I happened to see the following notice on the site this morning:

If you can’t read Japanese, it says “This is accident prevention month! Our goal is to have zero accidents!”

Thank You, Tokyo Government! I had been planning on having several accidents this month; I’m glad that someone warned me about this month’s goal before this morning’s planned blindfolded drive to work…

I figured that there are likely dozens of translations out there, but I didn’t look because I wanted to take a crack at translating it myself without being influenced by any of the others. Feel free to offer suggestions; this was a quickie 10-minute job, so I may have misunderstood something…

[As always, if you're going to post this translation somewhere else, I would really appreciate your linking back to this blog, or at the very least, not removing my name. I'm sick of seeing my translation of Robinson posted everywhere without my name on it.]

手紙　~　拝啓十五の君へ
Letter ~ To 15-year-old you

Lyrics and Music: Angela Aki
English Translation: Drew Hamilton <awh@awh.org>

拝啓　この手紙読んでいるあなたは　どこで何をしているのだろう

Dear you who are reading this letter: I wonder where you are and what you’re doing.

十五の僕には誰にも話せない　悩みの種があるのです

15-year-old me has worries that I can’t talk to anyone else about.

未来の自分に宛てて書く手紙なら
きっと素直に打ち明けられるだろう

If I write this letter to my future self, surely I will be able to honestly and openly express myself.

今　負けそうで　泣きそうで　消えてしまいそうな僕は
誰の言葉を信じ歩けばいいの?
ひとつしかないこの胸が何度もばらばらに割れて
苦しい中で今を生きている
今を生きている

Whose words should I believe now, when I’m on the edge of losing, on the brink of tears, and on the verge of disappearing? When this heart that I only have one of is constantly being broken to pieces? When I’m living through these difficult years?

拝啓　ありがとう　十五のあなたに伝えたい事があるのです

Dear 15-year-old you, thank you for you letter. I have some things that I’d like to say to you.

自分とは何でどこへ向かうべきか　問い続ければ見えてくる

If you keep asking yourself “in which direction should I head?” the answer will come to you

荒れた青春の海は厳しいけれど
明日の岸辺へと　夢の舟よ進め

The rough seas of adolescence are harsh, but the ship of your dreams will continue to the riverbank of tomorrow

今　負けないで　泣かないで　消えてしまいそうな時は
自分の声を信じ歩けばいいの
大人の僕も傷ついて眠れない夜はあるけど
苦くて甘い今を生きている

And when you don’t want to lose, to cry, when you don’t want to disappear, believe in your own voice. And even the adult me has times when I get hurt, even has sleepless nights, but life is bittersweet.

人生の全てに意味があるから　恐れずにあなたの夢を育てて
Keep on believing

There is meaning to the entirety of one’s life, so follow your dreams without unease; keep on believing.

負けそうで　泣きそうで　消えてしまいそうな僕は
誰の言葉を信じ歩けばいいの?
ああ　負けないで　泣かないで　消えてしまいそうな時は
自分の声を信じ歩けばいいの
いつの時代も悲しみを避けては通れないけれど
笑顔を見せて　今を生きていこう
今を生きていこう

Whose words should I believe now, when I’m on the edge of losing, on the brink of tears, and on the verge of disappearing? When you don’t want to lose, to cry, when you don’t want to disappear, believe in your own voice. And whatever your age, sorrow can’t always be avoided, but I now try to live my life showing my smiling face.

拝啓　この手紙読んでいるあなたが
幸せな事を願います

Dear you who are reading this letter,
I wish good things for you.

This is how you have to travel if you are planning on taking a suitcase anywhere by motorcycle. Coincidentally, this was also how I got a monitor home from Omiya just a week before…

I must admit that this is something that I never expected to see at a concession stand: Turkey Drumsticks

I was on my way home from the Grand Prix motorcycle race in Motegi, Japan, which as you might expect is a pretty testosterone-filled day. Luckily this car pulled into the 7-11 that I was stopped for a rest at, which balanced out the day nicely.

I really hate that the post office requires you to write “Small Package” right under your name and address like that. IT’S NOT TRUE, DAMNIT!

If I’d known that “Foreigner with Glasses” was an acceptable Hallowe’en costume, I could have saved myself so much time and effort!

Six Chinese female trainees at a dry-cleaning company in Yamanashi Prefecture got into a row with the company when they complained that they were being paid under the minimum wage, and three of them suffered injuries including a broken bone, it has been learned.

The article goes on to say that the employees complained that their monthly salary of 50,000 yen (about USD $500) was far below minimum wage, and that their overtime pay of 350 yen/hour (later raised to 450 yen/hour) was less than half of the region’s minimum standards for overtime.

When the six workers submitted a written request for their wages to be raised, the dry-cleaning company showed up at the company’s dormitory with 10 other people, and tried to force the women into a van taking them to the airport and sending them to China.  During this scuffle, one woman’s leg was broken when she jumped out of a second-story window trying to escape, and two others were also injured, presumably by the company employees who were trying to force them into the van.

