Tokyo Dialect

At OVTA, throughout 10 classes we were taught for using the polite way of speaking Japanese. This is by using the 'masu' form, for e.g.: arimasu (inanimate things have), imasu (animate things have), gozaimasu etc. We were told to use the masu form during conversation with strangers and in office in order to avoid unwanted conflicts thay may happen when foreign people who are not so familiar with native language speaks bad Japanese. Using the masu form, the speaker, here we the foreigners, convey the message that we are polite to the listeners, i.e. Japanese people.

I was told by my Japanese friends that there are abundance of dialects (ho~gen) in Japan. This ranges from Okinawa in the south to the dialects of To~hoku in the north. The northern island Hokkaido~ has no specific Japanese dialect. Having been colonized by people from Tokyo and To~hoku area around at the end of nineteenth century, the dialects from these regions are heard in Hokkaido~. Hokkaido's considerable population, Ainu's language is also unrelated to Japanese.

The major groups of dialects are of Western Japan - Kansai including Osaka and Kyoto, Eastern Japan - Kanto~ including Tokyo, the Southwest Kyushu and Tohoku. The Tokyo dialect which is one of the Kanto dialects has some features that makes it different from standard Japanese (Hyo~jun go). Tokyo dialect is often heard as part of informal speech in the place where we live.

OVTA - Overseas Vocational Training Association

Our Nihongo lessons started on the middle of Feb 2008, just 17 days after my landing in Japan. I know only 'Ohayo gozaimasu' and rest everything was in English.

Company arranged the classes in OVTA - Overseas Vocational Training Association at Kahin Makuhari. My Indonesian friend Mustain-san was my guide in Tokyo. We started for our first lessons on a Saturday early morning from Kiba. We were told how to get into OVTA by train from Kiba. As per plan, we reached Nishi Funabashi and were confused how to go. Finally with the help of company colleagues we reached this building. From Kahin makuhari station we can see OVTA building at a distance of around 8 minutes walking from the station.

(When you bring staff from overseas for training, we back you up to the hilt)

This slogan says when Japanese companies bring staff from overseas, OVTA will support Japanese companies by giving skill training for foreign staff.

OVTA is doing a great job in training foreign staff in Japan for the desired skill to work in Japanese companies. Our objective at OVTA was learning Japanese language. OVTA have experienced teachers who are skilled to impart knowledge not only limited to language but the Japanese culture also, which is important to grasp any language for foreigners.

Learning Japanese at a beginners level was a good experience for all of us. We never felt that we are attending a Japanese language learning program. That was the magic approach of Japanese teachers at OVTA.

Japanese Manga

One of my Japanese Pen-friend, Shingo-san, who is also an excellent dancer, suggested me to read and know more about Japanese Manga. I was little confused whether Manga is something similar to Mango in English, because in my native language - Malayalam, manga means mango. Then, I went on knowing more about Japanese Manga. As suggested by Shingo-san, I went to Akihabara. Akihabara is a sea of Manga and electronics and many other modern Japanese life styles.

Manga is Japanese word for comic, popularly known in Japan as komikku コミック. In their modern form, manga date from shortly after world war II, but have a long history in earlier Japanese art.

Manga are widely read by people of all ages, so that a broad range of subjects and topics includes in manga, ranging from action-adventure, romance, sports and games, historical drama, comedy, science fiction and fantasy, mystery, horror, sexuality, and business and commerce, among others.

It is said that a Managa have a claim of 481 billion Yen market in Japan in 2006. Manga are typically printed in black and white and people travelling in trains are often seen engaged themselves busy in reading Manga. In Japan, manga are usually serialized in telephone book-size manga magazines, often containing many stories each presented in a single episode to be continued in the next issue.

History of Japanese Manga

Some people believe that it is during and after the US occupation of Japan, manga was shaped by U.S. cultural influences, including U.S. comics brought to Japan.

