Etymology of Sasuga

流石　(Sasuga)
The word represents the feeling you have when a person whom you expect to perform well does, in fact, perform well, and you feel a sense of awe all over again at their amazing feat.

To learners of the language, sasuga is a little frustrating in that it's one of those ridiculous ateji words whose reading and kanji characters don't match. But there's a cute little story about why sasuga is written this way today:

Popular Words to Propose With in Japan

A few recent comments from friends have set me wondering about Japanese marriage proposals. (No, I'm not planning on making one sometime soon.) My college professor once pointed out in class that a traditional way to ask a Japanese girl for her hand was with the suave line, "Will you make my miso soup for me every morning?" But it turns out that with a modern audience, that bit gets more mileage in laughs and jokes than in swoons.

So what do Japanese women these days actually want to hear? How should Japanese guys pop the question? Are any of the modern alternatives less gender-stereotyped?

Entertainment statistics giant Oricon proffers answers to all these questions and more with the results of a 2007 survey of single females:

If a Man Proposed to Me With These Words, I'd Be Happy:

From the top:

#1 ... "Let's get married."
#2 ... "Let's be together forever."
#3 ... "Let's be happy together."

#4 ... "I'll protect you for the rest of our lives."
(The submitter, in her 30s and from Osaka, explains, "I'd feel as if I were really important to him if he said that.")

#5 ... "I can't think of anyone but you."
(I want to feel that I'm number one. Kanagawa, 40)

#6 ... "Can we endure hardships?"
(I think more than anything else endurance is crucial to marriage. Saitama, 40)

#7 ... "I want you by my side for the rest of my life."
(It feels like he's giving me permission to be beside him for a long time--for the rest of our lives. Hokkaido, 30)

#8 ... "Will you be my wife?"
(Subtle proposals are romantic, too, but if he asks me clearly I'll be able to take it more straightforward. Okayama, 20)

#9 ... "Let's live our lives together."
(I don't ever want to be thrown away. Chiba, 20)

#10 ... "I need you."
(I would feel how important my presence is to him. Tottori, 40)

#11 ... "Let's make a happy home together."
(I want to be happy forever. Mie, 30)


Translation Notes:
実感　じっかん　　actually feel like, realize
苦労　くろう　　　 hard work, labor, toil
傍に　そばに　　  next to, beside, the same kanji as in かたわら
許容　きょよう　　 allowance, concession
遠まわし　とおまわし　roundabout
ときめく　　　　　makes your heart beat fast

#6, 苦労してもいいか and its comment, were the most difficult for me to put into realistic English. If you have any other suggestions for how you'd translate those, please share!

Drivers Education Refresher Class in Japan

Last week I lauded my local driver licensing center for their efficient processing of renewal applications. In a sea of a couple hundred other individuals, I got my whole application finished--including an eye exam and photograph--in under thirty minutes.

Because I was a first-time renewal (初回更新者, shokai shoshinsha), I was also slated to take a 120 minute drivers' education refresher course as part of my renewal process.

Renewing Your Japanese Drivers License: A Cautionary Tale

A couple months ago, I received a friendly postcard in the mail from my local traffic safety association. Turns out it had been a whopping three years since I made it through the ridiculously nitpicky Japanese driving test, and that meant it was time to renew my license.

You can see a picture of what one of those postcards looks like here.

As I looked online to find out more about what this process would entail, I discovered that the Internet has a pretty good collection of stories on this subject already. My favorites come from TokyoWriter and Yuttaring. And last year Dan quietly added a detailed guide to help you through your own renewal here on AccessJ.

So, if you're curious about what a renewal in Japan entails, you have a lot of options to look at. But just as an addendum to the inexorable electronic record, here's my own story:

Guile and Deceit in the Ranks of AKB48

The well-populated song and dance group AKB48 has been a pop culture staple in Japan for the past four or five years. Their creator, Yasushi Akimoto, kind of took the nation by storm with his idea to make a gigantic 48-girl pop performing group that could then be split into several subgroups to tour and perform live in multiple locations simultaneously, increasing accessibility to fans. Additionally, with 48 "varied" personalities, fans can choose and follow a member that they find specifically appealing. It was like everyone had completely forgotten about Hello! Project's Morning Musume.

Anyway, AKB48 holds a variety of annual televised events to popularize the group and give fans a sense of interaction. One of those events is a giant Rock-Paper-Scissors tournament held between all of the group's members in single-elimination matchups. The grand victor is awarded the lead spot on one of the group's CD singles released in the following year.

Moving: Oh Yeah, I Need Curtains

This post continues my chronicle of moving to a new apartment in Japan. I just picked up the keys to my new place, and now I'm dropping off my first load of boxes.

Week 4, Tuesday:
It's already nighttime when I walk into my new place, and it's probably thanks to lights shining in from my neighbors' homes that I realize another hole in my carefully planned move: I'm going to need enough curtains for all the windows in my new home.

Ugai: Japanese People Love Gargling

When I was a little kid, my parents and teachers drilled into me the importance of hand-washing for staving off colds and other illness. At the time I was terrified to think that there were things crawling around on my skin that I couldn't see, and I became paranoid about shaking other peoples' hands or sharing a glass or utensil with anyone else. I eventually got over it, but it took the better part of two decades.

In Japan as well, hand-washing is considered an important sanitary measure and children are taught to do it from an early age. Elementary school teachers and junior high school teachers (yes, really) demonstrate proper hand-washing behavior to students and then watch as students practice. Presumably offering tips. "Make sure to scrub all the way up to your wrist, Timmy!"

Now, hand-washing in Japan offers plenty of tangents to spiral off on, like the rarity of soap, paper towels, and hot water in public restrooms or the crazy little sink lids outfitted on toilet water tanks (you are supposed to wash your hands with the water that pours into the tank at the end of the flush cycle).