The company president later visited the foreign workers’ union headquarters and apologised:

“If they were Japanese I wouldn’t have done it (tried to force them to leave). I was asked for a high amount of unpaid cash and thought I couldn’t negotiate. I’m sorry for their injuries.”

Nice.  ”You don’t have to worry, Japanese government.  I wouldn’t have tried to kidnap Japanese girls after they demand that I start following employment laws, only dirty foreign ones.  Please rest assured.”

That’s OK though; the Justice Ministry has said that the company might be punished:

“The failure to pay wages, the human rights violations and other actions constitute illicit behavior, and there is a possibility that this warrants banning the firm from accepting trainees for three years,” the official said.

Translation:  ”You might have to wait three whole years before being allowed to abuse other foreign labour in this way”.

In the “Western bloggers in Japan” community, there is often a lot of grousing about what is seen as horrendous acts of racism: “I had to see 8 whole apartments before I found one that would rent to a white man!”  ”Boo hoo, when I went to buy my iPhone I had to show a different kind of ID!”  ”A lady gave me the stink-eye on the subway!”

Truthfully that stuff bothers me a bit too, but I can’t get worked up about the small stuff when I know what kind of problems the immigrants who aren’t lucky enough to have been born in a rich country face:  Not being able to rent anything but the most disgusting shacks of apartments… working long hours in poor conditions…  in some cases, being imprisoned by the Yakuza and forced to work as sex workers for Japan’s business and government elite..  And then when finally one case actually makes the news — an abuse and kidnapping and assault case — it’s met with a slap on the wrist like that.

This sort of thing is what the “Westerners in Japan” blogosphere should really concern itself with; not petty bullcrap like iPhones and video rental memberships.

Anyway, as most readers of this blog will already know, Google released its Street View service in Japan last month.  This is a service that had Google drive through the streets of Tokyo (and presumably other metropolitan areas?) and take pictures every 100 meters or so, and make those pictures viewable in Google Maps.  Like a lot of people, we all had a lot of fun with it at the office…  People were looking for their houses, favourite stores, the office…  We were checking our parking spots looking for our cars and motorcycles, we were checking favourite hangouts to see if we could see anything interesting.

But it didn’t take too long for the cries of protest to start from the Japanese blogging community. This post (english translation here) is the most famous and the one that I’ll talk about.

Anyway, there’s a reason I started off this post talking about the “here in Japan” lecture.  Mr. Higuchi’s letter to Google raises some good points, but it’s so couched in the whole “we Japanese…” us vs. them mentality that it’s really hard to read those points without emotions getting in the way.

His letter rubs the wrong way almost from the start:  He is quite convinced that the employees of Google Japan feel the same way as him (Why wouldn’t they?   They’re Japanese, and We Japanese Are All The Same), and that they have simply been unable to convince their idiot American bosses of the truth that Google Street View offends Japanese Sensibilities.

But really, let’s look at his main point about why “We Japanese” do not like Street View: “We Japanese live close to the street in small houses, and so consider the exterior of our houses to be part of our living space as well”.   He backs this up with examples of things that only “We Japanese” do, such as shoveling snow from the road/sidewalk in front of their house, and decorating the front of their house with plants and the like.

Now, those of you who have lived in non-Japan parts of the world can see where I am going with this: this is not a “We Japanese” thing; this is clearly a “We Humans Who Live In Close Proximity” thing.  If only he had started off differently, like “People in Tokyo live in even closer proximity than people in New York, so maybe you haven’t considered this…” this would be a lot more well-received than playing the “You Americans could not possibly hope to understand We Japanese” card.

It’s time for everybody, on all sides of debates, to learn:  Different culture groups aren’t really as different as first they seem, so if you are trying to make some argument like that, see if you can phrase your argument in terms of “we humans” rather than “we [race]“.

There were 2 lanes of traffic in each direction, and a red light up ahead.  I was moving along in the outside lane; the inside lane was already backed up from the red light (Japanese drivers often forget that the outside lane is available which is why it is often free-moving even when the inside lane is backed up). All of a sudden I was thinking to myself, “Hmm, I think I just saw something from the corner of my eye, better be care–” and BAM there he was.

Now, for those readers already familiar with Tokyo cyclists, or those who have read my earlier posts on the matter, you may safely skip the remainder of this paragraph, for it goes without saying.  For everyone else, however, you may be surprised to know what this man was wearing.  Black from head to toe.  And of course, his bicycle had no reflectors or lights.  He was the perfect ninja bicyclist.

He had evidently crossed the street, driving through the stopped lane of cars without checking to see if both lanes were stopped.  I had little choice but to leave bits of tyre and brake pad all over the street as I screeched to a halt to avoid him.  And of course he had the gall to give me the stink-eye, as if I had committed a horrible sin by driving along in my lane exactly as the law dictated.

But I finally figured out what it is that bothers me so much about the idiot cyclists here.  It’s that when I finally manage to do one of them in, Japanese laws say that it’ll be me that’s held 100% liable.  It’ll be my driving license that gets revoked, and it’ll be my insurance that has to pay up, no matter how poorly dressed the guy was, or how egregiously he was breaking the law.

