The Ask Josiah About Japan Thread

[Josiah]

Do you watch new episodes of Naruto: Shippuuden when they come out?
And if so, where do i put in my special prize code that they give from time to time?

Nope. First off, I wouldn't understand everything so I don't know if I'd want to. But that's besides the point since I haven't really gotten very far in the Naruto anime anyway. I'm totally caught up on the US release of the manga but that still leaves me a bit behind compared to where the anime is right now in Japan.

[Giga-Gar]

Did you catch taijin kyofusho yet?

[Josiah]

Did you catch taijin kyofusho yet?

Um... Maybe. I mean, I leave the TV on while I'm in my apartment a lot so I might have. Tell me what it is or give me a link or something and I'll get back to you. Would look it up myself but I'm running kinda late right now.

[Giga-Gar]

It's not an anime or anything like that. Taijin kyofusho is a culture specific mental disorder that makes a person afraid of hurting or offending someone. Taijin kyofusho comes in 4 different variaties.

Sekimen-kyofu, the phobia of blushing
Shubo-kyofu, the phobia of a deformed body, similar to Body dysmorphic disorder
Jikoshisen-kyofu, the phobia of eye contact
Jikoshu-kyofu, the phobia of having foul body odor

[Josiah]

Oh. I'm fine, although considering how important it is to be extremely polite to everyone in Japan, I can certain where that would come from.

[Blastotoise]

How big are the keyboards in Japan?

[Josiah]

About the same size as English keyboards. They only have a couple of extra keys. But some punctuation marks are in different spots, which makes them a pain to type on if you're not used to that.

[*^_^*kako]

someone said that in Japan people are really polite and can speck english really well,is that true???

[Josiah]

Really polite? Yes, for the most part.

Speak good English? Definately not. Sure there's some who do, but the majority of people speak little to no English.

[Doodleshark]

Is stuff like this on TV a lot?

[Josiah]

I didn't see a whole lot of rapping monsters, but outside of news, anime, and period dramas, Japanese TV is pretty weird.

[Doodleshark]

Okay, two things:

1. I've heard that in Japan squid ink is sometimes used as a substitute for tomato sauce on pizza. Have you seen this, and if so, how often?

2. Have you seen any of those crazy super-toilets with the heated seats and stuff?

[Josiah]

1. Squid ink is used in food sometimes. I don't think I ever saw it replacing tomato sauce on a pizza though. However, it's quite common to substitute mayonnaise for tomato sauce on pizza.

2. Yeah, I saw some of those toilets. They seem to be fairly common in hotels and I'd bet a lot of houses. Public restrooms and cheap apartments (like mine), not so much.

[Metalheadz]

What part of Japan did you go to, Josiah?

Grandpa (who is Japanese) used to live in Osaka but he moved here. So I'm only curious.

[Kaida]

2. Yeah, I saw some of those toilets. They seem to be fairly common in hotels and I'd bet a lot of houses. Public restrooms and cheap apartments (like mine), not so much.

They are in quite a few modern houses (not so sure about older houses). But I'd say most of them would only have one unless the family is particularly wealthy. The one I stayed with had two toilets and only one of them had all the fancy stuff (heated toilet seat, toilet cover that automatically went up as entering the room, auto flushing etc.)