Genki-bai!

Finally, an answer to something I should have figured out long ago, but didn't! What is the difference between the copula (sentence endings) ~tai (〜たい) and ~bai (〜ばい).

~tai (〜たい) is equivalent to ~da (〜だ) or ~desu (〜です) in standard Japanese and can be translated into Japanese as is/be.

~bai (〜ばい), on the other hand, has a similar meaning, but is used for emphasis. It is similar to ~dayo (〜だよ) or ~desu (〜ですよ). Like adding a "hurumph" to the end of your sentence.

The pictures were taken during the Dontaku Festival in May of 2005, shortly after our big earthquake in March of that year. The mascots and blimp-like balloons all say "Genki-bai!" (元気ばい!), meaning "We're (as if Fukuoka) are doing great!"

If Tony the Tiger were from Hakata, he would just say "They're grrrreat!" He's say, "They're grrrreat-bai!"

How the copula changes from region to region.

For more on Japanese dialects go here.

Harbingers of Spring

The Japanese will tell you that nothing quite heralds the coming of spring like the ume blossoms of February. In my opinion, however, there are no harbingers of the season better than the coveys of road construction crews, which can be spotted throughout country in the months leading up to April.

Easily recognizable by their white crowns and the vertical yellow stripes on their breasts and backs, the crews have a mating call that is quite distinct—ja-ja-ja-ja-jack, ja-ja-ja-ja-jack. The crews forage deep in the ground seemingly at random; and, having found what they are after, the will replace the top layer of earth with asphalt and quickly migrate off to only Mother Nature knows where.

Back in the days when I did a lot of translation work, there was a hackneyed phrase that I was often forced to render into English: utsukushii shizen ni megumareta (美しい胃自然に恵まれた, lit. “blessed with beautiful nature”). I would translate this in a variety of ways, such as “The prefecture is blessed with bountiful nature”; “The city is surrounded by an abundance of natural beauty”; or “The town is surrounded by beautiful nature.” Occasionally, I might slip something like “Located in an idyllic natural setting, . . .” into my translation, but I found that if I took too much poetic license, the translation would invariably come back to me with the complaint: “But, you left out ‘beautiful’.” Or, “You failed to mention ‘nature’!”.

The thing that exasperated me, though, when I was doing these translations is that I would gaze out of my office window and look at the jumble of telephone wires and cables, the scarcity of trees, the concrete poured over anything that wasn’t moving, the gray balconies and staircases stretching as far as the eye could see, and shout, “Where the hell is this ‘beautiful nature’? Tell me!! Where is it?!?!”

Having grown up on the west coast of the United States, I know what unspoilt nature is supposed to look like. In my twenty-plus years living in and traveling around Japan, however, I have yet to find a place that has not been touched by the destructive hand of man. Mountains that have stood since time immemorial are now “reinforced” with an ugly layer of concrete; rivers and creeks are little more than concrete sluices; and Japan’s once beautiful coastline is an unsightly jumble of tetrapods—concrete blocks resembling giant jacks—that are supposed to serve as breakwaters but may actually be causing greater erosion. One of Japan’s chronic problems is that, once something has been set into motion, it is often difficult to change course. As a result, by the early 1990s more than half of Japan’s coastline had already been blighted by those ugly tetrapods. I dread to know what the figure is today in 2017.

Were I to form my own political party, one of the first campaign promises I would make is to form a Ministry of De-Construction. The MDC would remove unnecessary dams, tetrapods, concrete reinforcements, and so on; the idea being to put Japan’s ever so important general construction industry to work by undoing all of their eyesores. Second, where the dams, reinforcements and tetrapods truly were necessary, I would ensure that they be concealed in such a way to look as natural as possible. Third, the cobweb of electric cables and telephone lines would once and for all be buried. Fourth, there were would be stronger zoning and city planning to reign in urban and suburban sprawl and create compact, highly dense cities that are separated from each other by areas of farming, natural reserves, and parks. Fifth, diversity would be reintroduced to the nation’s forests. No more rows upon rows of cedar that not only look ugly, but give everyone hay fever.

Unfortunately, none of these things are bound to happen anytime soon. The Japanese are so accustomed to being told in speeches and pamphlets that their town or city is blessed with beautiful nature that they have come to believe it despite what they surely must see with their own eyes.

Familiarity sometimes breeds content.

なによりも

春を先触れ

土木かな

Nani-yori-mo

Haru-o sakibure

Doboku kana

Nothing quite heralds

the coming season of spring

like public works.

That Shrinking Feeling

Not long after the sales tax was increased from 5% to 8% in 2014, I started noticing changes in the products I regularly bought. Slices of cheese were now being sold in packs of 7 rather than 10. My favorite brand of milk now came in cartons that were 10% smaller.

This phenomenon, called "shrinkflation" is not unique to Japan. It has been well documented, and whined about, in the West where companies didn't even try to conceal their cost-cutting schemes.