Ah well, in the mean time I’ll continue to get my revenge by honking at every cyclist who I catch being an idiot.

Luckily, the police in the area are well aware of the plight of the motorcyclists, and generally they look the other way if they notice a motorcycle, particularly one with local plates, parked illegally.  A police officer once told me “Listen, as long as you aren’t so blatant about it as to park right in front of the station, or right on the main road…  Basically, if you pretend that you’re trying to hide your bike from us, we’ll pretend that you’ve succeeded.”  That said, if too many residents complain that a pile of bikes has got too big or intrusive, the police will put a nice “move your bike” warning out, and you’ll have to find another hidey-hole for a few months until you’re asked to move it again.

This is why I was annoyed to see the fellow with the white moped parked at the left.   Not only was he a moped, which means that there was perfectly good (and cheap!) moped parking less than 50 meters away from where he was parked, but between the way that he parked at an angle and the way that he stuck his helmet out the left side of his bike, he was using up almost half the sidewalk!  Bikes parked like this make it inconvenient for the local residents, making it more likely that we’ll be asked to move our bikes elsewhere.

Compare and contrast with how I’ve parked my bike.  It’s much bigger than the moped, but takes up much less room.  Can’t believe the moped driver is so discourteous…  Next time I may just move the moped back along the fence so that he’s parked in a way that makes sense.

1. Start your rice cooker working now. Otherwise you’ll have to wait a long time for rice, and you won’t want to wait with this curry in your kitchen.

2. Cut up an onion (I used 2 onions because they were kinda small) into a microwaveable dish and put it in the microwave until the onions are soft. In Japan, where microwaves are typically 500W, this means 5 minutes.

3. While the onion is cooking, cut up 500g of chicken (Stumpy used shrimp instead) and stir-fry it in a big wok (or big saucepan if you don’t have a wok) with 1 Tbsp of ground ginger and 1 Tbsp of ground garlic.

4. When the onions are done, mix them together with 3 Tbsp of curry powder, 1.5 Tbsp of corn starch, and between 0.5 and 2 Tbsp of chili powder depending on your taste. Make sure they are mixed very well and that there aren’t any powdery lumps left over. I had to use a drop of oil to get them all mixed.

5. Into the chicken, mix the onions, a 400mg can of diced tomatoes, a 400mL can of coconut milk, 4 Tbsp sake (or wine or mirin), 4 Tbsp fish sauce (or soy sauce), 2 chicken bouillon cubes, and 200mL water. Let it simmer for a while (at least until the rice is done).

6. Spoon over rice and enjoy!

This recipe should be enough for 3 or 4 good-sized meals. For calorie counters, the entire recipe is about 1840 kcal (prepared with skinless chicken breast and soy sauce), so figure on about 400-600 kcal/meal (plus whatever rice you use). Using light coconut milk instead of regular brings the recipe total down to about 1320, but affects the taste.

Of course now that I know and understand Japan a bit better, I know that fast-disappearing seasonal products are a fact of life here. Even so, it’s fun to imagine corporate bean-counters watching secret camera footage and deciding to cancel products based on their sales to foreigners. “Oh crap, that Drew in Tokyo likes our fabric softener too much; time to get out of that line of business”. The Gaijin Curse is not even limited to food and consumer products! My buddy managed to Gaijin Curse an entire train: a 100% reserved-seat train whose seat fee was only 500 yen and which inexplicably skipped by many major stations to drop my buddy off at the little whistle stop where he lives.

Now, not all Gaijin Cursed products are tasty or useful.  Many of them had deservedly short runs.  We needn’t look any farther than Pepsi’s legendary screw-up of last summer, or this year’s equally delicious beverage. And I think that we can all agree that McDonalds had a must-miss with its Fish McDippers.

Speaking of McDonalds, I am well aware that the Gaijin Curse is not limited to Japan. I’m sure that most people are aware of the McRib sandwich, a limited-time product whose insane fans have been the subject of a Simpsons episode. This episode saw Homer tour the USA with a group of “Ribheads” as Krusty Burger tested the Ribwich in various markets across the country.

I have understood the nature of the Gaijin Curse for years. So what inspired today’s post? It seems that the worst Gaijin Curse yet is going to befall our adopted country. That’s right. This is bad. Far worse than the disappearance of any of the flavours of Kit Kat or Haagen-Dazs. Worse than the Naan Dogs, the Ume McNuggets, the fabric softener that smells like Snuggle, or the Ice Coffee ice cream balls. Prepare yourselves, ladies and gentlemen: Mr. Donut is going to take away the Danish Ring. This cannot be allowed to happen! They are going to keep those stupid Triangle Donuts. They are keeping the Pon de Matcha which I swear to God tastes like hay. They are keeping the stupid flavourless and substance-less Rich Donuts, but they are getting rid of by far the greatest donut that has ever been sold.

It must be stopped! How can we do it?! Mr. Donut must be held accountable! I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore!

Or, maybe I’ll just find a different kind of donut instead.

Even so, some bright employee of Ooedo Nerima Station in Tokyo had an interesting solution to the problem that the fancy LED clock had been broken for several months: