Sometimes (well, often times), you look at the Japanese culture and think “gosh, Japan is really weird.” This is probably one of those times. Then again, what’s so weird about wanting refrigerated panties every once in a while, especially with the kinds of summers Japan tends to get?

As you may have gathered from the video, I just froze my boxers. It’s surprisingly nice to have on a cold day, so you’ll see no judgment from me today, Japan…

More info on these underwears can be found on Alafista and AkibaBlog (both can sometimes be NSFW).

P.S. If you wish you had colder underwear, you should follow Tofugu on Twitter.

P.P.S. If your underwear is “plenty cold, thank you!” you should probably check out the Tofugu Newsletter.

Related posts:

1. Japanese Snow Monkeys Warm Your Heart With Hot Springs
2. In Japan, You Visit A Scary Japanese Doctor 12+ Times A Year
3. Tofukubukuro: Get Your Tofugu Grab-Bag While It’s Hot

The era of the Geisha for the most part has ended, but the cultural tradition of larger than life females remains very much alive.  Outside traditional areas in cities like Kyoto, there are very few Geisha to be found in Japan these days, but in their place are virtually endless varieties of “Fantasy Girls.”  Samurai used to pay elaborately dressed Geisha to sing, dance, and generally make them feel good about themselves after a long day working for their lord.  In modern times, “shain” 社員 (company men) can choose their own “Fantasy Girl” to perform the same function.  In many cases, the purpose of their service goes beyond simple physical attractiveness to provide an avenue of escapism through individual attention, fantastic scenarios, and over-the-top service.  People come from around the world to participate in the many fantastic worlds created by Japan’s “Fantasy Girls,” and this post should serve as an introduction to what all the fuss is about by presenting a few well known groups of women (sometimes men) who set the stage for fantasy: キャバクラ (Kyabakura), ホステスクラブ／ホストクラブ (Host/Hostess Club), スナックバー (Snack Bar), and メイドカフェ (Maid Cafes).

キャバクラ – Kyabakura

キャバクラ “Kyabakura” (referred to by some as hostess or host bars), ホステスクラブ “Hostess Clubs,” and スナックバー “Snack Bars” are all very similar in that they involve beautiful women and men who are dressed almost comically elegantly and are supposed to make you feel like a big shot…as long as you have cash.

The word キャバクラ (kyabakura) is made from a combination of the words cabaret and club.  I guess it’s kind of like a Las Vegas cabaret show that comes to you!  This type of establishment also has the same kind of bad reputation as Las Vegas has: full of organized crime, substance abuse, prostitution, illegal immigrant workers, and exploitation of women (and men).  While this negative stereotype has a lot of traction, and has even attracted some action from the Japanese government, キャバクラ are so widespread throughout Japan that the moral standing of the establishment varies from location to location.

In Kyabakura, The Experience Should Be Like This:

A man or women dressed as if he or she is about to go to the Academy Awards will approach you from outside the establishment and tell you about all the beautiful women (or men) inside the kyabakura and should you decide to go inside the clock immediately starts on your service charge (warning: this is how a lot of foreigners lose all their money very quickly).  Once inside, either a girl (or boy) will be chosen for you or you can pick from a menu.  From that point, you are seated with the partner you chose who dotes on you hand and foot, flirts with you, animatedly listens to stories about your boring life, and constantly praises you.  All this is done over very expensive drinks, and typically one is encouraged to buy an entire bottle of liquor for use on multiple occasions, i.e. they really want you to come back.  Depending on the location, once the night is over you will get a little kiss and then a flurry of text messages telling you how amazing you are and to come back as soon as possible.  If you develop a relationship with a particular hostess or host, sometimes paid dates, called “douhan” 「同伴」 outside the club are permitted to encourage loyalty to the particular kyabakura.  This practice is morally gray to say the least, but in theory these dates are limited to casual flirting only.  Once you leave the kyabakura you will feel like a great weight has been lifted from your shoulders…or wallet…I forget which one comes first.

This Japanese news report is kind of like an insiders guide to the girls inside kyabakura (a relatively un-sketchy one).

ホステスクラブ – Hostess Club

Take the concept of kyabakura, multiply the price and staff physical attractiveness factor by at least 10, add incredibly wealthy people, subtract most of the illegal activities, and you have a hostess club!

There will be no one begging you to come inside this establishment.  These types of clubs are highly exclusive, often the meeting place for very high ranking members of society, and located in high class areas of big cities like the Ginza district in Tokyo.  If you want in, there is typically no fee per hour, but in the best ones you need to shell out over $100K to get access (yes, in US DOLLARS… not that US dollars are worth that much anymore, though).  The workers here are generally taken care of very well by a former hostess called Mama-san, and often have successful modeling careers during and after their time as employees.  Sometimes they get married to celebrities or high ranking officials who frequent the club.  The women are highly trained in the skills of making you feel good about yourself and are on the forefront of fashion trends.  Definitely not unlike Geisha right?!  This type of celebrity like status is what allures a lot of young women into the business, but a high quality place like this is usually not were they end up.

