It is just mind-boggling how many Japanese have come away convinced that I must be a US citizen, on account of my shirt having a tiny US flag shoulder patch (right above where it proclaims in large gold stitch letters that I am a “Boy Scout of America”).

On the other hand, this lack in the whole irony concept, puts some of the clothing commonly spotted through the streets of Japan in a radically new, slightly scary, perspective…

The cicadas outside my window have started singing.

Summer is officially here.

Dear local Kyoto-fu LDP candidate for the upcoming upper-house election:

True: I cannot cast a vote in this election and sway your chances either direction.

But let me assure you that, if you keep insisting on circling my block multiple times, every morning between 8 and 8:30, inane election slogans blaring from your van’s speakers at top volume, I will be more than happy to contribute to your historical legacy by setting post at the closest grassy knoll with whatever long-range weapon I can get my hands on.

Thanks.

These “volunteers” will teach you English (and the Word of Jesus Christ Savior) for free, at three convenient locations around Kyoto.

Obviously, Japan is not doing enough to discourage missionaries these days…

Yep, that’s my daily commute.

God how I would have loved to seat the design meeting for this one:

“- For our sign, we need something refined something that spells GLAMOUR…”

“- how about the silhouette of a woman sitting on her ass, spread-eagled, showing her crotch?”

“- Brilliant! That’s exactly what I meant!”

… There is a young guy applying strokes to an oil painting while frenetically dancing to tribal trance music…

Japan: the country where trains being one minute late on the usual schedule warrants posting advance notices all over the station…

Too many things, too little time. So, until I manage to get my new non-keitai to play nice with the Keitai Logs auto-post script, here is a small selection of Spring snaps.

You know you are at a Japanese free party when…

• … everybody is smiling, having a good time and randomly engaging in friendly conversations.
• … people you’ve never met spontaneously come up to you and offer you a beer (or a swig off whatever bottle of alcohol they are drinking from).
• … asking for a light gets you not only that, but also a brand new mini portable-ashtray as a gift (to you and surrounding Nature).
• … little kids and grandpas, dancing along with the rest of the hippie club kids, is the most natural sight in the world.
• … you are standing over the Kamogawa, surrounded by cherry blossoms, dancing to some of the funkiest, jazziest, house beats you’ve heard in a long while…

What a nice and unexpected way to cap a lovely hanami/easter picnic on a Sunday afternoon…

You know you are in Japan when…
you show up to renew your Kyodai ID and a staff you’ve never met before immediately pulls it out of a stack of 300 identical cards, before you had a chance to give your name.

Yea: not a lot of whities in my faculty.

Strolling through Bic Camera the other day, I stopped in the handheld electronic Japanese dictionaries aisle and had a quick look at prices for a laugh.

Seriously, who still buys these things?

My guess is: people who also just purchased a brand new Sony Minidisc player¹ and/or will only use devices that bears the same comforting look as the pocket calculator they had back in High School.

I don’t see why else anybody would willingly spend up to twice the price of an iPod Touch on a tool that will, at best, do roughly what any iPod/iPhone does… minus the thousands of non-Japanese-related features.

Trust me, I am very receptive to the argument of the simple tool that does one thing and does it well, without the clutter and confusion of a myriad peripheral features… But if that’s what it takes, buy an iPod Touch, forget it can be a music player, a web browser or a gaming platform and use it solely as a Japanese study tool: you will still be getting a better deal than with one of these ridiculously overpriced/underfeatured denshi jisho.

In case you are considering such a purchase, or if you already own an iPhone/iPod Touch and wondered what apps you should get in order to turn it into the ultimate Japanese studying tool, here are my three picks:

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1. “fit up to twenty tracks in your pocket!” [↩]