In Japan, companies have been subtler and if you weren't on the ball, you might have missed the changes entirely. Fortunately, someone has been paying attention and cataloging the changes. Every now and then, I will return to this post and add examples of shrinkflation. 

Baby Star Ramen mini

In 2007, 30g sold for ¥30, excluding tax.

In 2010, the package was reduced to 23g.

Kaki no Tane

In 2013, it was reduced from 230g to 210g, the price rising from ¥158 to ¥198 (excl. tax).

In 2014, it was reduced further to 200g, while the price remained the same.

Kameda provided no explanation for the change. 

Calbee Potato Chips

In 2007,  a ¥100 bag was reduced from 70g to 65g.

In 2009, it was reduced again to 60g.

Homerun Bar

In 2008, ¥330 got you 10 x 50ml bars.

In 2016, you got 10 x 45ml bars.

Pocky Chocolate

In 2007, the number of was reduced to 2 bags containing 17 sticks each, down from 19. The weight of each stick was also reduced from 80g to 72g. The price, however, remained ¥150.

In 2015, the amount remained the same, but the price was increased to ¥160 (ex. tax).
 

Glico Pretz (Roast)

In 2009, the amount was reduced from 70g to 65g.

In 2014, although Pretz continued to sell for ¥120, the amount was reduced again to 62g.

Glico Big Pucchin Pudding

A favorite with my boys, Pucchin Pudding was reduced in 2017 from 176g to 160g. It continued to be sold for ¥130.

This is a work in progress. I will make a gallery of these photos soon. 

Woman Kinder-rupted

My wife dashes out the front door, our six-year-old son, half-dressed in his karate "dogi," scurrying behind her. “We’re going to be late! You can tie the obi in the elevator.”

It’s Tuesday again, which means my wife had to pick our two boys up at their kindergarten bus stop at 2:40 p.m., then drop the older one off at his 3 p.m. "soroban" (abacus) lesson at the local community center. Fifty minutes later, she fetched him so he could have a quick bite at home before shuttling him back to the center. Like many of the other mothers, she will observe the entirety of his karate lesson, dutifully taking notes and occasionally videoing. Once home, she will go over what our son has learned that day, and admonish the boy if necessary, before putting him and his younger brother to bed with a book or 10. Tomorrow it is soccer practice. The day after that, “Play School.” Fridays are for English and, once again, karate.

Although Japanese women are said to be some of the most highly educated women among OECD countries, their participation in the labor force, at 48.7% in 2014, is much lower than the average, and falling. Part of the decline is due to Japan’s aging society — male participation in the labor force dropped from 78.2% in 1993 to 70.1% in 2014 — but the main reason that comparatively few Japanese women work is due to societal demands on mothers. According to The Economist, “When [Japanese] women have their first child, 70% of them stop working for a decade or more, compared with just 30% in America. Quite a lot of those 70% are gone for good.”

To address this, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced in 2013 that raising the female participation rate and allowing women to “shine” in the workplace would be one of the most important aspects of his Abenomics growth initiative. While I applaud any effort to support working mothers, my courtside perspective on parenting in Japan has me doubting how successful his proposal will be in the end.

Japanese corporate culture — the dominance of males in the workplace, "sabisu zangyo," i.e. unpaid overtime, "matahara" (maternity harassment), etc — is often cited as the one of the main obstacles holding Japanese women back. I find, however, that rather than this oft-maligned “honne"culture, it is the demands of the home culture — namely, the daily imperative of rearing and educating one’s own children — that has so many mothers in this country shunning full-time work.

Although the percent of Japanese children left at daycare peaks at 42.6% when children are three years old, from the age of four (the age at which kids enter kindergarten), 52.9% are in kindergarten, compared to 39.4% at daycare. By age six, 62.3% of kids are enrolled in kindergarten; and only 37.7% at daycare.

You might think that with the little ones parked in “kindy” all day, a mother would have a sudden windfall of free time — and so did I when our second son was also enrolled — but think again. For one, most kindergartens in Japan only keep the children for three to five hours a day, compared to seven or eight in the U.S. And, two, the typical kindergarten places great demands upon parents, the bulk of which falls upon the mother. Duties include serving lunch, taking part in excursions, attending monthly social gatherings for guardians (read mothers), event-planning, sitting in on lectures, serving on the executive board, and on and on.

Then there are the extracurricular activities to which mothers must ferry their young children to and from. The typical Japanese child attends two to three lessons a week, some as many as five or six. Many mothers believe that these lessons, which run the gamut from swimming and soccer to piano and cram school, are necessary to ensure their children’s future success and can spend upwards of ¥30,000 a month on them.

Many Japanese women so feel strongly that it is their role to not only raise, but to also discipline their children, that they are loath to leave much to chance. I can’t help but wonder how many mothers with young children would be willing to return to the workplace no matter how brightly they were permitted to shine.

I’d love to ask my own wife what she thinks about all this, but she’s scrambling out the front door again: it’s her turn to put the kindergarten’s library in order.

For some reason, Japan Today has taken my name off of my articles. 

28.4 grams of prevention

They say 28.4 grams of prevention is worth 2.2 kilograms of cure, or something like that, but my sons weren’t having any of that banal malarkey. Nope. The two refused to wash their hands or gargle or wear a mask, no matter how nicely I asked.

So, I pestered: “For crying out loud, would you wash your hands when you come home!”

“No!”

I tried reverse psychology: “Fine! Don’t wash your hands. If you want to get sick, then get sick. It’s your choice.” Unfortunately, that had, had the opposite effect because getting sick meant staying home from school.

I read picture books to them about germs and hygiene. But the boys remained unmoved, unconcerned and unconvinced.

So, I cajoled and bribed: “Hey, kiddo, I’ll give you ¥50 if you wash your hands… ”

“Only ¥50?”

“A hundred. I’ll give you a ¥100.”

“No thanks.”

“No thanks? That’s good money! Ungrateful little… ”

In the end, I gave up, bowing to the inevitable: a full-blown flu epidemic in our home.

Patient zero was my younger son.

All the kids sitting at his lunch table at kindergarten became sick at the same time. Kindergartens, I discovered quite early, cultivate not children’s curiosity and emotional wellbeing, but mostly their germs.

The 5-year-old would spend the next week and a half coughing and wiping his snot on every surface he could reach, like a stray dog marking his territory. In that first week, I beseeched my older son to keep his distance, but the rascal couldn’t resist tormenting his sick brother day in, day out. That’s what older brothers are put on this earth for, after all. In the end, he, too, came down with the flu and spent the weekend vomiting.

“See? I told you to stay away from your brother and now look at you.”

He stuck his tongue out at me.

“Do you enjoy throwing up?”

“Yes.”

Local school regulations in Fukuoka City require children sick with the flu to remain home for three days after a fever subsides, meaning my son would have most of the following week off. Lucky for him, he was feeling much better after only two bedridden days and was ready to par-tay. No sooner did he show signs of recovery, however, than my wife became sick, too. And, the next day as I was out of town on business, I succumbed myself. It was to be expected. When you sleep with your children like the Japanese do, the bedroom is a petri dish.

On my way home from the station, the taxi driver seeing my mask asked if I had the flu.

“I’m not sure yet, but it does have all the hallmarks of influenza.”

“They say Fukuoka’s in the best three,” the driver said.

“Best? Don’t you mean the worst?”

The driver was right. Fukuoka Prefecture had the third-highest incidence of the flu after Kagoshima and Miyazaki. Oita, Saga, and Nagasaki come in sixth, seventh, and eighth respectively. Nationally, children up to the age of 9 have been hardest hit, with almost 600,000 cases being reported so far.

The following morning, my doctor stuck a pool cue up my nose, tickled my brain and diagnosed me with the same strain that had already infected everyone else in my family: Type-B influenza. Symptoms include a slight fever, joint pain, fatigue, a sore throat, a runny nose and a cough. It’s not the worst strain of the disease, but you can expect to feel out of kilter for about a week.

Just as my older son was making a full recovery and set to return to school, we were sent an email informing us that because 10 of his 28 classmates were now sick, his class would be closed for a week.

“Hooray!” he shouted in triumph. “My second winter vacation!”

I suspect my son imagined a week filled with cartoons, DVDs and Netflix, picture books, board games, dodgeball in the park, ice skating and so on. But, no, this being Japan, his teacher paid our home a visit, carrying a nice fat packet of homework.

Six months pregnant with her third child, Sensei was once again going above and beyond the call of duty. Among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, teachers in Japan put in the longest working hours and earn much less than their more laidback counterparts in the U.S., Canada and Australia. It’s not surprising how teachers here can rack up the hours walking from house to house, making sure their charges have the necessary study materials. Seeing this dedication to the job in action, my wife and I thanked Sensei profusely through our surgical masks.

“Thanks for nothing,” my son shouted after his teacher left.

It was only then that the value of simple prevention finally hit home. When my son returned from soccer practice today he washed his hands without being asked and I nearly fainted.

The Blizzard of '16

Mulligan

Apparently, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins thinks Trump should get a "mulligan" on his Story Daniels affair. I doubt the evangelical leader would have been as forgiving if Obama had cheated on his wife . . .

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. My last confession was so many years ago I cannot remember . . . These are my sins. I had an affair with a porn star shortly after my third wife . . .”

“Third?”

“Um . . .yes, but don’t worry the other two wives were INSANE and the Church, God bless them, saw fit to annul the marriages. Or at least I think they did. I could be wrong. Which would be a first, believe me.”

“I see. And is this the only illicit relationship you have had . . .”

“Only? No, no, no. There was that Playboy bunny, and oh so many more. Believe me! See, I’m a HUGE star. Women, and I'm telling you gorgeous women, they just let me grab their puss . . .”

“Mulligan.”

“I get a pass? Oh, thank you, Father! I knew I had a fantastic relationship with the Catholics.”

“Um, no. I’m going to refer you to Father Mulligan. He’s our resident exorcist.”