ホストクラブ – Host Club

One interesting difference between the “Age of the Geisha” and now is the inclusion of men as servers in Japan’s night time industry.  Host Clubs work almost exactly the same way as Hostess Clubs, but are typically not as high class and include a rainbow of gender preferences: female or male customers who like males, female or male customers who like very feminine males or cross dressing males, female or male customers who like females dressed as males, and the list goes on and on.  No matter what type of male they are, you can be assured that they are very confident, cool, fashionable, and oozing with money.

スナックバー – Snack Bar

A snack bar is like the smaller cousin to kyabakura.  These places typically are not the epicenter of modern fashion, but are more like hangouts for everyday salary men that would rather hang out with younger, probably foreign girls, than go home to their wife.  These places often have a variety of options for activities to do together like billiards, karaoke, darts, drinking, and eating.  It’s like going to a bar with a hot young girlfriend who does nothing but praise your every action and encourage you to drink as much as you want!  Definitely a fantasy world, and you’ll end up paying for it when the bill comes.  Unlike kyabakura, snack bars are a little bit more on the “honor system” in that if you really like the service you should leave a substantial tip.  Snack Bars are also not as hardcore as kyabakura about getting you to come back over and over again through financial and emotional pressure, so it’s typically a good option for foreign visitors.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This set up is pretty normal.  It’s pretty much just a bar where the female bartenders and staff are extra nice, so you tip them accordingly.

メイドカフェー – Maid Cafe

We have just left the Salary Man’s escape and have moved on to Otaku-land:  秋葉原 AKIHABARA!!  Of course it is very easy to find numerous salary men (Japanese term for someone working 9-5 at a large company) who also lead dual lives as serious Otaku (basically “nerd” in Japanese).  Akihabara is a section of Tokyo where the Otaku culture is at its peak, and chances are as soon as you step off the JR train, you’ll be greeted by a very cute Japanese girl dressed up like a French maid who will pose in pictures with you and invite you to her cafe.

“WELCOME TO AKIHABARA MASTER!!”

“秋葉原にお帰りなさいませご主人様！”

The predominant maid cafe style is where the maids treat you as though you are royalty and they are lowly, but very cute servants and dote on you hand and foot (see a pattern here at all?).  They will compliment you, tell you that you are handsome, put ketchup on your omelet in heart shapes while sitting on their knees at your table, make cute noises like a cat, blow kisses, make heart shapes with their hands, and encourage you to act cutely as well.  At many locations, they also play eating and drinking games with various prizes.

One example is that a maid will fix a huge stack of pancakes for you and a tiny pancake for herself and the bet is that if you can eat your pancakes faster than she can, you will get a kiss on the cheek, but if you lose she will slap you in the face in front of the entire restaurant.  All of this is done while they speak in an overly cute style called Mo-e “萌え” which in English I suppose would be the equivalent of baby-talk.  That sounds like it would get real annoying real fast, but people LOVE it, especially Otaku who don’t ever get attention from pretty girls (funny thing is, a lot of American otaku who learn Japanese on their own, probably using anime, often sound kind of like this… “funny” because it’s funny to listen to them talk like a baby girl).  It unfortunately leads to a lot of stalking, but in comparison, maid cafes are free from a lot of the other problems associated with kyabakura.  Almost everything you do at the cafe will cost money, from taking pictures to eating contests, and the food is of course at a premium cost, but for people who love Japanese girls dressed and acting like your personal French-maid servant, it is well worth the cost.

The wild thing about maid cafes though is that there are SO MANY DIFFERENT KINDS! There are some that are the exact opposite of the description above, and basically involve the maid treating you like a piece of crap and verbally abusing you the entire time you are in the restaurant.  Others are for women who like called Butler Cafes, some of which are entirely comprised of European men, who will even carry you around for a fee.

Here’s a link to a video to give you an idea of what exactly happens at a few different types of maid cafes.  The first that is shown is the typical style, the second is tsundere “つんでれ” which is basically where they make you think they hate you but in the end they show they really like you, and lastly is like samurai adventure where they do mock battles while you eat epically named food. Tofugu even wrote about a pretty creepy maid cafe a while ago: Mom Cafes.

Disneyland – but far more creepy

One new style of maid cafe that’s real real weird is called “kigurumi” 着ぐるみ which is basically some one wearing a head to toe costume like in Disneyland, but in this case it’s much more otaku adult themed…

This place is just like a regular maid cafe except the people dressed in anime costumes do not talk, but write on whiteboards to communicate with you.  This sounds like a bad horror movie!  To each his/her own I guess…

Japan’s Fantasy Girls – Past and Present

There are of course many many differences between Geisha in the past and the present form of fantasy girls in Japan, but the connection is clear: women (and men) in this industry provide a service that goes beyond the physical excitement present in similar services originating in the West like strip clubs, Hooters, etc.  The people performing all of these services in Japan are of course physically attractive, but more so they are experts in creating atmosphere where the customer feels removed from the world they live in and receive special individual attention.  In the West, people pay two separate groups: one to listen to their problems like counselors, and one that is unrealistically physically appealing like strip dancers.  In Japan however, they have a tradition of combining those roles that arguably has roots during the time of the Geisha.

