Thursday, October 06, 2011

(NSFW) Shopping Paradise

One thing I really love about Japan is how the advertising has no boundaries whatsoever. For example, you can be walking down a busy shopping arcade, bustling with gradads, kids, nuns etc., and suddenly find yourself gazing at a MUSCULAR TATTOOED ASS. As you can guess from the URL if not the pic, on the poster, this is an advertisement for a tattoo parlor. This particular parlor, located as it is in downtown Sendai, is offering a free commemorative tattoo to anyone who lost a loved one during the 3.11 earthquake/tsunami.
On a related note, tattoos have long carried a stigma in Japan, as they are generally associated with organized crime. In fact, my gym has a no-ink policy (though I see tattooed foreigners in there all the time).

Monday, September 26, 2011

Revenge of the importance of one word

Once again, some proofreading work that wandered into my crosshairs serves to remind me how exceptionally awesome my job can be. I swear I did not tamper with this text in anyway, other than adding the highlight to alert the client that she needed to clarify her sentence a bit.



I know it's cliche to say this, but you cannot make this shit up.

Monday, July 25, 2011

This Could/Will Happen to You

Here is a list of experiences you will almost certainly have if you live in Japan for longer than a couple of minutes:

  • Being lavishly praised on your Japanese speaking abilities for stammering out an awkward “good afternoon” in Japanese.

  • Realizing after being lavishly praised on your Japanese speaking abilities for saying “good afternoon” in Japanese that it is in fact 6:00-fucking-AM.

  • Being lavishly praised on your chopstick skills. Then being shown how to grip them so that you don’t put your remaining eye out.

  • Being told the following joke by an older Japanese person: “What did the Germans say to the Japanese after WWII? Next time, without the Italians!”

  • Realizing that your years of studying Japanese have given you no knowledge of basic words like “faucet” and “rutabaga.”

  • Stepping out of the toilet into a formal dinner party still wearing the special toilet-only toxic waste slippers to the horror of your hosts. (Alternatively, forgetting to change into the special toilet slippers when going into the bathroom to the horror of your hosts.)

  • Scouring the area you are in for the one restroom with a non-squat toilet. Seriously... you are supposed to squat facing the hood?! How the hell does that work? How do squat without putting your socks/underwear in the line of fire? Are you supposed to totally disrobe or what? Should I just wear a kilt at all times?

  • Pressing an innocuous button on the side of the toilet and experiencing a moment of blinding terror when a jet of lukewarm water shoots up your bum.

  • Growing to welcome your new bum-cleansing toilet overlords more and more the longer you are here.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Snack Name Fail



Not appetizing for some reason. I swear to god there must be a foreign copy editor who is just fucking with all these Japanese companies.