Victory Manual

Sakai Junko’s essay 電車の中で若者に注意 got me to thinking about “generation gaps” as “foreign culture”.
In the essay, Ms. Sakai rants about a few episodes where young people should have been admonished for their inconsiderate behavior. In one example, she highlights two young men riding a bullet train watching TV on a cell phone sans headphones. [...]

アメリカ合衆国は民主主義の国のように見えるけど、実はそうではない。
民主主義であるのなら国会は必要ではないであろう。建国者は共和国のアメリカ合衆国を作った。当時、わざわざ民主主義として建国しなかった。その理由はほとんどの国民がうまく制御できないからである。
そのため国会を作りました。建国者が、憲法に義務のある国会議員が国を統制するシステムを決定した。現在のアメリカ合衆国が民主主義のために戦争を起こしているというが、実は我が国でも民主主義とのシステムを使っていないので、それは皮肉ではないか。
国民を１００％統制できているとすれば、それは無政府状態ということではないか。

As a foreigner in Japan who currently teaches English, it’s impossible to avoid having an opinion on a policy of mandatory second-language education. Deas from rockinginhakata.com commented on bilingualism (particularly of English and Spanish in the States), but I want to take one step back, towards second-language education in a general scope.
In terms of [...]

(Image showing a Korean national showing his…erm…disregard for China)
Inspiration from an article posted at Japan Probe

This is a thought that just occured to me, but it seems that an increase in crime has a direct correlation with materialism in society. People want stuff, and to get stuff you need cash.
With an increasingly short attention span, thanks to the influence of things like music videos where any given scene is [...]

It’s an undeniable fact that I’m the master of こいこい.
Our new-ish PC came with the computer version of こいこい, a Japanese card game. (Mini-fact: Nintendo made its claim to fame as the leading production company of the game cards, called hanafuda, used in this game)
The game is cake. Well, it used to [...]

For lack of anything really interesting to write about at the minute, I’ll write 8 factoids about myself since it has been demanded of me by Deas. I should warn you, though, that on the Japanese magnitude scale of “interesting” I register at “not very”. Most people don’t read these things, anyways.
1. [...]

Yet another story of how kanji saved my life…would have sounded a lot more dramatic and probably would have been a more interesting read. But, seriously - Kanji rock. Kanji are superheroes. In fact, in the upcoming 8th season of Smallville (yeah, I watch it - What’s it to you?!), we find [...]

The over-pious think that unbelievers are in the dark, and the over-skeptical think that believers are misguided. Neither is right.

One of my pet peeves is when options to change languages in programs are only listed in the language that the program is currently set to. So, for example, if you were currently in Japanese mode and attempting to change it to English, here’s the menu you are presented with:
日本語
中国語
韓国語
英語
イタリア語
フランス語
If you don’t understand Japanese, [...]