Modern manga originates in the US occupation and post-occupation years, when a previously militaristic and ultranationalist Japan was rebuilding its political and economic infrastructure. There was an explosion of artistic creativity in this period from manga artists such as Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy) and Machiko Hasegawa (Sazae-san)

Astro Boy became immensely popular in Japan and elsewhere, and Sazae-san is still running today. Tezuka and Hasegawa were both stylistic innovators

A group of female manga artists later called the Year 24 Group, also known as Magnificent 24s made their shōjo manga debut In 1969. The group included Hagio Moto, Riyoko Ikeda, Yumiko Oshima, Keiko Tekemiya and Ryoko Yamagishi. They marked the first major entry of women artists into manga. Thereafter, shōjo manga would be drawn primarily by women artists for an audience of girls and young women.

In the following decades (1975-present), shōjo manga continued to develop stylistically while simultaneously evolving different but overlapping subgenres. Major subgenres include romance, superheroines, and "Ladies Comics" (in Japanese, redisu レディース, redikomi レディコミ, and josei 女性).

Manga groups & Modern Manga

Manga for male readers can be divided by the age of its intended audience.

Boys up to 18 years old - shōnen manga
Young men 18- to 30-years old Seinen manga.
Contentwise grouping, including action-adventure often involving male heroes, slapstick humor, themes of honor, and sometimes explicit sexuality.

There are different kanji for two closely allied meanings of seinen—青年 for youth, young man and 成年 for adult. This referring to sexually explicit manga for grown men, also called seijin manga. All three - Shōnen, seinen, and seijin manga share many features in common.

The role of girls and women in manga for male readers has evolved considerably over time to include those featuring single pretty girls.

In modern shōjo manga romance, love is a major theme set into emotionally intense narratives of self-realization. "Pretty Girl Soldier Sailor Moon", became internationally popular in both manga and anime formats. The superheroine subgenre also extensively developed the notion of teams of girls working together.

Manga Publications

Manga claims a share of 3.707 billion USD publication industry in 2007. Manga industry has expanded to other parts of the world with distribution companies license and reprint manga into their native languages.

When a series has been running for a while, the stories are usually collected together and printed in dedicated book-sized volumes, called tankōbon. These volumes use higher-quality paper, and are useful to those who want to catch up with a series so they can follow it in the magazines.

Manga are classified by the age and gender of the target audience. Books and

magazines sold to boys and girls have distinctive cover art and are placed on

different shelves in most bookstores.

Kissaten in Japanese is a coffee shop. Japan also has manga cafes known popularly in Japan as manga kissa. kissa is short of kissaten. At a manga kissa, people take coffee and read manga, sometimes stay overnight there.

There has been an increase in the amount of publications of webmanga and is intended for online viewing. It can be ordered in graphic novel form if available in print.

Manga Magazines

Manga series run for many years if they are successful. Manga magazines usually have many series running concurrently with approximately 20–40 pages to each series per issue. Magazines such as the anime fandom magazine features single chapters within their monthly periodicals. These manga magazines or anthology magazines as they are also known colloquially phone books are usually printed on low-quality newsprint. The number of pages in such magazines can be anywhere from 200 to more than 850.. Manga magazines contain one shot comics and various four-panel Yonkoma, equivalent to comic strips. Manga artists start out with a one-shot manga projects just to try to get their name out. If these are successful and receive good reviews, they will continue to grow into largescale.

Josei (women’s) magazines: CUTIE, Be-Love, Feel Young, Judi, You, Young Rose
Seinen (young mens’) magazines: Afternoon, Big Comic, Big Gold, Big Comic Ikki, Big Comic Original, Big Comic Spirits, Manga Action, Ultra Jump, Young Animal, Young Jump, Young Magazine, Weekly Morning
Shōnen (boys’) magazines: Shonen Ace, Shonen Champion, Shonen Gangan, Shonen Jump, Shonen Magazine – weekly, Shonen Magazine Wonder – monthly, Magazine, SPECIAL – quarterly, Shonen Sunday
Shōjo (girls’) magazinesHana to YumeNakayoshiMargaretShojo ComicRibonCookieCiao

Kodomo (kids’) magazines:CoroCoro Comic

Japanese Language is difficult !

Japanese language has the reputation of being one of the most difficult language to learn. The cumbersome writing system that combines around 2000 Chinese Kanji characterss with native Japanese syllabaries - Hiragana and Katagana, makes the Japanese not so easy to learn for foreigners.

Hiragana and Katakana can be learnt with relatively little effort. Kanji makes the brain twist. Pronunciation is simple and easy to learn. First thing we heard in our Japanese lessons is there is no need to worry about gender and number. That much relaxation Japanese gives !

When comparing with Indo-European language groups, there are number of basic differences. The word order, I mean the placement of verb, subject and object is different in Japanese from European languages. But similar to South Indian language group - Dravidian languages. That may be the secret that my friends from Tamilnadu state in India master Japanese language in a short time and speak like a native people. The style of talking, the expressions, the elongation of certain words and the excitement in discussion (as seen in Television) are almost similar to that of Tamil.

Trim Waists

Japan, known for its overweight people, has undertaken campaigns ever by a nation to slim down its citizenry.Under a national law that came into effect two months before, companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups. That represents more than 56 million waistlines, or about 44 percent of the entire population.

Those exceeding government limits — 33.5 inches for men and 35.4 inches for women, which are identical to thresholds established in 2005 for Japan by the International Diabetes Federation as an easy guideline for identifying health risks — and having a weight-related ailment will be given dieting guidance if after three months they do not lose weight. If necessary, those people will be steered toward further re-education after six more months.

To reach its goals of shrinking the overweight population by 10 percent over the next four years and 25 percent over the next seven years, the government will impose financial penalties on companies and local governments that fail to meet specific targets. The country’s Ministry of Health argues that the campaign will keep the spread of diseases like diabetes and strokes in check.

The campaign started a couple of years ago when the Health Ministry began beating the drums for a medical condition that few Japanese had ever heard of — metabolic syndrome — a collection of factors that heighten the risk of developing vascular disease and diabetes. Those include abdominal obesity, high blood pressure and high levels of blood glucose and cholesterol. In no time, the scary-sounding condition was popularly shortened to the funny-sounding metabo, and it has become the nation’s shorthand for overweight.

Japanese Temples

Being an Indian and also from the state of Kerala, it has clicked in my thoughts many times the similarity between the Japanese temple architecture and that of Kerala. It looks almost same to me. How this similarity came? Japan and Kerala in India are far away. Surprisingly, the temple and house architecutre in Kerala is only similar to that of Japanese. Kerala architecture differs very much from other parts of India, even with in the South Indian states.

Kerala Temples & Cochin Airport

The above two temples, Vadakkunnathan and Thiruvambadi are in my home town, Thissur. The third one is Cochin International Airport.

Japanese Temples

Japanese Names

A Japanese name will have of a family name or surname, and given name. 99.9% names will be written in Kanji, and bear clear meaning.

The most common name I have heard till now is Suzuki. Other popular surnames in Japan include Sato (佐藤), Kato (加藤), and Takahashi (高橋). Surnames vary from place to place.

The meaning of Suzuki is bell tree. I was hearing about the bell tree for the first time and became curious about it. I asked Tabe-san. His explanation cleared my doubt. Given down is the bell tree.

Many Japanese family names derive from features of the rural landscape and nature. For example, Ishikawa (石川) means "stony brook", Kawa 川 means River. Yamamoto (山本) means the base of the mountain, and Inoue (井上) means above the well. There are many examples, but my brain stored only a few till now. I am purposely avoiding the name of my colleagues. I have taken special permission from Tabe-san before mentioning his name in this blog.

If you feel that any of the information given above are not true, please put your comments in this blog by posting. I like to have your comments on this blog.