This post was written by Nick W., who has traveled throughout many regions of Japan in search of unique cultural gems.  He is currently earning his MBA and has researched topics like folk music in WWII Japan and Ainu cultural revival through music.  His favorite Japanese musician is the late Nujabes.  He has experienced great amounts of culture shock when unknowingly encountering kyabakura hostesses.  In hindsight it was hilarious.

Related posts:

1. If You’re Homeless In Japan, Here Are Your Options
2. Traveling to Saitama, Japan [Off The Beaten Track]

A lot of people ask about bowing in Japan, and what they should do if they ever visit or live in Japan. Now, bowing in Japan is so deeply ingrained in culture and society that it’s not something people really think too much about (unless you’re in business, but we’ll talk about that in a bit). If you’re a foreigner, you’re probably not going to be expected to bow all the time, though that depends on the person. There are, however, so many different ways one can and should bow, depending on the situation (which can make it confusing if you didn’t grow up bowing to everyone your whole life).

Firstly, Bowing Should Be Natural

One thing that I get a kick out of is people who don’t know any better and think bowing should be done like it’s seen in anime. They do the full 45 degree bow and hold it there for a few seconds. On top of this, they make a big deal out of it. Stand straight up, rigid for a second, then slam their head down into their really deep bow, thinking that all Japanese people bow this way.

The thing is, 90% of the time (and even more, unless you’re working in business) bows are incredibly casual and small, even getting down to small nods of the head. We’re going to talk about bowing and how depth, etc., effects what you’re trying to communicate in your bow, but for now, if you’re one of those rigid deep bowers, relax a bit and don’t think about it so much.

What Does A Bow Mean In Japan?

The meaning of a bow totally depends on the situation, depth, and length of time you hold your bow. Bowing in Japan shows respect for the person or thing you’re bowing to. Societal ranking in Japanese is really important. If you’re higher up in society from another person, you’ll notice that they talk more politely to you (to a greater extent than what we do in America / Western cultures), bow more deeply, and even perhaps order the same food as you at a restaurant (so as to not out-food you, of course).

Bows are only one of the many ways you can show respect and humble yourself in front of another person. Depending on who you’re bowing to, you can bow more deeply, bow longer, or even, perhaps, not bow at all. Beyond humbling yourself, it seems like you can bow for almost any other reason at all. You can bow to greet people, say thank you, say you’re sorry, when you’re congratulating someone, and more. I’ve broken all this down into bullets to make it easier for you, and while the breakdown isn’t perfect it should give you some idea of the different things bowing can communicate.

• The nod-bow, 5 Degrees: This is just a small nod of your head. Make sure your head goes forward (we’re not nodding backwards and lifting our chin). The nod-bow is for pretty good friends, and is the most casual bow of them all (because it’s the smallest and shortest). There is another situation you might use this bow in, though. If you’re a higher ranking person (in society, work, whatever) than the person you’re bowing to, you could also use this small nod-bow. Bowing is meant to humble yourself, so if you’re higher ranking, you don’t have to humble yourself too much (but by bowing a little bit, you’re at least acknowledging the other person).
• Greeting Bow, Eshaku (会釈), 15 Degrees: This bow is for greetings, mostly for people you already know or are equals with. The “nod-bow” above is similar, but for when you know someone a lot better. This bow is probably for people you’ve met before and are familiar with, but not familiar enough to just go for the nod.
• Respect Bow, Keirei (敬礼), 30 degrees: This is where bowing gets respectful. Thirty degrees is actually quite a lot and feels like quite a lot, if you go ahead and do it. This bow is reserved for your boss / other people who are higher ranking than you. You could probably do a little more than 30 degrees if you wanted to, too. You wouldn’t use this bow with good friends or relatives (unless you were making a joke), so save this for people you don’t know / people who are above you on that societal scale.
• Highest Respect Bow, Saikeirei 最敬礼, 45 degrees: Say you screw up, big time… perhaps you made some cars that accelerate to 80 mph and crash into things and you need to apologize, or perhaps you’re bowing the the emperor. This is the bow you should use, because it shows the most amount of respect (or regret) possible (at least, until you get on your knees). You won’t need to use this one very often, if you’re lucky.
• Kneeling Bow, Touch Your Head To The Floor: You don’t see this kind of bow very much anymore. This is the kind of bow you see people doing in Samurai flicks when a daimyo goes by (or they messed up really really bad). If you’re flipping out at something terrible you did (like, really terrible), you might just flip out enough to get on your knees and touch your head to the ground (but more likely than not, you won’t ever do this kind of bow, unless you’re doing some kind of martial arts or you’re just trying to be funny).

