Did I tell you about that student of mine? The cute looking girl who always wears a face mask. Remember that face masks are a common sight here. People wear them when they're sick. Supposedly, the mask will keep your mouth and nose from drying out. It'll keep your bad germs to yourself. Imagine coughing while squeezed in sea of people on the train. Now imagine coughing in that same situation wearing a mask.

Japanese people are polite, aren't they?

But the whole idea of wearing a mask when you're sick doesn't quite seem to explain it. Some people seem to be perpetual mask wearers. Live here long enough, and you're sure to see a few of em. They don't seem to be sick, but why are they wearing masks? Well when this girl took off her mask once, briefly in my presence, I understood. She had a piercing. It wasn't in the lip, but rather in the skin close to the lip. Still a very deviant thing to do, all things considered.

And now that I've got a goatee, I've learned yet another secret of the mask. A teacher came up to me, this being an older man who had been wearing a mask every day for some time. He spoke to me in Japanese at a natural speed. I could only catch the word “dundee,” which I knew had something to do with my goatee.

Then he showed me his secret. He removed his mask, ever so fleetingly, to reveal a goatee of his own. It's the only time I've seen any facial hair on a man in the Japanese public school system. Except, this guy was old enough for the majority of his goatee to be white.

The masks we wear. I can't imagine the idea of having to hide your facial hair. Or that its forbidden to grow in the first place. Beards, and all derivatives thereof, are a time honored tradition of men. Maybe its just me, but I can't help but feel like this is some form of social castration.

Today, at another school, another teacher stopped me and pointed to my goatee. “Ka-ko-E,” he said. Cool. He asked me what we call it in English. This took some time to ponder. Imagine a grown man, going up to a younger man and saying “Hey Bob, your goatee looks cool.”

In chess, what's important isn't where you move your piece—its why you moved it there. And in this situation, I found myself wondering why he called it cool. Was it because native Japanese men can't wear facial hair? Perhaps he thought it was cool that I, as a gaijin, could get away with it? Or maybe Japanese men don't have the kind of thick bears that westerners have, and he thought it was cool, just the fact that I could grow a full goatee.

These mysteries and more can all be yours. On the archipelago that is Japan.

Vampires stories aren't my bag, baby. Neither is Harry Potter. But as I writer, its almost my duty to read such popular stories. To keep in touch with current trends in contemporary litereature.

When I first moved to Japan, finding English books was nearly impossible. Bookstore after bookstore had no English section, or a woefully inadequate section. What would become *the* bookstore for me was Junku. And their English books are always hidden away. On the sixth floor. And the elevators usually have a line, so you've gotta take the escalator all the way up. Very inconvenient.

But get to the top floor, and walk to the very back, and there's the gold at the end of the rainbow. Rows and rows of books. In English! They had an entire bookcase—not a shelf, but the entire collum of shelves—devoted to Harry Potter.

Except Harry Potter is over. Twilight is in. And even then I'm sure I'm riding the wave down. Take a look at this.

Twilight is the new Harry Potter. Remember how Japanese books are always wrapped in paper, so that you can't tell what somebody is reading? Well that makes Japanese people all the more curious when they see you reading a book where they can see the cover. My Japanese is just good enough to say that Twilight is the new Harry Potter. That's always how I describe the book. “Twilight wa atarashi no Harry Potter desu.” How do you say vampire in Japanese?

Now, lets talk about the books. I'm only halfway through New Moon, but I'm going to be giving away spoilers.

You see, New Moon begins with the entire vampire family going ape-shit when Bella gets a paper cut. Because the smell of blood is so intoxicating for them. Does anybody else think that isn't very consistant? Has anybody else wondered what happens when these vampires smell a woman on her period? Surely they'd go just as crazy. You wanna say that they don't like the taste of menstral blood? Okay, I can buy that. But if they go nearly uncontrolably crazy over the smell of blood, a woman on her period should have some effect on them. It's like saying you're hoplessly addicted alcoholic when it comes to rum, but whiskey doesn't make you bat an eyelash.

Not to mention the fact that they're in a high school. I've worked at enough public schools to know that kids are constantly fighting, playing and drawing blood to various degrees. Even if menstral blood had no effect on these vampires, they'd never make it in a high school. One scraped knee during PE and the fangs would show themselves in no time.

