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This is the online Japanese – English or English – Japanese dictionary that I use when I write a blog post. (I cannot do without it. So I can easily get stuck with right wordings when I film my Youtube video. How stressfult it is to do this in second language! But I know I can improve it little by little, and I quite like the way to improve it from daily communication with other English-speaking people.)

ALC is a Japanese company engaged in English education or study-abroad programs from Japan to the world. The goodness about this online dictionary named Eijiro that ALC offers is that we can look up the word both in English and in Japanese. Meaning, if you enter Japanese word into the box, the English word that corresponds to the Japanese word will be shown as a result. When you hit English word, vice versa. So you don’t have to switch the box whether it’s from Japanese to English or the other way round. You can use whichever ways!

Another good thing is that we can search the word just like we search by Google. Let’s say I didn’t come up with the word “other way round” but I remembered only “other ??? round” I can just type as “other round” in the search box and hit enter. Then the right word can be found among the results. This also goes with misspellings. For example when I search as “simultanious” they suggest if I mean “simultaneous” but this is not alway working as I wish. :p

If you study Japanese, you can make use of it. But in that case you have to know exact Kanji to enter because they do not recognize the Japanese word, which normally is described in Kanji, written in Hiragana or Katakana. While it looks good as long as you learn corresponding Japanese words from the result of the English word you enter.

Just in case, for those who are unfamiliar with Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana, take a look at how to write “kawaii” in Japanese and see that we have 3 ways to write it in Japanese. However, usually one of them is mostly used at most occasions.

★Mama + Kid Model★
18/APR/2009 on air

The player will show in this paragraph

What are they saying? I can tell you.

End of July is bon odori (meaning bon dance, as you might know) season in Japan. There are 2 bon odori sites near my house this year. No matter how many years have passed, how our life is advanced with technology, and how Japanese people are westernized, bon odori has been always the same. Same song, same music, same Japanese drums….Peple dance the same way and that’s why things I see there just remind me of my childhood. I feel it is a very Japanese-like event and when I find myself relaxed with some nostalgic feelings and memories, I am feeling myself very Japanese.

Whatever, video is worth a thousand words here. Take a look and you can feel what it’d be like there. Enjoy the image of Japanese summer. It’s too dark and barely visible?! I know that, but indeed it was taken place in the dark. That’s how it is.

What’s surprising me was that Doraemon Ondo was on at both sites. I thought it was only for kids and inside the TV! I remember the song from childhood.

Yakitori (grilled chicken with teriyaki sauce over) and beer from street vendors. How Japanese!

	It’s been over one year since Facebook was introduced to Japanese market. But it is apparent that Facebook is not popular at all in Japan, while it is very successful in most of other countries, including the U.S, not to speak of. Here’s Alexa ranking for Japanese top sites and Facebook is off top 20, and even 40 or 50. Why Facebook is not popular in Japan? There are several reasons to be considered. But as a Japanese, I know that how most Japanese people would feel or think against the service, so it’s pretty easy for me to find the answer. First off, there is alreay a social networking site named Mixi in Japan, which is a giant that has alreay occupied the market. (Gree is also popular among mobile phones.) It was a little too late that Facebook entered our market. Japanese people are those who like to do the same things as most of others do. We don’t want to stick out from the crowd. (I’m talking about the general nationality, not mine.) That means, when there are already so many people having accounts at Mixi, then those who don’t would choose to join it to become “majority”. Yes, this is the very word that illustrates our nationality but anyhow we like to belong to majority, rather than to try something new that no one has been doing. (In that way I know I am minority who chose to blog outside Japan in foreign language. )

But the real problem about Facebook to most of Japanese people is that we have to register with real name! (This is ironically quite opposite to the natural goodness about Facebook that is emphasized.) You may think, so what? What’s wrong with that? But here exists a big cultural difference and this is something particular among Japanese people. We would blog with nickname or panname, and normally we would not reveal real name. We would hide faces even when we upload photos on blogs. We would not speak to Youtube, which is why most Youtube videos made by Japanese people have no sound. (I’m talking about individual and personal bloggers. Company bloggers are not that shy, of course they have to promote themselves!) These would sound ridiculous, but it’s so true that you’ll see what I mean if you browse blogs in Japanese, especially when photos are uploaded, the faces are hidden with star mark or something. This being the case, how come Japanese people would be willing to register real name, real address and personal information on Facebook? I doubt. I wouldn’t say this trend is applicable to everyone in Japan, but majority of Japanese people would be like as I mentioned above.

I was surprised at first when I jumped into blogsphere in English because of so much cultural difference! You use real name, your face is on the photo or on Youtube, you speak to mp3 or mp4 and so on… I follow as you do once as I’m here.

So I forget about Japanese way and I started to show myself on Youtube or in photos and share them here in this blog. But as for my nickname “Kirin” which I’ve been using from my previous blog, I am always wondering if I should change this to my real name. There are pros and cos. But I feel weird if I change it to my real name from now on.

Would it be OK going with Kirin?

But these days I receive emails from Facebook users to invite me to join it. Then I would be using my real name and I feel no coherence between this blog and Facebook.

It sounds really strange problem based on cultural difference. As I blog outside Japan, I didn’t have to stick to Japanese unspoken rules but I didn’t really know this difference until I started and read many other blogs by many other bloggers in the world.

What would you think I should do with this? This may give me another reason I don’t have an account at Facebook yet.

I’ve filmed new videos about how to cook Japanese home cuisine, cold shabushabu.

If you cannot find Ponzu sauce, you can fix it with following ingredients for 2 people.
-2.5 tbsp of soy sauce
-2 tbsp of citrus or lemon juice
-1/2 tbsp of rice wine vinegar
-1/2 tbsp of cooking wine
-1 tsp of mirin
-dried kelp 2 x 3 cm
-dried bonito flakes

1)Prepare a small pan and boil cooking wine and mirin.
2)Squeeze citrus or lemon (remove seeds) and get 2 tbsp of juice.
3)Add 1) + 2) + soy sauce in a bowl.
4)Add dried kelp and dried bonito flakes to 3).
*Use a sachet for dried bonito flakes so that you can take it away easily later.
5)Wrap it, put it in a fridge to wait for 1-2 days.
6)Take out the kelp and the bonito flakes, and the sauce is ready!

Ponzu sauce can be used on Tofu, salad, meat, dumpling and various ways just like this example. It’s useful and healthy because it’s free from oil.

I think shabushabu is healthy because we can have good volume of vegetables while pork and sauce are almost free from oil.

Here’s the dinner picture! We had cold shabushabu with somen!
How Japanese, and how summer!!