Xmas cards? New Years cards?

In Japan, Xmas cards aren’t commonly exchanged — but 年賀状 (New Years postcards) are.

When I lived in America, everyone gave Xmas cards to friends and family.  I had never heard of a New Years card until I came to Japan.

I have been sending and receiving New Years postcards every year since I came to Japan … but these days, more and more people in Japan … especially young people don’t bother to hand-write “real” paper New Years postcards — they just send ケータイ年賀状 (cellphone New Years postcards).

It’s not the same. I think people appreciate getting a hand-written card.
My kids love their cellphones … but they still write New Years postcards by hand, I’m happy to say.

How about you?  Do you send hand-written Xmas or New Years cards?
Email cards?
None at all?

The Tokyo Five smart-phone app

I just made a smart-phone application for my blog.

It has content that isn’t on this blog…so why don’t you install it on your phone?

Click here to read my page with instructions about how to install the app and how to use it.

And let me know in the comments section what you think of the app.
 

Bic Camera x Uniqlo

If you’ve ever been to Japan…especially a major Japanese city such as Tokyo…then you undoubtedly are aware of the major chain of electronics stores here called 「ビックカメラ」 (“Bic Camera“) and also the major chain of affordable clothing stores called 「ユニクロ」 (“Uni-qlo“).
(Actually, I’ve heard that 「ユニクロ」 (“Uni-qlo”) has expanded overseas and has stores in America and other countries now…so maybe you know that store even if you’ve never been to Japan.)

Bic Camera logo

Uni-qlo logo

I like 「ユニクロ」 (“Uni-qlo”). In fact, I happen to be wearing a shirt today that I’ve bought from one of their stores. But for electronics, I normally go to the biggest competitor of 「ビックカメラ」 (“Bic Camera”)—「ヨドバシカメラ」 (“Yodobashi Camera“).
I choose 「ヨドバシカメラ」 (“Yodobashi Camera”) because I have a “point card” from that store. If you live in Japan and you don’t make use of the point cards that many stores in Japan offer, then you’re missing an opportunity to get free stuff! I have many point cards and I’ve gotten things I needed from many stores, including 「ヨドバシカメラ」 (“Yodobashi Camera”) at no cost!

Anyways, I saw a commercial on TV this morning for a new store in 新宿(Shinjuku, Tokyo) that is a collaboration between 「ビックカメラ」 (“Bic Camera“) and 「ユニクロ」 (“Uni-qlo“).

This new store will sell both clothing from Uniclo’s stock and electronics from Bic Camera.
The name of the store is 「ビックロ」 (“Bikkuro“)…which is a morphing in Japanese of both company names.

Technology

When I was a teenager in the ’80s, my parents finally got a microwave oven and a VHS VCR…they both seemed so “high-tech” back then.
The microwave could heat food in literally seconds! It seemed so “futuristic”! And the VCR allowed us to program it to record a TV show while we weren’t at home so that we could watch it later! How convenient!
(Never mind that no one could actually understand how to program it…even setting the clock on it was a chore!)

I think every housewife had a copy of this video in the ’80s when VCRs became popular.

Other “new” technology back then were CD players, the “Walkman“, and video games. They were all so popular.

(Click here and read a post I wrote a while back about the Walkman).

In the ’80s, everyone was surprised how “small” this music player was!

A popular TV show when I was in junior high was “Knight Rider“. It was about a vigilante and his “partner”…a super-intelligent Trans-Am that was bullet-proof (even the tires!) and it could do an endless array of unbelievable things. But the three things it did in every episode were: carry on a “witty” conversation with it’s driver and/or whomever else was near it, drive itself and “turbo-boost” over things.
I couldn’t wait for cars like that to become reality!

How often would this really be necessary?

A teacher of mine in the ’80s once told my classmates and me that by the time we were thirty there would be “flying cars”. Obviously that didn’t happen! What a let-down!

I was looking forward to this!

Another “high-tech” item that my family got was I was a kid was a “push-button” telephone with a “re-dial” button. It seems so ordinary now…but it was such a time-saver compared to how telephones had been until then!

Remember these? Yes? Then you must be at least my age. 😉

Now we have a huge variety of technology all around us that we would have never dreamed of even twenty years ago.
For example, when I was dating my wife, one time I misunderstood our meeting place and we couldn’t find each other. That date was lost!
Today’s young people couldn’t imagine such a thing happening because they grew up after cell-phones were invented and became something that everyone carries at all times—like a wallet and keys. If my wife and I had cell-phones when we were dating, my mistake wouldn’t have been an incident at all.

The internet and computers are extremely convenient and useful. They can do so many things and are practical in our daily lives now.
I have had a cell-phone with internet-access for a number of years now…I can barely remember how I used to “kill time” on the train during my daily commute before I had a cell-phone!

Nowadays, nearly everyone uses the phone on the trains in Japan.

But all of this new technology isn’t always good.
When I came to Japan, I had no idea what to expect. There was no internet back then.
And when I got here, everything was different and unusual to me!
But nowadays, most people never travel anywhere without “researching” the destination online first. Nothing’s a surprise! Is that always good?

And there are often stories in the news about people (usually teenagers) bullying others online. It’s regrettable.

I wonder what new technology we’ll see in the future.

A Chevy TV commercial? There’s something you don’t see everyday!!

I saw a TV commercial yesterday for a 「シボレー」 (“Chrevolet“) car.
It was a car called the 「シボレー・ソニック」 (“Chrevolet Sonic“).

This may seem like nothing unusual to you…especially if you live in America, where TV commercials for American cars are quite common.

But I realized, after seeing that commercial, that I don’t recall having seen an ad for any foreign (ie: not Japanese) cars, until now, since I came to Japan in 1990.

I realized that every advertisement I’ve seen in Japan for automobiles or electronics (Japan’s two biggest industries) have all been for Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba and other Japanese companies.

Almost every car and motorcycle on the road in Japan is Japanese. Sometimes wealthy people buy a foreign car as a kind of “status symbol”…normally it’ll be an Italian or German car that they choose.
Also, close to every single electronic product sold in Japan is made by a Japanese company. Products made by American companies such as Kodak, Polaroid or Zenith aren’t normally found in Japan. Do those companies even exist anymore?

Here’s the commercial for the 「シボレー・ソニック」 (“Chevrolet Sonic“) that I saw on TV:

Do you see many TV commercials for foreign companies in your country? Are American products popular in your country? Have you ever seen a Chevy “Sonic”?

I-pad customers in Japan get overpriced nothing from U.S.

A number of people in Japan ordered the new “I-pad” computer product by Apple Corp. from a retailer in the U.S. only to receive empty boxes.

The I-Pad from Apple

The Japan Postal Service said that the products were removed from the boxes before they reached Japan and that the U.S. Postal Service should investigate the cases.

The I-Pad won’t be on store shelves in Japan until later this month so I guess some people couldn’t wait and decided to order them from America.
But I’m sure they’re regretting that decision now after spending about ¥56,000 (US$600) for nothing.

Anyways, I don’t know much about the I-Pad but I wonder why anyone in Japan would buy electronics outside of Japan.
For one thing, Japan has the world’s leading electronics products and also I doubt the products outside Japan have Japanese language support.
For example, my computer keyboard and my cell-phone keyboard both have English letter and Japanese characters on the keys.

So, I wonder, why would these Japanese people order an electronics product from overseas rather than wait a few days to get it domestically with Japanese-language features?

Walkman

Okonomibloggy has a blog-post with a link to a BBC story about a thirteen-year-old boy who traded his I-pod for a old-school 1980’s style cassette-player Walkman for a week.

The original "Walkman" (1979)

It was an amusing read.

The article mentioned that the Sony Walkman was turning thirty years old soon.

The original "Walkman" logo (1979)

The current "Walkman" logo.

I looked online and it turns out that today (2009 July 1) is the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Sony Walkman.
The first Walkman went on sale on 1979 July 1.

I didn’t have a Walkman in 1979. I got my first one in the mid-1980’s when I was in high school.
It was the most current version…but an antique by today’s standards.
And compared to the modern Walkman, it was as big and heavy as a brick. But back in the ’80s, it was the coolest thing. And it was considered small and light.

Compared to my current Walkman (I use a Sony Walkman MP3 player now…not an I-pod) which can hold my entire CD collection in it’s memory, the one I had in the ’80s played cassette tapes…which are crap, but back in the ’80s they were the most modern medium for music storage.

Did you have one of the “brick” Walkman cassette players back in the ’80s?
Do you have a Walkman now?

I have this type of "Walkman" MP3 player now. It's small and light, but...

Sony's newest "Walkman" is smaller and lighter!

Yokoso Japan!

「ようこそジャパン」 (Yokoso Japan!) means “Welcome to Japan!“, and is the Japan National Tourism Organization‘s official slogan of their campaign to attract foreign visitors to Japan.

「Yokoso Japan!」 logo

Here are some of their Yokoso Japan! campaign ads.

Most of the scenes in this first one are of Tokyo (there are a few shots of Osaka, etc…but most of it is Tokyo):

These show many parts of Japan:

Do they make you want to visit this beautiful country?

携帯電話

Last Sunday we (my wife and I) bought our oldest daughter a 携帯電話 (cellular phone).

Of course, all three of my daughters really want a 携帯電話 (cellular phone)…but we decided not to get them one until they start 高等学校 (high school).

In Japan, most kids who are in public 小学校 (Elementary School) or 中学校 (Junior High School) can walk to school…but once they start 高等学校 (High School) they usually have to take the train to school.

My youngest two daughters are in 中学校 (Junior High School) and they walk to school. But beginning in early April, my oldest will start 高等学校 (High School) and she’ll ride the train with her friends to school every day.

So, my wife and I decided to get her a 携帯電話 (cellular phone).
Most important to us, her phone has email and GPS tracking (in an emergency, we can track her location on our 携帯電話 (cellular phones))…but her phone has every function available on Japanese 携帯電話 (cellular phones)—email, internet, 「おさいふケータイ」 (cell-phone wallet), GPS, TV, radio, MP3 player, etc, etc.!

Her phone is much better than my wife or my 携帯電話 (cellular phones).

Of course, her sisters are jealous! But, next year my second daughter will begin high school and I’ll have to buy her one…and then the youngest daughter when she starts high school too!
(*_*)

++++

Speaking of  携帯電話 (cellular phones), I recently learned that a cell-phone called “Blackberry” is popular in America.
Do you use this phone? Do you like it?

It looks like this:

I’ve never used a “Blackberry” so I can only speculate…but it looks much less convenient, handy, and cool than the average 携帯電話 (cellular phone) in Japan.

First of all, it looks like a pocket calculator.
And it has a really wide keyboard with one key for each of the 26 letters of the English alphabet…like a computer keyboard. (The letters are arranged in the typewriter “QWERTY” order, too.).

It looks like you’d need both hands to type an email. Is that right?
Seems slow and inconvenient.

The numbers on it are also on ten keys on the left side (presumably they’re the keys you’d use to dial a phone number).

A Japanese 携帯電話 (cellular phone), on the other hand, simply has the ten number digits keys (1-9 and 0) which double as both the English alphabet keys (in alphabetical order) with each key used for three to four letters.
The “1” key is usually symbols such as “@, ., -, _, etc”, the “2” key is used for the letters “A-C” (both upper and lowercase), “3” is used for “D-F”, etc.

That’s in “English” mode.

In “Japanese” mode, the same number keys are used for the Japanese “alphabet“.
“1” is 「あいうえお」 in ひらがな (hiragana), and the corresponding 「アイウエオ」 in カタカナ (katakana),
“2” is used for 「さしすせそ」 (and, of course, 「サシスセソ」)), and so on for the keys 3-9 and 0.
Of course, to get 漢字 (kanji characters), you’d simply type out the phonetic spelling in ひらがな and the possible 漢字 (kanji characters) choices appear.

That may not make sense to you if you don’t know about the Japanese writing system…but, believe me, it’s quite easy.

Better than the Blackberry, Japanese 携帯電話 (cellular phones) are slim. So, everyone in Japan types out cell-phone emails using one hand…actually just the thumb on one hand is used to type the whole mail!

Another thing about Japanese 携帯電話 (cellular phones) that make typing emails easy is the “predict” function.

Once you type the first ひらがな character in a common word or phrase (and also in a word or phrase that you have typed out before), the phone will offer you that word or phrase again and you can easily insert it into your email.

For example, I often email my wife while I’m on the train heading home after work and ask her 「今日の夕食は？」 (which means: “What’s for dinner today?”).

If I typed that out in English, it’s twenty-four characters. In Japanese, it’s only eleven…but with my 携帯電話 (cellular phone)’s “predict” function, I only need to type one character (「き」) and the phrase 「今日の夕食は？」 appears.

Convenient!

++++

Which reminds me of another subject…

In America (and maybe other countries too), businesses will often advertise their telephone number not with the numerical digits…but using the corresponding letters that are on the keys of a telephone.
To make their phone number easier to remember.

So, for example, a car dealer in America might have a phone number like 555-2277 but would write their phone number as 555-CARS.

In Japan, cell-phones have the English alphabet on the keys (as I just mentioned above)…but most home phones don’t.

So Japanese companies don’t use English letters to make their phone numbers easy to remember…but they use alternative pronunciations of the numbers to make clever expressions.

For example, I saw an ad for a pawn shop the other day. Their phone number is 78-2840.
In Japanese, that would normally be pronounced “nana-hachi-ni-hachi-yon-zero“…but the pawn shop had ふりがな over the numbers that showed the reading as 「しちやにはしれい」 (shichi-ya-ni-ha-shi-rei) which is an alternative reading of those numbers—but it also means 「質屋に走れい」 (“Run to the pawn shop”).

Many companies in Japan write the phone numbers with clever play-on-words like that.

Akihabara

秋葉原 (Akihabara) is the largest electronic district in Tokyo. And one of the, if not the, largest electronic districts in the entire world!

I have heard that originally 秋葉原 (Akihabara) was called Akibahara (which would actually be a more accurate reading of the town’s name 「秋葉原」), so people who frequent the area often call it 「アキバ」 (Akiba), as a nickname.

Anyways, my kids went out with my inlaws today, so my wife and I went to 秋葉原 (Akihabara) because we’re considering buying a ケータイ電話 (cell-phone) for our oldest daughter.

All three of my kids want a ケータイ電話 (cell-phone)…but for a number reasons, we’ve decided against it until they’re in high-school. Once they begin high-school, they’ll take a train to school everyday…so we think a ケータイ電話 (cell-phone) might be necessary.

My oldest daughter will begin high-school (equivalent to 10th grade in the U.S.) next month…so we may give her a ケータイ電話 (cell-phone). I’m over-protective of my kids…so I’m not sure yet. I have to decide.

But if you want to buy electronics, manga, anime…or any other otaku (geek) culture (including a visit to a “maid cafe“)…then you should visit 秋葉原 (Akihabara).

Here are a couple videos I took too: