Japanglish Fantasy League Vocabulary #3

J-Kaiwa - n. 1). A Japanese language conversation class, where you learn the passive verb form, and that your Japanese will never be as good as that of a 19-year-old Malaysian immigrant worker.
2). The serpent of English education swallowing its own tail.
3). What you will blow off for karaoke.

See also: Eikaiwa, Washed-Up Japanese Major, Ouroboros

Why we need this word: Because if you corrupt your English with words like this, it covers up the fact that your Japanese is not getting any better. Because you are too lazy to say "Japanese language conversation class."

Japanglish Fantasy Leage Vocabulary #2

Sushi-Go-Round - n. 1). A conveyor-belt sushi restaurant, the concept of which frightens and confuses your grandmother in the way that fire frightens and confuses cavemen.
2). The single most delicious method of sushi transportation.
3). The signature move of the WWF's short-careered wrestler, Japan Man.
See: Kaiten sushi, Sushiro, Kappa Sushi

Why we need this word: Because your friends visiting from back home in Wisconsin are already skittish about eating raw fish and "conveyor-belt sushi" sounds rather unsanitary.

Japanglish Fantasy Leage Vocabulary #1

Today, the first in a series of words that don't exist, but should.


Uncle Tomoki - n. 1). A person who has confused the term Japanese with the word superior.
2). An asshat who thinks he's Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai.
See: Uncle Tom, Weeaboo, Wapanese.

Why we need this word: Because these people are annoying, and the more terms we have to ridicule them, the better. Because nobody but a Weeaboo would know the word "Weeaboo."

The Bad Boys of Cookery

Okay, so recently a coworker gave me a giant pear , around which was wrapped this ad for aprons:


This particular apron caught my eye:



Okay, so I understand "Bad Boy" is a popular clothing line or whatever, but seriously? A Bad Boy apron? Maybe it's for cooking up a big ol' batch of crack rock or meth or whatever. But this is the best part:


Just...no. No, Japan, no. We do not put dog tags on aprons, even if these aprons are designed with the bad boy market specifically in mind.

Elementary School Band Quarterly

Kiseki.

Do any other ALTs have this problem? There was a time when I actually enjoyed this song, a time before the music teachers at both of my schools also decided they enjoyed this song, and that the marching bands should rehearse it non-stop. Now simply hearing the first few notes is enough to inspire a loathing that is surpassed only by the despair of contemplating how many more times I will have to hear it before the school year ends.

Andrew W.K. also did a cover of this song, which is a major thematic departure from his previous work, such as It's Time to Party, Party Hard, and Party Till You Puke.

The Circle of Dumb

So there's a certain point in speaking Japanese (and probably any language), where you can communicate just enough to sound truly retarded. I am at this point. Because, you see, most people are mentally prepared for the basic mistakes. But it takes a true mastery of a language, a finesse if you will, to lure people into just enough of a false sense of security that you can drop a the reverse-Engrish bomb of epic proportions.

Anyway, I say stupid things in Japanese almost daily.

La Grippe Porcine

Ah, the inevitable Swine Flu comic. I couldn't decide if the vehicle rushing towards our unfortunate background character should be a train or a bus, but it turns out that I'm incapable of drawing either. So we ended up with something that looks like neither. Quantum public transportation?

Also, I drawed a girl with a pig snout face mask:


Classy.

Unfunny Explination For An Unfunny Comic

A note about the last comic. I know it was heavy-handed and unfunny and all. And I understand if the topic seems unimportant to the folks back home. But the article that inspired the comic was about Hamamatsu, and for me, that makes the whole situation horrendously unfunny.

Back when I did study abroad, me and a friend went on a trip to Tokyo and stopped off at Hamamatsu just to stretch our legs. As soon as we stepped off the train, we could tell there was something different about that town, and we fell in love with it. We ended up spending a few hours there, just wandering around, talking to people, and soaking up that amazing atmosphere. Maybe it was because we had been in Japan so long at that point, but it took a while to realize what it was.

Simply put, Hamamatsu was the only place in Japan I have been where people could not have given less of a shit that I am not Japanese. People didn't stare at us for being foreigners, they didn't do double-takes and avoid eye contact, they didn't go out of their way to avoid us. To be treated like a human being again, not a "non-Japanese," was frankly something I had forgotten was possible.

