coin laundry AKA laundromats

Two cool things about Japanese laundromats (usually called コインランドリー coin laundry):

* Hot water (my washing machine only uses cold water as far as I can tell. There's only one water inlet...

* A 30 second fast rinse option - clean the machine before you use it! That is so cool. If detergent and hot water gets used here that'd be even cooler, but I don't know if that's the case. Anyway, a little more sanitary than your regular laundromat.

Non sequitur: there was a sign saying something to the effect that "Pet washing is prohibited." I assume they mean pet clothing and blankets, etc., but it could be construed to mean the pet itself. Maybe that's only possible in my literal thinking. They had a different sign specifically rejecting the washing of pet blankets and such.

Japanese Certification （日本語検定）

There's a new Japanese exam called 日本語検定 (nihongo kentei; Japanese Certification). Their 3rd exam will be given this June. The site only appears to be in Japanese, so I guess it's targeted for native speakers and their parents (perhaps mostly their parents), unlike the Japanese Language Proficiency Test and the BJT Business Japanese Proficiency Test.

smacky glam

Mischa Barton is featured in a Japanese magazine as an example of "Smacky Glam." I don't know what "Smacky Glam" is, but I don't think I want to look that way.

社会人になってから vs. "entering the working world"

It's common to say "社会人になってから"(sha-kai jin ni natte kara) in Japanese, which roughly translates into "entering the working world" although the more literal meaning would probably be "becoming a (productive) member of society." "Productive" being commonly used in the English phrase, and probably is implied in the Japanese one.

I don't know of many English-speaking people who talk about when they became a productive member of society, though. It's more "when I graduated from college" or "when I started working." In the IT world in Japan, it doesn't seem uncommon to graduate from 2-year technical schools and go right to work. Lots of people seem to go to 4-year colleges, but still.

Snow!

I forgot to take pictures, but Tokyo was hit with the most snow I've ever seen here. Trains were delayed and most were pretty empty, as were the shops and streets.

clips of Japanese culture

Jero, African American Enka singer

Japanese parking champions: parking is hard work!

NHK documentary: Pakistan: Dinner with the President

NHK has a fascinating year-end (年末年始) documentary series on democracy around the world -“民主主義”～世界１０人の監督が描く１０の疑問～ ("Democracy" - 10 problems drawn by 10 directors around the world).

The episode I caught features Pakistan, particularly timely given recent events. The directors サビハ・スマル Sabiha Sumar (Pakistan) and サチタナンダム・サタナンタン Satchitanandan Sathananthan (Sri Lanka) interview regular people on the streets and question Musharraf about the impact of the country's democratic parties on the lives of the people. Sumar does most of the interviewing. By itself, the word "democracy" appears to be quite polarizing. The various viewpoints of the individuals interviewed are fascinating. This may be the first time that I've ever heard regular Pakistani citizens' thoughts on TV. As always, it is the poor who suffer in the conflict.

I'd like to hear the directors' thoughts on their interviews, but that is something that would probably impede any future work that they do.

I think there are English voiceovers in the various films, but they've been muted for the NHK broadcast, unfortunately. A lot of the political and religious vocabulary is a bit beyond my grasp.

(It was pretty tough to find Sathananthan's English spelling with only the katakana!)