I also found this image, below, which covers some of the bowing levels that I broke out above. These are the three main ones, and do a good job showing how you should bow. Notice how the guy’s hands are by his side, and his eyes are facing the same direction as his head? The lower your bow, the more you should look down.

Returning Bows

Knowing how much to bow is often pretty hard. It’s sort of a game of “guess who” where you try to figure out the other person’s age, status, company, etc., to figure out how much you need to humble yourself at their expense. There’s a few good ways to do this, though you’ll often find yourself just doing something in between (or overly respectful, just in case) because you don’t know enough about the other person. First though, here are some rules on bowing:

• You should bow back to people who bow at you (with a couple exceptions… i.e. people who greet you at stores / people who try to hand you things on the street).
• Try to get the other person’s business card (people hand out their business card like nothing in Japan). On it should be their company and title, which will give you an idea about where they are in the world.
• Try to guess how old they are. Chances are, if they’re older than you, they’re above you in almost every way. Treat your elders with respect, yo!

If all else fails, just go for the 30 degree bow. It’s right in the middle, respectful, and you probably won’t go wrong with it. The main thing with bowing, I think, is that you put the effort in. Like I mentioned earlier, Japanese people generally don’t expect foreigners to know the ins and outs of bowing. They also don’t expect foreigners to do bowing 100% perfect all of the time. The most important thing is that you don’t make it look rigid and unnatural. Try to relax, bow, and have fun!

Other Fun Tidbits About Bowing

Bowing is so ingrained in Japanese culture that you’ll see it in some funny instances. Here are some “exceptions” (or, at least, odd situations) you might run across a Japanese bow as well as what you should do about it.

Bowing On the Telephone:

Japanese people are so naturally inclined to bow that they often bow on the telephone, too, even though nobody can see them. Usually telephone bows won’t go beyond the “nod-bow” but there are some who are really, really hardcore. Once you’re bowing on the telephone, you’ll know you’ve spent a good amount of time in Japan.

Employees At Stores, Bowing To You:

Normally it’s nice to bow back to people, but a lot of times you’ll run into people greeting you at stores (not at all like a Walmart greeter) with enthusiastic welcomes and bows. You don’t have to stop and bow back to these people. Don’t worry, they’re getting paid.

Bowing A Train Away:

Occasionally you’ll come across someone seeing off someone getting on a train. The other person will get on and they’ll bow (and hold that bow) until the train is completely gone from the station. That right there is devotion! You, however, will probably never have to do this. Relationships that require this are fairly rare, and as a foreigner to Japan there’s a low likelihood that you’d need to do this (and even if you did, you probably wouldn’t be expected to either). Aside from trains, you’ll see this with cars and elevators as well.

Bowing Over And Over Again:

Often times when you’re bowing with someone, the bows will start off deeper, then gradually get smaller and shorter the more times you bow. It’s kind of a “hey, you bowed, I better bow again,” which is responded to with a “oh no, he/she bowed again, I better bow too,” and this keeps on going until the bows get small enough where both sides can stop. You just don’t want to get out-bowed by the other person if you’re trying to show respect to them (this happens most in equal relationships).

P.S. You should do a small 15 degree bow to Tofugu on Twitter by following it.

P.P.S. If that wasn’t enough, you should do a 45 degree bow to the Tofugu Newsletter.

Related posts:

1. In Japan, You Visit A Scary Japanese Doctor 12+ Times A Year
2. 12 Completely (Un)inspiring Images To Help You Learn Kanji

P.S. Stick around to the end of this post, where you can win a sexy green USB man.

I bet a lot of you know all about “rock, paper, scissors,” the other way that Japanese people make decisions, but did you know about amidakuji? When you need to assign people or things to an equal number of outcomes, amidakuji is the best way to do it… plus, it kind of reminds me of all those pipes mario smokes has to walk through.

If you look at the info-graphic above (from Wikipedia), you probably should be able to understand how it works. The important thing is that there are an equal number of outcomes as there are things to make decisions on. If you do this, then everything works out in the end, every time (i.e. no one outcome will be chosen twice!).

Amidakuji is used for all kinds of things. I’ve experienced it with distributing prizes (this is how I think Christmas exchanges should happen), distributing chores to do (who has to clean the bathroom this week?), and choosing partners / opponents in various games and activities. It’s actually incredibly useful if you use it in the right situations.

Speaking of using it in the right situation, remember that Flutterscape contest from a few weeks ago? I used amidakuji to figure out which of the six finalists would win the prize. Congrats to the winners!

For those of you who didn’t win don’t cry for too long, because Flutterscape giveaway two out of three is upon us, and I’m giving away two “Midori Otoko.” These “green guys” are actually 2GB USB sticks. When you pop off their heads, you can access their USB dongle, plug it in, and make use of their binary knowledge. They also bend around, which means you can make them do Yoga, apparently.

Midori Otoko Rules

1. Make sure you have a Twitter account (and follow @tofugu and @flutterscape if you haven’t already!)
2. Write an awesome haiku about Flutterscape on Twitter (don’t know what Flutterscape does?). Haikus are 5-7-5 syllables.
3. Make sure you include the #flutterscape AND #haiku hashtags. If you don’t, I won’t be able to find your tweet, because I’m going to use this search on Twitter.
4. Optional: Post your haiku in the comments of this post, too, because we all want to read it.

I’m going to choose the winner sometime soon (Maybe a week? Maybe two?) so get your tweets up there. You can tweet multiple times, but just be careful not to tweet too much, otherwise your overwhelming number of tweets may take away from the punch of your winning tweet. I’ll pick two of my favorites and then send you a direct message if you won (so you should make sure to follow @tofugu on Twitter!)

[Midori Otoko on Flutterscape]

P.S. Stay inspired to study Japanese with the (free) TextFugu Inspirational E-mail List.

Related posts:

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2. 8 Ways to Win Unlimited Japanese Lessons (and counting)
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Japanese hospital experiences are known to be a little… wild… but when I saw this chart I thought it had some pretty interesting information in it. The main goal of this chart was to show how ridiculous America’s per person spending on health care is (while still doing pretty mediocre in terms of life), but of course my eyes were immediately drawn to Japan’s data.

If you look at the chart, you’ll see that Japan’s life expectancy is very high (it’s the diet, methinks, though even that seems to be changing with Western influence), and they visit a doctor an average of 12+ times per year! Can you imagine going to the doctor 12 times per year? I can barely imagine going once per year (though I suppose that’s why Americans visit doctors 0 times per year, according to the chart, ouch).

Surprisingly, though, for a country that visits a doctor 12 or more times a year, it isn’t costing people as much. People are spending approximately $2581 a year on health care in Japan, which isn’t chump change, but isn’t all that much either. Still, though, I can’t help but think that with all the horror stories I hear about Japanese doctors (I’ve only had to experience this once, thankfully, and luckily it wasn’t all that bad… unless they were lying about the lack of tumor in my head, which is completely possible) Japanese people are heading to the doctor a little too much. I don’t think the long life expectancy would go down if people went, say, 6 times a year?

Why Japanese Doctors Are Scary

There are plenty of reasons why Japanese doctors are, in general, kind of frightening. Luckily, Japan is an advanced first world country, which makes it less scary than going to a doctor in, say, Canada (just kidding, Canada!), but I’d rather go to a doctor in the U.S. or Canada (love your gravy and fries, Canada!) if I had something serious. If you are in need of a doctor in Japan, it’s generally best to find one that studied outside of Japan. The following list of scary Japanese doctor bullets are a generalization (so don’t take them as 100% true 100% of the time, because that won’t work), but will give you some insight as to why the whole doctor situation can cause a bit of a problem for foreigners in Japan.

• Doctors get a commission for every bit of prescription they give to you. According to several stories, doctors will take your temperature, listen to your heart beat, look at your throat, and then prescribe something somewhat unrelated to how you’re feeling. Stomach pain? What stomach pain? On top of that, you’ll get several different kinds of prescriptions, too much (or too little) of each, and often times something that doesn’t help you at all.
• If you have something bad, doctors might not tell you about it. They might tell your family, but the problem with that is the family might not tell you about it either. Whoops. “6 months to live? Who said that? Nah, you’re fine, just eat your wakame.”
• Japanese medicine comes from German medicine. Nothing wrong with German medicine, but I’d prefer my Japanese doctors learning specifically Japanese medical terms instead of German ones. I’ve also heard about plenty of Japanese doctors who learn medicine in German. Learn your life saving knowledge in your own native language, please!
• You can’t really question your doctor. Even when things don’t seem to make sense, it’s insulting to ask the doctor for an explanation. Though, as mentioned earlier, Japanese doctors who have studied outside of Japan seem to take this better, from various stories and articles I’ve gone through.
• In Japan, if you get almost anything, you go to a doctor. I don’t know how many times my host family tried to get me to see a doctor when I had a regular, not-all-that-bad common cold. That’s not something I really need to see a doctor for, thanks for the concern, though! Of course, there’s no data to back this up, but I imagine seeing common cold after common cold in the doctors office can make a doctor feel a bit too relaxed about how they diagnose something. Anyways, it makes me worried.
• There isn’t really much competition between hospitals. Lots of competition in terms of the folks making the medicine, but not so much in terms of the actual doctors themselves, it seems.
• You are discouraged from getting a second opinion (this goes back to questioning the doctor’s diagnosis). “How dare you question me! Did you go to Toudai? I think not!”

All that being said, there are plenty of people who have great experiences in Japanese hospitals / with Japanese doctors as well. It’s not all horror (though that could explain Japan’s obsession with hospitals + horror games & movies), and if you find yourself sick in Japan it could be so much worse. More likely than not, you’ll probably have an okay to great experience, and then you can come back here and say “damnit Koichi, why you scare me so?”

On the other hand, if you’ve had a terrible hospital / doctor experience in Japan, share it in the comments below! My own personal experience was fine, though if I find out I have a head tumor three years from now I’ll be really upset.

(chart source)

P.S. You should follow Tofugu on Twitter!

P.P.S. TextFugu is 50% off until January 31 now. Get it while it’s hot.

Related posts:

1. If You’re Homeless In Japan, Here Are Your Options
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Japan’s jobless rate is currently at 5.2%, which is a record high (way better than America’s, but still). There is a 15.7% poverty rate, one of the highest amongst industrialized nations. 15,800 people live on the streets of Japan (according to the government – in reality this number is probably higher with 10,000+ in Tokyo alone). To sum things up, things aren’t all that great, and the recession is hitting Japan pretty hard as well. If you are poor in Japan, however, there are a couple of interesting options for you. Better than living with the monkeys, anyways.

Capsule Hotels

There was a great article NYT article recently on capsule hotel living, but here’s the summary of it. Originally, capsule hotels were created to be a place for drunken  salarymen to sleep if they stay out too long and miss the last train (or just don’t want to go home). It’s a place to sleep, it does the job, and it’s pretty cheap. You only get a small space (i.e. a capsule) that’s around 6.5 feet long and 4-5 feet wide. There are no doors (just screens) and you get a TV, clean sheets, a pillow, and a roof over your head. Certainly not a posh hotel, that’s for sure.

Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510, the capsule hotel showcased in the article, started noticing that people weren’t just staying the night… they were staying weeks, and then months. After realizing this, they gave people discounts for paying for a month at a time, and the government even gave the okay to use these hotels as physical addresses, which helps the jobless living here land interviews.

The capsule hotels do have public areas, lockers to rent, public baths, sinks, and more – so it’s not all that bad. The actual capsule area is mostly for sleeping, plus you get a tv to watch. Here’s the kicker, though. You might get around 30 square feet of space, yet it costs around $640 a month. Ouch. To put things in perspective, my tiny apartment is 550 square feet, exists in San Francisco (one of the most expensive areas to rent in the U.S., behind NY), and costs a little over twice that much, yet I’m getting around 18 times the space, plus my own bathroom, kitchen, washer / dryer, etc. Capsule hotels are not cheap, but they’re still cheaper than renting an actual apartment.

Unfortunately, even with the “reduced” prices that a capsule hotel offers, a lot of jobless people run out of savings and have to hit the streets. I gotta say, though. There are a lot of pretty clever homeless abodes in Japan, which makes it your second available option if you end up homeless in Japan.

Getting Your Very Own Blue Tent

Although it sucks to be on the street, I gotta say, if I was going to be on the street, I want to live in one of these. Although not all of them are blue, when you’re passing various parks in Japan, you will often see Japanese tent-societies, and some of them are actually pretty fancy. I’ve heard of some having internet access, even. In the image above, you can see plants growing, a bicycle, and more. There are homeless societies that work together to make money by growing vegetables / crops, put their money together to buy food in bulk (so they can get more for less yen), and more.

This particular shelter has windows!

Since the 1990s, when the Japanese economy went bad, more and more of these tents have appeared all over the place. Japan’s always had trouble admitting that there is / was a homeless problem (Japan has always been proud of its “classless” society, at least in the past), but now it’s becoming enough of an issue that people are taking notice and doing something about it, which is great. Homeless levels still aren’t anywhere near what we see in America, but it’s good to nip the problem at the bud. The BBC has written up a great “news in pictures” article about the homeless in Japan. Definitely take a look if you have the urge.

Living In a Japanese Internet Cafe

Another trick that’s becoming pretty popular, mostly amongst younger folks, is staying in Manga / Internet cafes. Many are open 24 hours, give out free drinks, have showering facilities, and offer privacy. It’s not like the Internet cafes you see here – many facilities offer people their own individual, private rooms, and for $15-$25 a night, a reclining chair (instead of a bed) ain’t all that bad. Plus, while you’re sitting there wishing you could sleep, you can read manga, surf the net, or watch videos. Eventually you’ll get so tired that you’ll be able to sleep, maybe. Keep those free drinks coming!

So there you have it. If you ever find yourself in Japan for the long-term, and are running out of money (and have no source of income), one of these will probably work out for you. Then again, there are always hostels, which are also pretty darn cheap, but why would you want to stay in a hostel when you could do one of these? There’s always beach-bumming in Okinawa, too, though you’d have to figure out how to get there.

P.S. Which one is your favorite? i.e., if you had to live one of these lifestyles for a month, which would you choose? Personally, I’d go with #2 and live in a tent society. Seems like it would be really interesting to meet all kinds of new people and be a part of a community. The other two are a bit too “separate” for me to really dig. Speaking of Digging something, you should Digg this article!

P.P.S. You should also follow Tofugu on Twitter.

Related posts:

1. In Japan, You Visit A Scary Japanese Doctor 12+ Times A Year
2. “Glee Japan,” With The Help Of My (Big) Friend Akebono Tarō

This is the last TeamLab post (for a little while, at least). I’ve been saving this one for last, since I think it’s my favorite (or, at the very least, the most psychedelic), so I’m hoping you enjoy it. Like the others, it combines traditional Japanese art styles with various modern elements, in this case they are using video which progresses the art piece as an actual story.

When watching this video, I’d recommend going to full screen

In 2009, the World Wildlife Fund (Not to be confused with the World Wrestling Federation, which is equally as smashy) announced their prediction that sea levels will rise 120cm by the end of the century. 100 Years Sea visualizes this using traditional Japanese art styles. Besides the somewhat political nature of the film, here is the artistic concept behind it, as reported by TeamLab.

“Historically Japanese artist painted and expressed waves using a combination of lines. These assembled lines give the impression of the life and energy of the sea as one living creature. Looking at the sea we feel awe, and it is probably due to this awe that Japanese artists chose to express the sea as a living entity. Japanese ancestors possibly saw the world exactly as it is depicted in a classic Japanese print. Based on this idea, we considered recombining the subjective view of that of our ancestors with the fixed objective view of the modern world. We constructed virtual waves in a 3D environment that regardless of the cut, have the appearance of the combined line style of Japanese painting. As a result we think it might be possible to gain an impression of what the world looked like to our Japanese ancestors. This movie attempts to recreate the recognition of space of our Japanese ancestors’ in 3 dimensions. In doing so, we may be able to discover a new mode of expression in which viewers feel there is no border between the world of the movie and the world in which they live. As a result viewers may be able to feel the movie more physically.” (read more)

The video version above is actually the shorter, faster version (apparently the original actually takes 100 years to complete?). It’s displayed on a gigantic 20 meters of screen, so if you get motion sick easily then maybe this isn’t the best art installation for you.

Anyways, I’ll be watching TeamLab for any cool updates, so enjoy the TeamLab hiatus, for now. So what do you think. Is sea rise going to happen and swallow up Japan? Hopefully not, but at least my favorite monkey friends are safe in the mountains.

Related posts:

1. Flower and Corpse: Making Hanging Scrolls Modern
2. Tofugu’s 2010 New Years Resolutions
3. Mochi Soup and New Years!

I just read a great article by awesome j-blog WhatJapanThinks, which translates Japanese surveys into English for your enjoyment. This particular article is titled “How Japanese Call Their Partners.” i.e., what Japanese guys and gals call their significant others. I thought it was a particularly interesting study, and since what you call someone says a lot about someone in Japanese (There’s a lesson about this on TextFugu, if you’re a member), but this article goes deeper into one particular niche… the girlfriend / boyfriend. Oh baby oh baby.

Survey Results

Although you can read about the entire survey here, here are the most important bits of information for this particular article. Data was collected by iShare, and translated by WhatJapanThinks.

★ How do you most often refer to your partner? (Sample size=383)

*Most Common nicknames were those with -tan or -nyan added to the end of names

★ How does your partner most often refer to you? (Sample size=383)

*Most Common nicknames were those with -tan or -nyan added to the end of names

★ If you were to be called a name by a partner, which would you most want to be called? (Sample size=484)

Now, this data that was collected consisted of 289 males, and 195 females, which means the “All” percentages will tend to lean toward the male point of view, and this is what I want to focus on, especially with my special interest in male / female speech patterns (which I wrote about in the Japan Times in 2009). Let’s take a look at the top results, broken down by male/female from each data-set, and compare.

How do you refer to your partner?

• Men: Given Name Only (i.e. first name without -kun, -san, -chan, etc., name enders). 36%
• Women: Given Name plus -chan, -kun. 30.4%

In this data block, it’s interesting to see that the largest group of men who took the survey refer to their girlfriends without using name-enders like -kun, -chan, etc., whereas women response shows that their largets percentage block do call their boyfriends by name + chan / kun. Let’s keep this in mind while we move on to the next data-set.

How does your partner refer to you?

• Men: Given name plus chan, kun. 34.7%
• Women: Given name only. 34.2%

Of course, the opposite of the first dataset should be true, and that’s reflected here. Men are referred to by their name + chan / kun, and women are referred to by their given name only. This helps to validate the above data set even further.

What would you like to be called most?

• Men: Given name plus chan, kun. 27%
• Women: Given name only. 39.5%

This is the most interesting table, I think. Although it was fairly split up amongst men (#1 was given name + chan / kun, but there was a close second, which was “given name only”), the women pretty much only had one answer that really stood out, which was “given name only.” I find it really interesting that women are most interested in being called by their given name only, though they are more often calling their significant others by given name + chan / kun.

Although I have very little real data to back this up, I think there are some interesting hypothesis that can be.. er… hypothesized from this.

1. This is part of the whole “women must talk like women” thing… i.e. more polite, more submissive, etc. Even though kun / chan aren’t necessarily considered to be “polite” in the purest sense (nothing wrong with using these on your significant other, though), it is considered more “polite” than just doing given name without adding an honorific to the end.
2. Since “given name only” was a close second for men (26.3% versus 27%), and the top spot for “what would you like to be called most” when you add male/female responses together, this could be showing a change in the Japanese language towards a more Western style of language (i.e. just calling people by their first names, at least in casual situations). I’m not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing, but the Japanese language does change very quickly, and this could be one of those changes. People surveyed in this study were between the ages of 20-50, which, overall, is pretty young, and could represent a more “modern” generation that is making various changes to the language. It’s hard to look at this data and get too much more out of it without looking at the age groups individually, and then getting more results per age group.
3. Everyone actually calls each other “snuggy-bottoms” and just don’t want to admit it.

What insight can you pull from the survey data? Personally, I’m not all that good with numbers / statistics unless it involves baseball, so I’m sure I’m missing something, and would love to hear what you think, even if it’s something like “Koichi, you’re full of #$!@.”

What Should You Call YOUR Japanese Sweetheart?

If, by chance, you had a Japanese boyfriend or girlfriend, and you didn’t want to call them Snuggy-bottoms, I’d stick with the given name + kun / chan. It’s safe, it works, and there’s nothing wrong with it. The four “main” ways to do it are:

1. Given name only
2. Given name plus kun, chan
3. Nickname (i.e. snuggy bottoms)
4. Given name plus -san

Everything else drops way off there, and seem kind of weird. I feel sad for the 1-2% of people who are just called “you” or “Hey” or “Oy!” … unless their name is actually “you” or “hey” or “oy,” then I guess it’s okay.

Oh, and before you go, you should follow me on Twitter.

No related posts.

A lot of you out there know how much of a (sad) Apple fanboy I am, which means you’ll probably understand why iPhone art makes my heartbeat increase. This is the post I was going to post the other day (before getting distracted by Wacom Japan’s little flash game), and yes, it’s also developed by my new favorite art / design / tech group Team-Lab. We’ve already seen how nice and shiny LCD screens can modernize hanging scrolls, but what if you want to take your hanging scrolls on the train? First, you’d have to get four iPhones, but if you’re a multi-millionaire, then why not?

The trick with these hanging scroll iPhones is to put them side by side and synchronize the start time of each. When this is done, the hanging scrolls tell a story (not unlike regular hanging scrolls), using traditional art styles via a new medium. Personally, I love the 3D-but-not-3D style that Team-Lab puts into a lot of their design, and the iPhone’s a great touch too.

Of course, now that this has come out, there are rumors of a slightly homelier Android version hitting the market too. This new Android mobile hanging scroll model will drop fewer calls and run on Verizon, which encourages you to purchase the family plan with unlimited scroll-viewing minutes for only $49.99 a month.

Oh, and you should follow Tofugu on Twitter.

Related posts:

1. Flower and Corpse: Making Hanging Scrolls Modern
2. How Wacom Japan Gets You To Buy Their Very Expensive Tablets (Cute Mesmerization)

Welcome to another edition of “Saturday Time Waster.” There seems to be a huge difference between American flash games and Japanese flash games. Although this isn’t 100% the case, it seems like most of the time, Japanese flash games are all about making you feel nice and calm. Most of the games seem to have no end, and they attempt to down you with pleasant music and cuteness. I suppose if I was a hard working “Sarari man” I’d want something to calm me down too while I was hiding out in my cubical playing flash games.

This particular game was made by my friends at Team-Lab (they’re the ones that did the fantastically mesmerizing ”Flower and Corpse“), who I’ll be slowly covering over the course of the month. I was originally going to put something up for all you Apple lovers today (which I suppose will have to wait), when I came across this game that Team-Lab made with Wacom (the folks that make those really cool, yet expensive tablets). As you’re playing this game, it definitely makes the tablet yearner in all of us think “man, I wish I had $500-$1000 to buy a tablet to play this game with.” Add that to the zombie / mesmerized feeling you get while playing the game… and you’ve created the perfect monster… er… customer.

You can play the game yourself, or watch the video showing my attempt to win the game. I’m pretty sure if you fill the screen with angry neon pigs that counts as a win, right? At least I didn’t buy a tablet… yet.

Play now: http://tablet.wacom.co.jp/bambooplayroom/

Oh, and you should follow Tofugu on Twitter.

Related posts:

1. 100 Ways to Entertain Guests Visiting From Japan
2. Flower and Corpse: Making Hanging Scrolls Modern