しゃくにさわる (shakunisawaru)
* “J-WOTD” = “Japanese Word of the Day”
“grate on one’s nerves” or when used about a person, “gets on my nerves”
Examples:
「お嬢ちゃんと言われるのは、本当にしゃくに障るよ」
“Being called a ojyo-san really grates (gets) on my nerves”
「彼はしゃくに障るね」
“He gets on my nerves”, “He is a trying person”
たもと (tamoto)
* “J-WOTD” = “Japanese Word of the Day”
As I was getting my daily dose today of Horie’s trial today on the livedoor higaisha nikki, I came accross the word tamoto. While it literally refers to the sleve of a kimono, it is generally combined with the verb 分かつ (wakatsu) and used to mean “to part ways”.
Example: 宮内被告は…堀江被告と袂（たもと）を分かつ決心をした状況を詳細に語った。 “Miyauchi explained to the court in detail the situation that lead him to choose to part ways with Horie.”
“My name is Blue, and I am an addict”..
When I was still a coffee cherry-boy, back in the days when all I knew was instant Nescafe (I still shudder when I think of those times!), I always used to scoff at the self proclaimed coffee habitués that loved to tell everyone within earshot how they couldn’t get through their morning without (insert number here) coffees. 
I was introduced to real coffee at quite a late stage in life, I guess when I was around 20. It was in Kyoto at Gold’s house actually, and I have never forgiven him for it..!
I am now as hooked as any of those junkies that used to preach to me, and I now want your sympathy for my caffeine addiction..!! Only joking, but I am hooked, and am the proud owner of one of those fancy espresso makers which make reasonable milk foam in the comfort of your own home. It is a Saeco Magic model, a little expensive, but damn it is easy to make a pretty reasonable cappuccino. You can click here to view it on Amazon.co.jp
I‘m not much of an auto guy, but I’m a real sucker for gadgets and the new Lexus has me excited. Toyota released their latest Lexus in Japan at the start of this week and it is amazingly different from any car that has come before. Japanese autos are becoming more and more high-tech and closer and closer to being a computer on wheels. The flagship vehicle for the new Lexus is the LS460. This car is said to have over 7 million lines of code programmed inside (and that is not including the car-navi software!) That is about as much as you’d find inside an aeroplane and controls everything from breaking and steering to temperature and “inflight” comfort. To put that into context, the average Toyota car has about 4 million lines of code. Continue reading Computer on Wheels?
There remains this enormous and wicked sociocultural myth. It is this: Hard work is all there is.
Work hard and the world respects you. Work hard and you can have anything you want. Work really extra super hard and do nothing else but work and ignore your family and spend 14 hours a day at the office and make 300 grand a year that you never have time to spend, sublimate your soul to the corporate machine and enjoy a profound drinking problem and sporadic impotence and a nice 8BR mini-mansion you never spend any time in, and you and your shiny BMW 740i will get into heaven.
This is the Japanese Puritan work ethos (much like that in America of course), still alive and screaming and sucking the world dry. Work is the answer. Work is also the question. Work is the one thing really worth doing and if you’re not working you’re either a slacker or a leech Continue reading Why do the Japanese Work so Hard?
“Mao- The Unknown Story”
We should be glad that the Chinese funded communist movements in Japan never gained momentum.
This book by Jung Chang (also know for Wild Swans), is apparently the first time anyone has taken a really deep look into Mao Tse-tung’s reign over China, from the inside, and published such a whopper of a biography.
The Daily Mail said “Few books are destined to change history, but this one will”.
I had never read a book on Chinese history that said anything like this. High-school history class told me that The Cultural Revlution took China from being a backward barbaric country, to a civilised modern country. Ms. Burrows neglected to mention the immense human carnage, and the fact that this was a small part of a much larger plan by one man to in fact take over the entire world, including Japan. Continue reading Book Review: “Mao – The Unknown Story”
One of the cultural differences I have never been able to overcome in all my time in Japan, is that of eating a Japanese style breakfast, ie fish, rice and miso soup. Lunch or dinner, no problem, but not breakfast. This leaves me with two options, go without, or look for toast or cereal or something more agreeable to my stomach.
We often discuss amongst ourselves how Japan’s reputation of being such an expensive country to live, is possibly not so true any more. The two reasons for this are that prices overseas have been steadily increasing, whereas in Japan they have been stagnant for over a decade. The other reason is that if you are eating and living an ex-pat lifestlye (as we suspect the people doing the ratings do), then living is expensive. You still have to pay extra for larger apartments (with gaijin height kitchen benches), steak dinners, and yes, western breakfast cereals! Continue reading Enough for breakfast?
“Barbarians at the Gate” (Click to view the book on Amazon.co.jp)
* Advice for a busy gaijin: If you are in a rush start reading from chapter seven.
When the Portuguese first approached Japan by sea in 1542, they were not at all welcome. As far as the Japanese were concerned, they were happy in their quiet world and called these unrefined intruders “nanbanjin” or “Southern Barbarians” because the ships came from the South. This book has nothing to do with our Portuguese friends, it is about the hostile takeover over RJR Nabisco in the late 1980s. The scene isn’t Japan, but I’m sure the people in the quiet town of Winston-Salem might have found solace in Japanese history as they combated the Northern barbarians who robbed them of their local icon. (I’ll let the reader decide who the real barbarians were.)
There are only a few finance books about the greed of the 80s which have stood the test of time. Stick with Liar’s Poker
Japan’s Supreme Court has rejected an appeal against the death sentence for Asahara Shōkō (麻原 彰晃), the former leader of the doomsday cult, “AUM Shinri Kyo” (Supreme Truth Sect, now known as Aleph). The decision clears the way for 51 year old Asahara Shoko to be hanged for his role in masterminding the 1995 subway gas attacks. Lawyers of the former head of the cult had argued that he was mentally incompetent, and asked for the case to be suspended. Asahara was sentenced to death by a Tokyo court 2 years ago for the attack. 12 people died and over 5000 were injured when the members of the cult released sarin, a lethal nerve gas on Tokyo’s subways. The attack was directed against trains passing through Kasumigaseki and Nagatacho, home to the Japanese government. This was (and remains, as of 2006) the most serious attack that has occurred in Japan since the end of the Second World War.
The former guru could be hanged at any time, once final approval is given by the justice minister.
Akihabara News is the only (English) website that I know of the continuously covers new developments in the Japanese electronic/gadget market.
If you are thinking of visiting Japan, or already live in Tokyo, then check them out. There are some really amazing bargains, and some just plain bizzare stories about “gadgets in Japan”… And who of us doesn’t like our gadgets..? Click on the image to take you there.
(“Akihabara” is the electronics town, that almost every foreign visitor feels sucked to upon a visit to Tokyo..)