Yes, it has started. Twilight has officially hit Japan. I saw one of my 8th grade equivalent students reading one of the Twilight books. If it follows in the spirit of Harry Potter, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Of course they had to add some anime style illustrations. Why aren't Bella's eyes red? Shouldn't they be red in book... 12?!

That's right. Since the books are way wordy, and Japanese people love Japanese sized books, they've reduced their the book size while increasing revenue. I have no idea how many books the story is in total, but you're welcome to go to Amazon Japan and see for yourself.

I was biking to school the other day when I saw a man on the corner. He had a large cardboard box, and was passing out...bibles?! I hadn't seen behavior like that since my days at the University of Florida.

It was even stranger since he was passing them out to my students. Who, like most Japanese people, were almost entirely Shinto and Buddhist. Back when they used to do this at UF, I would try to see how many bibles I could get. But in that fleeting moment I passed him on my bike, I realized I wouldn't be getting a free bible.

That day in school, many kids were reading their bibles. My Japanese was so limited, I could only think of one thing to say to them. "Sono hon wa omoshirokunai desu ne?" That book isn't so interesting, is it? They laughed and agreed that it wasn't.

The next day, the box of bibles was back. Not outside of the school on the street corner, but inside! No separation of church and state here. All of the faculty were welcome to help themselves.

The note on the box says "Bible" and you can see the kanji for "New" in front of the kanji for bible, as this book cover says "New Testament."

I've seen many student-drawn pictures of myself, this is the most flattering--by far!

The other week as I was reading the BBC news, I stumbled across a video on robots in Japan. The reporter interviewed several big names in robotics, and even got the chance to chat with a robot secretary.
The kind of thing that made Japan seem so cool when I was living in Florida. Now it makes me sick. Robots have not entered daily life in Japan. They don't help care for the elderly. They're not roaming around Tokyo—not even in the newest most expensive malls.
Now is the time to spread some anti-Japan technological superiority news. I'd like to report on the state of technologies in Japan's public schools.
First is heating. It's cold. Really cold. And to keep the room warm, do we have centralized air conditioning? Nope. Each classroom has its own space heater. What makes the situation worse is that these heaters are hybrid electric/oil. That means they have to be filled with oil AND plugged in. It seems ridiculous to me. What's worse is that they give off poisonous gas, requiring the window to be opened when in operation. On a cold day in Japan, you have to open the window in order to use the heater. It's the stupidest idea since break-away seat belts.
How about the computers here? Well before I ever set foot in Japan, I'd thought the 3.5 inch disks were dead. Nobody uses them anymore. They hold practically nothing, they're slow and they look so twentieth century. I haven't even owned a computer with a 3.5 inch disk drive in ages. And yet, these disks are still used here. The computers are so old that they've all got these disks. The school has internet, but it is forbidden on most PCs. For that reason, most computers are running very out of date versions of XP. Then teachers tried to use their flash drives, and wound up infecting most of these older computers. So now, flash drives are banned, and if you're trying to copy between machines, you've gotta use a 3.5 inch disk.
Well, okay, I don't use a 3.5 inch disk. I just use my flash drive and act ignorant. That's the gaijin advantage.