But the one I want to talk about today is the inseparable partner of hand-washing in Japan: The gargle.

Japanese TV Variety Shows: Shinkonsan Irasshai!

Among the dregs of Japanese television, I have a guilty pleasure. Aside from NHK morning news and those relaxing nature shows (of which I'll write shortly), Japanese TV seems pervaded by questionably acted soap operas and, I think, essentially one cookie-cutter variety show whose shiny chrome finish wears off after you've seen its formula repeated over and over for a few months.

Enter the guilty pleasure. I know that this show I'm about to introduce is just the same thing over and over again. I know it fits the variety show pattern almost to a "T" (--it's only missing the wipe.) And yet I cannot get enough of it. Aside from dry wit I import from home (in quantity to match the local schedule's dearth), it may be the only thing playing on my screen to which I audibly laugh. And laugh I do, with consistency, occasionally to the point of tears.

The show isn't new to old Japan hands. In fact, it's about to enter its 43rd year, the same guy hosting the show since its debut in 1971.

What is AccessJ?

In all our fury of thrice weekly posting, filling our beloved readers' heads with (sometimes) useful and (sometimes) funny information about how to not simply live but thrive in Japan, AccessJ's second birthday almost slipped by without a proper tip of the hat.

Coincidentally, this is also our 500th post.

That's five hundred articles to help make your life better in Japan. Sure, you've probably skimmed our list of recent posts and moused over the popular posts display (whose top contenders might just be interned there for life), but have you taken a good look at our archives? In two years, we've run the gamut of:

Q&A: When is it OK to Laugh?

Thank heaven the Internet is here to help solve the little insecurities we face each day...

Q: When I watch TV with my little sister, we laugh at different parts of the show. My sister makes fun of me and says, "Your timing is off!" At the time I just got angry and said, "No, you're off!" ...but, there isn't a standard for when to laugh at a TV show, right? We're free to laugh at whatever part we want, right?

Q&A: Wifely Duties

Uh oh! Sounds like there's some trouble in the Yamada home!

Is it just my wife, or...?
After dating for four months, my wife and I got married in July. So, here's my question: When you go to work, does your wife send you off from the entryway, and does she meet you there after work? We've been living together since May, but she never sends me off or meets me at the door when I come home. And when your wife does laundry, does she fold the clothes and put them away in the dresser? My wife folds the clothes but doesn't put them away.

Japanese Drivers: 5 Worst Traits

It seems there is no conclusive evidence that Japanese people are any worse at driving than any other nationality. For some reason. But anyone who has driven here will know the sheer horror - whether on the awful streets of Tokyo or the tiny mountain roads of Nagano prefecture, of driving. Maybe it is just "different", and works somehow. Maybe. My car got virtually totalled by an old Japanese fart the other month (800,000 yen repair bill), so maybe I'm biased. Well, definitely I am.

In any case, this article is intended to be light-hearted and shouldn't be taken too seriously by anybody. Live in Japan for any amount of time and you'll need to let off steam occasionally. AccessJ's writing team is no exception.

Counterfeit "Won" in Place of Yen

Here is the exciting conclusion to our article about why vending machines in Japan have little stickers on them telling you that your old 500 yen coins aren't welcome for use:

This is a 500 won coin that has been altered by a counterfeiter. The divots you see in the face of the coin are from a power drill, available at any home center, or more probably--considering the number of altered coins that were produced in the late 90's--a drill press, standard equipment in a machinist's shop.

Why Vending Machines Don't Accept Old 500 Yen Coins

You have probably seen this sticker or some variant of it--though you may not have properly noticed it or read what it said--on a vending machine in Japan. It is almost ubiquitous these days.

It tells you that the vending machine will accept new 500 yen coins, but not old ones. That's because old 500 coins were susceptible to easy counterfeiting, especially in vending machines.

Today, as a follow-up to Dom's wonderful guide to Japanese coins, let's learn a bit about the history of counterfeit 500 yen coins in Japan.

Japanese Textbook Characters: Part 2

Continuing last week's article, here's a look at the characters of the other three junior high English textbooks.

Total English
Art Style: The Most Generic Anime.
The ALT: Female. From Canada.

Click to enlarge!

Japanese Textbook Characters: Part 1

Next in our textbook bonanza, let's take a look at the characters appearing in the six new junior high English texts.

New Horizon
Art Style: Educational comic book.
The ALT: Female. From the US.

Click to enlarge!

The Wipe: That Picture in the Corner on TV

Double wipe action!

You've probably joked with your friends about that absurd little picture in the corner of the screen during Japanese TV variety shows. You know, the one filled up with some mug of some celebrity whose name you don't know but whose face you're sure you've seen on just about every TV show ever?

That little picture has a name, and it's called the ワイプ ("wipe").

Q&A: Are ALTs Really Necessary?

For two years an anonymous Japanese female kept meticulous blog reports of the ALT(s) living in the apartment above her. Most of them are inflammatory. But whether you think that the blogger's entries are just over-the-top rage explosions (and they are), or that the ALTs she writes about have just made poor choices of action (and they have), this blog is a prime example of the negative image ALTs and foreigners in Japan garner.

Without further ado:

Q&A: Facts About Runaways

Remember when Q&A introduced a latent, once media-frenzied issue of teen country girls running away from home and going to live in the city? And you thought, "Yeah, that's not for real."? And so did one of the helpful answer people in the original thread? Well, you're probably right. But according to some random, very unscientific Internet survey with a questionable sample, there's still a less dramatic basis for these stories.

Choking on mochi? Grab a vacuum.

Every year, a few Japanese people die over New Year celebrations by choking on mochi they swallowed whole. (For real. Here's a news report about 7 mochi choking deaths over January 1st to January 3rd last year.)