By Emily Connor

     I couldn't help myself from laughing out loud and seeming more insane than I usually do the other day when I saw a convenience store advertising ''KRUNKY CHICKEN'' for 50 yen a piece. The word KRUNKY is one of those words that just happens to pop up every so often in Japan, and it took me almost four years to finally figure out that it's supposed to mean 'crunchy'. KRUNKY shows up occasionally on poorly translated restaurant menus and also on chocolate snacks (although they spell it Crunky on the chocolates) and I must say, I am a very big fan of the KRUNKY. In fact, if I were not appalled by fried chicken you can bet I'd be in line to pick up some value KRUNKY chicken at the convenience store. Sounds like a great time to me.

     Another thing that gets me every time is the constant misuse of the letter W to stand for 'double'. I guess W first began being misused when some Japanese advertising company read the letter out loud-- DABURUYUU. 'Oh, how cute! 'They must have thought. 'It sounds like the word double! Which means two! Let's just stick it on anything that has to do with two!' And that's how the W burger, as well as the W many-other-things was born. For some reason the misuse of the letter W makes me a bit sad. I understand that maybe the word 'double' is a bit tedious to spell, but seriously-- W? At first I thought they were using it to stand for the Japanese abbreviation for LOL, which would have made even less sense-- but for some reason it just stands for double. And sometimes they even use WW for a double double burger, whatever that means. Am I being too strict? Probably. But if I don't throw it out there, no one will, and I cannot allow the letter W to be misused for much longer. It's a travesty. 

     I've been in Japan for too long now, and I sometimes feel my brain melting in such a way where I can no longer differentiate between what's actually funny and what's not. Japanese humor is bizarre; they don't understand sarcasm (which is unfortunate, because my favorite thing in the entire world besides dried figs and EMO cinema is most-definitely sarcasm) and they don't appreciate belittling others for the sake of amusement. The other day I saw a construction truck go by with the letters KKK painted on the side (probably stood for Konnichiwa Krunky Koujyou or something) and although it was terribly horrifying it was equally as hilarious. But because this is Japan and an absurd and wonderful place in a much different way than the USA, even if I were to point out the KKK cement truck to a Japanese person I'm sure no one would have laughed. So I held in my crude comments to myself and just snapped a picture for the scrapbook I'm sure I'll compile in 20 years when I'm old and weathered and have 20 cats in my Manhattan apartment.

     There are so many more things that I could rant about, but if I did all of the ranting today then I would have even less material for blogging than I already do. Keep in mind as you read all of my complaining that I do love Japan-- dearly, in fact-- so consider that my disclaimer and please don't flood the email boxes which I make sure never to check with your catty little comments like ''If all you do is complain, then you don't even deserve to live to Japan!''. Save yourself a bit of energy typing and just laugh at the absurdities and wonders of the land of the rising-and-ridiculously-hot-thanks-to-global-warming sun. Adieu.

by Emily Connor

     After two years of using my washed up CASIO cellphone, last month I was finally able to get my hands on a new top of the line cellphone, only to realize one thing:

     Japanese cellphones nowadays are much too complex.

     They can literally do anything. And by being able to do anything, they're a bit overwhelming at times. I really don't need so many features in my phone. The 13 megapixel camera is great. The display is beautiful. But in a lot of ways my phone is so high-tech that it just becomes annoying to use. For example, the touch screen. I completely understand the touchscreen option for phones that are touchscreen based, but since my cellphone is based around the keypad it's just a nuisance to have the touchscreen option. The other day when I was trying to answer a call I accidentally activated the touchscreen which made it so I couldn't answer the call. How does that even make any sense?

     My phone also comes with a built-in English/Japanese dictionary, a pedometer which calculates how many calories you burn in a day, a television and GPS, an MP3 player, and a bunch of other things that I haven't figured out yet. Most of these features drain the battery at a pretty rapid speed, so unless I've got a charger in hand I'd be nearly a fool to use them. I don't know, I feel like it's overkill for a phone to even have all of these options in it. If it were an iPhone, sure.... But it's not, so it shouldn't pretend to be!

     Because Japanese cellphones are so complex in general, every cellphone carrier always offers a few ''Senior-friendly'' phones available in the shop. These cellphones are pretty much exactly like normal American cellphones that everyone uses, except for the keypad is almost laughably large. Other than that, though, they just offer easy to understand menus and usually a pretty terrible cellphone. Apparently people who aren't clever enough to use normal phones over here don't deserve to have a kick-ass camera. Simplicity is (at times!) best, my friends.

     I can't blame the Japanese for having these insanely cram-packed cellphones, though. The cellphone market over here is insane, and if a phone offers the newest and greatest feature (I think the one at the moment is a HD 3D video camera) then people will flock to it and buy it up. People here don't just have one phone, many business people carry two and often upgrade. So don't fix what's not broken, I suppose--- maybe Japanese people are just born with the knowledge on how to use their complicated cellphones which is why I can't wrap my mind around them. Anyway, I've got to go-- my phone's ringing. If only I could figure out how to answer the thing...  

by Emily Connor

Every year I hear so many rumors about earthquakes in Japan. I don't mean just your little run-of-the-mill earthquakes, either-- I'm talking about the earthquake, the one that will leave Tokyo in ruins and thousands upon thousands of people dead and without anywhere to go. For the first couple of years I was in Japan, all this talk of earthquakes really had me scared. I saw information about predictions of devastating earthquakes all over the news and on the internet, and I'd be lying if I said there were nights when I couldn't sleep well because I had heard rumors that on that particular day it was predicted that the earthquake would strike and mass havoc would be upon us.

I'm sure that this major earthquake will eventually happen and that it will, without a doubt, be disastrous. However at times I feel that the way the predicted earthquake is covered on television that it's a bit too sensationalized and causing unnecessary anxiety in a lot of Japanese people. I've seen this one Italian psychic on TV several times since moving here, and every time I see him he's talking about when he thinks the quake will happen, and about how devastating it will be. Apparently the man is a really well-renowned psychic (if it's even possible to be a well-renowned psychic...) and I can't recall his name right now, but there are times when I think it would be better to not broadcast such information on national television. I mean, the guy is a psychic, not a scientist.

You could argue and say that television in the US constantly sensationalizes information, too, and you would be right. But I've never seen a two-hour primetime television special about some psychic who feels compelled to tell the nation about a supposedly impending natural disaster. I've seen many talk-show like programs in Japan focused only no non-scientifically based predictions about the Tokai earthquake, and I don't think it does any good for anyone. They say that ignorance is bliss, and while scientifically-based facts are completely fine by me, I find it kind of blasphemous to sensationalize psychic predictions. All it does is increase anxiety and unnecessary unease in people.

Natural disasters are a thing of nature (obviously, judging by the word 'natural' disaster) and it's inevitable that they're going to happen. While I feel it's important for everyone to have a plan of action for if and when this huge quake occurs, I don't think it's right to use scare-like tactics to get civilians anxious and worried about a completely unset date. It's not like how people are saying the world will end on on December 21, 2012-- people are simply saying 'the next huge Tokai earthquake will occur sometime in the 21st century', and that's pretty vague. When it happens it happens, and everyone should just have their own survival plans and not listen to sensationalized psychic personalities. 

by Emily Connor

English pops up in the most peculiar places in Japan. Store-fronts, restaurant menus, product tag lines... There just seems to be an overall fascination with the English language in Japan, even though so many people claim to be unable to speak or understand it at all (I'm still convinced that it's a lie, though!). The English that is most commonly seen tends to be a bit obscured, though... It's usually packed with grammatical and spelling errors, a lot of them being really comical. I once saw the word 'pineapple' misspelled as 'pain apple' on a restaurant menu, just to name one of the thousands of mistakes that I've seen.

T-shirts with English catchphrases are popular with all age groups, although the English on shirts tends to be some of the most butchered English that I've ever had the honor of seeing. Classic phrases such as 'To the dream for which it has' and 'WORLD EXISTS PERFECT' are just a few of the examples of English that I've seen splattered on the T-shirts that Japan's youth proudly sports. And my only question is--- why? There are tons of native English-speakers living in Japan, and tons of Japanese people with native-level English. Despite this, absolutely bizarre English just seems to be everywhere. I would think that a large and popular clothing company would perhaps think to themselves before putting an English phrase on a shirt that 'Well, maybe we should consult with a native English-speaker to see if this English makes any sense!'. But, no.

Even restaurants that have a large percentage of foreign customers tend to have inaccurate English on their menus. The popular 'Brown Rice' often becomes the not-so palatable Brown Lice' and I've even seen a type of fish called kajiki in Japanese (usually a type of Swordfish in English) be translated as the word 'Wikipedia' on a sushi menu. That's right-- I went to a sushi restaurant that was actually serving 'Wikipedia'. Couldn't the person in charge of typing up the English menu take the time to ask one of their friendly gaijin customers for some English advice before bothering to print the darn thing? Do all of these restaurants even need English menus if the English translations are just as confusing as looking at a full-Japanese menu?

To be honest, I would be really sad to see of the English in Japanese suddenly become native-level English. In a way the messed up English that is littered around many parts of Asia really gives the place a bit of its charm. On a certain level, though, I would like to be able to help some places clean up their slightly too Japanese-y English and make things easier to understand for those customers who have no idea how to read or speak any Japanese, and even less of a clue as to what the butchered English on the menu is trying to describe. 'The ball of wheat noodle which is fried'-- come again?

Then again, if free online translating Web sites finally got their acts together, then this entire dilemma could be avoided, now couldn't it?

By Emily Connor

I realize that I write about food quite often, and I apologize for this. However I think one of the most interesting and unique aspects of Japan are the many foods and variations that are put on them. Traditional Japanese cuisine is of course splendid, but I'm much more intrigued by the Western foods that come over here and are quickly given face lifts by the Japanese. Sometimes these changes are good, but most of the time they're just bizarre and unnecessary.

A popular US pizza chain has recently been popping up around Tokyo, and at first glance I was shaking with excitement... Upon entering the store though I was aghast at the display of Japanese-styled pizza toppings before my eyes. Potato corn pizza, tuna mayonnaise pizza, teriyaki chicken with mayonnaise pizza... They just don't get it!  Although mayonnaise on pizza surprisingly doesn't taste awful, the concept of it is just immoral and unthinkable. Who ever thought of putting corn and mayonnaise on a pizza to begin with? Were there not enough options readily available? Growing up I always thought that the 'Hawaiian-styled' pizza with Spam and pineapple was as weird as it could get, but I was gravely mistaken.

Bacon is another food that is just never right in Japan. Seeing as how I'm a vegetarian I really shouldn't be complaining about meat, but cut me some slack for a minute. Bacon in Japan is always served limp and soggy. I don't think anyone ever decided to tell them that it's supposed to be crispy--instead they just take it out of the package, grill it for maybe one minute on each side so that the meat is still a bit translucent and pink and then serve it up. I'm sure that the meat quality in Japan is a thousand times better than the quality of meat in the US, but still... Who wants to eat soggy bacon? I once knew a Japanese person whom upon coming to the US and eating properly cooked crispy maple bacon for the first time gained ten pounds in a month and could eat half-a-pound of bacon in one sitting. Maybe that's why bacon is only served soggy here--the Japanese government must be doing it in an attempt to save this country from an obesity epidemic. If it were too delicious everyone would eat it uncontrollably and gain massive amounts of weight. Clever, I must say.

I could go on and on, but the last food that bothers me immensely would have to be pancakes. Pancakes are one of my favorite foods in the entire world, and although they're available in Japan, very few people seem to really understand the proper way to eat this breakfast classic. First of all, seeing as they are a breakfast food, pancakes should be served from early in the morning. Pancakes cafes in Japan, however, all seem to open up at 11AM or noon... Where can I get my pancake fix at 8AM?  You could argue and say that McDonalds serves them on the breakfast menu (you would be correct, by the way)--but McDonalds pancakes aren't heartfelt! They're corporation pancakes, and corporation pancakes are filled with hate. Menus in pancake cafes are much too complicated, too. Pancakes are served with curry, or salmon, or salads or a whole bunch of other things that are just not necessary with pancakes. Pancakes should only be allowed to be served with eggs or a breakfast meat product. Also, there must be more than two pancakes on the plate. For some reason two seems to be the magic number when it comes to pancake cafes in Japan, when everyone knows that pancakes are counted in 'stacks' and two pancakes does not equal a 'stack'. It's just a lonely number.

The argument could be made that Americans are equally as guilty when it comes to how badly some restaurants mess up Japanese food. Sure, California rolls are not really sushi. Also, chicken fingers made with panko instead of normal flour are not automatically 'tempura chicken'--they're just panko-crusted chicken fingers. But still--! I just wish I could get a bit more authentic American food in Tokyo without having to go to T.G.I. Friday's every time I want food like from back home. Maybe I should open up my own restaurant--a place that serves crispy bacon, stacks of pancakes and pizza without mayonnaise. That would be the day.