and that in America maybe once every 5 years someone in a middle school is found with a pistol, and that I've never even seen one in real life. I know this won't change his mind though. Because of TV many Japanese people have a set opinion of America as this huge place where everyone has a gun in their back pocket at all times. They picture LA as the most dangerous place in the world. I guess it can't be helped, but every time I hear one of these things I wonder if it's worth having all of the guns on TV as entertainment because of the way it makes America look to the outside world. Grand Theft Auto 3 hasn't come out here in Japan yet and probably never will. Thinking about it I realize that this may actually be a very good thing. Not because I think they can't handle the pointless violence, but because some Japanese people just aren't capable of understanding the nature of the humor. Grand Theft Auto is full of jokes that sarcastically make fun of America's darker side. Part of what makes Grand Theft Auto both fun and humorous is the exaggerated extremity of the violence. Running over a prostitute to take her money in the game isn't portrayed as something heroic. It's portrayed as something absurdly funny. Even the kids in America who watch violent movies at a young age realize that the world of Grand Theft Auto 3 is not what the world is like. What it boils down to is that Japan doesn't understand sarcasm.

As you can see from the rant above, this started to make me a little bit upset. So I began to think about what American's stereotypes of Japanese people were. This made me feel a little better. And here we are with American's top 10 stereotypes of Japanese people!

#10. Japanese people are all good at math.
#9. Asian people all look the same.
#8. Japanese students are well behaved.
#7. Japanese people carry samurai swords.
#6. Asian people are all short.
#5. Japanese people love Karaoke.
#4. Japanese people eat only rice and fish.
#3. Japanese people are good with computers.
#2. Japanese men are all pedophiles.
#1. And the #1 Japanese stereotype is (drumroll please)... Japanese people all have small penises!

Is it true that Japanese people love this stuff?

Obviously to asssume any of these things about a person simply because of their race is to be blind to individuality. Which may just be at the core of why Japanese people tend to be stereotypical, Japanese people stress being a part of the group rather than being yourself. But then, this in and of itself is a stereotype, so maybe I'm just as bad...

Story 3: American made video games are simple

Elementary School Kids

As you may be able to tell by the title of this particular story, this one probably bothered me more than it should have. One afternoon just a week or so ago, I had just gotten out of class and was sitting in the teacher's room of an elementary school. Apparently the word that video games is my thing has gotten around because one of the teachers came up to me and says, "So you play a lot of video games don't you?" in a mixture of English and Japanese.

"I play my fair share," I said back in Japanese (when he didn't understand what I had said I repeated it in English and he got it).

"How many would you say that you have?" another teacher chimes in.

"Uhhh, I don't know. Too many to count," I say.

"One hundred?" he says.

"Maybe more...." I say.

"Wow," they say, not realizing that I've been playing games since I was 10 years old and to amass 100 games in 10 years is only like 10 games a year. Honestly I'm probably closer to five or six hundred...

"Have you played Romance of the Three Kingdoms?" The first teacher asks me in Japanese.

"I'm familiar with it yes, but I don't think I've played it," I said.

"What games do they make in America?" he asks me.

"Ummm, I don't know. Sports games like Football and Soccer, Jak and Daxter, things like that."

"Never heard of them," he says.

"What about Crash Bandicoot?" I say. "I heard he was popular here."

"Never heard of it," he says. "So, American games are simple aren't they?"

"Uhh, I don't know about that. Have you heard of Simcity?" I ask him.

"Yeah, I've heard the name but never played it," he says.

"Sim People?" (Japanese The Sims)

"No."

"Starcraft?"

"Wait. One more time?"

"Starcraft?"

"Umm, no."

"Hmmm." I tried to think of something that would maybe get him to understand what I was saying. "Well, in America computer games are more complicated and Playstation games are simpler," I said.

The other teacher broke in again. "Hey, I've seen computer games at the $1 store. Do you buy those?"

"Uhhh. No." I say.

"Well, we should get together and play games some time," the first teacher says. "Are you free Saturday and Sunday?"

"Wait, this Saturday and Sunday?" I ask.

"No, just Saturday and Sunday in general," he repeats, completely seriously.

"Uhh, sometimes," I say. "I'll give you my cell phone number," and I write down my cell phone number and hand it to him on the way out.

He has yet to call me, but if he does I guess we'll play some Japanese video games.

For some reason his perception that American video games are simple really bothered me. Maybe because of American pride and maybe because I'm hoping to get a job in the industry in America. The fact is that I'm here in Japan partially because of the video game scene, but the truth is that game sales here aren't growing very much, but actually becoming fairly stagnant. America and Europe are starting to get Japanese made games first, and the sequels to hit games are actually selling quite a bit better in America than in Japan. The new Gamecube Zelda is a good example of this. The first weekend's sales were 400000 copies. This week, Zelda came out in America and according to Nintendo there were 600000 presales, not including the people who just go in and pick up the game this weekend.

Weezer at the bowling alley

The gist of it is that I started importing most of my games from America. Why not? The amount of time for localization has decreased to almost nothing and they're in English. Japan's just now getting America's 2001 Playstation 2 releases Max Payne and Tony Hawk 3.

I guess this probably isn't interesting to most people who hit the site, but I wanted to say it. As a reward for reading this far I'll reveal a little embarrassing secret of mine. Last week I learned how to knit so I've been spending a few minutes a day knitting a little round yellow piece of knitted material. I say "knitted material" because I have no idea what it is. Here's a few pictures:

The best part is that I can do it at school under the guize of "studying Japanese Culture"

And finally I'd like to start another contest. This one anyone can participate in. Just e-mail me the name of the following song and the name of the artist who sings it. The winner will be announced on the website and will probably get something else.

Who sings this song?