Defacing Cute Characters in Textbooks

Japanese textbooks seem to have one unifying quality, which is the inclusion of cute mascots in order to keep the student from feeling like they're actually an adult.

For example, this textbook

has these two bean-shaped people...

Of course, when one comes across such things, the only appropriate thing to do is deface them.

After my last post, I was looking at the doodles in my old nikyuu textbooks and I noticed the further I got into studying, the more abstract and sometimes disturbing these "modifications" became.

At first it they were simple

but soon they became surreal and sometimes needlessly violent.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

If that's not enough, they started to drift into the murky realm of pop culture.

Video games which came out between 1997 and 1998 started making their way into the defacements.

Half-Life:

Fallout:

Cartoons I watched as a kid:

Dino Riders

 

Which quickly became more abstract and quite strange...

And so on. A fun trip down memory lane and a terrifying look into my subconscious.

Scary Japanese Toys 日本の怖いおもちゃ

As seen in a claw vending machine at a mall near you:

Bits and pieces of Gloomy the magic bear!


No idea what these are, but they look like blood parasites of some sort. Maybe actual size.


Not sure about this fella either, but he seems to be a communist. I wanted him SO BAD (not in that way) but I suck at claw games, and they only give you one chance.


I've never seen Usavich, but I gather he's a guard. I was thinking that Usavich and Putin-chan might be capitalists or American spies or something, since why would the communist have put them in jail otherwise? Anyway, like I said, I've never seen it but I've worked out a pretty complex back-story in my head that I'll share sometime.

Whale!


Since this is food, it does not technically count as a toy, but it reminds me of a webcomic of years past and made me happy. This may or may not be whale-flavoured potato chips.

Anyway, my girlfriend is handy with the scoop machine and got me a Usavich masukotto, so this will have to do for now.

UPDATE: Usavich

I Want You Under My Wheels

FACT: The Japanese verb for "to run somebody over" is hiku (轢く). The kanji for hiku is made up of two kanjis: "car" (車) and "fun" (楽しい, or 樂しい in it's classical form).

If you have ever driven, rode a bike or walked in Saga City, even if for a single day, you've almost been hit by a car. You might not even have been aware of it, but your life was in grave danger. If expressed as a percentage, there is a 99% chance as a cyclist that you will be hit within 24 hours if you don't absolutely watch where your going, because god knows the drivers aren't.

FACT: This isn't just a(nother) gaijin complain-a-thon!

Saga is also well known in Kyushu for it's drivers. A quick search around the Japanese internets for the words 佐賀 (Saga) 運転 (driving) 怖い (frightening) gets some interesting responses.

「佐賀は運転が荒い人が多いから怖いんですよーー（涙）」(source)
"Saga has a lot of wild drivers, so it's scary -- (*breaks down in tears*)"

One user, asked their worst memory in the entire island of Kyushu, gave Saga drivers as one of many Sagan examples:

「運転が下手で車が怖い・・・激突、ザ・カー」
"The drivers are bad and cars are scary. Crash, SA-GAAAAAA."

On the same page, another user wrote,

「佐賀の運転マナーは九州一最悪だな。もういっぺん自動車学校に行って基礎から習え！！！」
"Sagan drivers have the worst manners in Kyushu. Go back to driving school and learn from the beginning!"

So as you can see, Saga well known for it's colourful driving culture.

For example, the other I was riding my bike to the mall, and I passed the entrance to a parking lot. The driver was sitting across the sidewalk (stupid mistake #1), well across the solid line marked with "止まれ" , or "STOP!" (stupid mistake #2). She was looking right to see if traffic was coming her way and kept her head at a 45° angle as she began to pull out (stupid mistake #3), barely avoiding hitting me (stupid mistake #4-- well, while technically #3 and #4 are the same, almost hitting *me* put her own life in immediate danger). A half second away from being under her wheels, I swung my hands wildly, and said "What the HELL do you think you're doing??" in English. She had a stupid look of shock and horror on her face similar to Sadako's victims in "The Ring".


"佐賀人の知らん日本語"

A couple of weeks ago, I was riding to the station with my friend, and we almost got hit twice within three kilometres. This is not a joke. Luckily my friend was in-between me and the car both times, which would have probably provided cushioning for me to survive if worst came to worst, but between a guy not looking to see if anyone was coming before pulling out (and already well across the solid line marked, of course, with STOP!), and a guy flagrantly going through a red light in front of the biggest train station in the prefecture, it's almost comically ridiculous.


One theory is, that similar to the film Maximum Overdrive, the cars in Saga have somehow gained senscience and are waging a terrible war against mankind which have enslaved them for over a century; their hapless drivers watching in horror from behind the wheel as pedestrian after pedestrian, cyclist after cyclist is mowed down like so many toy soldiers under the feet of wanton boys.

On the highway home from Fukuoka, there's a big sign saying "Be careful. Fatalities due to car accidents are increasing." Right there on the highway bus, I muttered between my teeth, "No shit!"

And when I say I have close calls on a nearly daily basis, I'm not kidding. I have no idea how I've made it this far. I've come to the conclusion that I'm not a victim here. I'm a survivor. And I used to live in Montreal! I know stereotypically bad drivers when I see them.

HOLY [expletive deleted]!

I was marking some papers today after some lengthy studying / Simpsons watching in the LL room. The students had to answer very basic questions like "Why do you study English?" (I gave full marks to one student who replied, "I don't know," and gave about 50 zeros for "Because I..."), "What is your favorite (sic) way to relax?" and "Why do you go to the library" (another lucky student who wrote "I don't go to the library" got full marks on this one). This is all a bit below their actual level, and all very standard.

Part two was a bit more interesting. Chains of "If I have a lot of money", [which in standard English, mind you, would use the past participle verb "had", but this is bloody Japanese textbook English], it's more like "If I have a lot of money, I would quit my job and go to Florida. If I go to Florida, I'd join NASA. If I joined NASA I'd go to the freaking moon!"

One student wrote "If have a lot of money, I would go Italy. If I go to Italy, I'd buy wine. If I have wine, I would drink it." [14 years old]

Then I got to one with the following:


I don't know if you can make out number five, but it says, "If I have a lot of money, I will enjoy playing many times (sic). If I enjoy playing many times I will buy guns. If I buy guns, I will kill everyone." HOLY CRAP! This kid would be at the police station right now in Canada.

I affixed a note onto his paper for his teacher telling her my thoughts on making a joke (I hope) about mass murder while in Mumbai the terrorist attack isn't even over yet. I didn't get to talk to the teacher, but I wonder how the school would react to it.

For those Westerners reading this who imagine threats of violence as a non-issue in Japan, Saga borders a city called Sasebo in Nagasaki Prefecture where four years ago a 11 year old girl slit a classmate's throat during school hours.

Anyway, either a really bad joke, or a baaaaaad sign.

Peeing in Japan

I was at YouMe Town today ("[shopping] town" being Engrish for "mall", and "youme" being close to the spelling of "yumé", or dream). Yes, I went there again. I'm not proud of it, but there I was.

Anyway, I used to washroom -- the second floor one beside the dentist office and smoking room that's always empty. I tend to have a bit of a predilection toward that one, because the ones on the main floor seem to always have "Part of My World" from the Aladdin soundtrack playing while middle aged women obliviously clean the floors a few metres behind me, while old men hock loogies into the urinals, glance at my gaijin manhood, and then shake just a little too much, all the while swarms of five year olds pee Butters-style.

But, there I was, and I walked up the the urinal, completely alone and as I unzipped my fly, I heard a voice from somewhere say, "cha-ching!" I was absolutely sure I was alone, but I heard this two or three times. It was like an adult trying to imitate a child's voice and ended up sounding eerily like Michael Jackson. I thought I heard "cha-ching!", but it slowly dawned on me that I probably actually heard "chin-chin", which is childish Japanese slang for "penis". Needless to say, I got out of there as soon as possible.

Then I walked by a group of probably-stoned teenagers pushing eachother over and laughing hysterically -- which, given that drugs are tightly enforced here -- is almost unseen in Japan. Just after this, I walked by a woman who was wearing a tight navy blue t-shirt with the well-known English word "MILK" written across her chest in big white letters. In Japanese, the word for milk and breasts uses the same kanji (乳, for you pervs), so Japanese people should be much more aware that this is a a strange thing for a woman to write on her chest. Maybe this is a very popular shirt these days? Maybe she works on a dairy farm? Or maybe she has no idea what it says... being Saga, none would surprise me.

All in all, a very strange day at YouMe Town.