And to hear the leading lawmaker of Japan's fucking one-party system talk about that type of integration like it's a bad thing...it makes me so angry and depressed, I feel like I'm coughing up blood. It's things like this that make you wonder if Japan really has a future on the international stage. I mean, America has it's own assholes talking about putting up a fence to keep out illegal immagrants, but for fuck's sake, it's not like Nancy Pelosi is talking about paying the descendants of Americans to fucking leave the country and never fucking come back because we don't want their dirty fucking mixed blood. Fuck.

So yeah, anyway, I'll put up some more crudely drawn comics later, but this is not something I could let pass without comment.

On The Shooting Of One's Own Foot

For real. This may be the stupidest shit ever.

I dub thee Sir Phobos, Knight of Mars, beater of ass.

Among other lies I have told innocent school children: I speak five languages, my next-door neighbors are (on the right) Jack Bauer and (on the left), Obama, and I secretly work for the CIA. And they find all of this more credible than my ability to use chopsticks.


The next step is, of course, the introduction of Martian Law.


Just as Nintendo has forever ruined the name "Mario" for Italians who are not, in fact, overweight plumbers, they have ruined "Yoshi" for Japanese people who are not giant dinosaurs with sticky, retractable tongues.

No Dude, I Speak Spanish

Our model lesson plan actually went quite well. The topic was "What's your dream job?" and the most interesting student response was definitely "King of Games Card Shop Owner."

Oh You!

Nostalgia

I know the whole Somali piracy thing is kind of dated, but then again, so is the whole ninja vs. pirate thing.

Hoot And A Holler

Actually, people in Asago are far more likely to mistake me for a Canadian than a hillbilly. Then again, people back home are likely to make the same mistake.

And bizarrely enough, a Japanese guy called my school today (okay, so that part's not so weird). Apparently, he heard that I'm from West Virginia and wants to talk about bluegrass music? He was talking really fast, so I'm not sure exactly what he said, but this promises to be interesting.

Yeah, so there are actually a bunch of comics I did recently that kind of...didn't work. So I'm going to post them all at once.

"Hiroshima Memorial Firework Festival"


Gaijin Card. Funnyish, but too similar to this comic.


Power-oke. When we do karaoke, we fucking DO IT.


This actually works, but...

So does this. There is nothing funnier than watching the little prematurely sullen bastards lighting up like a room full of Christmas trees.


But not for a spell-check. Or for teaching children not to stick their fingers up peoples butts.

Daisy Owl is Amazing

Okay, so have all the webcomics kids discovered Daisy Owl yet or is this something I can feel smug about liking "before it was cool"?

The humor/art is somewhere between Pictures for Sad Children and Achewood, with just a dash of Calvin & Hobbes. Which is another way of saying it's insightful, creative, and wonderfully silly.

Here is an example of one of their many fine panels:


If you click on the panel, it will take you to the full comic.

I chose this panel because picking up children is basically what an elementary school ALT does all day, and I am worried that this ingrained behavior will carry over to other portions of my life. Like maybe I will be at a party and want to introduce myself to a person, but instead of shaking their hand like a normal person, I will instead pick them up, spin them around, flip them over my shoulder, and maybe give them a pile-driver.

Come to think of it, that may be how my parents met...

(Ben Driscoll, I hope you do not mind me putting one of your fabulous panels in my blog, but come on man, I compared your work to CALVIN & FREAKING HOBBES)

More Shinto Humor

Magic Shinto paper strips.

Don't really like how this turned out. Thinking about redrawing it. Posting it so that I can move on with the comic instead of going to upload it and thinking "I should redraw this" and not posting anything.

Would feel bad about not drawing more often if I was horribly ill less often.

Makes Wicked Left Turns

More Cutlery Humor

A link for those familiar with Setsubun, the Festival of Beans

Yeah, I know Setsubun was yesterday, but it's still Febuary third in America...even though, you know, it isn't celebrated there.

Thought about including short descriptive phrases like "Western devils are evil tormentors blah blah blah" and "Japanese devils are the same, with chopsticks," but decided that was redundant. But this version seems to be lacking something. Dunno...this might have worked better as a four-panel.

Anywho, I have pneumonia in both lungs. Horray?

Nap Meeting

I don't know if this counts as a proper comic. It's more of a neologism - hirune-kai, the nap-meeting. A foreigner working in Japan will have any number of hirune-kai in a week; long, boring meetings conducted in lightning fast Japanese that you can't understand, on topics that aren't relevant to you, about decisions you have no say in. So, I generally use this time to take naps. Thus, the hirune-kai.