And let's also mention what an idiot Bella is. Why does she have to take a hundred pages to realize what the reader knew right away? I don't mind her taking a while to sort out what's happening. But if the reader knows what going on right away, why do you have to drag us through hundreds of pages before our protagonist comes to speed?

Despite my ranting, I have enjoyed the story. Probably because its more of a high school drama from a woman's perspective. It's nice to know what the girls were thinking when I tried to hold their hand back in high school. And if the true focus of the book was vampires, I'm sure wouldn't been enjoying it even half as much.

The first time I heard the Japanese-English accent was while watching Tokyo Drift. There's a Japanese girl whose about to start a race. She says, "Ready, Se-toe, go!" Because there's no letter T in Japanese, they feel compelled to add a vowel onto the letter. For whatever reason, words in English that have a T are always pronounced "Toe."

You hear it so much that your brain automatically interprets "toe" as a regular old T.

But that's not what this post is about. This post is about all of the funny names I've come across while in Japan.

One common name is "Oh-whorey." As in, "She's always dressed like a slut. She's so whorey."

I once met a Chinese girl whose name was simply "Ho." I couldn't help but greet her, "Hey-Ho!." She had no idea.

Since many names start with the sound "Dai," you'll come across many people who are simply called "Die."

But my favorite class of funny names are the ones only English speakers can appreciate. Names where Toe becomes T.

As in the family name of "Ha-toe-guy." As in "Hot guy." What makes this poor guys name even funnier is that his first name was "You." I've actually met a man whose name was "You Hot Guy." This is better than an Abbot and Costello skit.

And finally, the family name "Ha-toe-sa-wa," or "Hot-sour." If they only knew.

Big thanks to HSClumeck, for asking about "randseru." These are the backpacks the elementary school kids wear. She was wondering if they would be feasible as a backpack. Usually they're red or black, but other colors and patterns are around.

At first I thought they would be. They certainly seemed big enough. But after trying one on, it seemed a lot smaller. In fact, I could only get it around one shoulder. For me that isn't a big deal, I usually don't wear a backpack around both arms. But its up to you.

Is it cool in Japan? Certainly not. But in California, maybe, in a retro, you haven't seen a bag like this before kind of a way.

Found this little bag of Japanese potato chip/corn nuts/funnels/funions wannabes.

I didn't even know what potage was. But alas, wiki knows..

Oh Disney, how I used to love you. One of my earliest memories is of watching the Disney Channel. At the time, it was number twenty-seven. To this day, twenty-seven is my lucky number—because of Disney.

Being a Floridian, how many times have I traveled to Disney World, taking full advantage of the Florida Resident's discount? Along with most of the other High Schools in Florida, I went to Disney World for grad night, 1999, and saw Brittney Spears sing.

And yet, today I hate Disney. Because they stole from me. And you. They steal from the people at large, and they do it legally.

Before, creative works used to pass into the public domain after X years. Now, due in large part to Disney's lawyers, copyrights have been extended. Some people believe that Disney's lawyers will be able to maintain their copyrights indefinitely. When you take from the Public Domain, Disney, you're taking from everybody. Greedy bastards! They even resort to the lowest form of branding/advertising. They market directly to children—babies even. Making their products, their copyrights ingrained on the minds of generations worldwide. Places in Europe have banned such practices, but if you're in the US or Japan, trying to raise a child, they'll like Disney characters—and neither the child nor the parent will have a choice in the matter.

But there is, finally, one small victory for the Public Domain. Here in Japan at least. I saw this video at a 7-11. At first I was surprised, because I thought I was looking at a cheap Chinese rip-off. Turns out, this is perfectly legit. Because here in Japan, earlier Disney works, such as Alice in Wonderland, have already fallen into the Public Domain. The quality is bad, the content is old, but the price is cheap—as it should be.

Just to spite those lawyers who hide behind the cute cartoon characters, I decided to make a .torrent file. Now, if you're reading this web page from America, it would probably be illegal for you to download this DVD. But to my readers in Japan, please download and help me spread the movie—because here its all in the Public Domain baby yeah!