So that is what New York is all about

The New York edition of Starbucks convenience store "Discoveries" line is the skinny latte.
Milano is the "birthplace of espresso," Seattle is the "hometown of Starbucks" and Bruxelles, which is represented by a tasty dark mocha, is the "city famous for chocolate."

New York? New York is the "metropolis devoted to skinny lattes." I'm not sure I like that. One thing I miss about home is Half and Half in my coffee. (I've convinced myself on occasion that a glug of it in the morning coffee has enough protein, fat, and calcium to qualify as a light breakfast. Without Half and Half, I'm reduced to eating real food for breakfast.)

But the drink isn't bad. It's sugarless and doesn't have artificial sweeteners or salt in it like some canned coffee does. At Starbucks shops, they don't sell this stuff, but they do have free book covers at the pick-up counter advertising them. The covers look like this downloadable desktop wallpaper. I suppose you could print them out and wrap them around your paperpacks if you wanted to. Except for the off-message wallapaper that is an unglamorous snapshot of the Reuters building, a bunch of taxis, and a few summer tourists who don't look like they want anything to do with skinny lattes.

Useful Japanese expressions #3

遠慮のかたまり

en-ryo no ka-ta-ma-ri

The last piece of food that sits and sits because no one wants to be the one to finish it.
One literal translation: the lump of hesitation.

Someone asked,"What do you call that in the US?"
Hm, a stumper. I think we don't need a word for it in our language.

Tiny little great big men

We got up at 6 on Saturday morning to get same-day tickets to the second-to-last day of the May sumo matches. We had been slightly less ambitious during the previous set of matches and got to the end of a long line just before 8, about 100 people too late. This time we were an hour earlier and in the clear. They hand out numbered vouchers at 7:40 that are traded in for tickets when the box office opens at 8. We had our tickets in hand by 8:15. We walked up the riverside path to Asakusa and grabbed a bite and wandered around Sensoji temple as shops raised their shutters. Sleepy by 10:30, we scrubbed plans for the sumo museum in favor of going home for a nap.


You can can get right up close* earlier in the day to watch the lower-ranked wrestlers. We didn't - we got there just as the really big guys were parading in before 4 pm in ceremonial ($20,000+) skirts to start off the last two hours of the big matches. Advance tickets get you seats in masu - squares of floor on the risers marked off by knee-high steel railings. I'm told that for your money, in addition to a good view and cramped knees, you can get lunch boxes and piles of souvenirs. One guy told me about lugging home 10 kilos worth of commemorative ceramic rice bowls, tea cups, and plates for his whole family. There are no goodie bags in the nosebleed general admission seats at the back of the second level. The view from above is perfect, though, if small, and the chairs have backs. A pair of binoculars is a good idea.

The English guide book handed out with the tickets said watching sumo can be "baffling." Agreed. Jim seemed to know an awful lot about it - he's been watching at work lately. The winner and loser are as clear as 300 pounds of flesh hitting the sandy ground. I found everything else about the show, from the pre-emptive stomping before some matches to the twirling golden archer's bow and the rain of floor cushions at the end, more obscure. And the ranking system. It was interesting. There was something about the way they hesitated and tried to draw each other out at the start and got into long, motionless clenches occasionally, that made me think, oddly, of thumb wrestling.

We watched the final day as surely the original stable masters intended - on a hi-def TV with self-assured ("what he needs to do is drop his hips") American commentators.



*There is such a thing as too close. During the preening before the final tie-breaker playoff round, NHK followed the fellows into their dressing rooms. They abused the power of their ultra high-resolution cameras to bring us an extreme look deep into the pores of the wrestlers. We were looking for a switch to turn off the hi-def.

Welcome. Please decontaminate yourself

Hand sanitizer and an apologetic sign asking all guests to use it in the entrance of a big Japanese company. The receptionists are all wearing masks, but the rank and file are not. Most people on the subway aren't, either. Weekend concerts and company picnics are being canceled. I don't know how useful that is as long as we all keep piling into trains and elevators all week. Probably better to catch it now while it's mild, anyway.
Incidentally, I think the IHT headline - front and center, above the fold - that we are in "full-blown crisis mode" may be jumping the gun. (The online editions don't use "full-blown" in the headline, though it is in the URL. Did cooler heads prevail along the way?) Because then what can they call it when everyone is wearing Tyvek suits to work?

Take your swine flu-y business elsewhere

This sign is on a little bluegrass bar in Harajuku.

"Please, if you have a FEVER or a COUGH do NOT come in."

This is the only one of its kind I've seen so far. (I translated the swirly red dots as all caps. I think it gives the same overwrought tone.)

Prime real estate going to waste

Not a lot of good ads on the train lately. In fact, not a lot of ads. Look at all this empty space. Is this what slashed advertising budgets look like? Bo-ring. Let's get this recession over with. I want more ads.

Charm by the tubeful

"Eyelashes, life."


I am not too modest to tell you that I am no slouch in the eyelash department. My students used to say that my eyelashes were my "chaamu pointo." If anyone can spot a "charm point," it's seventh grade girls. But I never thought about them all that much.


Once, on a visit here in 2002, I was waiting for rush hour to pass so I could get on the commuter train with my huge backpack, and I camped out for a few hours in a Saizerya. (This is one chain of 24-hour restaurants where you can sit and nurse the hot and cold drink bar for as long as you can stand the vinyl booths and poor ventilation.)


I watched two girls in high school uniforms empty their makeup bags onto a table and line up tubes of mascara. They each pulled out a mirror the size of a paperback book and started layering gunk onto their lashes, wand after wand after wand. When they were done, it looked like they'd fallen eyes-first into a pit of tarred pine needles.

The ads for Heroine Makeup, like the one above, don't understate the case. Another one said in Japanese something like "Win by eyelashes."


The woman next to me on the train seems to have taken this to heart.

A flock of Disney sparrows could land - could nest - on her lashes.

If eyelashes are life, if victory is by a lash, she wins.

Cartoon newscasters get masks, too

Props to the Japanese Ministry of Health for getting instructional cartoon and live-action flu videos up on the Ministry's own YouTube channel. (Do we have that?) Boo for lack of embedding and social networking buttons.
Probably someone more clever could stick the videos right here anyway, but all you get is a link. (Go right to 3:30 to find out what happens when someone sneezes on you. Or, maybe, don't.)

Swine flu: it's on

Confirmed swine flu cases rocketed from 3 to over 120 over the weekend.


This is the first time I've seen turkeys singled out. (Mainichi)


I think what we want to do is find that guy in the middle. (Allatanys)


To bring down a fever, cool your neck, armpits, and thighs with damp towels. (Yomiuri)



And fer chrissakes, stay away from that guy. (Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare)

But with two more faces and five and a half more arms

I don't know, from an art standpoint, if it is reasonable to compare the Buddhist statue of Ashura to the Venus de Milo. Venus is 600 years older, 50 cm taller, and a lot heavier. Ashura is a national treasure made of hollow "dry lacquer," which seems to be similar to a papier mache process using layers of cloth and lacquer, and is therefore incredibly fragile. Moving it to Tokyo for its 1300th anniversary was a delicate project.

The statue and dozen or so others are on special loan from Kohfukuji Temple. The exhibit at the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno is heavily advertised and popular. I am not sure what exactly is bringing the crowds. It seems that it is always on display (for a thousand yen less) in Kyoto, which isn't that far away. And it's not... new.

I got out of work early on Friday and, at a friend's urging, went to see it. There was a fifty-minute line outside at four p.m., mostly retirees. It was sunny (the museum was lending parasols) and I had a crossword to work on, so it was a rare occasion when I didn't mind too much standing in line. I didn't even hate the crowd inside, maybe because everyone seemed so enthusiastic about seeing the art. Not that I'd complain if there were a little less elbow in that enthusiasm. The statues are all up on pedestals but there's no glass or even ropes around them, just eagle-eyed guards every few feet. Ashura itself is displayed alone in a separate room. When I was there, there was a dense coil five or six people thick around the base shuffling, as directed, "clockwise without stopping."

The uncanny thing for me was that as I circled around, the heads on the sides looked squished and small and sort of determinedly Warrior II. In the Sony hi-def megascreen short film about the temple and the statue itself, all the heads looked perfectly proportioned and more reposed. Same in the beautiful postcards at the gift shop. Maybe because you view it from a bit below in real life?

I wouldn't even think about going on a weekend. But if you can get there during the week, check it out. There are larger than life, fierier and brimstonier wooden statues, too.

New jellies

These are the shoes. I have seen versions from two pairs for 5 bucks (one friend bought them in six colors) to at least 5000 yen a pair. They are everywhere. They look like they are made of some kind of industrial extrusion by-product. But in a cute way.

Press for change

The default denomination at ATMs is the 1 man bill, about 100 dollars. I noticed this nifty "partial change" button on my bank's machine for the first time not long ago. After you enter the total amount you want and press the "yen" button, you press that green fellow above instead of the usual "enter" (確認）button at the bottom right. The machine will break down 10,000 yen of your money into smaller denominations, like 1000s.

This is not really necessary for shopping as no one will bat an eye while counting out 9,720 yen in change for your cup of coffee, but it is useful if you are about to go out with friends and split a check. No, no. Don't thank me. Japandra is just here to help.

When a swine was just a pig

Ah, simpler times.

I blame Seth Rogen

I saw this coming attractions movie poster for Baby, Baby, Baby right after I read about the "Yanmama Boom" - the glamorization of young mothers - at Neojaponisme.

You are what you drink

"Today's vegetable juice makes tomorrow's you."

Tomorrow's me?

Yes. Today's vegetable juice makes tomorrow's you. Get it?

Err, let's just say I get it.

Write in your little diary at home.

It makes others cringe like you are writing with your nails on a portable blackboard.

Fighting swine with swine

I came home from work today with a sore throat and a low-grade fever. In place of chicken soup, we go to the Hong Kong restaurant across the street for tan tan men to squelch colds. You can get some version of this red spicy sesame noodle soup at all kinds of noodle shops and Chinese places but Kowloon is my favorite. Instead of chicken, it has a scoop of spiced ground pork on top, and instead of carrots and celery, bok choi and nira.
I don't have swine flu - or probably any kind of flu - but it struck me as funny to eat porky soup to kill a fever this week.

Robots and horror and science, oh my!

I've mentioned before that the Miraikan is a cool museum. The name "National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation" promises cool if you think your way through it, but the Japanese name, "Future Hall" gets straight to the robots and aliens and semiconductors and deep sea exploring vessels. Which is what they have.

There are two special exhibits up now. And in a departure from the norm, I'm telling you about them while there's still time to actually go. (Don't get used to it.) One is on the science of fear. I'd like a t-shirt of the English subtitle, "Ghost in the Brain!" The line when we first walked past was indeed scary, but it had died down by the time we circled back. The exhibit is a haunted house, sort of, that plays on timely fears, winding through a lab with a slumped over technician, empty rat cages, and a spooky sick ward. There's a sciency section with good English explanations about why scary things are scary and why it's difficult to suppress fears, and then a nifty surprise.

The other exhibit is a fairly naked promotion for the upcoming Terminator 4 movie. Lots of dramatically lit original machines and costumes from the movies and posters about the special effects techniques. There's a theater running a loop of trailers for all the T films. And then, the part I went for, a corner about the future of robot-human relationships. Unfortunately, this part has zero English. It does have a chipper yellow Wakamaru that can shake hands and play rock, scissors, paper. There is also an eerie robotic arm in a glass case; at one end, perfect human fingers curl and open. At the other, wires hang out, attached to nothing. A worn-down slab of peachy rubber silicon meant to show how realistic robot skin feels makes the opposite point. Finally, the lady above. She's an Actroid made by Sanrio affiliate Kokoro. Somehow, with all the things in Japan with cute names, she (like her variety of robot counterparts) is called Actroid-DER. The first thing she says is, "Did you think I was a real human!?" Maybe a wobbly, rubber one...

This museum is also where Asimo hangs out. Go to Miraikan on the Yurikamome line.

For all your carpentry/pandemic needs

There was a small crowd gathered around the flu prevention corner at DIY mecca Tokyu Hands in Shibuya on Friday, peppering the two patient staffers with questions. One nervous, heavily made up older woman already holding two boxes of masks was asking when the next shipment would arrive. (6:30 pm.) And the next after that? (Long inhale. Hard to say. Could be... a while.)
A few people were turning over the $30 boxed sets of full-body protection suit sets (gloves, goggles, jumpsuits, respirator liners).

I am a little bit confused about particle masks as protection against viruses. Sure, they would stop globs and splatters from going straight into the flu holes on your face, but could they really stop actual little viruses from worming in? They aren't on 3M's page of health protection goods, though they are mentioned, if fuzzily, on their PDF about what kind of gear the CDC recommends using if you have to intubate someone who's infected.
3M does list similar respirators under Pandemic Preparation - Swine Flu, explaining that they "can be used during laser surgery, electrocautery and other procedures using powered medical instruments to help reduce wearer exposure to airborne particles (plume, smoke) generated during these procedures." Uh huh. And they are "fluid resistant to help reduce potential exposure of the wearer to the spray, spatter and aerosol of blood and body fluids." On a good day, this will not apply to my morning commute.

I asked the Tokyu Hands guy how the particle masks stacked up behind the about pandemic influenza infographics were related to preventing the flu. "Well, basically," he said, "these are dust masks. If you want to really prevent the spread of disease, those medical masks would be better. " So, still, I don't know. But I do know where you can get a full body Tyvek suit, dry shampoo, and a chemical toilet so you can batten down the hatches during the coming plague.
Especially if it's a plague of wood shavings.

More fun with flu graphics

Mask and wash. (From the Yomiuri.) Gargling is the other key habit discussed often but not illustrated. (How come that never caught on as common-sense infection protection elsewhere? It seems to make sense.)


WHO's alert phases. We are at 5, one before "big cartoon splat across the planet." (From Asahi)


This one adds a duck. (From the Mainichi)

Smiles for all

Hey, cheer up. Enjoy this noisy commercial. Everything for the sake of your smile!

New type

Emptied storage facility of a "major mask manufacturer."

Japan is calling this thing "new type influenza" because it's a mix of bird and pig and people flu. I don't think the name has anything to do with religious or corporate sensibilities here. Now the first suspected case, a 17-year-old boy, is taking Relenza and resting in a hospital in Yokohama, and masked reporters are clustered out front, zooming in and out on the building's windows. Apparently the kid is alone in a 26-bed special flu ward. (Another suspected case was found to be regular old Hong Kong flu early this morning.)

It's hard to get a read on how much anyone might be concerned about it since probably 10-15% of people are wearing masks all the time anyway for colds and allergies. The entire country is about to have five days off for Golden Week. Offices will be closed and people will be sitting in traffic jams in individual cars, which seems good for reducing spread, but people will also be crowded on airplanes and at Disneyland, which would be less good. If there's even anything to spread.

USA Today says Japan issued an (incredibly Japanese) advisory asking those who are traveling to Mexico to "consider whether such trips are necessary."

They're telling people to stay home if they feel sick, call a hotline, and then, if necessary, report to a designated flu center. The centers have separate entrances and negative pressure rooms. These sound like effective precautions, if people follow them. There is the cultural barrier to overcome of people insisting on going into work no matter how sick they feel. Probably good that everyone has a few days off.